Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings | Page 82

January 16, 2019 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Literacy was Sought by the People

“One young man asked (a missionary) for a book yesterday, and (he) inquired of him who his teacher was. He replied, ‘My desire to learn, my ear, to hear, my eye, to see, my hands, to handle, for, from the sole of my foot to the crown of my head I love the palapala.’” (KSBE)

“Not long after the passing of Kamehameha I in 1819, the first Christian missionaries arrived at (Kawaihae), Hawaiʻi on March 30, 1820. (They finally anchored at Kailua-Kona on April 4, 1820.) Their arrival here became the topic of much discussion as Liholiho, known as Kamehameha II, deliberated with his aliʻi council for 13 days on a plan allowing the missionaries to stay.

“Interestingly, the missionaries promised a printing press and to teach palapala, or reading and writing. Because Liholiho had learned the alphabet prior to the missionaries’ arrival, he had a notion of the value of a printing press and literacy for his people.”

“A key point in Liholiho’s plan required the missionaries to first teach the aliʻi to read and write. The missionaries agreed to the King’s terms and instruction began soon after.” (KSBE)

The arrival of the first company of American missionaries in Hawai¬ʻi in 1820 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.

“That the sudden introduction of the Hawaiian nation in its unconverted state, to general English or French literature, would have been safe and salutary, is extremely problematical.”

“To us it has been a matter of pleasing wonder that the rulers and the people were so early and generally led to seek instruction through books furnished them by our hands, not one of which was designed to encourage image worship, to countenance iniquity, or to be at variance with the strictest rules of morality. It was of the Lord’s mercy.”

“With the elements of reading and writing we were accustomed, from the beginning, to connect the elements of morals and religion, and have been happy to find them mutual aids”. (Hiram Bingham)

“The initiation of the rulers and others into the arts of reading and writing, under our own guidance, brought to their minds forcibly, and sometimes by surprise, moral lessons as to their duty and destiny which were of immeasurable importance.”

“The English New Testament was almost our first school book, and happy should we have been, could the Hawaiian Bible have been the next.” (Hiram Bingham)

“In connexion with this general mode of instruction, we could, and did teach English to a few, and have continued to do so. We early used both English and Hawaiian together.”

“For a time after our arrival, in our common intercourse, In our schools, and in our preaching, we were obliged to employ interpreters, though none except Hopu and Honolii were found to be very trustworthy, in communicating the uncompromising claims and the spirit-searching truths of revealed religion.” (Hiram Bingham)

As the missionaries learned Hawaiian, they taught their lessons 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. In later years, the instruction, ultimately, was in English.

“By August 30, 1825, only three years after the first printing of the pīʻāpā, 16,000 copies of spelling books, 4,000 copies of a small scripture tract, and 4,000 copies of a catechism had been printed and distributed.”

“On October 8, 1829, it was reported that 120,000 spelling books were printed in Hawaiʻi. These figures suggest that perhaps 90 percent of the Hawaiian population were in possession of a pīʻāpā book!”

“This literacy initiative was continually supported by the aliʻi. Under Liholiho, ships carrying teachers were not charged harbor fees. During a missionary paper shortage, the government stepped in to cover the difference, buying enough paper to print roughly 13,500 books.”

“In fact, while Liholiho was on his ill–fated trip to England, Kaʻahumanu, the kuhina nui (regent), and Kalanimōku reiterated their support by proclaiming that upon the completion of schools, ‘all the people shall learn the palapala.’”

“During this period, there were approximately 182,000 Hawaiians living throughout 1,103 districts in the archipelago. Extraordinarily, by 1831, the kingdom government financed all infrastructure costs for the 1,103 school houses and furnished them with teachers. Our kūpuna sunk their teeth into reading and writing like a tiger sharks and would not let go.” (KSBE)

“This legendary rise in literacy climbed from a near-zero literacy rate in 1820, to between 91 to 95 percent by 1834. That’s only twelve years from the time the first book was printed!” (KSBE)

It was through the cooperation and collaboration between the Ali‘i, people and missionaries that this was able to be accomplished.

