Prominent People | Page 122 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

October 5, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

‘Pine City’

After methodically buying up individual parcels, by 1907, Charles Gay, youngest son of Captain Thomas Gay and Jane Sinclair Gay, acquired the island of Lānaʻi (except for about 100-acres.) He was the first to establish the single-ownership model for Lānaʻi (with roughly 89,000 acres.)

Around 1919, Gay experimented with planting pineapple on a small scale. In November 1922 James Dole’s Hawaiian Pineapple Company, Ltd (HAPCo) acquired nearly the entire island and began the subsequent establishment of its pineapple plantation.

HAPCo was incorporated in 1901 by Dole and began its pineapple operations at Wahiawa on the Island of Oahu. Over the next two decades, the company grew in scale and prospered. Production increased from 1,893 cases of canned pineapple in 1903 to over 1,700,000 cases in 1920.

The acquisition of Lānaʻi “means that (the) pineapple business which has grown so rapidly into large proportions may safely grow much further. The future of canned Hawaiian pineapple looms large.” (HAPCo, 25th Anniversary)

Plans for building Lānaʻi City were drawn up in early 1923, as Dole and his partners set out to make Lānaʻi the world’s largest pineapple plantation.

Dole contracted Hawaiian Dredging Co of Honolulu to ‘establish a small town … with suitable water supply, electric lights, sewerage, etc,’ build a harbor with a breakwater and wharf at Kaumālapaʻu, and a road from there to the site of the new city. (HABS)

Dole had originally proposed that his main town on Lānaʻi be named Pine City. He preferred this name for the town as a shortened version of Pineapple City.

When the US Postal service began to set up postal operations there, it informed HAPCo that it would not allow the use of the name Pine City (apparently that name was already over-used on the US mainland). The main town was instead named Lānaʻi City. (HAPCo, 25th Anniversary)

With Hawaiian Dredging Co. contracted to build much of the infrastructure, it fell to HAPCo engineers to formulate the design of the new city’s layout and its buildings. For this task they turned to HAPCo plantation engineer David E Root and his assistant James T Munro.

Root was plantation engineer for HAPCo on Lānaʻi from 1923 to 1926. HAPCo hired Munro in 1923 to assist Root by taking charge of the ‘development and operation of the water system and other responsibilities.’ In 1926 Munro took over as plantation engineer, a position he held until 1939 when he was transferred to the Honolulu office.

Building construction in Lānaʻi City began in 1923 using Japanese work crews under the direction of Kikuichi Honda, who was a contractor on Maui before coming to Lānaʻi City to work for HAPCo.

Honda and his crew worked on buildings (mostly residences) into 1924. Honda left Lānaʻi in mid-1924 for reasons unknown and did not return to do any more construction work.

In his stead, he appointed a member of his 1923-24 construction crew, Masaru Takaki as the crew leader for building on Lānaʻi. Takaki directed building from 1924-1929. (HABS)

“Lānaʻi is about 60 miles from the cannery. So we needed a harbor. By cutting away the cliffs on one side, running a heavy breakwater into the ocean on the other and then dredging, we got it.”

“Then a road for heavy trucking – seven miles back and 1600 feet up into the island. That was built. Water was brought across the mountain range on the windward side of the island to a reservoir near the town.”

“A city was needed where laboring families and overseers could live happily. Lānaʻi City stands (as) a model community of its kind – population already past 1,000 and complete even to stores, bank, schools, hospital, Buddhist temple, ‘movies’ and ‘Mayor!’”

“The island is completely organized and is in daily touch with the cannery by radio telephone.” (HAPCo, 25th Anniversary) (Lānaʻi City would ultimately house about 3,000 HAPCo employees and their families.)

Under Dole’s tenure, the Lānaʻi plantation and city grew, and at one time the island supported nearly 20,000 acres of cultivated pineapple, making it the world’s largest plantation.

Lānaʻi City blossomed upon the landscape; most of the buildings and streets which we still see today were constructed during this short period.

By March 1924, the general layout of Lānaʻi City was established and some 40 buildings—many of which remain in the present-day Lānaʻi City—were built or were under construction.

In the early years of the plantation, the largest group of immigrant laborers was made up of skilled Japanese carpenters and stone masons. Their initial work was undertaken on an almost barren landscape, overgrazed by years of sheep, goat, and cattle pasturing.

Lānaʻi City was the first planned community in the Territory of Hawaii and today is the last intact plantation town in Maui County.

