John H. Wilson (Hawaii) - Early Years

Early Years

Wilson was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1871. His father was Charles B. Wilson (1850–1926), whose ethnic background was Scottish and Tahitian. C.B. Wilson was superintendent of the water works and fire chief under King Kalākaua, and was Marshal of the Kingdom under Queen Liliʻuokalani. His mother was Caucasian and quarter Hawaiian Eveline M. “Kitty or Kittie” Townsend, granddaughter of Captain Henry Blanchard of the ship Thaddeus which had brought the first missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to Hawaii in 1820.

Wilson attended the Fort Street School and St. Alban's College. After graduating, he worked odd jobs on the West Coast, Hawaii, and Alaska. A construction job that he took in 1890 with Oahu Railway & Land led him to pursue civil engineering as a career. With financial support from the Queen, he enrolled at Stanford University in 1891. However, lack of funds after the overthrow of the monarchy in 1893 forced him to leave Stanford in 1894. While on the mainland he was approached by revolutionaries looking for suppliers for the 1895 Counter-Revolution in Hawaii, and attempt to restore the monarchy. He took part in the smuggling of guns and ammunition to Maui as part of the arms buildup by rebel forces. After the failed revolution he spoke little about his role in fearing he would be arrested for treason. He admitted he smuggled guns and was of rank to participate in planning his mission. He planned to land a ship of insurgents from Maui to attack Honolulu, but was the mission was aborted after the revolution was exposed and marshal laws was activated.

In 1896 he once again joined Oahu Railway & Land and worked on a survey for a carriage road over the Nuʻuanu Pali. Armed with this knowledge, he and fellow Stanford student Louis Whitehouse bid for and won the contract to build the road, completing the road in January 1898.