Manu Ka‘iama then noted:

“I think I hear what you are saying, and it is an important point to make and to remember is that their mission was very different, that first generation of missionaries. Their mission or their reason to be here, and the assistance that they provided the ali‘i goes without saying. I guess these letters probably pretty much show that.”

“You can see the relationship and you can see how they worked together and that they learned from each other. And, I would assume that is so and I think we are hard on the missionaries because of maybe the next generation of missionaries …”

“We do, many times, kind of just brush over that earlier history, and we shouldn’t make that mistake, because the fact that these letters show a relationship that you think is honorable….” (Manu Ka‘iama)

Jon Yasuda then added,

“I think literacy was … almost like the new technology of the time. And, that was something that was new. … When the missionaries came, there was already contact with the Western world for many years…. But this was the first time that literacy really began to take hold.”

“The missionaries, when they came, they may have been the first group who came with a [united] purpose. They came together as a group and their purpose was to spread the Gospel the teachings of the Bible.”

“But the missionaries who came, came with a united purpose … and literacy was a big part of that. Literacy was important to them because literacy was what was going to get the Hawaiians to understand the word of the Bible …

“… and the written word became very attractive to the people, and there was a great desire to learn the written word. … Hawai‘i became the most literate nation at one time.”

Shifting Paradigm Noted by Kaliko Martin

“The Ali‘i Letters project “changed my perspective on the anti-missionary, anti-Anglo-Saxon rhetorical tradition that scholarship has been produced, contemporary scholarship, and it is not to discredit that scholarship, but just to change a paradigm, to shift the paradigm, and it shifted mine.” (Kaliko Martin, Research Assistant, Awaiaulu)

Puakea Nogelmeier had a similar conclusion. In remarks at a Hawaiian Mission Houses function he noted,

“The missionary effort is more successful in Hawai‘i than probably anywhere in the world, in the impact that it has on the character and the form of a nation. And so, that history is incredible; but history gets so blurry …”

“The missionary success cover decades and decades becomes sort of this huge force where people feel like the missionaries got off the boat barking orders … where they just kind of came in and took over. They got off the boat and said ‘stop dancing,’ ‘put on clothes,’ don’t sleep around.’”

“And it’s so not the case ….”

“The missionaries arrived here, and they’re a really remarkable bunch of people. They are scholars, they have got a dignity that goes with religious enterprise that the Hawaiians recognized immediately. …”

“The Hawaiians had been playing with the rest of the world for forty-years by the time the missionaries came here. The missionaries are not the first to the buffet and most people had messed up the food already.”

“(T)hey end up staying and the impact is immediate. They are the first outside group that doesn’t want to take advantage of you, one way or the other, get ahold of their goods, their food, or your daughter. … But, they couldn’t get literacy. It was intangible, they wanted to learn to read and write”. (Puakea Nogelmeier)

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January 14, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM)

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions had its beginning in the revivals at the end of the eighteenth, and the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Click HERE for an Expanded View of the ABCFM.

During the latter part of the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth century several missionary societies were formed in the United States.

Back then, Williamstown was a frontier village, similar in many respects to any western village of the last half century, composed of men with patriotic hopes and daring wills.”

Twelve years after the incorporation of Williams College in 1793, 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 the College. (Williams College)

In the spring of 1806, Samuel J. Mills, the 23-year old son of a Connecticut clergyman, joined the Freshman class. Mills, after a period of religious questioning in his late teens, entered Williams with a passion to spread Christianity around the globe. (Williams College)

He found the town and college under the influence of a great revival. Though felt but slightly in the college in 1805, in the summer of 1806 it was profoundly stirring men’s souls. Prayer-meetings by groups of students were being maintained zealously.

On Wednesdays, the men met south of West College beneath the willow trees. On Saturdays, the meetings were held north of the college buildings, beneath the maple trees in Sloan’s meadow. (The Haystack Centennial)

On a Saturday afternoon in August, 1806, five Williams College students, Congregationalists in background, gathered in a field to discuss the spiritual needs of those living in Asian countries. The five who attended were Samuel J. Mills, James Richards, Francis L. Robbins, Harvey Loomis, and Byram Green.

