Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Foreign Mission School

On October 29, 1816, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) established the Foreign Mission School as a seminary.

Classes began in 1817 “for the purpose of educating youths of Heathen nations, with a view to their being useful in their respective countries.”

Its object was to educate the youth of promising talent and of hopeful demeanor to return, in due time, to their respective lands in the character of husbandmen, school-masters, or preachers of the gospel.

The first four destinations chosen were (1) the Bombay region of India (1813,) (2) Ceylon (1816,) (3) the Cherokee Indian Nation in the State of Tennessee (1817) and (4) Hawai‘i (1820). (Brumaghim)

The Foreign Mission School connects the town of Cornwall, Connecticut to a larger, national religious fervor of the Second Great Awakening.

The Second Great Awakening spread from its origins in Connecticut to Williamstown, Massachusetts; enlightenment ideals from France were gradually being countered by an increase in religious fervor, first in the town, and then in Williams College.

In the summer of 1806, in a grove of trees, in what was then known as Sloan’s Meadow, Samuel John Mills, James Richards, Francis L Robbins, Harvey Loomis and Byram Green debated the theology of missionary service. Their meeting was interrupted by a thunderstorm and they took shelter under a haystack until the sky cleared.

That event has since been referred to as the “Haystack Prayer Meeting” and is viewed by many scholars as the pivotal event for the development of Protestant missions in the subsequent decades and century.

The first American student missionary society began in September 1808, when Mills and others called themselves “The Brethren,” whose object was “to effect, in the person of its members, a mission or missions to the heathen.” (Smith) Milla graduated Williams College in 1809 and later Andover Theological Seminary.

In June 1810, Mills and James Richards petitioned the General Association of the Congregational Church to establish the foreign missions. American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was formed with a Board of members from Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Cornwall’s Foreign Mission School exemplified evangelical efforts to recruit young men from indigenous cultures around the world, convert them to Christianity, educate them and train them to become preachers, health workers, translators and teachers back in their native lands.

Initially lacking a principal, Edwin Welles Dwight filled that role from May 1817 to May 1818; he was replaced the next year by the Reverend Herman Daggett. In its first year, the Foreign Mission School had 12 students, seven Hawaiians, one Hindu, one Bengalese, an Indian and two Anglo-Americans.

The school’s first student was Henry ʻŌpūkahaʻia (Obookiah,) a native Hawaiian from the Island of Hawaiʻi who in 1807 (after his parents had been killed) boarded a sailing ship anchored in Kealakekua Bay and sailed to the continent. In its first year, the Foreign Mission School had 12 students, more than half of whom were Hawaiian.

The school increased its number of pupils the second year to twenty-four; four Cherokee, two Choctaw, one Abenaki, two Chinese, two Malays, a Bengalese, one Hindu, six Hawaiians and two Marquesans as well as three American. By 1820, Native Americans from six different tribes made up half of the school’s students.

Once enrolled, students spent seven hours a day in study. Subjects included chemistry, geography, calculus and theology, as well as Greek, French and Latin.

They were also taught special skills like coopering (the making of barrels and other storage casks), blacksmithing, navigation and surveying. When not in class, students attended mandatory church and prayer sessions and also worked on making improvements to the school’s lands. (Cornwall)

In due time, Reverend Hiram Bingham visited the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall but that wasn’t until May 1819, one year after ʻŌpūkahaʻia died.

Then, from Andover Theological Seminary, Bingham wrote in a letter dated July 18, 1819, to Reverend Samuel Worcester that “the unexpected and afflictive death of Obookiah, roused my attention to the subject, & perhaps by writing and delivering some thoughts occasioned by his death I became more deeply interested than before in that cause for which he desired to live …”

“… & from that time it seemed by no means impossible that I should be employed in the field which Henry had intended to occupy…the possibility that this little field in the vast Pacific would be mine, was the greatest, in my own view.” (Brumaghim)

Subsequently, in the summer of 1819, Bingham and his classmate at Andover Theological Seminary, Reverend Asa Thurston, volunteered to go with the first group of missionaries to Hawai‘i.

On October 23, 1819, a group of northeast missionaries, led by Hiram Bingham, set sail on the Thaddeus for the Sandwich Islands (now known as Hawai‘i.) With the missionaries were four Hawaiian students from the Foreign Mission School, Thomas Hopu, William Kanui, John Honoliʻi and Prince Humehume (son of Kauaʻi’s King Kaumuali‘i.)