It was laid out and built using the contemporary principles of the Garden City planning concept developed in the 1890s and adopted in the 1920s by the HSPA.

This was a rejection of the model of worker housing as an industrial slum. It embraced the idea that a well planned and laid out city in the midst of a greenbelt with open spaces and tree-lined streets was more conducive to worker productivity.

For seventy years, from 1922 to 1992 when the last harvest took place, the name “Lānaʻi” was synonymous with pineapple.

Early photographs of Lānaʻi City do not show it to be appreciably superior to other, contemporaneous plantation towns.

However, the wide streets and commodious-looking structures eventually enhanced by thousands of Norfolk pine trees make Lānaʻi City now one of the handsomest small towns in Hawaii. (HABS) (Lots of information here is from Lānaʻi Culture & Heritage Center, HABS and HAPCo 25th Anniversary.)

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October 4, 2017 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Gertrude Gardinier

“I found out very early that I could be as naughty as I liked with my nurses and I enjoyed that very much, because I was naturally naughty, I suppose.”

“I remember that I envied my friends very much and I envied the children of the servants, who did quite as they pleased, even more. Then I can remember a quite new sensation which came to me when I found out that they also envied me. That was a very delicious feeling.”

“It served to give quite a new taste to life and I was not lonely for a long while after that. It came about in this way. I had a friend, a very jolly, careless little girl, and one day when we had been playing together we went up into my bedroom and she threw herself down on my bed.”

“I remember how my nurse rushed at her across the room, ‘How dare you,’ she said, and she took hold of her roughly and pulled her to the floor. ‘Sit there!’ she said, ‘that is the place for you.’”

“‘The little girl went home and I thought about it a long time. I never had seen my nurse angry and it made a great impression on me. ‘Why is the floor the place for her?’ I asked, and my nurse said, ‘Because.’”

“‘That didn’t seem a very good answer and then I asked, for the first time I think, ‘Why shouldn’t people touch me or use my things or sit on my chair or on my bed?’”

“‘And my nurse said, ‘Because you are a Princess and the others are not.’ ‘Is it very nice to be a Princess?’ I asked, and my nurse said that it was the nicest thing in the world except to be a Queen, and after that, although I was glad I was a Princess, I always wanted to be a Queen.’”

“‘Always?’ ‘Yes always,’ answered Kaiʻulani. ‘Why shouldn’t I tell the truth about it? I was mad with joy when the news of the proclamation declaring me heiress to the kingdom reached me abroad.’”

“‘I said to myself like a little girl, ‘Now some day I shall be a Queen.’ And meantime, after the Queen, I would come first in the kingdom. I thought my heart would break when I heard that the monarchy was overthrown, and I had all a girl’s disappointment, and I think all a Queen’s. I had wanted to be a good Queen some day.” (Kaʻiulani, The Call, August 7, 1898)

First Miss Barnes, then Miss Gertrude Gardinier, and later Miss de Alcald served as governesses to Kaʻiulani.

Kaʻiulani’s governess, Miss Barnes, of whom the family was very fond, died unexpectedly in 1883. Replacements were tired, but the arrival of Gertrude Gardinier from New York changed that.

Kaʻiulani’s mother, Likelike, approved immediately and the ten-year-old Kaʻiulani and Miss Gardinier took to each other immediately.

In 1885, Gardinier wrote to her parents noting, “She is the fragile, spirituelle type, but very vivacious with beautiful large, expressive dark eyes. She proves affectionate; highly spirited, and at times quite willful, though usually reasonable and very impulsive and generous.” (Zambucka)

“Miss Grandinier’s lessons were always so lively. We would awaken early, and then take breakfast out on the lanai – veranda – to enjoy the bright morning sunshine.”

“I always like a cup of rich, hot coffee, by Miss Gardinier insisted that I also drink fresh milk each day. At times, I know she thought me frail, and she was sure the milk would make me more robust.”

“Then we would read and write, and she would teach me about history. Names and dates and places that I would try very hardtop imagine. The music lessons were my favorite. Our family was fond of music.” (Kaʻiulani; White)

“Miss Gardinier said it was important for me to concentrate on my studies, because one day I will be called upon to rule our people, and I must be a wise and learned Queen.”

“In the afternoons, after my rest, we would often attend social engagements. These are many skills I need to learn, so that I will be able to receive and greet people properly, and be a gracious hostess.”

