Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings | Page 87

September 16, 2018 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Missionary Arrested

The westward push of settlers had begun to dramatically affect the Cherokee. The Cherokees steadily refused to treat for the sale of their country. (Worcester)

The American Indians, with the help of Samuel Austin Worcester (nephew of the ABCFM Corresponding Secretary Samuel Worcester), his former teacher Jeremiah Evarts and the American Board, formulated a plan to fight the encroachment in court, their last hope.

The missionaries ““Resolved, As our unanimous opinion, that the establishment of the jurisdiction of Georgia and other states over the Cherokee people, against their will, would be an immense and irreparable injury.” (Worcester)

No other civil authority would support the Cherokee right to live on the land they called home for hundreds of years. The board hired former U.S. Attorney General William Wirt to defend George Tassel, a Cherokee convicted of murder in Hall County. (About North Georgia)

But President Andrew Jackson’s program of ‘Indian removal’ – forced marches to lands across the Mississippi – soon led to a confrontation between the ABCFM and the US government.

In 1830, ABCFM missionaries Samuel Worcester and Elizur Butler ended up in the Georgia State Penitentiary for resisting these unjust policies.

They were tried on September 16, 1831, for violation of Georgia law. The jury brought a quick verdict of guilty, and Worcester was condemned to 4 years of hard labor in a penitentiary.

“The imprisoned missionaries were treated with all the kindness which the rules of the prison would allow. Except that all letters sent or received by them must be seen by some officer of the prison, they corresponded freely with their friends; and Mr. Worcester still continued to give advice and directions concerning the management of the mission.”

“Severe tasks were not imposed upon them; and when any peculiarly unpleasant work was to be performed, some of the other convicts often begged the privilege of doing it in their stead. Still, they did their full share of labor, and refused every indulgence which could distinguish them invidiously from their fellow prisoners.”

“Their case was brought, by a writ of error, before the Supreme Court of the United States, and argued by William Wirt and John Sargeant on the 20th, 21st and 23d of February. No one appeared before the Court in behalf of Georgia.”

“On the 3d of March (1832), Chief Justice Marshall pronounced the decision of the Court in favor of the missionaries, declaring the laws of Georgia, extending her jurisdiction over the Cherokee country, to be repugnant to the constitution, treaties and laws of the United States, and, therefore, null and void.”

“The mandate of the Court was immediately issued, reversing and annulling the judgment of the Superior Court of Georgia, and ordering that all proceedings on the indictment against the missionaries ‘do forever surcease,’ and that they ‘be, and hereby are, dismissed therefrom.’”

“Meanwhile, the work of taking possession of the Cherokee country went on. A law of Georgia forbade the Cherokee government to act, or to exist. An armed force was sent, to arrest the members of the national council, if they should attempt to meet; and the meeting was thus prevented.”

“The country was laid out into lots of 140 acres each, to be distributed by lottery. Possession was to be given immediately, except in cases of lots on which Cherokees were actually residing.”

“White men crowded into the nation to take possession of the vacant lots, even before the lottery was drawn. Some of these were appointed justices of the peace, and a show was made of enforcing the civil code of Georgia.”

“The drawing of the lottery commenced on the 22d of October, and, after a short suspension, to investigate certain frauds in the manner of conducting it, was soon completed. The legislature met early in November.”

“The Governor in his message, stated what progress had been made in taking possession of the Cherokee lands, and the legislature repealed the law, under which the missionaries had been imprisoned.” (Worcester)

“Suppose we have gained nothing. Ought we therefore to repent of having made the attempt? Are we never to make efforts and sacrifices for the accomplishment of an important object, without the certainty of success?”

“No. If we have gained nothing else, we have at least gained a very cheerful testimony of our consciences, that we have done what we could, for the preservation of injustice, oppression, and robbery, and the preservation of the national faith.” (Letter of Defense, Samuel Worcester and Elizur Butler, CongressionalLibary)

In 1838, Butler joined the ‘Trail of Tears’ to Oklahoma, a march which took the lives of 4,000-Cherokees and Butler’s own infant daughter – and eventually fueled a public backlash against Indian removal. (CongressionalLibary)

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Cherokee mission at Brainerd, TN

September 13, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Charles Seaforth Stewart

Charles Seaforth Stewart was born at sea, April 11, 1823, on board the American ship Thames, in N. Lat. 8 degrees, 30 minutes, W. Long. 134 degrees of the Pacific Ocean.