The meeting was interrupted by the approaching storm. It began to rain; the thunder rolled with deafening sound familiar to those who dwell among the hills; the sharp quick flashes of lightning seemed like snapping whips driving the men to shelter.

They crouched beside a large haystack which stood on the spot now marked by the Missionary Monument. Here, partially protected at least from the storm, they conversed on large themes.

The topic that engaged their interest was Asia. The work of the East India Company, with which they were all somewhat acquainted, naturally turned their thoughts to the people with which this company sought trade.

Mills especially waxed eloquent on the moral and religious needs of these people, and afire with a great enthusiasm he proposed that the gospel of light be sent to those dwelling in such benighted lands

All but Loomis responded to this inspiration of Mills. Loomis contended that the East must first be civilized before the work of the missionary could begin.

The others contended that God would cooperate with all who did their part, for He would that all men should be partakers of the salvation of Christ.

Finally at Mills’ word, ‘Come, let us make it a subject of prayer under the haystack, while the dark clouds are going and the clear sky is coming,’ they all knelt in prayer. (The Haystack Centennial)

‘The brevity of the shower, the strangeness of the place of refuge, and the peculiarity of their topic of prayer and conference all took hold of their imaginations and their memories.’ (Global Ministries)

The students were also influenced by a pamphlet titled ‘An Inquiry into the Obligation of Christians to use means for the Conversion of the Heathen,’ written by British Baptist missionary William Carey.

After praying, these five young men sang a hymn together. It was then that Mills said loudly over the rain and the wind, ‘We can do this, if we will!’ (Williams College)

That moment changed those men forever. Many historians would tell you that all mission organizations in the US trace their history back to the Haystack Prayer Meeting in some way. Yes, these men turned the world upside down. And it all began in a prayer meeting under a haystack. (Southern Baptist Convention)

Though only two of the five Williams students at the Haystack Prayer meeting ever left the United States, the impact of their passion for missions is widespread.

Samuel Mills became the Haystack person with the greatest influence on the modern mission movement. He played a role in the founding of the American Bible Society and the United Foreign Missionary Society.

In 1808, Mills and other Williams students formed ‘The Brethren,’ a society organized to ‘effect, in the persons of its members, a mission to the heathen.’

Upon the enrollment of Mills and Richards at Andover Seminary in 1810, Adoniram Judson from Brown, Samuel Newall from Harvard, and Samuel Nott from Union College joined the Brethren.

Led by the enthusiasm of Judson, the young seminarians convinced the General Association of Congregational Ministers of Massachusetts to form The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. (Williams College)

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.

“The general purpose of these devoted young men was fixed. Sometimes they talked of ‘cutting a path through the moral wilderness of the West to the Pacific.’ Sometimes they thought of South America; then of Africa. Their object was the salvation of the heathen; but no specific shape was given to their plans, till the formation of the American Board of Foreign Missions.” (Worcester)

“The Board has established missions, in the order of time in which they are now named at Bombay, and Ceylon; among the Cherokees, Choctaws, and the Cherokees of the Arkansaw …” (Missionary Herald)

At this same time, in the Islands, a Hawaiian, ʻŌpūkahaʻia, made a life-changing decision – not only which affected his life, but had a profound effect on the future of the Hawaiian Islands.

“I began to think about leaving that country, to go to some other part of the globe. 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.” (ʻŌpūkahaʻia)

‘Ōpūkaha’ia swam out to and boarded Brintnall’s ‘Triumph’ in Kealakekua Bay. 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.

The Mills family invited ʻŌpūkahaʻia into their home. Later Mills brought ʻŌpūkahaʻia to Andover Theological Seminary, the center of foreign mission training in New England.

In October, 1816, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) decided to establish the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Litchfield County, Connecticut, for the instruction of youth like ʻŌpūkahaʻia.

By 1817, a dozen students, six of them Hawaiians, were training at the Foreign Mission School to become missionaries to teach the Christian faith to people around the world. Initially lacking a principal, Dwight filled that role from May 1817 – May 1818.