“Miss Gardinier and I used to discuss God a great deal. Then we would read the Bible. I have so many questions, but the Reverend says that all of the answers in the world as in the Good Book.”

“Mama once told me that when the missionaries first came to Hawaii, our people called the Bible ‘God in a little Black Box.’ You see, it was the only book they had ever seen.” (Kaʻiulani; White)

Gardinier remained at ʻĀinahau as Kaʻiulani’s governess until the day of her wedding to Mr Albert Heydtmann in May 1887. (Zambucka)

On a later visit to, now, Mrs Heytmann, Kaiʻulani noted, “I wish everything was the way it used to be.” Gertrude Heytmann responded, “I know, but you are very strong, Kaʻiulani. You will not only survive these changes, but you will thrive.” (White)

“Miss Gardinier – oh how I miss her! – always told me my moods changed like the tropical winds. I confess that I was often very willful with her, and I am sorry now, but such fun we had!” (Kaʻiulani; White)

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September 21, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Pendulum Peak

Early pendulum experiments helped calculate the force of gravity. By taking different readings at different locations across the planet, it is possible to calculate the contours of the earth, as well as the density of the interior. (A later Foucault pendulum was used to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth.)

Lt Charles Wilkes, as part of the US Exploring Expedition, came to Hawai‘i in 1840 with a 68-inch long pendulum and a pendulum clock. After suspending the pendulum from a tripod, he set up the pendulum clock nearby.

Both the clock and pendulum were swung – since they had different lengths, they swung at different rates. Every so often, they would coincide. Observing the pendulums through a telescope, he would record the time of the coincidence.

Over time, enough data was accumulated to determine the duration of a single swing of the pendulum. With the time and the length of the pendulum, he was able to calculate the force of gravity. (Philbrick)

Just after new year’s in 1841, Wilkes conducted pendulum observations on the top of Mauna Loa, at a site they named Pendulum Peak.

In the days before Christmas, with temperatures in the teens, and “water in the bags, under my pillow, froze,) “it blew a perfect hurricane for several hours, causing an incessant slamming, banging, and flapping of the tents, as though hundreds of persons were beating them with clubs”.

At other times, “at sunset, we had a beautiful appearance of the shadow of the mountain, dome-shaped, projected on the eastern sky: the colour of a light amethyst at the edges, increasing in intensity to a dark purple in the centre; it was as distinct as possible, and the vast dome seemed to rest on the distant horizon.”

“The night was clear, with moonlight, the effect of which on the scene was beautiful: the clouds floating below us, with the horizon above them, reminded us of the ice bergs and ice-fields of the Antarctic: the temperature lent its aid to the deception.”

“The 3d proved fine, and the pendulum-clock and apparatus being arranged and adjusted, the clock was put in motion, and a comparison made with the three chronometers every two hours.”

They made other observations, as well, “During our stay on the summit, we took much pleasure and interest in watching the various movements of the clouds; this day in particular they attracted our attention; the whole island beneath us was covered with a dense white mass, in the centre of which was the cloud of the volcano rising like an immense dome.”

“All was motionless, until the hour arrived when the sea-breeze set in from the different sides of the island: a motion was then seen in the clouds at the opposite extremities, both of which seemed apparently moving towards the same centre, in undulations …”

“… until they became quite compact, and so contracted in space as to enable us to see a well-defined horizon; at the same time, there was a wind from the mountain, at right angles, that was affecting the mass, and driving it asunder in the opposite direction.”

“The play of these masses was at times in circular orbits, as they became influenced alternately by the different forces, until the whole was passing to and from the centre in every direction, assuming every variety of form, shape, and motion.”

“(T)he outward variation (in temperature) still continued from 17° to 50° during the twenty-four hours.”

“On the 8th, we had a change to cold, raw, and disagreeable weather; snow began to fall, and a kona or southwest gale set in; the temperature fell soon to 20°.”

“At 10 pm, I was unable to proceed with the pendulum observations; for such was the fury of the storm, that the journeyman-clock, with a loud beat, although within three feet of my ear, could not be heard. I was indeed apprehensive that the whole tent, house, and apparatus would be blown over and destroyed.”

“This storm continued until sunrise of the 9th, when it moderated. I have seldom experienced so strong a wind; it blew over and broke one of the barometers, although its legs had been guarded carefully by large stones; and the wind was so violent at times, that it was with difficulty we could keep our footing.”

