Location: Ponce
Date Established: 1903
Date Ceased Operations: 1946
Annual Production Graph
Average Annual Production: 11,356 Tons 
Best Production Year: 1938/35,155 Tons
Family Ownership: Cabrera, Morell, Wirshing
Corporate Ownership: Central Boca Chica, Inc.
 

The family of Paolo Giovanni-Battista "Pablo" Bettini Amonetti was originally from Fiesole, Italy from where they moved to Calvi, Corsica where they made their fortune in the trade.  Although his birth date is unknown at this time, it is known that he emigrated to the Danish island of Saint Thomas and in 1810 was a resident of Ponce.  

In 1816 Pablo Bettini acquired Hacienda Rábanos in partnership with  Spanish immigrant from the Basque Country Joseph "Jose" Gastón Echevarne y Bizarreta and in 1818 was its sole owner.  In 1817 Bettini married Venezuela immigrant from Cumaná Ana María Ordoñez Ramirez, the widow of Venezuelan General Joaquín Albizu, who owned Hacienda Aguas Prietas.  Bettini consolidated both properties and renamed the new property Hacienda Isabel in honor of his daughter Isabel Bettini Ordoñez ( -1859).  In 1837 Isabel and her husband, German immigrant from Hamburg Guillermo Gustavo Oppenheimer (1805-1859), acquired both Hacienda Isabel and Hacienda Rábanos.  It is reported that Oppenheimer also owned Hacienda Consuelo.   The 1872 the Sucn. G. Oppenheimer appears in the Slave Register owning seventy seven slaves at Barrio Bucaná of Ponce.

Francisco Dijols is the first known owner of Hacienda Boca Chica.  Francisco A. Scarano In his book Haciendas y Barracones: Azucar y Esclavitud en Ponce PR 1800-1850 states that Francisco Dijols, a Frenchman established in Ponce as overseer at the hacienda of Pablo Bettini in 1816, was later owner of Hacienda Boca Chica in Juana Diaz.  In his book La Verdadera y Autentica Historia de la Ciudad de Ponce , Eduardo Neumann states that on November 27, 1819 two privateer ships disembarqued at Boca Chica beach and ambushed Francisco Dijols at his hacienda demanding ransom for his freedom.  Neumann states Dijols hacienda was in 1913 owned by Messrs. Cabrera. 

By 1845 Hacienda Boca Chica was already owned by José Emeterio Cabrera (1810-1860) and his wife Maria Geronima Rosaly when on May 14, 1845 a right was granted him to use water from the Jacaguas River for irrigation purposes at his Hacienda Boca Chica.  AfterJosé Emeterio's death in Paris, the hacienda was inherited by his sons Gustavo (1850-1899), Guillermo and Enrique Cabrera Rosaly.  On October 1, 1878 another water right was granted, this time to the firm Cabrera Hnos. 

Hacienda Boca Chica continued in the Cabrera family and in 1903 was upgraded to a central sugar mill by Spanish immigrant from Sóller Damián Morell Bauzá (1871-1943) who was married to Maria Adelaida Cabrera Castillo y Veitia (1870-1958), daughter of Enrique Cabrera Rosaly.  In 1933 Damian Morell sold Central Boca Chica, Inc. to Wirshing & Cia. S en C and remained as it Administrator.

Wirshing & Cia. directors at the time were cousins Armando O. Wirshing Serrallés (1912-1983) and Juan Eugenio Serrallés Sanchez (1908-1967).  The Serrallés family also owned the larger and nearby Central Mercedita, so it is reasonable to beleive the acquisition was more for the land than for the manufacturing side of Boca Chica. 

Based on the numbers available, beginning in 1911 Central Boca Chica's sugar production trend was upward until reaching its best year in 1938, just five years after being acquired by Wirshing & Cia.  No production figures are available for 1939 but in the folllowing years until its closure in 1946 its production trend was downward.  It is reasonable to beleive that begining in 1940 sugarcane grown at Boca Chica's land was processed in part at Central Mercedita and after its closure in 1946 all sugarcane therein grown was processed at Central Mercedita. 

On May 4, 1946 Wirshing & Cia. S en C. sold all of Boca Chica's machinery to Cuban national Rodolfo Matamoros Arias for $500,000 plus a $100,000 commission to Felix Juan Serrallés Sanchez.  The terms were later changed to a new purchase price of $600,000.  Matamoros immediately turned around and on June 17, 1946  sold the machinery to Azucarera del Centro S. A. a Mexican firm he had formed with Mexican National Miguel Vidal.  The transaction, which for a brief moment also involved Julio Lobo, resulted in the court case Nacional Financiera S.A. v Banco de Ponce, Juan Rosaly, Wirshing Company, Armando O. Wirshing and Juan E. Serrallés Jr. decided in favor of defendant by the Supreme Court of New York on April 27, 1954. ​

Central Boca Chica in Puerto Rico had no relationship to Boca Chica Sugar Mill in the Dominican Republic nor Boca Chica Puerto Rican Rum still distilled today by the Serrallés Distillery in Ponce has any relationship to Boca Chica Rum currently or once distilled in the Dominican Republic by Ron Barceló and sold mainly in Europe. Today, the land where the sugar mill was located and the surrounding land is owned by by the Sucn. J. Serrallés and is being used to grow mangoes.