Images of Old Hawaiʻi

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Jews in Hawaiʻi (Shaloha)

“What dignity in its appearance! How lordly in its bearing!”

“When full grown it rises about twenty feet from the ground without branches. Then for about ten feet more it throws forth beautiful and finely curved branches in all directions, and on the very top stands forth a straight stalk pointing upward.”

“That tree (royal palm) preaches a sermon to all mankind; those branches, spreading on all sides, manifest the people on this earth, settled in every clime …”

“… the stalk, projecting from the midst of these branches, and shooting upwards, is Israel, the connecting link between earth and heaven. Israel’s mission is to link the people of this earth to their Father in Heaven.”

“It is a powerful sermon that this royal palm teaches. May the moral not be lost on us.” (Rabbi Rudolph Coffee, in the Islands in 1902)

Shaloha is a conjunction of Shalom and Aloha – (the former is Hebrew, the latter Hawaiian) they each can mean peace, completeness, prosperity and welfare and can be used idiomatically to mean both hello and goodbye.

The conjunctive word is used by many of the Jewish faith in Hawaiʻi, and the word serves as the basis for the website of Temple Emanu-El (a synagogue community and a center of Jewish life in Hawaiʻi.)

Recorded history notes that the 1798 diary entries of Enbenezer Townsend are indicated as the first references to Jews in Hawaiʻi. Townsend, the principal owner of the ‘Neptune’ was at the time one of the most extensive ship owners in New Haven. They were on a sealing voyage under the command of Daniel Greene and were in Hawaiʻi from August 12, 1798, to August 31, 1798.

“At about sunrise, the king, whose name is Amaiamai-ah (Kamehameha) came on board in quite handsome style in a double canoe, paddled by about five and twenty men. … While we lay there I proposed learning him the compass, which I had some reason to regret, for he kept me at it continually until he learned it.”

“One of his wives (Kaʻahumanu) came on board with him; she was a large woman, with a great deal of the cloth of the country around her … He also brought a Jew cook with him, and if he remains here I think it will be difficult to trace his descendants, for he is nearly as dark as they are.” (Diary of Ebenezer Townsend, Jr, August 19, 1798)

It is believed that Jewish traders from England and Germany first came to Hawaiʻi in the 1840s. Jews from throughout the world were attracted to California and in most cases they tried it there before they came to the Islands. (Glanz)

The first Jewish mercantile establishment was a San Francisco firm, which opened a branch in Honolulu. As with many other Jewish families of merchants in California, it was a large family which could well afford to staff the branch of the firm in the islands with a partner, while other family members remained in San Francisco. Subsequently other Jewish firms in California did the same thing.

AS Grinbaum is to be regarded as the first founder of a firm of this kind; he arrived in Honolulu in 1856, where he remained for about seven years. At the end of this time, after having acquired a small fortune through carrying on a general merchandise business, he returned to the United States, and later to Europe.

Grinbaum’s success led him to induce one of his nephews to settle in the Islands. Encouraged by the financial success of Grinbaum, another German Jew, Hirsch Rayman, went to engage there in business in the early 1860s. He was also successful and after a sojourn of five years, he returned to Posen. (Coffee)

The firm of M. Phillips and Company was founded in 1867 by Michael Phillips of San Francisco, who owned an importing and jobbing firm there. The Honolulu branch of the firm was headed by Phillips’ brother-in-law, Mark Green. The Phillips Company was mainly active in the export of sugar, rice and coffee. (Glanz)

Another firm founded in the 1860s was that of the Hyman Brothers. There were five brothers, one of whom was Henry W Hyman, who engaged in a mercantile business with his brothers as “Hyman Bros., Importers of General Merchandise and Commission Merchants,” filling orders to the sale of Consignments of Rice, Sugar, Coffee and other Island Produce.”