“On the 10th of January, we had snow again. The temperature rose to 32°: the snow melted fast, causing excessive dampness within and without, while other discomforts that may be imagined prevailed.”

“On the 11th, having the eprouvette mortar (a small cannon) with me, I tried some experiments on the velocity of sound, comparing it with our measured bases and the sides of the triangles: these gave results as satisfactory … The great difference was in the sound itself: the report of the gun producing a kind of hissing noise.”

“The eprouvette was of iron, and was fired with a plug driven into it very tightly after it was loaded. When fired near the level of the sea, it was necessary to close the ears when standing within twenty feet of it. The sound could be heard six miles, and the report was equal to that of a large gun.”

“But on the summit we stood close to it without any precaution whatever, and the noise it there made was more like that of a squib (a small firework that burns with a hissing sound before exploding.) … This night we finished the pendulum, and all the dip and intensity observations”.

“When day broke, on the 13th January, all was bustle on the summit of Mauna Loa. Every one was engaged in taking down and packing up the instruments and equipage, loaded with which the native labourers scampered off.”

“Previous to our departure, I had the words ‘Pendulum Peak, January 1841,’ cut in the lava within our village. JG Clarke, one of the seamen belonging to the Vincennes, who made these marks came to me and desired, on the part of the men, that I would allow them to add to it US Ex Ex, in order that there might be no mistake as to who had been there; to this I readily gave my consent.”

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September 20, 2017 by Peter T Young 4 Comments

Lewers & Cooke

What started as a lumber company of Christopher H Lewers evolved into Lewers & Dickson, and eventually Lewers & Cooke. The primary parties in this process included Lewers, Robert Lewers (his cousin,) Joshua Gill Dickson and Charles Montague Cooke.

Christopher Hamilton Lewers, a cabinet maker hailing from Dublin, Ireland, landed in Honolulu in about 1850. In 1852, he started into the business in the Islands with the purchase at auction of a cargo of eastern white pine shipped from the States via Cape Horn.

The Honolulu carpenters at that time kept on hand small lots of white pine to make sash, doors, blinds, etc, which were made entirely by hand. Lewers’ purchase cornered the market on white pine, and he found it a profitable transaction and made it the basis for a regular lumber business.

At that time lumber, mostly Douglas fir, was sent to the Hawaiian Islands from the American West Coast by the Hudson Bay Co. This trade began about 1840, and in 1860 small vessels carrying approximately 300,000-feet of lumber came regularly to the islands to supply the trade. (American Lumberman)

In early 1854, the newspaper ‘The Polynesian’ first carried an advertisement for ‘S Johnson and Christopher H Lewers, House Carpenters and Joiners.’ Their projects would include the Fort Street Church, the Royal School, Queen’s Hospital and the Royal Hotel.

CH Lewers leased a ‘spacious old beer shop’ opposite the French Hotel from Mr Piʻikoi, announcing that he intended to import a steam saw mill and planing machine. (Walker-Moody)

Among other interests, Christopher H Lewers founded Waiheʻe sugar plantation on Maui. It the mid-1860s it was managed by Samuel Thomas Alexander. Henry Perrin Baldwin hoped to earn enough money to go to medical school, and took a ‘Luna’ (foreman) job.

Baldwin never got into medicine; in 1869, Baldwin and Alexander became business partners and bought 12 acres in Hāmākuapoko (an eastern Maui ahupuaʻa (land division.) (They later formed Alexander & Baldwin, one of Hawai‘i’s ‘Big Five’ companies.)

About 1855, CH Lewers sold out his lumber business and went to the eastern US for a visit, but returned to the islands the next year, accompanied by his two sisters and Robert Lewers, his cousin. CH Lewers bought the business back.

Robert Lewers was born in New York City, NY, on March 15, 1836; he was the son of William and Mary (Lowe) Lewers. Robert Lewers came to Honolulu on February 21, 1856 and started in Honolulu as a carpenter. (Siddall)

“He was (o)ne of the last survivors of those merchants who came to Honolulu in the days of her commercial infancy and aided in the upbuilding of the Islands, industrially and socially, Robert Lewers was a link for years between that glamorous early Hawaii with its monarchial pomp and court ceremony, and the thriving business community Hawaii became under American jurisdiction.” (Orr)

“There were not many occupations then open for a young man in Honolulu and Mr Lewers got employment as a carpenter. He helped to build many of the old frame houses in Honolulu, and one or two on Kauai.”