The Prudential Committee of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) 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 points of special and essential importance to all missionaries, and all persons engaged in the missionary work are four:
• Devotedness to Christ;
• Subordination to rightful direction;
• Unity one with another; and
• Benevolence towards the objects of their mission

Between 1820 and 1848, the ABCFM sent “eighty-four men and one hundred women to Hawai‘i to preach and teach, to translate and publish, to advise and counsel – and win the hearts of the Hawaiian people.” (Dwight; Brumaghim)

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by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Russell Hubbard

Russell Hubbard was born in Hamden (then part of New Haven,) Connecticut on October 18, 1784, the eldest son of Deacon and General John and Martha Hubbard, of Hamden, Connecticut (and grandson of the Rev. John Hubbard of Meriden.)

He is said to have studied for the ministry after graduation from Yale, but a fondness for travel drove him abroad. (Dexter, Yale)

Hubbard had gone to sea following his graduation in 1806, hoping that a change of air and climate could resolve some unspecific health concerns.

In 1807, Hubbard, aboard the Triumph (Captained by Caleb Brintnall) anchored in Kealakekua Bay. There, ʻŌpūkahaʻia, a Hawaiian who had recently lost his parents in the island war that was waging, was contemplating his future.

“For some time I began to think about leaving that country, to go to some other part of the world. I did not care where I shall go to. I thought to myself that if I should get away, and go to some other country, probably I may find some comfort, more than to live there, without father and mother.”

“About this time there was a ship come from New York; – Captain Brintnall the master of the ship. As soon as it got into the harbour, in the very place where I lived, I thought of no more but to take the best chance I had, and if the captain have no objection, to take me as one of his own servants and to obey his word.”

“After supper the captain made some inquiry to see if we were willing to come to America; and soon I made a motion with my head that I was willing to go. This man was very agreeable, and his kindness was much delighted in my heart, as if I was his own son, and he was my own father. Thus I still continue thankful for his kindness towards me.”

“My parting with them (grandmother, aunt & uncle) was disagreeable to them and to me, but I was willing to leave all my relations, friends and acquaintance; expected to see them no more in this world.”

“We set out on our journey …” (ʻŌpūkahaʻia)

“Among these men I found a very desirable young man, by name Russell Hubbard, a son of Gen H of New Haven. This Mr Hubbard was a member of Yale College.”

“He was a friend of Christ. Christ was with him when I saw him, but I knew it not. ‘Happy is the man that put his trust in God!’ Mr Hubbard was very kind to me on our passage, and taught me the letters in English spelling-book.” (ʻŌpūkahaʻia)

After travelling to the American North West, then to China, they landed in New York in 1809. They continued to New Haven, Connecticut. ʻŌpūkahaʻia was eager to study and learn – seeking to be a student at Yale.

“In this place I become acquainted with many students belonging to the College. By these pious students I was told more about God than what I had heard before … Many times I wished to hear more about God, but find no body to interpret it to me.”

“I attended many meetings on the sabbath, but find difficulty to understand the minister. I could understand or speak, but very little of the English language.” (ʻŌpūkahaʻia)

ʻŌpūkahaʻia “was sitting on the steps of a Yale building, weeping. A solicitous student stopped to inquire what was wrong, and Obookiah (the spelling of his name, based on its sound) said, ‘No one will give me learning.’”

The student was Edwin Dwight, distant cousin of the college president. “(W)hen the question was put him, ‘Do you wish to learn?’ his countenance began to brighten and … he served it with eagerness.” (Haley)

ʻŌpūkahaʻia latched upon the Christian religion, converted to Christianity in 1815 and in 1817 became the first student at the Foreign Mission School established at Cornwall, by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.

Unfortunately, ʻŌpūkahaʻia died in 1818. A story of his life was written (“Memoirs of Henry Obookiah”.) This book was put together by Edwin Dwight (after ʻŌpūkahaʻia died.) It was an edited collection of ʻŌpūkahaʻia’s letters and journals/diaries. This book inspired the New England missionaries to volunteer to carry his message to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaiʻi.)

ʻŌpūkahaʻia is also associated with another book. It is believed ʻŌpūkahaʻia classmates (and future missionaries,) Samuel Ruggles and James Ely, after ʻŌpūkahaʻia’s death, went over his papers and began to prepare material on the Hawaiian language to be taken to Hawaiʻi and used in missionary work.

The work was written by Ruggles and assembled into a book – by Herman Daggett, principal of the Foreign Mission School – and credit for the work goes to ʻŌpūkahaʻia.

