Samuel Gardner Wilder (June 20, 1831 – July 28, 1888) was an American shipping magnate and politician who developed a major transportation company in the Kingdom of Hawaii.

[1] She was namesake of the native Hawaiian civil leader Elizabeth Kīnaʻu, who was daughter of Kamehameha I. Wilder chartered the clipper ship White Swallow and returned in 1858.

He took a load of guano (bird excrement used as fertilizer) from Jarvis Island to New York City,[2] which served as the couple's honeymoon voyage.

He also became agent for the government-owned steamship Kilauea, named for Kīlauea volcano, which ran passenger service between the islands.

Lunalilo died after reigning only one year, so the first job of the 1874 legislature was to elect a new king; Wilder was selected to count and announce the votes.

Although concerned with efficiency in administration and reducing government debt instead of ideology, one of his projects was to lay the cornerstone of a new royal residence, ʻIolani Palace.

[17]: 204 On August 14, 1880, the king replaced all his ministers with a controversial and short-lived cabinet headed by Celso Caesar Moreno with John Edward Bush in the interior post.

In Washington, D.C., he met with diplomat Henry A. P. Carter (who had married Wilder's wife's sister) and US Secretary of State Thomas F. Bayard.

[17]: 418 He traveled to London to raise money for a railroad venture from Hilo to the Hāmākua District of Hawaiʻi island.

[27] This connected the extended family to several of the "Big Five" corporations that dominated the economy of the Territory of Hawaii in the 20th century.

The company started the first scheduled commercial airplane service in 1929 as Inter-Island Airways, and became Hawaiian Airlines in 1941.