Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Morning Star

Many proudly proclaimed, “I owned shares in a ‘Morning Star.’” Titus Coan proposed that the ABCFM ask children on the continent to take ten cent shares of joint ownership in such a missionary vessel, to be called ‘Day Star;’ his proposal of such to folks in Boston was approved, but with one change, the name to be ‘Morning Star.’ It was the first of five ‘Morning Stars.’ Those ‘Morning Stars’ were on missions to the South Pacific.

Dr Hiram Bingham II, who had sailed to Micronesia on the first ‘Morning Star’ in 1856, and whose father, Hiram Bingham, Sr, had then been present at the launching of the 5th Morning Star and prayed at the time of departure, was present and offered the prayer of dedication. However, it became cost prohibitive to maintain the ship and a decision was made in 1905 to sell her. Thus ended a half century of missionary ‘Morning Stars,’ 1856 to 1905.

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Steward’s House

The Foreign Mission School was instituted in the autumn of 1816, and opened in the beginning of May, 1817 in Cornwall Connecticut. Much of the Foreign Mission School’s campus buildings were acquired through donations. The citizenry of Cornwall donated fourteen acres of land as well as the building that would become the main educational site, which had been built in 1797 as a school house. One of the main campus buildings, and certainly the most social and vibrant, was the Steward’s house. This building was constructed in 1814 and served as the steward’s family home, the school dining hall, a boarding house and a nurse room for sick students.

This weekend, June 16-18, 2017, the community of Cornwall is hosting a bicentennial commemoration of the formation of the Foreign Mission School. In part, this marks the beginning of bicentennial activities for the Hawaiian Mission, whose Pioneer Company landed at Kailua-Kona on April 4, 1820. Several young Hawaiians were instrumental in seeing the American Protestant missionaries come to Hawai‘i. ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia was considered a leader of the school’s student body and had planned to return to the Islands as a missionary; unfortunately, he died prior to the mission to Hawai‘i. Among the members in the Pioneer Company were Hopu, Honoli‘i, Kanui and Humehume, all students of the Foreign Mission School.

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Formation of Foreign Mission School

The object of the Foreign Mission School was the education, in the US country, of heathen youth, so that they might be qualified to become useful missionaries, physicians, surgeons, schoolmasters or interpreters, and to communicate to the heathen nations such knowledge in agriculture and the arts, as might prove the means of promoting Christianity and civilization. (The term ‘heathen’ (without the knowledge of Jesus Christ and God) was a term in use at the time (200-years ago.)) This school commenced in May, 1817.

The school’s first student was Henry ʻŌpūkahaʻia (Obookiah,) a native Hawaiian from the Island of Hawaiʻi. In its first year, the Foreign Mission School had 12 students, more than half of whom were Hawaiian. “During its brief existence, Cornwall’s Foreign Mission School taught over 100 students. More importantly, however, it connected a small town in Connecticut to larger, international events, such as the flourishing Christian missionary movement. Additionally, it reveals the boundaries of tolerance in the early 1800s.” The school closed in 1826. Folks in Cornwall CT are commemorating the formation of the Foreign Mission School this weekend (June 16-18, 2017).

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

ABCFM Companies

“The system of operation of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions may be considered under two divisions, – its Home Department, and its Foreign Missions. … The Board has established missions, in the order of time in which they are now named at Bombay, and Ceylon; among the Cherokees, Choctaws, and the Cherokees of the Arkansaw (and later) Asia.” Then, they decided to send a Company of missionaries to the Hawaiian Islands.

Over the course of a little over 40-years (1820-1863 – the “Missionary Period”), about 184-men and women in twelve Companies served in Hawaiʻi to carry out the mission of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in the Hawaiian Islands. The ‘Companies’ were essentially groups of missionaries traveling together. Several individuals, not part of the 12-companies, also served in the Hawaiian Islands Mission. Most of them were young people, still in their twenties, full of life and enthusiasm. All were pious and accustomed to “lead meetings.”

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Partners in Change

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) had its origin in the desire of several young men in the Andover Theological Seminary to preach the gospel in the heathen world. (The term ‘heathen’ (without the knowledge of Jesus Christ and God) was a term in use at the time (200-years ago.)) The Missionaries to Hawai‘i were sent out in ‘Companies,’ the first leaving Boston on the ‘Thaddeus’ on October 23, 1819. The Missionaries included ordained ministers of the Gospel, physicians, teachers, secular agents, printers, a bookbinder and a farmer. Most of them were young people, still in their twenties.

First known as ‘Portraits of American Protestant Missionaries to Hawaii’ (1901), then, ‘Missionary Album Sesquicentennial Edition’ (1969), these earlier books were listings of the respective Companies of Missionaries that came to Hawai‘i, illustrations and images of each, and brief biographical information. As part of the preparation for the bicentennial of the arrival of the Pioneer Company, another update and re-visioning will be published (the present working title is ‘Partners in Change: A Biography of ABCFM Missionaries to Hawai‘i’). The biographies will include information about the individual missionary: some background history about the individual, their reasons for becoming a missionary, times of service, stations served, specific contributions, if they stayed or returned, if and when they became citizens of Hawai‘i, and what they did after they returned or stayed.