The Pioneer Company of missionaries arrived in the Islands “early found among the thousands of their degraded inhabitants, a poor blind man, almost destitute of clothing, habitation, and friends. He was born at Waikapu … probably about the year 1785.” “He is poor and despised in his person, small almost to deformity; and in his countenance, from the loss of sight, not prepossessing. Still, in our judgment he bears on him the image and superscription of Christ; and if so, how striking an example of the truth of the Apostle’s declaration …”

“Having a shagged head of black hair, unshielded by a hat from tropical suns and showers, and, at middle age, a beard growing at full length under the chin, the rest being plucked out, he roamed shoeless, without moral or mental culture, without hope, and without a Saviour.” “His name is on heavenly records, and it is familiar to the ear of Protestant Christendom, as the Blind Hawaiian Preacher, or Bartimeus L Pua‘aiki.” “Residing chiefly at Wailuku for some two years, he itinerated and preached at many villages around the island, generally about three Sabbaths in a month at out-stations from five to twenty miles distant. … on Sabbath evening, September 17, 1843, he surrendered his liberated spirit into his gracious hands.”