This stone and mortar building, completed in 1837, is the oldest surviving Christian church in the state of Hawaiʻi, started by the first Protestant missionaries to land in Hawaiʻi. With the permission of Liholiho (Kamehameha II), the missionaries built a grass house for worship in 1823 and, later, a large thatched meeting house. Missionary Asa […]
Education in Hawaiʻi
Before the foreigners arrived, Hawaiians had a vocational learning system, where everyone was taught a certain skill by the kahuna. Skills taught included canoe builder, medicine men, genealogists, navigators, farmers, house builders and priests. The arrival of the first company of American missionaries in Hawaiʻi in 1820 marked the beginning of Hawaiʻiʻi’s phenomenal rise […]
Surfing Gives Life and Interest to the Scenery
Did the Missionaries Really Stop Surfing in Hawaiʻi? Open any book or read any article about surfing in Hawaiʻi and invariably there is a definitive statement that the missionaries “banned” and/or “abolished” surfing in Hawaiʻi. OK, I am not being overly sensitive, here (being a descendent of Hiram Bingham, the leader of the first missionary […]
Hawaiian Mission Houses – Frame House (Hale Lā‘au)
The wood-framed Mission House, built in 1821, was one of the first wood-framed buildings built in Hawai‘i. The frame house stands on the grounds of the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives, near Kawaiahaʻo Church on the makai side of King Street. It is the oldest wood frame structure still standing in the Hawaiian […]
A Million Pounds Of Sandalwood
Built at Salem, Massachusetts in 1816, the brig ‘Cleopatra’s Barge’ was America’s first oceangoing private yacht. At the time, the concept of a ship built for pleasure was unknown on the western side of the Atlantic, where ships were built only for trade or war. The yacht was built of solid oak as a schooner […]