ʻŌpūkahaʻia was being groomed to be a key figure in a mission to Hawai‘i, to be joined by Samuel Mills Jr. Unfortunately, ʻŌpūkahaʻia died at Cornwall on February 17, 1818, and several months later Mills died at sea off West Africa after surveying lands that became Liberia.

Edwin W Dwight is remembered for putting together a book, ‘Memoirs of Henry Obookiah’ (the spelling of the name based on its pronunciation), as a fundraiser for the Foreign Mission School. It was an edited collection of ʻŌpūkahaʻia’s letters and journals/diaries. The book about his life was printed and circulated after his death, becoming a best-seller of its day.

Ōpūkaha’ia, inspired by many young men with proven sincerity and religious fervor of the missionary movement, had wanted to spread the word of Christianity back home in Hawaiʻi; his book inspired missionaries to volunteer to carry his message to the Hawaiian Islands.

The coming of Henry ʻŌpūkahaʻia and other young Hawaiians to the US, who awakened a deep Christian sympathy in the churches, moved the ABCFM to establish a mission at the Islands.

On October 23, 1819, the Pioneer Company of ABCFM missionaries set sail from Boston on the Thaddeus to establish the Sandwich Islands Mission (now known as Hawai‘i). Over the course of a little over 40-years (1820-1863 – the “Missionary Period”), about 184-men and women in twelve Companies served in Hawaiʻi to carry out the mission of the ABCFM in the Hawaiian Islands.

Click HERE for an Expanded View of the ABCFM.

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Williams_College_-_Haystack_Monument

Haystack Prayer Meeting

Opukahaia

Four_Owyhean_Youths-Thomas Hoopoo, George Tamoree, William Tenooe and John Honoree

Cornwall’s Foreign Mission School

Cornwall-home_of_the_Foreign_Mission_School-by_Barber-(WC)-1835

Hiram_and_Sybil_Moseley_Bingham,_1819-head of Pioneer Company

Asa Thurston and Lucy Goodale Thurston

Thomas and Lucia Holman

Samuel and Nancy Ruggles

Samuel and Mercy Whitney-1819

departure_of_the_second_company_from_the_american_board_of_commissioners_for_foreign_missions_to_hawaii

January 10, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

John Emil Van Lil

“In September, 1865, the spit of land on the northern or windward side of the island of Molokai was chosen as a suitable site for the establishment of a settlement for the segregation of lepers.”

“The site is probably one of the most suitable and isolated that could have been chosen for such a purpose. It is surrounded on the north, east, and west by the sea, and the base or southern side is placed beneath a steep pali or precipice from 1,800 to 2,000 feet high, which discourages communication with the rest of the island.”

“The first settlement was at Kalawao, on the eastern side of the spit of land. It lies close to the mountains at the rear and is much exposed to the northeast trade winds.”

“Kalaupapa, the more recent and larger settlement, is situated on the plain to the westward, is further removed from the steep cliffs, and is somewhat protected from northeast winds by the crater of Kahukoo.”

“When the board of health first opened the settlement, and for many years afterwards, much difficulty was experienced from the presence of persons who owned parcels of land in this tract and who were called Kamainas or old settlers. They were not subject to the laws governing lepers, and were free to come and go from the settlement at will.”

“The Hawaiian government has secured the property owned by those Kamainas, and they have been removed from the settlement. Molokai is probably the most complete settlement of its kind in the world.”

“It has hospitals, churches, homes for leprous children, male and female, stores, market dispensaries, cottages for leper residents, jail, storehouses, etc. The majority of the lepers live in cottages built by themselves or by the government, and in the settlement there is a total of all buildings of 716.” (Carmichael, Leprosy in the US, December 30, 1898)

“At a distance Kalaupapa looks like a prosperous little town, and in anticipation of the visit of the board of health a large number of the habitants had gathered at the landing place, some on foot and many mounted on horses.”

“Some difficulty was experienced in landing, which was done by open boat, there being no docks or wharves, as there was a strong northerly swell and the surf was somewhat dangerous. In the hands of natives skilled in surfboating this was soon accomplished without accident, and the entire party landed.”

