German immigrant and prominent businessman Paul Isenberg was remembered Thursday by historic preservationists interested in the history of Lihu‘e. On April 15, 1904 over 2,000 Kaua‘i residents gathered from all parts of the island for the unveiling of the Isenberg
German immigrant and prominent businessman Paul Isenberg was remembered Thursday by historic preservationists interested in the history of Lihu‘e.
On April 15, 1904 over 2,000 Kaua‘i residents gathered from all parts of the island for the unveiling of the Isenberg monument located on the corner of Rice Street and Haleko Road.
The day marked Isenberg’s sixty-seventh birthday and came about a year following his death in Bremen, Germany from appendicitis.
The monument was paid for by “hundreds of Kauai friends (who) brought together, of their own wish and initiative, half dollars, quarters, dollars, what they could, to be wrought into the bronze portrait which they placed in the center of his Lihue garden,” wrote historian Ethel Damon in “Koamalu,” her privately-printed two-volume history of Kaua‘i and the Rice family.
Isenberg arrived in Hawai‘i in 1858 and worked his way up from being a laborer at Lihue Plantation to being one of the most prominent businessmen in Hawai‘i.
He married Maria Rice, the daughter of William Harrison Rice, an early Protestant missionary to Kaua‘i and an owner of Lihue Plantation. He grew the plantation from a 200 ton harvest to a 20,000 ton one, and went on to amass a sizeable fortune through his investments and through his partnership in Hackfeld & Co., the German firm that served as a sugar factor in Hawai‘i and later became American Factors.
He served in the House of Nobles of the Hawaiian Kingdom, representing Kaua‘i, and was a generous man helping others less fortunate throughout his later life.
Isenberg and other German immigrants made Lihu‘e well known as a ‘German town” in the last quarter of the 19th century. The first Lutheran church in Hawai‘i was built on German Hill in Lihu‘e during this era.
The Kaua‘i Historical Society, Grove Farm Homestead Museum, Lihu‘e historian Pat Griffin, and other organizations and individuals helped mark the day Thursday with the placing of lillies on Isenberg’s monument.