Just as Russell Hubbard used an English spelling book to start ʻŌpūkahaʻia with his studies aboard the Triumph, ʻŌpūkahaʻia’s “work served as the basis for the foreign language materials prepared by American and Hawaiian students at the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Connecticut, in the months prior to the departure of the first company of missionaries to Hawai’i in October 1819.” (Rumford)

In his journal, ʻŌpūkahaʻia first mentions grammar in his account of the summer of 1813: “A part of the time (I) was trying to translate a few verses of the Scriptures into my own language, and in making a kind of spelling-book, taking the English alphabet and giving different names and different sounds. I spent time in making a kind of spelling-book, dictionary, grammar.” (Schutz)

But his spelling was unique …

References to Webster’s ‘Spelling’ book appear in the accounts by folks at the New England mission school. As you know, English letters have different sounds for the same letter. For instance, the letter “a” has a different sound when used in words like: late, hall and father.

Noah Webster devised a method to help differentiate between the sounds and assigned numbers to various letter sounds – and used these in his Speller. (Webster did not substitute the numbers corresponding to a letter’s sound into words in his spelling or dictionary book; it was used as an explanation of the difference in the sounds of letters.)

The following is a chart for some of the letters related to the numbers assigned, depending on the sound they represent.

Long Vowels in English (Webster)
..1…..2…..3……4…….5……6……..7…….8
..a…..a…..a……e…….i…….o……..o…….u
late, ask, hall, here, sight, note, move, truth

It seems ʻŌpūkahaʻia used Noah Webster’s Speller in his writings and substituted the numbers assigned to the various sounds and incorporated them into the words of his grammar book (essentially putting the corresponding number into the spelling of the word.)

Some believe this manuscript is the first grammar book on the Hawaiian language. However, when reading the document, many of the words are not recognizable. Here’s a sampling of a few of the words: 3-o-le; k3-n3-k3; l8-n3 and; 8-8-k8.

“Once we know how the vowel letters and numbers were used, ʻŌpūkahaʻia’s short grammar becomes more than just a curiosity; it is a serious work that is probably the first example of the Hawaiian language recorded in a systematic way. Its alphabet is a good deal more consistent than those used by any of the explorers who attempted to record Hawaiian words.” (Schutz)

Using ʻŌpūkahaʻia’s odd-looking words mentioned above, we can decipher what they represent by substituting the code and pronounce the words accordingly (for the “3,” substitute with “a”(that sounds like “hall”) and replace the “8” with “u,” (that sounds like “truth”) – so, 3-o-le transforms to ʻaʻole (no;) k3-n3-k3 transforms to kanaka (man;); l8-n3 transforms to luna (upper) and 8-8-k8 transforms to ʻuʻuku (small.)

“It might be said that the first formal writing system for the Hawaiian language, meaning alphabet, spelling rules and grammar, was created in Connecticut by a Hawaiian named Henry ʻŌpūkahaʻia. He began work as early as 1814 and left much unfinished at his death in 1818.” (Rumford)

I encourage you to review the images in the folder; I had the opportunity to review and photograph the several pages of ʻŌpūkahaʻia’s grammar book. (Special thanks to the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives and the Hawaiian Historical Society.)

Back to Russell Hubbard, who first taught ʻŌpūkahaʻia the letters … “in November or December, 1810, in his 27th year, (he was) lost at sea, with his next younger brother, on board the brig Triton, on a voyage from New Haven to the West Indies.” (Dexter, Yale)

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by Peter T Young 3 Comments

North Pacific Missionary Institute

On October 1, 1872, the Hawaiian Evangelical Association Theological School opened its doors for men interested in a life of Christian ministry.

In its infancy, Rev John D Paris became the head of the institution, accompanied by Rev Dwight Baldwin and Rev Benjamin W Parker as instructors.

Recruitment of Native Hawaiian students was an ongoing problem. A year after the school opened Rev. Paris wrote, “Aka, auhea la ka nani o ke aupuni kanaka ole?! Auhea hoi ka pono o ke Kula Kahuna haumana ole?” (But where is the glory of the Kingdom without men? Where indeed is the value of the ministers’ school without students?) (Williams)

Beginning with 13 students, the school endeavored to graduate these men as ministers in order to send them on to more missionary work around the world, paying special attention to the Pacific.

The school’s three-year program curriculum included Bible History, Sacred Geography, Church History, Natural Theology, Evidences of Christianity, Christian Theology, Composition and Delivery of Sermons, and Pastoral Theology.

The Theological School took up residence within an older structure, previously used as a Marine Hospital, owned and operated by Dr. Gerrit P. Judd. It was located at the corner of what is today Punchbowl and South Beretania Streets in Honolulu (presently, where the Kalanimōku Building (DLNR & DAGS) is situated.) (In 1874, Paris retired and moved back to Kona.)

