Statewide County HI Archives Biographies.....Matson, William October 18, 1849 - October 11, 1917 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/hi/hifiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: J. Orr orr@hawaii.com October 5, 2009, 7:59 pm Source: The Story of Hawaii and Its Builders. Published by The Honolulu Star Bulletin, Territory of Hawaii, 1925 Author: Edited by George F. Nellist WILLIAM MATSON, Builder of Industries. In all the colorful story of the rise of American commerce and industry on the Pacific, no more romantic chapter is to be found than that dealing with the achievements of the late Captain William Matson, the poor Swedish sailor boy who became a pioneer and a power in the California oil industry and under whose name is operated one of the finest and largest fleets of steamers flying the American flag. Born at Lysekil, Sweden, Oct. 18, 1849, William Matson early felt the urge bred into him by generations of Norse ancestors and at the age of ten went to sea. When 14 he had his first glimpse of America, at New York, and a few years later made the voyage which determined the entire course of his life, to San Francisco around Cape Horn. At 21, Matson the sailor had become Captain William Matson, the master mariner, in command of a schooner operating on San Francisco Bay. For some years he was engaged in the coastwise traffic between San Francisco and Puget Sound ports. In the late 70’s and early 80’s the Hawaiian sugar industry began to assume a place of importance in Pacific commerce and Captain Matson conceived the idea of establishing a transportation service between the islands and San Francisco. He laid his plans before San Francisco capitalists, obtained their support and in 1882 acquired the 200-ton schooner Emma Claudine, the nucleus of the Matson Navigation Co. of today, with its fleet of fifteen passenger and freight steamers soon to be augmented by the “Malolo,” a $7,000,000 liner, one of the finest vessels of the American merchant marine, and now under construction for the Honolulu-San Francisco run. The Emma Claudine went into service between Hilo and San Francisco, business increased and other sailing vessels were added, the Lurline, Falls of Clyde, Harvester, Santiago and others. In 1901 Captain Matson’s shipping interests were incorporated under the present name, Matson Navigation Co. Another great development came the following year, in 1902, when, to meet the demands of a constantly expanding business, Captain Matson acquired his first steamer for the Hawaiian service, the Enterprise, which he immediately converted into an oil burner. It is a significant fact that Captain Matson was one of the first ship owners to appreciate the advantages of fuel oil and that he was also the first Pacific operator to equip his ships with radio telegraphy. In 1906 the Spanish steamer Gadiatano was purchased, renamed the Hilonian and added to the Matson line, and the following year Honolulu instead of Hilo, was made the Hawaiian terminal port of the company. The first steamer to be built by the Matson Navigation Co. was the Lurline, which went into service in 1908. This ship was named for Captain Matson’s daughter, Lurline Matson, now Mrs. William P. Roth, wife of the vice-president and general manager of the Matson company. In rapid succession came other steamers, the Wilhelmina, Hyades, Matsonia, Manoa and Maui. And then, in 1917, came America’s entry into the World War and Captain Matson, American by adoption and a genuine patriot, offered his fleet to the United States government. The Maui, Matsonia and Wilhelmina made splendid records as troop transports on the Atlantic. In 1923 the Matson Building, one of the largest in San Francisco, was completed, housing the main office of the Matson Navigation Co. and the mainland branches of a number of Hawaiian corporations. During the upbuilding of his shipping interests, Captain Matson found time to become a factor in another great industry, the development of California’s oil resources. Not only was he a pioneer in the use of fuel oil at sea, but he was also instrumental in securing the substitution of oil for coal on the sugar plantations of Hawaii. Captain Matson entered the oil business as a producer in 1901, the year the Matson Navigation Co. was incorporated, when he organized the Western Union Oil Co. and built the Santa Maria-Gaviota pipe line, the first in California from wells to sea coast. In 1903 he built another pipe line, from the Coalinga fields to Monterey, and put five oil tankers into service to make deliveries to oil stations which he established at various Pacific Coast points, as far north as Nome, Alaska. In later years he engaged in various oil development enterprises and on April 30, 1910, Captain Matson amalgamated all of his oil interests in the Honolulu Consolidated Oil Co., now one of the largest producers in California, and in which Honolulu capital is largely represented. At the height of his successful career as a business organizer and industrial builder, Captain Matson died on Oct. 11, 1917, but his name will long endure, perpetuated by the monuments which he himself created in a life of constructive achievement. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/hi/statewide/bios/matson50bs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/hifiles/ File size: 5.6 Kb