The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1908-12-29

1atter'S daughterS, were at Gne peo-
side, and the others were summoned.
Rudolph and O. A. Spreckels are
named as executors in the will. to
serve under bond of half million
dollars. The income Of the estate is
stated to exceed quarter Of a million
dollars year. There are matters that
need immediate attention. The will is
in possession of the widow. It pro-
vides for all the children, and disposes
Of an estate Of possibly fifty million
dollars. The opening Of the will is to
take place on Monday.
Claus Spreekels, the Sugar King, the
news of whose death came to Honolulu
by cable yesterday, was for many years
intimately connected with the political
and industrial history of Hawaii. He
was. up to the time of his death, still
connected in many important ways
with the commercial and industrial life
of the Islands, and he had, during the
thirty-two years since he first extended
his interest to the MidPacific, rendered
great services to the leading industry
of this Territory.
Claus Spreckels was born in Lam.
stedt, Hanover, Germany, in 1928, mi
grating to the United States in 1886
1t was with a desire to escape the en-
forced military duties that every man
is supposed to go through in the Water
land that young Spreckels came to
America, and he was an illustration of
the process of natural selection by
which the most energetic, the most en-
terprising and the most resourceful ele'
ments of the population of Europe have
been sifted out for the benefit of the
United States. Most of the good peo-
ple of Lamstedt were satisfied to do as
they were told, and they have made
no further mark on the history. of the
world.
Almost Penniless, but Ambitious.
The more ambitious youth, however,
secured a steerage passage to America,
landing at Charleston in 1886 with
three dollars in one pocket and huge
slice of the beet sugar industry of Ger
many in the other. He did not know
at that time what it was that his other
pocket contained. He only knew that
there was fortune in it Of some kind,
which could be brought to light by Wig
orous work He started working In
grocery store for his board. In the
second month he was earning four dol
lars week; in the third, another grocer
was paying him eight dollars, and
eighteen months later he had bought
out his second employer and was run
ming a store of his own. He flourished
in Charleston until 1855, when he went
to New York and won still greater sue
cess in the same business. But Cali
fornia was already calling him. The
rush of the forty-niners had not yet
subsidized. He landed in San Francisco
in 1856, the year in which Coleman
was marshaling his ten regiments Of
Vigilantes to save civilization from law.
Mining might be a gamble in those
DAYS, but the miners all had to eat,
and so an enterprising grocer could not
fail to make money. Spreckels made
fifty thousand dollars, and then he look
ed about for something bigger. To
man with the traditions of Lamstadt,
Hanover, still fresh in his mind, the
object that doomed largest first was
naturally brewery. Spreckels bought
one. It flourished so well that in few
years he was able to dispose of his
ifty-thousand-d dollar investment for sew
enty.five thousand dollars.
First Sugar Ventures.
Then at last his attention was di-
rected to his life-work. He saw oppor-
tunities on the Pacific Coast for the de-
velopment of great sugar industry,
with tropical islands within easy reach
as source of raw material and compe-
tition in finished products cut off by
mountains and deserts. He bought an
interest in a small local refinery and
soon worked up large and profitable
business. Then he bought out the
other stockholders and became the sole
proprietor. With improved machinery
and the magic of his personal direction
the mill was soon earning enormous
profits. But still Spreckels was not
satisfied. He knew that he was not
using the best methods. He resolved
to master the whole art of sugar-mak-
ing and then make fresh start. He
sold out at high price and went to
Europe. There, already rich man, he
put on the rough clothes of a common
laborer and secured employment in a
refinery at Magdeburg. He worked for
wages there for six weeks, and in that
time he had become familiar with every
detail of the refinery process.
1t became evident to him that Cali
fornia was not yet ready for the beet
sugar industry, and he resolved to de-
vote his energy for the time toy cane
He put up the California refinery in
1858, enlarge the small wooden build
ing four times in three years, and then
replaced it with the immense brick
building with a capacity of eight hun
bred barrels per day which now looms
over the Potrero of San Francisco. At
that time, it took three weeks to make
hard sugar. Spreckels invented new
processes by which the time was re.
duced to twenty-four hours. He intro
duced the modern cube and crushed SUI
gars to the American market. At first
he bought most of his ray material in
the Philippines, but when the Hawai-
ian Reciprocity Treaty was negotiated
in 1876. he saw that revolution was
impending in the Pacific Coast refining
industry. 81
Became Friend Of Kalakaua.
A year previous to this he had been
=. TI,.o1,,I,, os a xyiatfor an1 ha had M