Statewide County HI Archives Biographies.....McCandless, James S. September 20, 1855 - 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
J. Orr jessicanorr@gmail.com November 17, 2011, 2:54 pm

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

JAMES S. MCCANDLESS, Financier. Business success and fraternal leadership have 
marked the career of James S. McCandless, Honolulu capitalist and former 
Imperial Potentate of the Ancient Arabic Order, Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, 
of North America.
  A chance call on the late Samuel G. Wilder, a pioneer shipping man of 
Hawaii, who was then Minister of the Interior under King Kalakaua, and who was 
visiting in San Francisco in 1880, brought James S. McCandless to the islands 
the same year. Mr. McCandless had heard that artesian wells were being drilled 
in Hawaii. He was fresh from the oil fields of West Virginia, where he had 
learned drilling, and when Mr. Wilder confirmed the story about the search for 
water here, Mr. McCandless came on the next boat with him, and he has made 
these islands his home ever since.
  A year later his elder brother, John A. McCandless, followed, and the next 
year a third brother, Lincoln L. McCandless, joined them. They formed the 
partnership of McCandless Brothers, artesian well drillers, in 1882, and in 
the many years since its foundation the firm has drilled more than 600 wells 
on the various islands of Hawaii, providing irrigation water for the great 
sugar plantations of Ewa, Kahuku, Oahu, Waialua and other large producers, and 
also on the island of Maui, Hawaii, Kauai and Molokai.
  In fact, Ewa plantation owes its very existence to the discovery of 
subterranean water there, for it was organized upon the direct guarantee of 
the McCandless Brothers to develop water in sufficient quantities for 
irrigation. This was the first plantation in Hawaii that installed pumping 
plants for irrigation from artesian wells, and today it is pumping from 71 
wells 105 million gallons of water per day, four times as much water as the 
City of Honolulu uses.
  The business of the McCandless Brothers increased to such proportions that 
they had capital to invest in other interests. James S. McCandless is now a 
heavy stockholder in many of the larger industrial concerns of the islands and 
has vast mining interests in California, besides being auditor of the 
McCandless Building CO., which 20 years ago constructed the five-story 
McCandless Building, the first modern office building in Hawaii. The mining 
companies in which Mr. McCandless is interested are the American Bar Quartz 
Mining Co. and the California-Hawaiian Development CO., and he is one of the 
financial supporters and a director of the River Farms Co., which operates a 
30,000-acre ranch in Colusa and Yolo counties, California. He is also a 
stockholder in the Home Insurance Co. of Hawaii.
  A shriner for many years, Mr. McCandless reached the highest office in the 
order at the convention held in San Francisco in June, 1922, when he was 
elected Imperial Potentate. After the convention he led a pilgrimage of 1200 
Nobles, on three steamers, from San Francisco to Honolulu for a visit to his 
home temple, Aloha.
  He closed his administration as Imperial Potentate at the convention in 
Washington, D.C., June, 1923, when the late President of the United States, 
Noble Warren G. Harding, took an active part in the ceremonies.
  Mr. McCandless is a life member of the Imperial Council of the Shrine and 
attends all of its meetings. He is also an enthusiastic worker for and a 
strong supporter of the Shriners’ hospitals for the care of crippled children, 
maintained at Honolulu and in many mainland cities. To Shriners throughout 
North America he is affectionately known as “Sunny Jim.”
  In connection with his fraternal and business activities, Mr. McCandless, in 
the fall of 1924, had crossed the Pacific between San Francisco and Honolulu 
87 times.
  Mr. McCandless is a member of the Pacific, Commercial and Oahu Country Clubs 
of Honolulu and the Bohemian and Union League Clubs of San Francisco and the 
Jonathan Club of Los Angeles.
  He was born in Indiana, Indiana County, Pa., Sept. 20, 1855, the son of 
Thomas McCartney McCandless and Elizabeth Ann (Newman) McCandless. He is a 
descendant of pioneer settlers of western Pennsylvania. His education was 
received in the public schools of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and he began 
his business career with his father in the West Virginia oil fields. In 1910 
he married Lillian Frederica Hargear of New York City.


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