Land Holdings
While raising his family, Campbell ventured into real estate with purchases of massive parcels of land. One of his most controversial purchases was of flat, arid and barren 41,000 acres (166 km²) in the Ewa District of Oʻahu. Other businessmen criticized Campbell for making such a wasteful, unproductive investment and called him insane. Campbell hired James Ashley of California to drill water wells to supply his purchase with fresh irrigation. Campbell used the land for sugarcane production and profits poured into his coffers. Campbell continued to purchase underestimated plots of real estate and transformed them into productive agricultural districts.
He was appointed to serve in the House of Nobles (upper house of the legislature) in 1887 and 1888. In August 1896, while he was in San Francisco, he was kidnapped by Oliver Winthrop who pretended to be asking real estate advice. Winthrop and an unknown accomplice took $305 from him and threatened to shoot him if he did not write them a check. After being held for three days, he still refused any ransom. The 70-year-old Campbell was injured released. Winthrop never testified, but was found guilty.
He died April 21, 1900 with US$3 million to his name, left in trust to his children and their heirs.
It is on land owned by his estate that Kapolei was developed, a new suburb of Honolulu. In 2004 his 176 beneficiaries decided to form the "James Campbell Company". The conversion happened in January 2007, with only three family members cashing out.
Read more about this topic: James Campbell (industrialist)
Famous quotes containing the words land and/or holdings:
“What between the duties expected of one during one’s lifetime, and the duties exacted from one after one’s death, land has ceased to be either a profit or a pleasure. It gives one position, and prevents one from keeping it up. That’s all that can be said about land.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“Polarized light showed the secret architecture of bodies; and when the second-sight of the mind is opened, now one color or form or gesture, and now another, has a pungency, as if a more interior ray had been emitted, disclosing its deep holdings in the frame of things.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)