In 1877, Rev. Charles McEwen Hyde was sent to Hawaiʻi from Massachusetts to reorganize the school as the North Pacific Missionary Institute.

Hyde was former valedictorian at Williams College and graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary; he envisioned “a grand opportunity to do important service for Christ and for the world.” (Williams)

He quickly picked up the Hawaiian language in order to converse with the indigenous population, and began delivering his sermons in Hawaiian.

“With great skill and patience and energy he has conducted its affairs, and the Institute has been one of the most effective agencies for the support of Christian institutions at the Islands.”

“But Dr. Hyde’s energies were by no means confronted to this one seminary. He sought in every way to upbuild the native Hawaiian churches, and to promote the work of education in schools of all grades.”

“’From this institution has gone forth, under the training of Dr. Hyde, the whole circle of younger men who today fill the pastorate of the Hawaiian churches.’ And after referring to several of these pastors by name, it is well added: ‘These men are the best of witnesses to the faithful and painstaking service of this most indefatigable of teachers.’” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, December 13, 1899)

Hyde served as Principal until 1883, until resigning his position to the temporary care of Rev. Henry H. Parker.

In 1889, it was decided by the Hawaiian Board that a new building was to be erected that would accommodate the seminary’s students with better living and learning quarters. A wooden structure was built in 1890.

The building had 16-dormitories and several large lecture rooms for instruction. During construction, the students attended classes at Kawaiahaʻo Church.

“Eleven students had been under instruction, three of these having entered this year. Instruction is now given in the afternoons as well as the mornings. Friday afternoon and Saturday are the only times available for such work as may be available as a means of self-support.”

“It has been necessary therefor to supplement the meagre weekly cash allowance, granted by the Hawaiian Board, by the distribution of weekly rations of rice, bread, salmon and kerosene to each student. The students are not pampered children of ease by any means, but learn from the very first to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, June 7, 1895)

“In the training which it furnishes to these leaders of the churches, the theological school affects the moral and religious life of the country. It holds the same relation to the ministerial profession that the law school does to the legal profession, or the medical college to the practice of medicine.”

“A well trained ministry is peculiarly necessary at the present time for the Hawaiian Islands. Everything is in a transition state, and a strong ministry is needed, which can hold to the good which has been achieved in the past and make it effective in the new order of things which is to come.” (Hawaiian Gazette, November 6, 1896)

“The work of the Institute in training Hawaiians for pastoral and missionary service has been carried on as heretofore. It has also been enlarged in its scope, so as to furnish more instruction through the use of the English language.”

“Rev. John Leadingham, formerly instructor in the Slavic department of the Oberlin Theological Seminary, has been appointed by the ABCFM Associate Instructor in the NPM Institute and began his work in November, 1894.” (Board of Education Report, 1896)

“Professor Leadingham’s lessons in English have not been confined to the students, but he has kindly consented to teach English to a class of young Hawaiian lawyers. Two Portuguese young men also, who wish to enter the gospel ministry, have been under instruction for the last three months.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, June 7, 1895)

“The privileges of the Institute are now opened to other nationalities, and in addition to the 8 Hawaiian students, one Portuguese and one Chinese are taking the prescribed course of study. This extends over three years. In some instances, a fourth year is added for special study.”

“Of the thirty-six pastors now serving the fifty-five Hawaiian Evangelical churches, twenty-five are graduates of the NPM Institute. Besides these there are six graduates engaged in foreign missionary work in the Gilbert Islands.” (Board of Education Report, 1896)

In 1900, Leadingham became the Principal (he left the islands in 1904.) The Hawaiian Board later redirected its efforts into the consolidation of Kawaiahaʻo Seminary, Mills Institute and the Japanese Boarding School into the Mid-Pacific Institute.

The “first great step in the development of its higher educational work by purchasing between thirty-six and thirty-seven acres of land in Mānoa Valley – the Kidwell estate. Upon this it is proposed to locate the Mid-Pacific Institute”.

“In making this purchase the Board has parted with the premises of the North Pacific Missionary Institute on Punchbowl street to the Methodist church” (and, in between, the Korean School.) (Hawaiian Star, May 18, 1907) (Lots of information here is from Williams and Mission Houses.)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kaʻawaloa

Kealakekua translates as ‘pathway of the gods’ and is one of the most significant historic and cultural places in Hawaiʻi.

Kealakekua Bay State Historical Park is comprised of portions of the Kealakekua and Kaʻawaloa ahupuaʻa, which surround Kealakekua Bay. From Kaʻawaloa south to Palemano Point, the bay measures about one and one-half miles in length and about one mile in width.