The Grinbaum, Hyman and Phillips firms were the outstanding Jewish-owned companies prior to the annexation of the islands by the US in 1898. (Glanz)

The Odd Fellows had been established in the Sandwich Islands in 1846, and Jewish names can be seen in their membership rosters. The report of a picnic held on April 25, 1885 in Waikiki, by the Excelsior Lodge, noted among others, the presence of the “following brethren with their lady guests:” L. Adler, I. S. Ginsbergh and M. Louisson.

There was at least one Jew who played a prominent role in the political history of the islands; Paul Rudolph Neumann, lawyer and diplomat, was one of the Jewish leaders in Hawaiʻi. He served as Attorney General under King Kalākaua (1883–1886) and Queen Liliʻuokalani (1892,) became a member of the House of Nobles, and later became Liliʻuokalani’s personal attorney.

About 1901, the Hebrew Benevolent Association was formed, the purpose of which was to acquire a cemetery. It numbers forty members, and represents the male population of Honolulu, with the exception of about ten men, who have refused to affiliate.

Immediately subsequent to annexation, the islands began to do a very large mercantile business, and the Jewish community was enlarged. But, by 1902, business was at a standstill and lots of folks returned to the mainland – with just about 100-staying; they are engaged chiefly in mercantile pursuits. (Coffee)

“This community of one hundred, which is found in a city whose population numbers forty-five thousand people, represents more wealth, as far as I am able to judge, than any other Jewish community with ten times the number of people in this country.” (Coffee)

In the years before World War I, the growing importance of the islands as a military base brought Jewish members of the American armed force in numbers which created an entirely new picture for the Jewish community there. (Glanz)

To care for Jews in the military stationed in the Islands, the National Jewish Welfare Board (JWB) established the Aloha Center in 1923. The community began to flourish and the Honolulu Jewish Community was established in 1938.

Today, there are at least 9 congregations serving the Jews of the Hawaiian Islands. According to The American Jewish Year Book (2012,) there are approximately 7,000 Jews residing in the state of Hawaii. (NJOP)

Lasting legacies of early Jewish presence in the Islands are gifts from Elias Abraham Rosenberg (Rabbi ‘Rosey,’ Holy Moses) to King Kalākaua: a Sefer Torah (Pentateuch) and Pointer; they were brought to Hawaiʻi in 1886 by Rosenberg, who came here from San Francisco.

“The king received the Torah scroll and yad … over the years that followed, the scroll and yad gradually made their way to Temple Emanu-El, where they remain to this day, safely ensconced in a glass cabinet.” (Canadian Jewish Chronicle, August 4, 2011) Rosenberg left the Islands June 7, 1887 and returned to San Francisco; he died a month later.

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by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Hoʻomana Naʻauao

Hoʻomana Naʻauao o Hawaiʻi was the first independent Hawaiian Christian organization in the Islands. It was founded by John Kekipi Maia; he named his denomination “Hoʻomana Naʻauao,” which members translate as meaning “reasonable service.”

It started with the help of John Hawelu Poloailehua.

Poloailehua was born in Kukuihaele, Hamakua, Hawaiʻi in about 1838; at the age of 14 he moved to Honolulu. In February of the next year, when he was incapacitated by a violent fever, he asked for and received a Bible; it was placed on his chest.

He prayed while keeping his eyes closed and holding the Bible, as soon as he opened the Bible, read a verse and pledged his faith, he recovered from his illness.

April 16, 1853 (the date which Kekipi considers was the beginning of the church) is when Poloailehua, still a 15-year-old boy, started his mission work after he recovered from his illness.

He stayed in Honolulu to carry out mission work in his neighborhood where smallpox was prevalent at that time; his family was also afflicted with the illness – all died except for Poloailehua. (Inoue)

On April 16, 1881, Poloailehua met John Kekipi Maia of North Kohala and told him “Whatever secret you have within you, you must bring it out.” (Ritz)

Kekipi moved to Oʻahu and joined the Kaumakapili Church; he seemed to develop his work inside the congregation as he had in Kohala, Hawai’i.

