Hackfeld Gate - ENTER THE HISTORY of Germans in Hawai'i
Heinrich
Hackfeld
German Entrepreneurs in Hawai'i
The most Influential Bandmaster
Henri Berger
Heinrich August Wilhelm Berger was born near Berlin in 1844. He become a member of Germany’s imperial army band. He worked under the composer and royal bandmaster of Germany, Johann Strauss. Kaiser Wilhelm II. ‘loaned’ Berger from his Potsdam regiment to King Kamehameha V to conduct the king’s band. He arrived in Honolulu in June 1872.
Hawaii's Economy
The Big Five
For decades, Hawaii’s economy was dominated by a handful of companies that controlled the sugar industry and associated businesses. Commonly referred to as the Big Five, four of them had gotten their start during the heyday of the whaling fleet.
started by Samuel Alexander and Henry Baldwin, sons of missionaries. Their daring irrigation project sent water 17 miles from the rainy slopes of Haleakala to 3,000 dry sugar cane acres in central Maui.
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A $919 million publicly traded company that owns Matson Navigation and has vast land holdings on several islands and 17 commercial properties on the mainland.
founder was Theophilus Harris Davies, a Welshman who arrived in Hawai`i under a five-year contract to Robert Janion. Davies helped set up Janion’s merchandising business then later opened his own store under the Theo H. Davies name with Janion as his silent partner. By 1870, Davies and Janion merged their separate businesses under the Davies name and acted as agent for 22 plantations. Davies retired from active management of the business in 1890 and returned to England where he acted as guardian to Princess Ka`iulani during her studies there.
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Davies is a unit of Hong Kong multinational giant Jardine Matheson Holdings Ltd., and owns Hawaii’s Pizza Hut and Taco Bell franchises as well as Pacific Machinery.
was started in 1851 by two former mission secular agents, Samuel Northrup Castle and Amos Starr Cooke. They originally sold sewing machines, farm tools and medicine in Hawaii. It later bought stock in sugar plantations and focused on sugar companies.
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The firm is owned by Los Angeles billionaire David Murdock, who separated C&C from Dole Food in the 1990s. C&C owns major plots on Oahu and most of Lanai island, which Murdock has redeveloped into a resort destination.
founded by James Hunnewell, an officer on the Thaddeus, which had brought the original missionaries here in 1820. He returned in 1826 to set up a trading company, which was itself later traded to Capt. Charles Brewer who gave the lasting name. His company is the oldest corporation west of the Mississippi. Brewer was involved first with the firm Pierce & Brewer, and eventually bought out his partner and operated the business as C. Brewer % Co.
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The firm’s private shareholders have voted to liquidate the company, including its 70,000 acres, over several years.
a German firm that later became Amfac. It was started in 1849 as a ship chandlery and general agency established by Heinrich Hackfeld, a German ship captain who had earlier run trading vessels along the coast of China. In Honolulu, he imported machinery and supplies for sugar plantations and exported raw sugar. One arm of the business eventually developed into the Liberty House store (was later bought by Macy’s). Eventually Hackfeld retired and returned to Germany, but his company lived on in Honolulu. During World War I, the company’s assets were frozen due to its German ties. Later its assets were liquidated and acquired by a conglomerate of investors who took the name American Factors.
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Liberty House went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1998, and Amfac Hawaii did the same this year. Their parent, JMB Realty Corp. of Chicago, gave up on sugar and sold off much of Amfac’s assets.