The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-12-27
CLAUS SPRECKELS, THE
SUGAR KING, IS DEAD
Man Who Made History
in Hawaii Record
a Great One.
ASSOCIATED Press cablegram.l

SAN FRANCISCO, December 90
Claus Spreckels died at half-past four
O'Clock this morning. Rudolph SPreck-
: els and John D. Spreckels, with the
latter's daughters, were at the bed
side, and the others were summoned.
Rudolph and G. A. Spreckels are
named as executors in the will. to
serve under bond of half million
dollars. The income Of the estate is
stated 70 exceed quarter of million
dollars a year. There are matters that
need immediate attention. The will is
in possession of the widow. It pro-
vldes for all the children and disposes
Ct an estate of possibly fifty million
dollars. The opening of the will is to
take place on Monday.
Claus Spreckels, 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. I'D 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 Mid-Paciic, rendered
great services to the leading industry
of this Territory,
Claus Spreekels was born in Lam
stedt, Hanover, Germany, in 1928, mi
grating to the United States in 1916.
Tt was with desire to escape the en-
forced military duties that every man
is supposed to go through in the Water
land that young Spreekels 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-
pie 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 1S46 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 a fortune in it of some kind,
L Ia a., lsrwhN h.
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 fiourished
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
davs, but the miners all had to eat,
and so an enterprising grocer could not
fail to make money. Spreekels made
fifty thousand dollars, and then he look
ed about for something bigger. To a
man with the traditions of Lamstadt,
Hanover. still fresh in his mind, the
object that loomed largest first was
naturally brewery. Spreckels bought
one. 1t fiourished so well that in few
years he was able to dispose of his
ifty-thousand-dollar investment for sew
enty-fve thousand dollars.
First Sugar Ventures.
Then at last mis- attention, was di-