:Albert Spencer Wilcox

Albert Spencer Wilcox was born in Hilo, Hawaii, on May 24, 1844. His father was Abner Wilcox (1808–1869) and mother was Lucy Eliza Hart (1814–1869). His parents were in the eighth company of missionaries to Hawaii for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. His parents taught at the Hilo Mission boarding school founded by David Belden Lyman and his wife.{{cite book |title=Portraits of American Protestant missionaries to Hawaii |author= Hawaiian Mission Children's Society |url= https://archive.org/details/portraitsofameri00hawarich |year=1901 |location=Honolulu |publisher=Hawaiian gazette company |page=[https://archive.org/details/portraitsofameri00hawarich/page/70 70]}} He had three older brothers born while at Hilo.

In 1846, the family moved to teach at a similar school at the Wai{{okina}}oli Mission near Hanalei, Hawaii, on the northern coast of the island of Kaua{{okina}}i. There he had four more brothers, although one died young.{{cite web |title= Waioli Mission nomination form |author= Gary T. Cummins |work= National Register of Historic Places |date= March 24, 1973 |publisher= U.S. National Park Service |url= {{NRHP url|id=73000676}} |access-date= September 18, 2010 }}

In 1851, he sailed to Boston with his father for surgery to fix a birth defect in his foot.{{cite news |title= Albert Spencer Wilcox |author= Hank Soboleski |newspaper= The Garden Island |date= January 16, 2009 |url= http://thegardenisland.com/news/local/article_598264b8-2f3d-55ee-b0d6-deac13a08101.html |archive-url= https://archive.today/20130203232644/http://thegardenisland.com/news/local/article_598264b8-2f3d-55ee-b0d6-deac13a08101.html |url-status= dead |archive-date= February 3, 2013 |access-date= September 23, 2010 }}

He was educated at his parents' school and Punahou School in Honolulu from 1858 to 1862.{{cite book |author= William DeWitt Alexander |author-link= William DeWitt Alexander |title=Oahu college: list of trustees, presidents, instructors, matrons, librarians, superintendents of grounds and students, 1841-1906. Historical sketch of Oahu college|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GxADAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA89 |year=1907 |publisher=Hawaiian Gazette Company |page=89}}

He worked with his older brother George Norton Wilcox (1839–1933) on the Princeville plantation owned by Robert Crichton Wyllie in the 1860s while living at Wai{{okina}}oli.

Wilcox started a small plantation in Waipā Valley but it failed by 1876.

Paul Isenberg installed a sugar mill at Hanamāʻulu in 1877 and hired Wilcox to be its manager. He continued to run the plantation for over two decades. With a reliable source of irrigation, and the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 removing sugar tariffs to the US, he became wealthy.{{cite web|title=Finding Aid for Lihue Plantation Collection |work=Kaua’i Historical Society |year=2009 |author=Marylou Bradley |url=http://www.kauaihistoricalsociety.org/assets/finding_aids/ms45_lihue_plantation_finding_aid.pdf |access-date=September 25, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110726213834/http://www.kauaihistoricalsociety.org/assets/finding_aids/ms45_lihue_plantation_finding_aid.pdf |archive-date=July 26, 2011 }}

He invested in a mill in the remote western area of Kekaha, to process the sugar grown by Valdemar Knudsen in the 1880s.{{cite web |title= Kekaha Sugar Company History (Kauai) |url= http://www2.hawaii.edu/~speccoll/p_kekaha.html |work= Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association Plantation Archives |year=2004 |access-date= September 25, 2010 | publisher= University of Hawaii at Mānoa Library }}

On February 7, 1883, he incorporated the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company and served as a director.{{cite book |title=Hawaiian Kingdom 1874-1893, the Kalakaua Dynasty |author= Ralph Simpson Kuykendall |author-link= Ralph Simpson Kuykendall |url= http://www.ulukau.org/elib/cgi-bin/library?c=kingdom3&l=en |volume=3 |publisher= University of Hawaii Press |year= 1967 |isbn= 978-0-87022-433-1 }}{{rp|102}}

By 1895 he was able to buy Princeville and turn it into a ranch.{{cite web |title= Princeville at Hanalei: a Rich History |work= official web site |url= http://www.princeville.com/history.html |access-date= September 25, 2010 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100929121046/http://princeville.com/history.html |archive-date= 29 September 2010 |url-status= dead }}

He also invested in real estate in Honolulu.

Wilcox was elected as a representative from Kaua{{okina}}i to the legislature of the Hawaiian Kingdom from 1887 through 1892.{{cite web|url=http://archives1.dags.hawaii.gov/gsdl/collect/governme/index/assoc/HASH80f7/ec259546.dir/Wilcox,%20Albert%20Spencer.jpg |title=Wilcox, Albert Spencer office record |work=state archives digital collections |publisher=state of Hawaii |access-date=September 18, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120403155956/http://archives1.dags.hawaii.gov/gsdl/collect/governme/index/assoc/HASH80f7/ec259546.dir/Wilcox%2C%20Albert%20Spencer.jpg |archive-date=April 3, 2012 }}

