page_title: Samuel Gardner Wilder
section_title: Business
hierarchical_section_title: Samuel Gardner Wilder / Life / Business
caption_attribution_description: English: Remains of a guano tramway on Jarvis Island in the central Pacific Ocean
context_page_description: Samuel Gardner Wilder was an American shipping magnate and politician who developed a major transportation company in the Kingdom of Hawaii.
context_section_description: Wilder chartered the clipper ship White Swallow and returned in 1858. He took a load of guano (bird excrement used as fertilizer) from Jarvis Island to New York City, which served as the couple's honeymoon voyage.
  He then started a sugarcane plantation with his father-in-law (now the Kualoa Ranch) in 1864. 
  He sent for his brother, William Chauncey Wilder (1835–1901) who had served in the cavalry in the American Civil War. The plantation failed by 1868 and William returned to Geneva, Illinois.
  In 1870 other sugar planters had Wilder sent to China to bring back low-cost workers. He encountered resistance from the British administration in Hong Kong, and only 188 Chinese came as a result.
  In 1871 he took over the lumber business of James I. Dowsett.
  He also became agent for the government-owned steamship Kilauea, named for Kīlauea volcano, which ran passenger service between the islands. In 1872 with C. H. Lewers, he established Wilder & Company for the shipping and related businesses.
  In 1873 his brother William brought out his wife and family to help in the shipping business. After the reciprocity Treaty of 1875, the sugar business boomed, and created demand to use steamships to move the raw sugar to the port of Honolulu where it was taken to the sugar refinery in California owned by Claus Spreckels, who invested in Wilder's company.
  In 1877 the government ordered a second steamer Likelike (named for Princess Likelike) from San Francisco. After one voyage, the government promptly sold it to Wilder. The Likelike was about 50% larger than the aged  Kilauea, which needed frequent repairs. Part of his agreement was to carry the mail on his ships.
  Over time more ships were added to his fleet, and railroads built to meet the ports. The Hawaiian Railroad was constructed from 1881 to 1883.
  It ran from plantations in the Kohala district of the island of Hawaiʻi to a harbor he built at Māhukona.
  The company was incorporated as Wilder Steamship Company in 1883.
caption: Wilder shipped guano from Jarvis Island
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