Benjamin Pitman (Hawaii)

Benjamin Pitman
Benjamin Pitman, c. 1864
Born	October 12, 1815 Salem, Massachusetts
Died	January 17, 1888(1888-01-17) (aged 72) Somerville, Massachusetts
Resting place	Mount Auburn Cemetery
Occupation	Businessman
Spouse(s)	Kinoʻole o Liliha Maria Kinney Martha Ball
Children	Mary Ailau Henry Hoʻolulu Benjamin Keolaokalani Franklin Maria Kinoʻole Charles Brooks Harold Albert
Parent(s)	Benjamin Cox Pitman Sally Richardson

Benjamin Pitman (October 12, 1815 – January 17, 1888) was an American businessman who married Hawaiian nobility.

Benjamin Pitman born October 12, 1815 in Salem, Massachusetts. His father was Benjamin Cox Pitman (1790–1845) and mother was Sally Richardson (1789–1858). He had two sisters: Sally (died 1822) and Mary Elizabeth (died 1825).

His father Benjamin Cox Pitman came to the Hawaiian islands on trading missions with Stephen Reynolds in 1826 and 1828. He brought his son in 1833 and settled in Hilo, Hawaii. About a year later, the younger Pitman married Chiefess Kinoʻole o Liliha, who controlled vast lands under King Kamehameha III. On September 11, 1845 his father died and was buried in the new Oahu Cemetery.

Around 1846 he opened a small thatched hut with only a mat over a floor of bare earth at the rim of Kilauea volcano called Volcano House. He charged $1 a day, but eventually gave up the remote site. He opened a store in Hilo (called a ship chandler) to supply whaling ships. As the whaling business grew, so did his fortunes. He started added "Esq." at the end of his name and acted as district magistrate, but there is no record of his being educated in law. In 1849 a visitor described him as the major businessman in town.

By 1852 he was growing coffee, arrowroot, sugarcane, and served as vice president of the Royal Hawaiian Agricultural Society. He employed Chinese laborors on his sugarcane plantation. Pitman served as customers collector and first postmaster on the island of Hawaii. In 1854, after the Hilo Boarding School and Church started by Sarah Joiner and David Belden Lyman burned down, he raised funds to rebuild it.

Their children were Mary Pitman Ailau (1838/41–1905), Henry Hoʻolulu Pitman (1845–1863), and Benjamin Keolaokalani Franklin Pitman (1852–1918). His first wife Kinoʻole died in 1855.