He was involved in drafting the 1887 Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii, and its forceful imposition which put his brother George into the cabinet of King Kalākaua.{{cite book |author=David W. Forbes |title=Hawaiian national bibliography, 1780-1900 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jAuzOipG26YC&pg=PA232 |year=2003 |publisher=University of Hawaii Press |isbn=978-0-8248-2636-9 |pages=232–233}} On January 14, 1893, he was appointed to the Committee of Safety but resigned at the first meeting to return and take care of business on Kaua{{okina}}i.{{cite book |chapter= Affidavit of Albert S. Wilcox |title= Morgan Report: Senate Report 227 of the 53rd Congress |editor= John T. Morgan |editor-link= John Tyler Morgan |year= 1893 |pages= 811–812 |chapter-url= http://morganreport.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=811-812#AFFIDAVIT_OF_ALBERT_S._WILCOX }}

Some of his neighbors from Kaua{{okina}}i such as William Owen Smith and Sanford B. Dole played major roles in the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii.{{rp|587}}

Wilcox married Mary Luahiwa, but they divorced.{{Hawaiian Dictionaries |Divorces - Fifth Circuit: page 5 (Napio - Yorimoto) |dic=gene |id= D18-000006 |accessdate= September 25, 2010 }}

On June 7, 1898, he married Emma Kauikeolani Napoleon Mahelona (1862–1931), and retired to an estate called Kilohana in Puhi, Hawaii, at {{coord |21|58|15|N| 159|23|29|W| type:landmark_region:US-HI |display=inline |name= Kilohana}}. His stepdaughter Ethel Kulamanu Mahelona married his nephew Gaylord Parke Wilcox (1881–1970) and inherited Kilohana.{{cite web |title= Kilohana Plantation |work= official web site |url= http://www.kilohanakauai.com/ |access-date= September 25, 2010 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100830112756/http://www.kilohanakauai.com/| archive-date= 30 August 2010 | url-status=live}}

It is the site of one of the heritage railways in Kauai.{{cite web|title=Kaui Plantation Railway |work=official web site |url=http://www.kauaiplantationrailway.com/ |access-date=September 25, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100512161845/http://kauaiplantationrailway.com/ |archive-date=May 12, 2010 }}

He built a beach house in Hanalei at {{coord |22|12|34|N| 159|29|44|W| type:landmark_region:US-HI |display=inline |name=Wilcox Beach House }} directly on the shore of Hanalei Bay near the Hanalei Pier. It was built as a complex of main house, three garages, a boathouse, and separate cottages for gardener, caretaker, and other servants. It later was consolidated into a sprawling single story building with six bedrooms and six bathrooms, with a few remaining cottages. The beach house was added to the National Register of Historic Places listings in Hawaii on July 30, 1993, as Albert Spencer Wilcox Beach House.{{cite web |title=Albert Spencer Wilcox Beach House nomination form |author= Patricia Sheehan |work= National Register of Historic Places |date= May 27, 1991 |publisher= U.S. National Park Service |url= {{NRHP url|id=93000725}} |access-date= September 25, 2010 }} The Hanalei Land Company, which Wilcox formed in 1903, restored the house and rents it to visitors as accommodations or events such as weddings. It has been kept in the Wilcox family for six generations.{{cite web |title= History of Kauikeolani |publisher= Hanalei Land Company |url= http://www.hanaleiland.com/hanalei_rentals/kauikeolani_history.php |access-date= September 23, 2010 }}

The Albert Spencer Wilcox Building in Lihue, Hawaii, is also listed on the National Register.

In 1908, he and his wife sponsored the Kauikeolani Children's Hospital in Honolulu. It became part of the Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children in 1978.{{cite web |title= A Century of Care for Hawaii's Women and Children |work= Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children web site |publisher= Hawaii Pacific Health |url= http://www.kapiolani.org/women-and-children/about-us/default.aspx |access-date= September 25, 2010 }}

In 1917 he donated funds for a hospital named for his stepson Samuel Mahelona, who had died from tuberculosis on October 20, 1912. It is the oldest hospital on Kaua{{okina}}i.{{cite web |title= Samuel Mahelona Memorial Hospital |year= 2006 |work= official web site |publisher= Hawaii Health Systems Corporation |url= http://www.smmh.hhsc.org/ |access-date= September 18, 2010 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100831212817/http://www.smmh.hhsc.org/| archive-date= 31 August 2010 | url-status=live}}

Allen Clessen Mahelona was another stepson.

Wilcox died July 7, 1919.{{cite book |title= The Story of Hawaii and Its Builders |year=1925 |publisher= Honolulu Star Bulletin |editor= George F. Nellist |url= http://files.usgwarchives.net/hi/statewide/bios/wilcox64bs.txt |chapter= Albert Spencer Wilcox }}

In 1922, his widow donated funds for the Albert Spencer Wilcox Building designed by Hart Wood to be the first public library on Kaua{{okina}}i. It now houses the Kaua{{okina}}i Museum.{{cite web |title= Kauaʻi Museum nomination form |author= Nathan Napoka |work= National Register of Historic Places |date=April 1979 |publisher= U.S. National Park Service |url= {{NRHP url|id=79000760}} |access-date= September 18, 2010 }}

{{Wilcox-Lyman family tree}}

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Category:1844 births

Category:1919 deaths

Category:Businesspeople from Hawaii

Category:Hawaiian Kingdom politicians

Category:Members of the Hawaiian Kingdom House of Representatives

Category:19th-century American businesspeople