Statewide County HI Archives Biographies.....Fisher, Col. Will E. 1859 - 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
J. Orr jessicanorr@gmail.com July 5, 2011, 8:56 pm

Source: The Story of Hawaii and Its Builders, Honolulu Star Bulletin, Ltd. Territory of Hawaii, 1925
Author: Edited by George F. Nellist

COL. WILL E. FISHER, Business Man. Once one of the largest real estate 
operators in San Francisco, during the period of that city’s great expansion, 
a “musher” over the White Pass to the Klondike by dog sled in the gold rush of 
1897, a prospector in Nevada in the days of Goldfield’s glory and a former 
lieutenant-colonel on the staff of Governor James H. Budd of California, Col. 
Will E. Fisher has had an unusual and interesting career.
  When 13 he began work as an office boy in the San Francisco office of the 
Los Angeles Land Co. for the next six years he held various positions in real 
estate offices, associated with such men as the late George H. Howard, Captain 
E. F. Northem, Edward Martin, and C. B. Polhemus, all well-known California 
millionaires in the 70’s.
  The lure of gold mining influenced Colonel Fisher and after working on 
surface and underground, at the age of 19 he became superintendent of the 
Pittsburg Gold Mine in Nevada City, Calif. He remained here three years, being 
the youngest superintendent of a mine in California employing 200 or more men, 
and later returned to San Francisco and associated himself with H. M. Newhall 
and J. O. Eldridge in real estate and auctioneering. He was also with McAfee 
Brothers, nephews of J. B. Haggin, for some time, the firm which later grew 
into Baldwin & Howell, now one of the best known real estate concerns in San 
Francisco.
  In 1889 he and Will Tevis, son of the famous California multi-millionaire, 
organized the firm of Tevis & Fisher, real estate dealers and auctioneers, and 
took part in the opening of Presidio Heights, in fact naming the district, and 
other large residence districts in San Francisco. In 1894 the partnership was 
dissolved because Mr. Tevis was obliged to remove to Bakersfield to manage the 
immense interests of Haggin & Tevis. Colonel Fisher remained in business until 
1897.
  Then came the call to the gold fields of Alaska. On July 17, 1897, news 
reached San Francisco of the great riches of the Klondike and a band of 200 
adventurous spirits started north from San Francisco on the old 
steamer “Willamette,” fourteen days later, on July 31. In the group was Col. 
Will E. Fisher.
  With a pack on his back and dog sleds to pilot, Colonel Fisher scaled the 
White and Chilcott passes and hurried on to Dawson. One year later, on Sept. 
1, 1898, after months spent in a vain endeavor to win a fortune, he went down 
the Yukon river to the Bering Sea and home. Broken in health by the fearful 
hardships of the North, he came to Honolulu to recuperate, arriving here in 
October, 1898.
  He went into the auction business by himself in Honolulu, and remained here 
until 1907, when the gold fever again took him back to the mainland and to the 
reputed wealth of Goldfield and Tonopah, and Wonder and other districts. He 
prospected in Nevada and later entered the employ of the Herring, Hall, Marvin 
Safe Co. in New York, traveling for this firm throughout the Middle West from 
Minnesota to Texas.
  In 1917 he returned to Honolulu, and, associating himself with his brother, 
Col. J. H. Fisher, opened the auction house of Fisher Brothers. Many large 
tracts of Honolulu land were sold by Colonel Fisher, and one of his big 
contracts was the sale of $4,500,000 in securities for the alien enemy 
property custodian during the World War. He also sold the crown jewels of the 
late Queen Liliuokalani and directed many other important sales.
  At one time Colonel Fisher was the director of the first Real Estate 
Exchange in San Francisco, organized in 1890, and he served as vice-president 
of the National Real Estate Association at its second congress in Buffalo, N. 
Y., in 1892.
  Always a lover of animals, he was once the owner of some of the most 
valuable horses in California, having a ranch in Contra Costa County where his 
stock was stabled.
  Colonel Fisher is a member of Stanford Parlor, Native Sons of the Golden 
West; an old member of the San Francisco Olympic Club, a charter member of the 
Honolulu Lodge of Elks, a member of the Chamber of Commerce and Auto Club. He 
was born in San Francisco in 1859, the son of Henry Fisher, an Englishman who 
came to California in 1850. His mother was Julia (Dinet) Fisher, whom his 
father married in San Francisco. Mr. Fisher was educated in the public schools 
of San Francisco. In 1910 he married the former Marie Howe, well known 
American actress. His two children by a previous marriage are Mrs. W. K. 
Harnden of San Francisco and Mrs. Marshall Webb of Honolulu.


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