{{Short description|German businessman}} {{Infobox person |name = Paul Isenberg |image = Paul Isenberg (1837-1903).jpg |image_size = |caption = Newspaper sketch from 1904 |birth_date = {{Birth date|1837|4|15}} |birth_place = Dransfeld, Germany |death_date = {{Death date and age|1903|1|16|1837|4|15}} |death_place = Bremen, Germany |children = |parents = |spouse = {{plainlist| * {{marriage|Maria Rice|October 1861}} * {{marriage|Beta Margarete Glade|1869}} }} | relatives = William Harrison Rice (father-in-law) |occupation = Businessman |known_for = Amfac, Inc. }}
'''Paul Isenberg''' (April 15, 1837 – January 16, 1903) was a German businessman who developed the sugarcane business in the Kingdom of Hawaii.
==Life== Paul Heinrich Friedrich Carl Isenberg was born April 15, 1837, in Dransfeld, Kingdom of Hanover, Germany.<ref name="papers">{{cite web |title= Finding Aid for Isenberg Collection |work= Kaua’i Historical Society |year= 2010 |author= Marylou Bradley and Carolyn Dettling |url= http://www.kauaihistoricalsociety.org/assets/finding_aids/ms_57_isenberg_collection.pdf |access-date= September 23, 2010 |archive-date= July 26, 2011 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110726213819/http://www.kauaihistoricalsociety.org/assets/finding_aids/ms_57_isenberg_collection.pdf |url-status= dead }}</ref> His father was Lutheran minister Daniel Isenberg (1807–1875), and mother was Dorothea (Strauch) Isenberg (1808–1871). He came to the Hawaiian Islands in 1858.
Isenberg moved to the island of Kaua{{okina}}i and first worked in Wailua. In October 1861 he married Hannah "Maria" Rice, daughter of William Harrison Rice (February 17, 1842—April 7, 1867). They had two children, Mary Dorothea Rice Isenberg (1862–1949) and Daniel Paul Rice Isenberg (1866–1919), known as "Paul Jr." He traveled back to Germany in 1869 where he married Beta Margarete Glade (born 1846) before returning to Hawaii. They had six more children: Johannes "John" Carl Isenberg (born September 12, 1870), Heinrich Alexander Isenberg (born January 17, 1872), Julie Maria Pauline (Isenberg) Barckhausen (born November 1876), Clara Margarete (Isenberg) Wendroth (born 1878), Richard Menno Isenberg (born 1880), and Paula Bertha Johanna Isenberg (born 1883).<ref name="adv"/> His daughter Clara married the "coffee king" millionaire Hermann Sielcken. After he died, she married Russian-born German baritone Joseph Schwarz.<ref name="Marriage">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1922/02/12/archives/mrs-clara-sielcken-weds-coffee-kings-widow-marries-joseph-m-schwarz.html|title=MRS. CLARA SIELCKEN WEDS.; "Coffee King's" Widow Marries Joseph M. Schwarz, Russian Baritone.|work=The New York Times|date=February 12, 1922|page= 22}}</ref>
Isenberg took over managing the sugarcane plantation at Līhuʻe in 1862, after the death of his father-in-law who was previous manager. The plantation was founded by diplomat Henry A. Peirce, but struggled to make a profit until Rice built an irrigation system. Isenberg made improvements to the cane sugar mill such as using an evaporating pan and steam pipes to concentrate the cane juice. In 1872 the Lihue Plantation company was officially incorporated, and the {{convert |3300|acre}} expanded by {{convert |17000|acre}} at Hanamāʻulu.<ref name="lihue">{{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 24, 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 }}</ref> On January 24, 1874, he was appointed to the upper House of Nobles in the legislature of the Hawaiian Kingdom by King Lunalilo.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://archives1.dags.hawaii.gov/gsdl/collect/governme/index/assoc/HASH5b09/3945a7b2.dir/Isenberg,%20Paul%20Daniel%20Rice%20I.jpg |title= Isenberg, Daniel Paul Rice I office record |work=state archives digital collections |publisher=state of Hawaii |access-date= September 24, 2010 }} Note name not accurate</ref> He officially became a citizen of the Kingdom of Hawaii at that time.<ref>{{Hawaiian Dictionaries |Citizenship - Naturalization: page 51 Ieatmann - Ives |D29-000052 |q=Isenberg |dic=gene |accessdate= September 24, 2010}}</ref> In 1877 he bought equipment for a new mill from George Norton Wilcox and installed it at Hanamāʻulu to be managed by Albert Spencer Wilcox.<ref name="lihue"/>
In 1878 Isenberg retired as plantation manager, but kept an ownership interest while moving his family back to Bremen in Germany. He visited the islands at least every two years for legislative sessions. His brother Carl Isenberg then managed the plantation. In 1881 Isenberg became a business partner with earlier German merchant Heinrich Hackfeld in his Hackfeld & Company.<ref name="adv">{{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/isenberg34bs.txt |chapter= Isenberg, Paul }}</ref> Although most other plantation laborers were Chinese or Japanese, Isenberg arranged for groups of workers from Bremen to settle on his company's plantations.<ref name="kingdom3">{{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 }}</ref>{{rp|134–135}} In the 1887 session of the legislature, he was one of the few who objected to the threat of military force that caused the 1887 Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii to be called the "Bayonet Constitution".<ref name="kingdom3"/>{{rp|361–362}}