“The Sandy beech forms the West side, behind which is a grove of Coco nut trees & a pond of indifferent water; on the N side of this beach lies a Village, & the Well we waterd at, which is close to the Sea & under the high hill.”

“At the other end of the beach is the Morai, or Oheekeeow (heiau of Hikiau.) A field of Taboo’d ground seperates the Morai from a Village to the s, or rather a continued range of Stragling houses in that direction.” (King; Maly)

Kealakekua was selected by the aliʻi as one of the seven royal centers of Kona in the 1700s, because of its sheltered bay and abundance of natural resources.

Kaʻawaloa, meaning ‘ the distant ʻawa plant’, is a flat, fan-shaped lava peninsula near sea level, which rises gradually to the edge of the 600-ft Pali Kapu O Keoua. These forty acres of land define the northwest side of Kealakekua Bay.

Historically, Kaʻawaloa was the royal burial grounds of Hawaiʻi’s rulers and their families, including Kalaniopuʻu, the ruling chief in power when Captain Cook sailed into Kealakekua Bay.

The British ships, Discovery and Resolution, under the command of Captain James Cook, sailed into Kealakekua Bay on January 17, 1779; Cook was killed at Kaʻawaloa on February 14, 1779.

In their journals, Cook’s crew recorded four “villages” of about 80 houses each along the shoreline around Kealakekua Bay. Settlements lined the bay in the pre-contact period, as do the small residential communities of Nāpōʻopoʻo and Keʻei, today.

“The Towns of the Natives are built along the Sea side. At Cari’ca’coo’ah (Kealakekua) Bay there were three, one (Kealakekua-Nāpoʻopoʻo) on the SE-tern side of the Bay which was very large extending near two miles along the shore, another (Kaʻawaloa) upon the NWtern side which was not so large, and a small Village (Palemano) in the cod or bottom of the Bay.”

“At the back of the villages upon the Brow of the Hill are their plantations of Plantains, Potatoes, Tarrow, Sugar Canes &c, each mans particular property is fenced in with a stone wall; they have a method of making the Sugar Cane grow about the walls so that the stones are not conspicuous at any distance, but the whole has the appearance of fine green fences.” (Clerke; Maly)

“Kaʻawaloa, at the landing-place on the north side of Kealakekua bay, however conveniently accessible to the people of the district, who live much along the shores, was cramped and rocky, being composed almost exclusively of lava.”

“It was hot, dry, and barren, affording neither brook nor well, nor spring of fresh water, nor field, nor garden-spot for plantation, though a few cocoanut trees, so neighborly to the sea, find nourishment there.” (Bingham; Maly)

As the west learned of Hawaiʻi, this area became known as one of the first major shipping and provisioning port for ships involved in exploration, whaling and trans-Pacific trade.

About 40-years after Cook’s visit, the missionaries arrived and established one of the earliest mission stations in Hawai‘i at Kaʻawaloa in 1824.

Access was improved to Kaʻawaloa and Nāpoʻopoʻo with the development of cart roads to transport goods from the bay to upland communities.

By the 1850s, traditional fishing and farming were giving way to ranching and coffee. Cattle were herded down the roads to wharfs at Nāpoʻopoʻo and Kaʻawaloa where they were loaded onto ships in the bay.

Nāpoʻopoʻo Light was established in 1908 at Kaʻawaloa on the north side of Kealakekua Bay (but apparently named for Nāpoʻopoʻo Landing on the south side of the bay.) The 22-foot light tower was built in 1922.

Several families remained at Kaʻawaloa until World War II, but most of the activity had shifted to Nāpoʻopoʻo by that time.

In 1969 the state set aside the entire bay as a marine life conservation district (MLCD.) The MLCD is inshore of a straight line between Kaʻawaloa point and the north end of Nāpōʻopoʻo Beach Park. The cove fronting the Captain Cook Monument is a popular snorkeling area.

On December 12, 1973 the Kaʻawaloa area was designated as the Kealakekua Bay Historical District (a District w/multiple sites) and placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The obelisk monument commemorating Captain Cook was constructed in 1874, near the spot where Cook died. (Contrary to urban legend, the monument site is not owned by the British Government; ownership is in the name of the British Consul General (the individual) – a representative would check in with DLNR, from time to time.)

While at DLNR, we issued a curator agreement to Hale Mua – The Royal Order of King Kamehameha I to help protect the sites under DLNR’s jurisdiction and to help provide public access.

The photo captures the awa ceremony we participated in to commemorate the signing of the Curator Agreement. (It was a moving experience; I was proud and honored to be there.  Yes, that is me, all by myself (representing the State,) and the descendent families, members of the Order and others on the other side.)

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