However, in 1890, he left Kaumakapili Church, taking his followers with him. He built a meeting house on the seaside of Kālia and started his mission work as an independent group. (Inoue)

On July 31, 1897, a new church building (on Cooke Street in Kaka’ako) was sanctified and named Ke Alaula O Ka Mālamalama. With this church as a mother church, more than ten sister churches were founded on Hawaiʻi, Maui, Lānaʻi and Molokaʻi.

It was officially recognized as a religious organization on February 16, 1911 whose purposes “are purely those of religion, charity, education and general relief” and that “its main church and mission is at Koula, near King and South Streets in said Honolulu, with branch missions and churches at various places throughout the Territory of Hawaii.”

Hoʻomana Naʻauao was established on the concept of “reasonable service,” based on the passage in Romans: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” (Ritz)

Church members believed that Hawaiians were descended from Hebrews and Egyptians and that ancient Hawaiian religion evolved from the same source as Christianity. Teaching that the causes of illness and misfortune could be discerned after praying and fasting, the church gained many adherents among prominent individuals in the Hawaiian community.

The church emphasized repentance as a premise to salvation. In the practices of Hoʻomana Naʻauao, the importance of visions was one of the main characteristics.

Another significant characteristic of the practices of Hoʻomana Naʻauao was the opening of the Bible to a random page to see the divine will in sacred phrases on the page. (Inoue)

Some may call this “the Hawaiian Christian science,” and others say the teachings most resemble that of the Congregationalist Church. But at its simplest form, Hoʻomana Naʻahuao is a mixture of Protestant Christianity and Hawaiian. Members espouse a belief in the trinity and follow the Bible, as well as Hawaiian values. (Ritz)

It was the largest independent Hawaiian Church; several offshoot churches broke away in the 1930s and the 1940s.

Other Hoʻomana Naʻauao o Hawaii churches include Ke Kilohana oka Mālamalama in Hilo, Ka Hoku oka Malamalama, Paipaikou, Ka Nani oka Malamalama, Kohala, Ka Elele oka Malamalama, Kapoho, and Ka Mauloa oka Malamalama in Kurtistown, and Ka Lanakila oka Malamalama and Ka Lokahi oka Malamalama on the island of Lanaʻi (there were others.)

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The Alii, the Missionaries and Hawaii

Click HERE for more on the Ali‘i and the missionaries.

On October 23, 1819, the Pioneer Company of American Protestant missionaries from the northeast US, led by Hiram Bingham, set sail on the Thaddeus for the Sandwich Islands (now known as Hawai‘i.)

The Mission Prudential Committee in giving instructions to the pioneers of 1819 said: “Your mission is a mission of mercy, and your work is to be wholly a labor of love. …”

“Your views are not to be limited to a low, narrow scale, but you are to open your hearts wide, and set your marks high. You are to aim at nothing short of covering these islands with fruitful fields, and pleasant dwellings and schools and churches, and of Christian civilization.” (The Friend)

The Laws and Regulations of the ABCFM stated, “No missionary or assistant missionary shall engage in any business or transaction whatever for the sake of private gain …”

“… nor shall anyone engage in transactions or employments yielding pecuniary profit, without first obtaining the consent of his brethren in the mission; and the profits, in all cases, shall be placed at the disposal of the mission.”

After 164-days at sea, on April 4, 1820, the Thaddeus arrived and anchored at Kailua-Kona on the Island of Hawaiʻi. Over the years, the missionaries set up missions across the islands.

Over the course of a little over 40-years (1820-1863 – the “Missionary Period”,) about 180-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.

Collaboration between native Hawaiians and the American Protestant missionaries resulted in, among other things, the introduction of Christianity; the creation of the Hawaiian written language and widespread literacy; the promulgation of the concept of constitutional government; making Western medicine available; and the evolution of a new and distinctive musical tradition (with harmony and choral singing.)

Introduction of Christianity

Within five years of the initial arrival of the missionaries, a dozen chiefs had sought Christian baptism and church membership, including the king’s regent Kaʻahumanu. The Hawaiian people followed their native leaders, accepting the missionaries as their new priestly class. (Schulz)

Keōpūolani is said to have been the first convert of the missionaries in the Islands, receiving baptism from Rev. William Ellis in Lāhainā on September 16, 1823. Keōpūolani was spoken of “with admiration on account of her amiable temper and mild behavior”. (William Richards) She was ill and died shortly after her baptism.

