Background
George Norton Wilcox was born in Hilo August 15, 1839. His father was Abner Wilcox (1808–1869) and mother was Lucy Eliza Hart (1814–1869).
George Norton Wilcox was born in Hilo August 15, 1839. His father was Abner Wilcox (1808–1869) and mother was Lucy Eliza Hart (1814–1869).
He graduated from Punahou School 1850–1860, and worked for Samuel Garner Wilder loading a shipload of guano from Jarvis Island. He then attended Yale from 1860 to 1862 where he studied civil engineering in the Sheffield Scientific School.
He had one older brother and two younger ones born while at Hilo. In 1846 the family moved to teach at a similar school at the Waiʻoli Mission near Hanalei, Hawaii on the northern coast of the island of Kauaʻi. There he had four more brothers, although one died young.
Albert would later buy the Princeville Plantation near Hanalei.
George leased and then bought Grove Farm from Hermann A. Widemann (1822–1899) starting in 1864. Using his engineering training, he designed an irrigation system to bring water from the wet mountains to the sugarcane fields, an idea later copied by many other planters.
He continued to grow the farm, and invest in related enterprises, such as other plantations on other islands, a guano fertilizer company of his own, and the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company. In 1880 he was elected to the house of representatives of the legislature of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
When the upper house (known as the House of Nobles) became an elected body in 1887, he served in it from 1888 to 1892.
He was appointed as Minister of the Interior from November 8, 1892 to January 13, 1893. A few days later the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii ended the monarchy. The upper house of the legislature then became the senate of the Republic of Hawaii where he was elected through 1898.
After World War I, when the United States Army Corps of Engineers proposed building a harbor on the island, Wilcox bought the entire bond issue to finance Nawiliwili Harbor.
He died January 21, 1933. lieutenant was one of the largest estates in the territory at the time.
