Center for Labor Education & Research, University of Hawaii - West Oahu: Honolulu Record Digitization Project
Honolulu Record, Volume 9 No. 6, Thursday, September 6, 1956 p. 7
Jas, Campbell, Stowaway, Adventurer, Made Millions In Sugar, Real Estate
The Campbell Estate, a name much in the news these days what with Mrs. Alice Kamokila Camp-bell's fight with the estate trustees, is the estate of a man whose name is much less known to the present generation in Hawaii— James Campbell.
But in his day, James Campbell cut a wide swath across the Pacific. Born in Ireland in anything but promising circumstances, he stowed away on a ship for Canada while still a youngster, and from Canada crossed over into the U.S. He was a stowaway who lived to be the equivalent of a king and long before his death be known among Hawaiians as "Kimi One Miliona'' because he had a million dollars.
According to his own story, he shipped out on the West Coast as a carpenter on a whaler and got himself shipwrecked in Tahiti. As all through his life, he came up right side and before long was reported fighting against the French in an uprising of Tahitians Under such circumstances, it is not surprising he left before long since the French always won such encounters He showed up next at Lahaina, Maui, between 1850 and 1852, and that was where his financial operations really began.
Co-Founder of Pioneer Mill
He had brought a few hundred dollars from Tahiti and he managed to raise enough more to start sugar planting--in competition with Kamehameha V as it turned out Campbell founded the Pioneer Plantation along with a partner, but eventually sold out his sugar interests to invest in real estate on Oahu.
Thus, he bought the stretches around Ewa and Kahuku that form the bulk of Campbell Estate land today. But he also bought a couple of the most valuable blocks in mid-town Honolulu.
When he died, his fortune was estimated at $3 million, but events after his death made the holdings far more valuable.
Before he died in 1900, however, he was the victim, of one of the West Coast's most sensational crimes. One day in San Francisco, a man introduced himself and talked Campbell into entering a house to meet a friend. But the friend was nowhere around, and when Campbell tried to leave, he was at first detained.
The millionaire realized suddenly he had been kidnapped But the kidnapper didn't have enough strength, weapons, or plan to hold! Campbell and he escaped shortly and yelled for the police. The kidnapper was arrested the same day.
Campbell's wife was Abigail K. Maipinepine, whom he married in 1877, and most of the heirs are descendants of that marriage. Unlike many of the Big Bosses in Hawaii, Campbell was a staunch supporter of Queen Lihuokalani, and a Royalist until his death.
It is only common humanity to feed the hungry. If our hospitals are too big, too complex, too impersonal to do these small kindnesses for the sick, something is very wrong.