On December 24, 1825, Kaʻahumanu, six other Chiefs and one makaʻāinana (commoner) were baptized and received Holy Communion at Kawaiahaʻo Church. This was the beginning of expanded admission into the Church.

Kamakau noted of her baptism, “Kaʻahumanu was the first fruit of the Kawaiahaʻo church … for she was the first to accept the word of God, and she was the one who led her chiefly relations as the first disciples of God’s church.”

Creation of the Hawaiian Written Language

When Captain Cook first made contact with the Hawaiian Islands in 1778, Hawaiian was a spoken language but not a written language. Historical accounts were passed down orally, through oli (chants) and mele (songs.)

Then, on July 14, 1826, the missionaries established a 12-letter alphabet for the written Hawaiian language, using five vowels (a, e, i, o, and u) and seven consonants (h, k, l, m, n, p and w) in their “Report of the committee of health on the state of the Hawaiian language.” The alphabet continues in use today.

Widespread Literacy

The missionaries established schools associated with their missions across the Islands. This marked the beginning of Hawaiʻi’s phenomenal rise to literacy. The chiefs became proponents for education and edicts were enacted by the King and the council of Chiefs to stimulate the people to reading and writing.

Interestingly, as the early missionaries learned the Hawaiian language, they then taught their lessons in the mission schools in Hawaiian, rather than English. In part, the mission did not want to create a separate caste and portion of the community as English-speaking Hawaiians.

By 1831, in just eleven years from the first arrival of the missionaries, Hawaiians had built over 1,100-schoolhouses. This covered every district throughout the eight major islands and serviced an estimated 53,000-students. (Laimana)

In 1839, King Kamehameha III called for the formation of the Chiefs’ Children’s School (Royal School.) The main goal of this school was to groom the next generation of the highest ranking Chiefs’ children and secure their positions for Hawaiʻi’s Kingdom. The King asked missionaries Amos Starr Cooke and Juliette Montague Cooke to teach the 16-royal children and run the school.

In this school, the Hawai‘i sovereigns who reigned over the Hawaiian people from 1855 were educated, including: Alexander Liholiho (King Kamehameha IV;) Emma Naʻea Rooke (Queen Emma;) Lot Kapuāiwa (King Kamehameha V;) William Lunalilo (King Lunalilo;) Bernice Pauahi (Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, founder of Kamehameha Schools;) David Kalākaua (King Kalākaua) and Lydia Liliʻu Kamakaʻeha (Queen Liliʻuokalani.)

The King also saw the importance of education for all; “Statute for the Regulation of Schools” was passed by the King and chiefs on October 15, 1840.

Its preamble stated, “The basis on which the Kingdom rests is wisdom and knowledge. Peace and prosperity cannot prevail in the land, unless the people are taught in letters and in that which constitutes prosperity. If the children are not taught, ignorance must be perpetual, and children of the chiefs cannot prosper, nor any other children”.

Constitutional Government

Kamehameha III asked Richards (who had previously been asked to serve as Queen Keōpūolani’s religious teacher) to become an advisor to the King as instructor in law, political economy and the administration of affairs generally.

Richards gave classes to King Kamehameha III and his Chiefs on the Western ideas of rule of law and economics. His decision to assist the King ultimately resulted in his resignation from the mission, when the ABCFM board refused to allow him to belong to the mission while assisting the King.

“The Hawaiian people believed in William Richards (Rikeke), the foreigner who taught the king to change the government of the Hawaiian people to a constitutional monarchy and end that of a supreme ruler, and his views were adopted.” (Kamakau)

Of his own free will, King Kamehameha III granted the Constitution of 1840, as a benefit to his country and people, that established his Government upon a declared plan. (Rex v. Booth – Hanifin)

That constitution introduced the innovation of representatives chosen by the people (rather than, as previously, solely selected by the Aliʻi.) This gave the common people a share in the government’s actual political power for the first time.