“Here were seen the different churches, Protestant, Catholic, and Mormon, including that built by Father Damien, and the grave of this leper martyr by the church side. The Baldwin Home for leprous boys was then visited, and the hospitals and cottages for the accommodation of lepers in various stages of the disease.” (Carmichael, Public Health Reports, December 30, 1898)

American Protestant missionary H Harvey Hitchcock held a three-day meeting at Kala‘e, on the cliffs above Kalaupapa, in 1838, which was attended by many from the peninsula and the northern valleys. (An out-station of the Kalua‘aha mission was established there around 1840.) In 1839 a Hawai’ian missionary teacher named Kanakaokai was stationed on the peninsula.

Siloama Protestant Church was the first church to be erected at Kalawao Settlement at Kalaupapa, it was originally constructed and dedicated on October 28, 1871 by the Protestant Congregational Church.

Kana‘ana Hou Church (New Canaan church) was a branch of Siloama’s church; it was built in Kalaupapa in 1878 and enlarged in 1890. In 1881, the congregations of Kalawao and Kalaupapa united as Kanaana Hou. Siloama Church was rebuilt in the 1960s.

Belgium-born Joseph De Veuster arrived in Honolulu on March 19, 1864. There he was ordained a Catholic Priest in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace on May 31 and took the name of Damien.

Another Belgian, John Emil Van Lil, son of John Francis Van Lil and Marie Teresa, came to the peninsula near the turn of the century. He was a lay Catholic brother assisted at the Baldwin Home.

He later was in “charge of all (animal) stock. Mr. Van Lil is a practical farmer, and enthusiastic in his work and I feel that our dairy and farm matters are in good hands.” (Report of the Superintendent of the Leper Settlement, BOH Annual Report, 1903)

“(A) hog ranch (had previously been started) with one boar and ten sows. We have now over one hundred pigs. but through lack of food am unable to go ahead as fast as we might. As the pork is to be issued to the people in lieu of beef, I do not believe it would be a paying proposition to purchase food from the outside.”

“We have cleared about six acres of land in one of the sheltered valleys and planted four thousand papaia trees; about 50 per cent. of which are coming along nicely.”

“We have also planted about two acres in pumpkins which are also doing well. As papaias and pumpkins make good hog feed combined with the cooked offal from the slaughter house. it is only a question of time until we will have sufficient food for all the hogs we can raise.” (Report of the Superintendent of the Leper Settlement, BOH Annual Report, 1903)

“The general health conditions of the Settlement have been excellent … and I here with wish to express my appreciation to Superintendent McVeigh for his foresight in establishing and maintaining this dairy …”

“… as well as to Mr. Emil Van Lil for his able management of the same; not one of the numerous daily milk orders issued having been dishonored, although some 56 gallons of milk are requisitioned daily.” (Board of Health Annual Report, 1906)

A patient from Lahaina, Elizabeth Kaehukai (Baker) Napoleon, had “married Walter U(w)aia Napoleon on April 26, 1890 and they had 12 children together. Seventeen years later, she and Uaia divorced on Dec. 27, 1907.”

“The divorce decree states, ‘On 11 Nov. 1907, Uaia, without just cause or provocation, turned Elizabeth out of his house, and refused to allow her to re-enter their house. Uaia utterly failed, neglected and refused to provide Elizabeth lodging, clothing, food and other necessities. Uaia also refused to allow their children to see or talk with her.’”

“It is likely that Uaia suspected Elizabeth had early signs of leprosy and this is why he kicked her out of the house. By court order, Elizabeth was allowed visits with her children on Saturdays and Monday from 9 am to 7 pm. On Sept. 22, 1911, she was taken in for suspicion of leprosy. She was sent to Kalaupapa on April 9, 1912.” (NPS)

There, she met and married (October 12, 1914) Van Lil at Kalawao. “Six months later, Van Lil was examined on April 10, 1915 and found to have leprosy. He was 59 years old.” (NPS)

“The huge Belgian dairyman, good Van Lil, of old memory, now a patient, had married another, and the pair lived happily in a vine-hidden cottage near Kalawao, making the most of their remaining time on earth.”