“It was his practical knowledge of building and of frame construction that made his services valuable, when, in 1860, he was offered a position by his cousin, Christopher H Lewers. The firm was later known as Lewers & Dickson.” (Orr)

“There was but little business done in those years; but shortly the sugar plantations were started on most of the islands, and these created a better market.”

“At that time our 1-inch boards of all widths were piled together, all mixed up, and those who have charge of lumber yards can easily realize how difficult and slow it was to get out an order.”

“The cartage of lumber in those days was done mostly with handcarts. Sometimes when we had a large quantity to deliver to a schooner we would hire a 2-wheeled dray, as there were no lumber wagons in town. We shoved the lumber up over the driver’s head, or he had to sit on top of it. Delivery was made more difficult by the very bad conditions of the roads.” (Lewers, American Lumberman)

Joshua Gill Dickson was born on August 2, 1830 in Charleston, Massachusetts, the son of Captain Joshua and Sarah Dickson. His father was “for many years well known as a very popular commander of several of the Boston and Liverpool packets, and later held the honorable office of warden of the port of Boston.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, July 27, 1888)

Charles Montague Cooke was born in Honolulu May 16, 1849, second of four sons of missionaries Amos Starr and Juliette Montague Cooke. The family home for more than a generation was at the Mission at Kawaiahaʻo. (The Friend)

His schooling as completed by a year or two at the Massachusetts Agricultural College; he returned to the Islands in 1871 and worked for Castle & Cooke, the company started by his father and Samuel Northrup Castle (another of Hawai‘i’s Big Five companies.)

Cooke later accepted an offer from Lewers & Dickson. In 1877, following the death of Christopher H Lewers, Robert Lewers and Cooke became partners of Dickson and continued the operation as Lewers and Dickson.

Dickson died July 11, 1880. Within a few months the surviving partners (Robert Lewers and Charles M Cooke) bought the interest of the Dickson Estate and launched the new firm of Lewers and Cooke, ‘the largest dealers in the Territory of Hawai‘i in Lumber and Building Materials.’

On January 1, 1901, Lewers & Cooke Ltd succeeded Lewers & Cooke. “A noteworthy fact in the establishment of the firm of Lewers & Cooke, Ltd., was the inclusion of a clause in the articles of incorporation empowering the directors to contribute a portion of the earnings for social, benevolent and religious purposes. It was the first time this had been done in Hawai‘i.” (Orr)

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King St-Left foreground is the Advertiser-down the street is the Lewers & Cooke Bldg-PP-38-9-023-1925

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Looking up Fort St (from about where Nimitz is) Includes Lewers & Cooke, Pacific House, Lucas clock tower, Wilder & Co.PP-38-5-016-1885

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September 17, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Pua‘aiki

“The truth here stated, that there is evermore a law of compensation and equipoise running through all things, has its comment and corroboration in the character and history of a remarkable man, through the earthly scene of whose labours I once passed, in order to reach the eastern extremity of the Island of Maui.” (Cheever)

“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 …”

“‘God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen: yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are; that no flesh should glory in his presence!’” (Cheever)

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.”

“His barbarous mother, following many of her unnatural and murderous countrywomen, attempted to bury him alive in his infancy; but he was rescued by a relative; and surviving the ravages of pestilence, war, and private violence, he reached the years of maturity.”

“Like many of his countrymen of that dark period, he received a diminutive, degrading name, and was called Pu-a-a-i-ki, (Poo-ah-ah-ee-kee, little hog,) no faint shadow of his gross mind, his neglected childhood, and unrestrained youth.”

“In some of the Hawaiian arts he was, before the loss of his sight, more skilled than many of his countrymen. He was taught the lua – an art professed by a small class, by which a proficient, it was believed, could, without weapons or bonds, seize and hold a lonely traveller unacquainted with this art, break his bones, and take the spoil.”

“He learned also the hula … In the rehearsal or cantilation of these songs he excelled, and he often employed his skill in singing, drumming, and dancing for the amusement of the king and chiefs, by which he procured the means of subsistence”. (Bingham)

“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.” (Bingham)

“In these circumstances, he attracted the notice of Kamāmalu, the favourite Queen of LIholiho, or Kamehameha II., who afterwards died in England.”