Western Medicine

Later (when Richards was sent on a diplomatic mission to the US and Europe to recognize the rights of a sovereign Hawaiʻi,) King Kamehameha III asked missionary Judd to resign from the mission and serve as his advisor and translator.

Judd, a doctor by training, had originally come to the islands to serve as the missionary physician. While in that role, Judd set up part of the basement in the 1821 Mission House as a Western medicine pharmacy and doctor’s office, beginning in 1832.

Dr Judd did not dismiss Native Hawaiian medical practices. He thought Native Hawaiian practice should be improved. Over the years, Dr Judd modified his practice to include Native Hawaiian ingredients in his treatments.

Judd wrote the first medical book in the Hawaiian language and later formed the first medical school in the Islands. Ten students were accepted when it opened in 1870, all native Hawaiians (the school had a Hawaiians-only admissions policy.)

Distinctive Musical Tradition

Another lasting legacy left by the missionaries in the Islands related to music. Some songs were translations of Western songs into Hawaiian; some were original verse and melody.

Oli and mele were already a part of the Hawaiian tradition; it was delivered in an almost monotone way, without instrumentation, or with percussion (drums) or flutes.

“As the Hawaiian songs were unwritten, and adapted to chanting rather than metrical music, a line was measured by the breath; their hopuna, answering to our line, was as many words as could be easily cantilated at one breath.” (Bingham)

The missionaries introduced Western choral tradition, harmony, hymns, gospel music, and Western composition. In the early period, instrumentation included the “Church Bass,” a cello-like instrument and a flute. Later on, church organs, pianos, melodeons, and other instruments were introduced to Hawai`i.

One of the unique verses (sung to an old melody) was Hoʻonani Hole – Hoʻonani I Ka Makua Mau. Bingham wrote/translated it to Hawaiian and people sang it to a melody that dates back to the 1600s – today, it is known as the Hawaiian Doxology.

Another popular Hawaiian song was written by another missionary, Lorenzo Lyons. Lyons composed many poems and hymns; Lyons’ best known and beloved work is the hymn “Hawaiʻi Aloha,” sung to the tune of “I Left It All With Jesus.” The song was inducted into the Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame in 1998.

“Widely regarded as Hawaiʻi’s second anthem, this hymn is sung in both churches and public gatherings. It is performed at important government and social functions to bring people together in unity, and at the closing of Hawaiʻi Legislative sessions.” (Hawaiian Music Museum)

Today, the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives (Hawaiian Mission Houses) promotes an understanding of the social history of 19th-century Hawai‘i and the relationship between the Aliʻi and the missionaries, and their critical, collaborative role in the formation of modern Hawai‘i.

Over the years, the growing partnership and collaboration between native Hawaiians and the American Protestant missionaries resulted in the introduction of Christianity, a written Hawaiian language, literacy, constitutional government, Western medicine and an evolving music tradition.

Click HERE for more on the Ali‘i and the missionaries.

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by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Ossipoff Meets Mid-19th Century

The Walter Irving Henderson House in Kona was featured in a 1958 edition of Sunset Magazine – they said, “The house is small but takes care of a large number of guests without crowding.”

It is a combination of classics – the first floor structure was built, circa 1864, as a small church or meeting house; in 1953, the deteriorated church was renovated and the second floor was added, for use as a beach house.

The first-floor stone walls were part of the original Kahului Church building, and were constructed in a style that was typical of the Kona District in the mid-19th century.

Lava rock was a plentiful raw building material in Kona, while other construction materials such as wood were not as readily available. Once missionaries arrived, and began to build permanent houses of worship, they found that building with stone was the most economical and expeditious means of constructing what they needed.

These buildings were constructed with local lava rock held together with lime mortar produced with coral, typically burned on site. In some cases, the stones used came from local heiau. (It is not known if that was the case here, though there are records of heiau nearby.)