“Beyond a fleeting embarrassment in his vague blue eye, he met us on the Damien Road with the undimmed buoyancy of other years, and our eyes could see no blemish on his face. Probably we were more affected than he, for in the main the victim of leprosy is as optimistic as he of the White Plague.”

“And Emil Van Lil was not the only one whom we saw who had perforce changed his status toward society in the intervening eight years. The little mail-carrier who had led us up out of the Settlement, we found in the Bay View Home, cheerful as of yore, although far gone with the malefic blight.”

“And, auwe! some of the men and women we had known here before as extreme cases still lingered, sightless perhaps, but trying to smile with what was left of their contorted visages, in recognition of our voices.”

“Others, whose closing throats had smothered them, breathed through silver tubes in their windpipes. Strange is this will to persist tenacity of life!” (Charmian London )wife of Jack London), 1917)

“Van Lil died four years after Elizabeth on May 2, 1925. He does not have a marked grave.” (NPS)

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John Emil Van Lil

Kalaupapa Molokai-Bertram

Kalaupapa Dairy-Van Lil in white-NPS

Kalaupapa Dairy-Van Lil center-NPS

Catholic Mission_Church-Bertram

Kalaupapa, Molokai-Bertram

Catholic Mission Church-Bertram

St. Philomena’s Church-Bertram

St. Philomena Church-Bertram

January 7, 2019 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

113,000,000 Sheets of Paper

“Without the printing press, the written Hawaiian language, and a learned people of that time, we would know little about the past.” (Muench)

“The first printing press at the Hawaiian Islands was imported by the American missionaries, and landed from the brig Thaddeus in April, 1820. In style, it was not unlike the first used by Benjamin Franklin.”

“It was set up in a thatched house standing not very far from the old frame Mission house that now stands on King street opposite the Kawaiahaʻo Seminary (where the Mission Memorial Building is today.)” (Parker; The Friend)

“On the 7th of January, 1822, a year and eight months from the time of our receiving the governmental permission to enter the field and teach the people, we commenced printing the language in order to give them letters, libraries, and the living oracles in their own tongue, that the nation might read and understand the wonderful works of God.”

“The opening to them of this source of light never known to their ancestors remote or near, occurred while many thousands of the friends of the heathen were on the monthly concert, unitedly praying that the Gospel might have free course and he glorified.” (Bingham)

Standing beside a printing press and observed by an American printer, shipmasters, missionaries, and traders, Chief Ke‘eaumoku put his hand on the press lever, exerted pressure, and printed wet black syllables in Hawaiian and English. (HHS)

At this inauguration there were present his Excellency Governor (Ke‘eaumoku (Gov. Cox,)) a chief of the first rank, with his retinue; some other chiefs and natives; Rev. Hiram Bingham, missionary; Mr. Loomis, printer, (who had just completed setting it up); James Hunnewell; Captain William Henry and Captain Masters (Americans.) (Ballou)

“Edmund Butler … a resident of Maui … also took an interest in this novel scene, while one of the highest chiefs of these islands aided in commencing the printing of his native tongue.” (Gulick)

Mr. Loomis set up the first lesson of a spelling book, or primer, called ‘P-a-pa.’ … It is a sheet four by six inches, having twelve lines, each line having five separate syllables of two letters.”

“This certainly was the first printing done at the Hawaiian Islands, probably the first on the shores of the North Pacific Ocean. A month later Mr. Bingham received a letter from Governor Kuakini (John Adams) of Hawai‘i, who had succeeded in mastering the contents of the first printed sheet.” (Parker: The Friend)

“We are happy to announce to you that, on the first Monday of January (1822), we commenced printing, and, with great satisfaction, have put the first eight pages of the Owhyhee spellingbook into the hands of our pupils”.

Native Hawaiians immediately perceived the importance of “palapala” – document, to write or send a message. “Makai” – “good” – exclaimed Chief Ke‘eaumoku, to thus begin the torrent of print communications that we have today. (HHS)

Thereafter, printing on the first press, a second-hand Ramage, went on continuously for six years, until in 1828 an additional press was sent from Boston. The original press was acquired by the missionary school at Lahainaluna on Maui in 1834.