He died in Bremen on January 16, 1903.<ref>{{cite news |title= Paul Isenberg Dies at Bremen, in the 66th Year of his Age |newspaper= Hawaiian Gazette |location= Honolulu |date= January 20, 1903 |url= http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025121/1903-01-20/ed-1/seq-6/ |access-date= September 24, 2010 }}</ref>
==Legacy== {{Big Five Hawaii}} Hackfeld & Company grew to be one of the "Big Five" corporations that dominated the economy of the Territory of Hawaii. During World War I, Hackfeld & Company was seized by the U.S. government Alien Property Custodian along with other assets owned by Germans. It was sold to a consortium of Hawaii businessmen in 1918, who changed the name to "American Factors" and the company's store Liberty House. A 1920 lawsuit argued the price was below market value, and some former stockholders including John Carl Isenberg recovered some damages.<ref>{{cite journal |hdl= 10524/462 |title= German Sugar's Sticky Fingers |journal= Hawaiian Journal of History |publisher=Hawaiian Historical Society |volume= 16 |author= Frederick Bernays Wiener |year= 1982 |pages= 15–47}}</ref> In 1966, the name was further shortened to Amfac, Inc.
His son Paul Jr. married Annie Beatrice McBryde, daughter of neighboring sugar planter Duncan McBryde on October 19, 1891.<ref>{{Hawaiian Dictionaries |Oahu (1832-1910) marriage record |D09-000108 |q=Isenberg |dic=gene |accessdate= September 24, 2010}}</ref> On August 31, 1891 Queen Lili{{okina}}uokalani appointed him to the Privy Council. From 1898 to 1915 he was elected as representative to the house of representatives of the Territory of Hawaii, and from 1902 to 1905 the senate.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://archives1.dags.hawaii.gov/gsdl/collect/governme/index/assoc/HASHc539/62b67ce7.dir/Isenberg,%20Daniel%20Paul%20Rice%20II.jpg |title= Isenberg, Daniel Paul Rice (II) office record |work=state archives digital collections |publisher=state of Hawaii |access-date= September 24, 2010 }}</ref> He married Bertha Koepke on August 9, 1916, and they had one child, Dorothea "Dora" Jane Isenberg (1917–1988), who married Joseph Cole.<ref>{{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/isenberg33bs.txt |chapter= Isenberg, Daniel Paul Rice }}</ref> Cole was first manager of the Kaua{{okina}}i Museum in 1960.<ref>{{cite web |title= Kauaʻi Museum |work= official web site |url= http://www.kauaimuseum.org/ |access-date= October 1, 2010 }}</ref> In 1887 his younger brother Johannes Friedrich Wilhelm "Hans" Isenberg (1855–1918) was brought in to be pastor of the first Lutheran church on the island for the immigrants who starting arriving in 1881.<ref>{{cite web |title= Our History & Heritage |work= official web page |publisher= Lihue Lutheran Church |url= http://www.lihuelutheran.com/ |access-date= September 24, 2010 |archive-date= April 15, 2012 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120415222939/http://www.lihuelutheran.com/ |url-status= dead }}</ref> Hans had married his own niece, Paul's first child, Mary Dorothea Rice Isenberg, known as Dora, in 1883.<ref name="papers"/>
==Family tree== {{Rice-Cooke family tree}}
==See also== * Sugar plantations in Hawaii
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Further reading== * {{Cite book |author1=Ethel Moseley Damon |author2=Mary Dorothea Rice Isenberg |title=Koamalu: a story of pioneers on Kauai, and of what they built in that island garden |volume= 2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SxpXAAAAMAAJ |year=1931 |publisher= Honolulu Star-Bulletin press }} (Author Isenberg is his daughter) * {{cite book |title= Kamaaina — A century in Hawaii |author= William A. Simonds |others= Keichi Kimura, illustrator |date= October 1, 1949 |publisher= American Factors, Limited |url= https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&docId=920122 }} * {{cite book |author=Frederick Simpich Jr. |title=Dynasty in the Pacific |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_eosAQAAIAAJ |year=1974 |publisher=McGraw-Hill |isbn= 978-0-07-057451-9 }}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Isenberg, Paul}} Category:1837 births Category:1903 deaths Category:People from Göttingen (district) Category:Business in Hawaii Category:Businesspeople in the sugar industry Category:History of Kauai Category:People from the Kingdom of Hanover Category:Members of the Hawaiian Kingdom House of Nobles Category:People from Kauai Category:Hawaiian Kingdom businesspeople