It is also not known who built the Kahului Church. One of the most well-known builders of Kona’s nineteenth century stone churches was the Reverend John D Paris, an American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Protestant missionary who was first in charge of the mission’s Kaʻū area, and then the North Kona area.

Many church buildings constructed in the Kona area are attributed to Paris; however this is thought to be a former Catholic church.

The first floor stone walls were constructed circa 1864 when the land was granted to Kapae in Royal Land Grant #2961, and the Kahului Church building is believed to have been constructed.

It is likely that the readily available lava rock building material allowed the missionaries to build in a similar style to Paris. For example, this type of construction was also used in the larger St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Kailua town.

An 1892 map shows Kahului Church, along with a nearby structure labeled “Makuakane” (which translates approximately to “father” in English, giving a strong indication that this was likely a Catholic priest’s house.)

The structure was modified from the original one-story church form to its existing two-story appearance in 1953; the entire second floor and interior of the first floor were designed by celebrated local architect Vladimir Ossipoff.

Ossipoff’s design for the Henderson House was innovative, and created an extremely unique house that, though it does not look like most of his other work, nonetheless embodies the majority of his aesthetic and philosophy of design.

Ossipoff was a prominent architect in the Islands, working between the 1930s and 1990s. He was recognized locally, nationally and internationally for his designs. He is best known for his contribution to the development of the Hawaiian Modern movement.

This style is characterized by the work of architects who “subscribed to the general modernity of the International Style while attempting to integrate the cultural and topographical character of the (Hawaiian) region.” (Sakamoto)

The main portion of the first floor of the house is one large open room, and has a scored, finished concrete floor, painted plastered walls, and an open beamed ceiling that exposes the floorboards of the second floor.

The thick stone walls create deep niches at the door and window openings; the center-opening doors and shutters installed do not extend beyond the width of the walls.

The property perimeter has a dry stack rock wall, dating possibly to the early- to mid-1800s. This was when a government commission began requiring formal property boundaries be erected by the year 1862.

Walls of this type, comprised of stones fitted together without mortar to hold them in place, had commonly been constructed in pre-contact times for a variety of uses.

As early as Kamehameha I in the 1820s, dry-stack walls were used in the Kona area as barriers to prevent wandering cattle. As ranching grew in the later part of the nineteenth century, more walls were needed to contain the growing number of cattle.

In Kona building and repairing dry-stack stone walls was common until the 1930s, but diminished throughout the Territory of Hawaii with the greater availability of alternate materials for walls and fences at that time. (Most of the information here is from Jones, NPS.)

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Charles Hinckley Wetmore

Charles Hinckley Wetmore was born at Lebanon, Connecticut, on February 8, 1820. He was the son of Augustus Wetmore (1784-1887) and Emily T Hinckley Wetmore (1789-1825.)

By teaching school in the winter and studying in the summer, he attained his medical degree, graduating from the Berkshire Medical Institute in Massachusetts in 1846. After graduation he practiced in Lowell, Mass., continuing to teach in school to supplement his earnings.

Wetmore married Lucy Sheldon Taylor on September 25, 1848; three weeks after their wedding, they were off to Hawaiʻi under the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission (ABCFM) as a missionary doctor.

They were not attached to any Missionary Company; the Wetmores sailed from Boston on October 16, 1848 on the Leland and landed in Honolulu on March 11, 1849 (a voyage of 146 days).

The Wetmores were assigned to Hilo on the Island of Hawaiʻi and were at their post by May 18. “This morning Hawaiʻi was in sight. It could be distinctly seen by the bright light of the moon but it remained for the sun to reveal in all its grandeur lofty Mauna Kea.”

“We gazed at it with feelings of deep interest. We know not but this very island is to become our future home. Our prayer is that we may be stationed where we shall do the most good.” (Lucy Wetmore’; The Friend, February 1920)

As missionary doctor, his first duty was to the care of the missionary families, then the natives and after that to the foreigners.

His patients were scattered over the entire island and he travelled by canoe or foot, and on many occasions, his wife accompanied him.