The presses of the Sandwich Islands Mission in Honolulu and Lahainaluna were the major printers of books in Hawaiian in the Islands until 1858, when the work of printing for the Mission was handed over on a business basis to Henry M. Whitney, a missionary son.

He continued to handle the Hawaiian language books for the Hawaiian Evangelical Association, which had superseded the Sandwich Islands Mission in 1854.

The Bible was translated from the original Greek and Hebrew by the combined efforts of Hiram Bingham and Asa Thurston of the Pioneer Company, Artemas Bishop and James Ely of the Second Company, William Richards, Lorrin Andrews, Jonathan Green, and Ephraim Clark of the Third Company, and Sheldon Dibble of the Fourth Company.

Although the work was begun in 1822, the first segment of the Bible, the Gospel of Luke, did not come off the press until 1827. The rest of the New Testament was completed by 1832 and the Old Testament in 1839 (although the date given on the title page is 1838).

“By far the larger part of the great mass of printed matter issued here in the fifty years subsequent to the arrival of Christian teachers was in the form of religious works and school books.”

“Aside from the Scriptures there have been published works on theology, in its different branches, church history, Bible text books and commentaries on the Bible, or parts of it.”

“Much time and labor, too, on the temperance question, with its many phases, and on other social topics, have gone into the printed page, which has found its way among the people with beneficial results to those who had the disposition to read and reflect.”

“Sermons and tracts by the thousands were published and had no lack of readers. Pilgrim’s Progress went into print in the native language among the first of the translated books.”

“Later, works of a secular nature began to issue from the native press and became popular. The stories of Washington, Lincoln. Grant, of Victoria, Napoleon, Xapier and others of the world’s distinguished men and women have been read by the Hawaiian in his native tongue.”

“The ‘Pioneer Boy,’ a story of Lincoln, was translated and published in book form for Hawaiian readers and Robinson Crusoe has also found its readers in the Hawaiian.” (Parker; The Friend)

The mission press printed 10,000-copies of Ka Palapala Hemolele (The Holy Scriptures). It was 2,331-pages long printed front and back.

The mission press also printed newspaper, hymnals, schoolbooks, broadsides, fliers, laws, and proclamations. The mission presses printed over 113,000,000 sheets of paper in 20 years. (Mission Houses)

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January 5, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

ABCFM Early Missions

“The Board was instituted in June, 1810; and was incorporated, by the Legislature of Massachusetts, June 20, 1812. Its beginnings, as is well known, were small, and the anticipations of its supporters not remarkably sanguine:”

“but its resources and operations have regularly increased, till, in respect to the number of its patron – the amount of its funds – and the extent of its influence, it is entitled to a place among the principal benevolent institutions of the earth.”

“The American Board of Foreign Missions, however, can neither claim, nor does it desire exclusive patronage. There are other Foreign Missionary Societies, for whom there is room, for whom there is work enough, and for whose separate existence there are, doubtless, conclusive reasons.”

“Christian charity is not a blind impulse but, is characterized in Scripture, as ‘the wisdom from above’, such wis – as is in heaven, – which is ‘pure, peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy.’”

“The system of operation of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions may be considered under two divisions, – its Home Department, and its Foreign Missions.”

“The Board has established missions, in the order of time in which they are now named at Bombay, and Ceylon; among the Cherokees, Choctaws, and the Cherokees of the Arkansaw; at the Sandwich Islands and in Western Asia.”

In 1812, the ABCFM sent its first missionaries – Adoniram and Ann Hasseltine Judson; Samuel and Roxana Peck Nott; Samuel and Harriet Atwood Newell; Gordon Hall, and Luther Rice – to British India.

When they reached Calcutta in June 1812, they and their fellow missionaries Adoniram and Ann Judson, Gordon Hall, and Samuel and Rosanna Nott, were ordered to leave by the British East India Company.

