{{Short description|American businessman and industrialist}} {{Infobox person | name = Benjamin Franklin Dillingham | image = Benjamin Franklin Dillingham.jpg | caption = | birth_date = {{Birth date|1844|09|04}} | birth_place = [[Brewster, Massachusetts]], United States | death_date = {{Death date and age|1918|04|07|1844|09|04}} | death_place = [[Oahu]], Territory of Hawaii (now [[Hawaii]]) | burial_place = [[Oahu Cemetery]] | parents = Benjamin C. Dillingham <br> Lydia Sears Howe | relatives = [[Louise Olga Gaylord Dillingham|Louise Olga Gaylord]] (daughter in-law) | children = [[Walter F. Dillingham]]<br/>[[Mary Dillingham Frear]] | spouse = [[Emma Smith Dillingham|Emma Louise Smith]] | known_for = | occupation = Businessman }} '''Benjamin Franklin Dillingham''' (September 4, 1844 – April 7, 1918) was an American businessman and industrialist during the late [[Kingdom of Hawaii]] era, throughout the period of the [[Republic of Hawaii]], and during the first two decades of the [[Territory of Hawaii]].
==Early life== [[File:Benjamin Franklin Dillingham (1844–1918).jpg|thumb]] Dillingham was born on September 4, 1844, into an old [[New England]] family in Brewster, on [[Cape Cod]] in [[Massachusetts]]. His father was Benjamin C. Dillingham and mother was Lydia Sears Howes.
At the age of fourteen he became a sailor on the Yankee [[clipper]] ''Southern Cross'' which was captured and destroyed by the Confederate State Army [[Steamship|steamer]] ''Florida'' in 1863, during the [[American Civil War]]. In 1865 he became first mate of a [[barque]] named ''Whistler'' that did a regular run between [[San Francisco]] and [[Honolulu]]. On his third trip to the island kingdom, Dillingham broke his leg after falling from a horse and was forced to convalesce in Hawaii.
==Later life and career== He decided to stay in Honolulu and by the end of 1865 was a clerk at Diamond Hardware, which he bought out for $28,000 in 1869. On April 26, 1869, he married [[Emma Smith Dillingham|Emma Louise Smith]] (1844–1920), of a prominent missionary family. She was the daughter of Reverend Lowell Smith and [[Abigail Willis Tenney Smith|Abigail Willis Tenney]].<ref name="Tenney">{{cite book |first=Jonathan |last=Tenney |title=The Tenney family, or, the descendants of Thomas Tenney, of Rowley, Massachusetts, 1638-1890 |url=https://archive.org/details/tenneyfamilyord01tenngoog |orig-year=1891 |year=1904 |publisher=Rumford Press |pages=[https://archive.org/details/tenneyfamilyord01tenngoog/page/n347 321]–322 |location=Concord, NH |oclc=3548663}}</ref> Dillingham turned out to be an astute businessman, and more importantly, was always willing to take risks. In 1879 he started a dairy farm in upper Honolulu, and during the 1880s became increasingly successful. He founded the [[Oahu Railway and Land Company]] (OR&L) that began service in November 1889. Dillingham was well-liked among Honolulu's various communities, and he included [[Kalakaua|King Kalākaua]] and [[Liliuokalani|Queen Lili{{okina}}uokalani]] as his friends. Although he disapproved of the [[overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii]] in 1893, he looked favorably on the American annexation in 1898, which he believed would bring long-term stability to the islands. Dillingham spent the rest of his life in Hawaii.
Apart from the OR&L, Dillingham was especially active in sugarcane plantations, including the Ola{{okina}}a Sugar Company on the [[Hawaii (island)|Big Island]], and the Ewa and Kahuku sugarcane plantations on Oahu. While the OR&L and these sugar companies were profitable, Dillingham's Big Island railroad, the [[Hawaii Consolidated Railway]] (Hilo Railroad) was a financial drain until its destruction by a tsunami in 1946. His Hawaiian Fiber Company, which operated a sisal plantation on the Ewa coral plain in southwestern Oahu, was ultimately also a failure. Nevertheless, Dillingham was one of the major business people in the early years of Hawaii's economic and industrial development.
