Statewide County HI Archives Biographies.....Wilder, Samuel Gardner June 20, 1831 - July 28, 1888
************************************************
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 8, 2009, 2:22 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

SAMUEL GARDNER WILDER, Early Shipping Magnate. Following the frontier in the 
Westward march of progress in the United States, the late Hon. Samuel Gardner 
Wilder arrived in Honolulu on his first visit to Hawaii in 1856. A year later 
he married Elizabeth Kinau Judd, daughter of a prominent missionary family, 
thus establishing the Wilder family in Hawaii.
  Impressed by the business opportunities Hawaii offered in trade and 
commerce, Mr. Wilder, leaving his bride behind, returned to the mainland, 
chartered the clipper ship “White Swallow,” and came back to the Islands, 
arriving here in 1858, nine months after his departure. For many years 
thereafter he figured prominently in the development of Hawaii.
  Born in Leominster, Mass., June 20, 1831, Mr. Wilder was taken to Canada by 
his parents when he was a child. In 1840 they removed to New York and in 1844 
moved to Illinois, then the “Far West.” Here young Wilder held positions as 
clerk in Chicago and Geneva. Came boom times in California and Mr. Wilder, in 
1852, set out across the plains to the Pacific Coast. In California he was 
with the Adams Express Co. until he started for Hawaii in 1856. For a time he 
was one of the daring “Pony Express” riders of the old West.
  Mr. Wilder’s first business enterprise in Hawaii was the shipment of guano 
from the South Seas. With the “White Swallow” he carried the first cargo of 
guano ever taken from Jarvis Island to New York, in 1858. He remained in the 
guano shipping business for two years and later engaged in the cultivation of 
rice and sugar. In association with Dr. G. P. Judd, his father-in-law, a sugar 
plantation was started at Kualoa, Oahu, and was continued until 1871. For a 
short time Mr. Wilder was identified with Adams & Co., auctioneers.
  In 1871, fortune smiled. Mr. Wilder was in charge of the firm of the late 
James I. Dowsett, engaged in the lumber business. Also, he was a successful 
agent for the government steamer Kilauea. Having added new steamers to the 
enterprise, Mr. Wilder saw the advantage of running the business as a private 
venture. In April, 1872, with the late C. H. Lewers, he purchased the James I. 
Dowsett lumber interests, establishing Wilder & Co., which later took over the 
government steamers for operation by the Wilder Steamship Co., forerunner of 
the present Inter-Island Steam Navigation Co., which acquired the Wilder 
shipping interests.
  The latter part of the nineteenth century saw Mr. Wilder active in 
commercial and political affairs of the monarchy. He developed railways on the 
islands of Hawaii, 1881, and Maui, 1884, to facilitate the transportation of 
sugar. He made two trips to England to interest capital in a railroad which he 
proposed to build from Hilo, through the Hamakua district, and on to Mahukona, 
on the island of Hawaii, but the revolution of 1887 caused English backers of 
the project to withdraw their support. He conceived the idea of building a 
marine railway in Honolulu and it was completed in 1883, the first in Hawaii.
  In 1873, Mr. Wilder supported Kalakaua for election as King of Hawaii. He 
continued as a member of the House of Nobles, to which he had been appointed 
by King Lunalilo, and in 1878, during the reign of King Kalakaua, was made 
minister of the interior, remaining at that post until 1880.
  Upon him King Kalakaua conferred the order of Knight Commander of the Royal 
Order of Kalakaua and Grand Officer of the Royal Order Crown of Hawaii. When 
the House of Nobles was made elective under the Revolutionary Constitution in 
1887, Mr. Wilder was selected as one of the nine nobles to represent the 
Island of Oahu.
  Mr. Wilder also had long service on the board of health and made it his 
special duty to visit the leper settlement at Molokai every three months.
  Mr. Wilder died on July 28, 1888. He is survived by five children, Mrs. 
Laura Wight, Gerrit Parmile Wilder, Samuel Gardner Wilder, James Austin Wilder 
and Miss Helen Kinau Wilder. Mrs. Wilder died in 1918.


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/hi/statewide/bios/wilder65bs.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/hifiles/

File size: 4.7 Kb