When smallpox broke out in the Islands in 1853, Wetmore was appointed by the King to serve as a Royal Commissioner of Public Health. As the outbreak spread to the neighbor Islands, Wetmore was down with varioloid (a mild form of smallpox affecting people who have already had the disease or have been vaccinated against it.)

The Commissioners decided to build a hospital to deal with the anticipated illness; Wetmore, the doctor from the region, was the first to occupy it. Wetmore recovered and was able to later assist in the efforts. (Greer)

In 1855 he severed relations with the ABCFM and continued in practice upon his own account. He was appointed to be in charge of the American Hospital, where sailors from American ships and ether Americans in need were cared for.

After the hospital was given up, the building was turned over to ‘The First Foreign Church of Hilo.’ A founding member of the church, Wetmore was closely identified with it and gave it great financial assistance and much personal work. (Evening Bulletin, May 18, 1898)

Later (December 2, 1886,) Wetmore purchased and presented to the Library Association the frame building formerly occupied by the First Foreign Church. In making the gift of the building with his ‘Aloha,’ Wetmore “‘hoped it would prove very useful to our Hilo community for many many years to come.’” They moved the building to the library site on Waiānuenue street. (Hilo Tribune, October 25, 1904)

The Protestant Wetmore also had ties with the nearby St Joseph Catholic Church. Wetmore and Father Charles Pouzot developed a lasting friendship. Father Charles was tutoring the Wetmore children and Wetmore gave medical basics of caring for diarrhea, dermatitis, respiratory illness and the like.

At one time, Father Charles shocked Father Damien (now St Damien) by revealing he also learned to treat the wounds and ulcers of leprosy. Damien was much surprised since he didn’t know the infection was present in Hawaiʻi. Father Charles promised to show him a case at the next opportunity. (Hilo Roman Catholic Community)

Dr. Wetmore’s family consisted of one son and three daughters. On February 16, 1850, Wetmore administered ether to his wife, Lucy, as she was giving birth to their first child. Dr Wetmore’s subsequent account of this delivery appears to be the earliest known reference to the use of general anesthesia in the Islands. (Schmitt)

Eldest son, Charlie, was an active boy who assisted in his father’s dispensing pharmacy, the first in Hilo. (Hilo Drug Store was reportedly founded by Wetmore; it was situated on ‘Front Street’ (Kamehameha Avenue.) (Valentine)

Charlie planned to follow his father into the profession of medicine. Their first daughter, Frances (Fannie), also worked and enjoyed learning science in the pharmacy.

When Charlie died suddenly at age 14, 12-year-old Fannie (the eldest daughter) stepped up to announce that she would become the next doctor of the family, taking her brother’s place.

She was sent away to school in Pennsylvania, returning to Hilo after graduation to help her father. She eventually returned to the mainland to get her MD, and was the first woman doctor in Hawaiʻi. Frances then practiced medicine in partnership with her father. (Burke)

In the early days of sugar, Wetmore was engaged with the Hitchcocks in the establishment and management of Papaikou plantation. Wetmore was also interested in Kohala and other sugar plantations. (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, May 19, 1898)

After the death of his wife in 1883, Wetmore, serving as a delegate from the Hawaiian Board, and his daughter, Lucy, spent the entire year of 1885 in the Marshall and Caroline Islands.

Dr. Wetmore died on May 13, 1898. “He was trusted by all. Whatever he said he meant, and his word in business was as good as his bond. He was to the front in every good work, and his gospel was one of action rather than of words.”

“His generosity was proverbial and his services as a physician were constantly given to those who were too poor to pay.” (Evening Bulletin, May 18, 1898)

Several years later, the Lydgate family from Kauaʻi donated a stained glass window at the First Foreign Church in Hilo. The image represents the good Samaritan as he bends solicitously over the almost lifeless body of the man who was the victim of thieves.

“The expression on the good Samaritan’s face is a beautiful one, and the picture is typical of the life of the friend in whose memory it was given.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, September 6, 1907)

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