“His skill in the hula, or native dance, his being a hairy man, and other reasons not easily known at present, recommended him to the favour of the chiefs; not, indeed, as a companion, but as a buffoon. When sent for, he made sport for the Queen and other chiefs, and received in return a pittance of food and of his favourite awa.”

“On the arrival of the pioneers of the mission at Kailua, in the spring of 1820, Puaaiki was there with the chiefs, but he probably knew nothing of them or of their errand.”

“Having given permission to the missionaries to remain at the Islands for a season, the King and chiefs sailed for Oahu. Mr. Bingham accompanied them, and the blind dancer followed in their train.”

“On arriving at Honolulu, he had a severe fit of sickness. In addition to this, his disease of the eyes became much aggravated; so that, shut up in darkness, and unable to make his accustomed visits to the Queen, he was well nigh forgotten, and in danger of perishing.” (Cheever)

“He was visited by John Honolii, a native youth educated at Cornwall, Connecticut; who, seeing Puaaiki lying in this pitiable situation, was touched with.”

“Christian compassion, and spoke to him of the great and good Physician, who alone could heal his maladies and restore his sight. Puaaiki seemed to rouse up on hearing tidings of so unwonted a character, and he eagerly inquired, ‘What is that?’”

“On being again directed to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Physician of souls, he said at once that he would go and hear of him. As soon as he was able to crawl out of the house, he accompanied Honolii to the place of worship, and heard for the first time the glad tidings of great joy to all people, that the Son of Man had come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Cheever)

“As the claims and proffers of the gospel were made known to this man, he was led to see that not only his life of idolatry and the indulgence of heathen passions and appetites was a course of heinous sin, but that when the forms of idolatry and the love of it were laid aside, his heart was still vile, and that he needed the washing of regeneration and the blood of Christ for cleansing.”

“This poor man did not wait for the king and chiefs to mark out for him his new and wiser course; but he took it contrary to their choice. He took it, in his poverty and weakness, at the hazard of offending them, of losing his maintenance, and encountering the sneers of his associates.”

Before any of us regarded him as a true Christian, and, as I think, before he believed himself to be such, like many of his countrymen in later years, hopefully converted, and like the early converts at Jerusalem, as he beheld and admired the new and heavenly light, he began early to recommend to others a serious attention to the word and kingdom of God.” (Bingham)

“While he cherished a desire to be a doer of the word, the grandeur of the objects and the force of the truths presented to him in the gospel, helped him successfully to cultivate his mental powers. Unattracted by the objects of sight in public worship, he heard perhaps better than others; and having more leisure through the week, he reflected more.” (Bingham)

“That man was the first convert to Christianity at these Islands, and the first who received the Christian ordinance of baptism, formally introducing him to the fellowship of the universal Church, under the Christian name of Bartimeus, on the tenth day of July, 1825.”

“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.”

“Though derided, it does not appear that he was opposed in any way, or prevented from seeking instruction; and some of the chiefs themselves, for whom he had made sport, soon after became kindly disposed to the new religion, and all of them, at length, friendly to the Mission.” (Cheever)

“Regarding himself as a sinner, and relying alone on the merits of Christ for justification, Bartimeus was distinguished for uniform humility, notwithstanding the deference of the people, the esteem of his brethren, the confidence of the missionaries, and the respect of the chiefs, that were shown him.” (Bingham)

“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.”

“In the early part of 1842, our collective mission … say, “Bartimeus the blind preacher of Maui is regularly licensed as a preacher, and labors both abundantly and successfully in the wide and destitute regions of that island.”

“As a preacher generally solemn in his manner, Bartimeus made free use of the very language of Scripture with striking appositeness, quoting verbatim, and often book, chapter, and verse, with great accuracy and astonishing facility.”

“The verse-system, so useful to the Hawaiians, of committing to memory a verse a day of the sacred oracles, and reciting seven verses a week at the Sabbath-school, doubtless contributed materially to his familiarity with the Bible, and his readiness to aid in Sabbath-school labors, and more generally to instruct and guide those who were ready to hear him.”

“Grace, that had rescued, sanctified, and borne him thus far, sustained him as he was stepping down into the valley of the shadow of death. His conversation was in heaven.”

“Calmly and peacefully he leaned upon his Saviour, whom for twenty years he had endeavored to serve; and on Sabbath evening, September 17, 1843, he surrendered his liberated spirit into his gracious hands.” (Bingham)

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Bartimeus of the Sandwich Islands-Bingham