Samuel Newell sailed to Ceylon, where he spent a year preaching and investigating mission opportunities. Learning that Hall and Nott had succeeded in establishing residence in Bombay, he joined them in 1814, inaugurating the first American mission station overseas. (Boston University)

“Mission at Bombay”

“This mission became fixed in 1814. It was commenced by Messers. Hall, Newell, and Nott. Messers. Bardwell, Graves, Nichols, and Garrett, joined it at different periods since that time. … The mission has three stations – Bombay, Mahim, and Tannah.”

“The missionaries are engaged in three principal objects – the translation of the Scriptures, the superintendance of schools; and the preaching of the Gospel.”

“Mission in Ceylon”

“The mission is established in the district of Jaffna, which is in the norther extremity of the island if Ceylon, October 1816. The original missionaries were Messers. Richards, Warren, Meigs, and Poor. … The mission has five stations – Tillipally, Battcotta, Oodooville, Panditeripo and Manepy.”

“The Mission Among the Cherokees”

“On the 13th of January, 1817, Mr Kingsbury arrived at Cbickamaugah, since called Brainerd, and commenced preparations for an establishment there. ‘’The weather was extremely cold for this climate,’ says Mr K, ‘and I felt the want of comfortable lodgings, having only a skin spread upon the floor, and a thin covering of blankets; but my health was kindly preserved.’”

Messers Hall and Williams soon after joined him. Several have been united to this mission, and, for various reasons, have left, whose names do not appear in this survey. his mission has three stations, Brainerd, Creek-Path, and Taloney.”

“Mission Among the Choctaws”

The mission among the Cherokees being in successful operation, Mr. Kingsbury and Mr. Williams left Brainerd, about the first of June, 1818, for the Choctaw nation.”

“They selected a scite for their station, and about the 15th of August, felled the first tree. ‘The place was entirely new, and covered with lofty trees; but the ancient mounds, which here and there appeared, shewed, that it had been once the habitation of men.’”

“The station was named Elliot, in honor of the ‘Apostle of the American Indians.’ – The mission has now four stations, – Elliot, Mayhew, the French Camps, and the Long Prairies.”

“Mission Among the Cherokees of the Arkansaw”

“Commenced in 1820. There is only the station of Dwight – On the west side of Illinois Creek; four miles north of the Arkansaw river, 200 miles above the Arkansaw Post; and 500 miles from the junction of the Arkansaw with the Mississippi.” (Missionary Herald, January 1823)

“Mission at the Sandwich Islands”

(“One of the principal events which seems to have led to the establishment of this mission was the religious education of Henry Obookiah (‘Ōpūkaha‘ia,) a native of Owyhee, by the Rev. S. J. Mills, a zealous friend of missions. (Barber))

“Established in April, 1820. It has two stations – Hanaroorah and Wymai. Hanaroorah – On the island of Woahoo – Rev. Hiram Bingham and Rev. Asa Thurston, Missionaries; Messer, Daniel Chamberlain and Elisha Loomis, Assistant Missionaries; and Thomas Hopoo and John Honooree, Native Assistants.”

“Wymai – On the island of Atooi. Messers. Samule Whitney and Samuel Ruggles, Assistant Missionaries; and George Sandwich, Native Assistant.”

“On the 19th of November, Rev William Richards, Rev Charles S Stewart and Rev Artemis Bishop, Missionaries, Dr Abraham Blatchley, Physician; Messers Joseph Goodrich, and James Ely, Licensed Preachers and Assistant Missionaries; Mr Levi Chamberlain, Superintendant of secular concerns and Assistant Missionary; and four natives of the Sandwich Islands – embarked at New Haven, Con. To join the mission at the islands.”

“Mission to Palestine”

“The first missionaries, Messers Fisk and Parson, arrived at Smyrna in January, 1820. Rev Pliny Fisk and Dev Daniel Temple, Missionaries. … Rev William Goodell and Rev Isaac Bird, Missionaries, embarked at New York, in the early part of last month, for the mission in Western Asia.” (Missionary Herald, January 1823) (The image shows the Caravan, leaving Salem MA for India, February 19, 1812.)

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The Judsons, Newells, and Luther Rice set sail for India from Salem, MA on the Caravan-Feb 19, 1812