He was the only son of the Reverend Charles Samuel Stewart, missionary to the Hawaiian Islands, and of Harriet Bradford Tiffany (Stewart). He was the great-grandson of Colonel Charles Stewart of New Jersey, Commissary General of Issues of the Army of the Revolution and member of the Continental Congress.

His ancestors were Scotch-Irish; Stewarts of Garlies and Gortlee. The father of Colonel Charles Stewart having resided upon the family demesne of Gortlee, Donegal County, Ireland. Harriet Bradford Tiffany came also of Revolutionary stock, her forefathers having landed on the Massachusetts’ coast in 1663.

Stewart’s boyhood was passed mostly at Cooperstown, Otsego County, New York, and at Princeton, New Jersey, where he received his classical education at Edgehill School.

When some seventeen years of age, with his father he made the three years’ European cruise as captain’s clerk aboard the U. S. S. Brandywine.

Soon after his return to the United States he was appointed a cadet at the U. S. Military Academy, from New Jersey, entering September 1, 1842, and being graduated July 7, 1846, at the head of his class, numbering fifty-nine members, the largest class that had up to that time been graduated from the Academy. (US Military Academy, Annual Reunion, 1904)

“No single group of men at West Point – or possibly any academy – has been so indelibly written into history as the class of 1846. The names are legendary …”

“Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson, George B. McClellan, Ambrose Powell Hill, Darius Nash Couch, George Edward Pickett, Cadmus Marcellus Wilcox, and George Stoneman.”

Graduating just as the Mexican War began, fifty-three of the fifty-nine member of this class (the largest in the Academy’s history to that time) fought in Mexico. Four of them lost their lives there. Two more were killed fighting Indians in the 1850s. (Waugh)

Ten members of that class became Confederate generals; twelve became Union generals; three of the Confederates and one of the Unionists were killed or mortally wounded in action during the Civil War. (CivilWarTalk)

“The class fought in three wars, produced twenty generals, and left the nation a lasting legacy of bravery, brilliance, and bloodshed.” (Waugh)

Stewart “was graduated from US Military Academy and promoted in the Army as Second Lieutenant, Corps of Engineers, July 1, 1846, and passed through all the intermediate grades to that of Colonel …”

“… receiving the brevet of Lieutenant Colonel, February 25, 1865, ‘for long, faithful and efficient services’; and declining the brevet of Colonel, March 13, 1865, ‘for gallant and meritorious services during the Rebellion.’”

On April 15, 1857, (he) married at Buffalo, NY, Cecilia Sophia DeLouville Tardy, granddaughter of Alexis Evstaphieve, Russian Consul General at New York. Mrs. Stewart, born October 22, 1836, died at San Francisco, Cal., November 24, 1886.”

“Three children were born of this marriage—Charles Seymour Stewart, April 12, 1858; died, February 8, 1893. Cecil Stewart, born April 12, 1864, and now a Captain in the Fourth Regiment of Cavalry. Cora Stewart, born March 15, 1873; died, February 1, 1876.”

“Stewart was retired from active service, at his own request, September 16, 1886, having served forty years as a Commissioned Officer. He was appointed a Brigadier General U. S. Army, retired, in accordance with the act of Congress, approved April 23, 1904.”

After retiring from active service, Stewart went to Cooperstown, New York, where still lived kinsmen and friends of his boyhood.

Here he led a quiet life, interested in town and church and local charities, devoting time and labor to genealogical research in which he took a lively interest. He was a member of the Society of the Cincinnati, the Loyal Legion and the American Geographical Society.

“Living quietly (there) he has been a more than liberal giver to all worthy causes and many are those who have had their suffering relieved through the charity of this kindly man.”

“He was a devoted member of the Presbyterian Church, holding at his death as he had for many years the office of clerk of the session.”

“A week prior to his death General Stewart went to Siasconset where he had gone every summer for many years to spend a month. He had been in failing health for some time and his friends disliked to have him go away but he insisted and went.”

“He was accompanied on his journey and upon his arrival the hotel proprietor had a watchful eye to his welfare and occupied a room adjoining his. Friday night he was heard to raise from his bed and a moment or two after to fall.”

“Investigation showed that he had fallen through the low window near his bed to a small piazza, from that to the ground. It is probable that he received the fall on account of his feeble condition.”

“This occurred about two o’clock in the morning. He was conscious when found but died (July 21, 1904) a few hours afterward, probably from an internal hemorrhage.” (Cooperstown Republican; US Military Academy, Annual Reunion, 1904)

“It was peculiarly characteristic of Captain Stewart that he would never delegate to another what he could possibly perform himself, and he was indefatigable in all his official work.”