== Death and legacy == He died on April 7, 1918, and was buried in [[Oahu Cemetery]]. Two days before, [[James Bicknell Castle]], a distant cousin of his wife and a partner in sugarcane plantation ventures, died.<ref>{{cite news |title=Correspondence from Hawaii: Death of Three Prominent Sugar Men |newspaper=Sugar |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8MnmAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA197 |date=May 1918 |pages=197–198 |location=New York, NY |publisher=Beet Sugar Gazette Company |id={{OCLC|564763518|6392606}}}}</ref> His son [[Walter F. Dillingham]] (1875–1963) would also become a businessman in Oahu.<ref>{{Cite magazine|url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,875297,00.html|title=Hawaii: Patriarch to a State|date=1963-11-01|magazine=Time|access-date=2017-03-04|issn=0040-781X}}</ref>
His wife Emma Louise Smith Dillingham wrote a book of poetry on [[Diamond Head, Hawaii|Diamond Head]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Diamond Head |first= Emma Louise Smith |last=Dillingham |location=Honolulu? |oclc=647051940 |url=https://archive.org/details/diamondhead00dilliala |year=1891}}</ref> His daughter [[Mary Dillingham Frear|Mary Emma (known as May) Dillingham]] married [[Walter Francis Frear]] (1863–1948) who became Governor of the [[Territory of Hawaii]] 1907–1913.<ref name="Frear1934">{{cite book |first=Mary Emma Dillingham |last=Frear |title=Lowell and Abigail: A Realistic Idyll |page=307 |year=1934 |location=New Haven, CT |publisher= Yale University Press |oclc=4970978}}</ref> The next governor from 1913 to 1918, [[Lucius Pinkham]], was a Democrat, although he had worked for Dillingham at OR&L 1892–1894 and as manager of his hardware company 1898–1903.<ref>{{cite news |hdl= 10524/373 |title= The Controversial Appointment of Lucius Eugene Pinkham, Hawaii's First Democratic Governor |work= Hawaiian Journal of History |publisher=Hawaii Historical Society |volume= 17 |author-link=H. Brett Melendy |first=H. Brett |last=Melendy |year= 1983 |pages= 185–208}}</ref> Two sons died young, Charles Augustus Dillingham (1872–1874) and Alfred Hubbard Dillingham (1880–1880). Youngest son Harold Garfield Dillingham (October 9, 1881 – December 19, 1971) married Margaret Bayard Hyde-Smith in 1908 and had 5 children. Youngest daughter Marion Eleanor Dillingham (September 23, 1883 – January 19, 1972) married John Pinney Erdman in 1904<ref name=HiMen>{{Citation| year = 1917| editor = John William Siddall | title = Men of Hawaii| volume = 1| publisher = Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Limited| publication-place = Territory of Hawaii | page = 99| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=8YUDAAAAYAAJ&q=john+Pinney+Erdman&pg=PA99| accessdate = 20 September 2017}}</ref> and had five children.<ref name="Frear1934"/>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Further reading== * {{cite book |first=Paul T. |last=Yardley|title=Millstones and milestones: the career of B.F. Dillingham, 1844-1918 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ggeoAAAAIAAJ |date=November 1981 |publisher=[[University of Hawaii Press]] |location=Honolulu, HI |isbn=9780824807610 |oclc=654240129}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Dillingham, Benjamin}} [[Category:1844 births]] [[Category:1918 deaths]] [[Category:Burials at Oahu Cemetery]] [[Category:Businesspeople from Hawaii]] [[Category:Clerks]] [[Category:Dillingham family|Benjamin]] [[Category:Independent (Kuokoa) Party politicians]] [[Category:People associated with the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom]] [[Category:19th-century American businesspeople]]