“It was this attention to detail, and unnecessary attention at times, and this unsparing although unassuming energy, that consumed his power and limited his ultimate service.” (US Military Academy, Annual Reunion, 1904)

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Charles Seaforth Stewart

September 7, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Dr Judd’s Secret Instructions

“In case our Independence be not fully recognized, be endangered by the acts of any other Government. or our Sovereignty in peril or rendered of no value, our Royal Domain being exposed to further hostile attacks without just and good reasons, or from any other cause you may find these Instructions necessary.”

“These are to command and empower you, on your behalf to treat and negotiate with any King, President or Government or Agent thereof for the purpose- of placing our Islands under foreign Protection and Rule.”

“And you are hereby further commanded and empowered to treat and negotiate for the sale of and to sell our Sovereignty of the Hawaiian Islands, if, for reasons above mentioned, or for other good causes you may deem it wise and prudent so to do, reserving in all cases unto US the Ratification of any Treaty or Convention you may sign on our behalf.”

“And you are hereby further empowered to bargain for and sell all our Private Lands, and those of our Chiefs, subject to our Ratification and the free concurrence of our Chiefs. Done at the Palace, Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaiian Islands, this seventh day of September, AD 1849.” (Signed by Kamehameha III, Keoni Ana and RC Wyllie)

“His Majesty, Kamehameha III, had determined long before these events to dispose of his crown, which had become one of thorns, to the highest bidder.”

“When (King Kamehameha III) sent the last embassy to the United States, England and France, after the French spoliations, he furnished Dr Judd with powers, to which were affixed the royal signature and seal, with the instructions …”

“… to make the best bargain possible for the disposal of the sovereignty of the Islands, in case of failure in negotiating honorable treaties with the governments to which he was accredited.”

“What stronger proof could be given of his confidence in the fidelity of the Minister of Finance? I have seen these documents. and the knowledge that such unlimited power was delegated to my husband, frightened me with his responsibility. I was glad that he did not make use of them.”

“Under the administration of President Pierce the little Hawaiian Kingdom was looked upon with great favor. The road to Washington was very short, shorter probably than it ever will be again.”

“A project for annexation to the United States, alike honorable to both parties, was drawn up by Judge Lee, at the command of the king, and when approved was placed in the hands of the Minister of Foreign Affairs with orders to negotiate with the American Commissioner a treaty upon this basis.”

“The following were some of his Majesty’s reasons for desiring it: His subjects, native born, were decreasing at a fearful rate, in spite of liberal legislation, a superior civilization, and the ameliorating influences of the Gospel.”

“The blood royal might become extinct, as the dynasty of the Kamehamehas hung on a few precarious lives. The king had, as yet, no reliable protection against the repetition of such treatment as he had received from Lord George Paulet and Admiral de Tromelin.”

“His neighbor, Queen Pomare, was already a subject in her own dominions, which England had failed to protect against the French. That he escaped a similar fate, was owing to wiser counsellors, and the good offices of the United States.”

“All the commerce, and nearly every honorable and lucrative position, were already in the hands of foreigners, as well as large tracts of land. This foreign element would increase, and become more and more difficult to control, always requiring an administration of white men.”

“He wanted money; and his people wanted money. Lands would go to piecemeal in mortgage, for sums borrowed at rates of interest fearfully ruinous. By accepting liberal terms, these wants would be met, and the young princes be amply provided with means with which to gratify their tastes for luxury and foreign travel without losing their prestige of birth, rank, and wealth.”

“The Hawaiians were not to be slaves to their new masters, as some ill-disposed people tried to persuade them, but special stipulations would leave them under the laws entitled to the rights of American citizens.”

“So impatient of delay did His Majesty become, that he urged Dr. Judd to charter a schooner privately and go with him to the coast, thence to Washington, where he would close the bargain in person. Dr. Judd assured him that much as he favored the measure of annexation, he could aid it only as it was openly, honorably, and unanimously approved.”

“It was not strange that the young prince, the heir presumptive to the throne, should withhold his consent to the treaty. He had not yet tasted the sweets of supreme power, nor felt the thorns in the royal crown.”

“Time rolled on, and if his Majesty relinquished, under pressure, his Minister of Finance, he did not the scheme of making his kingdom a part and parcel of the United States.”

“The prospect of it suited the foreigners, gave fresh energy to every branch of business, and increased the value of real estate. Heavy capitalists from the adjoining coast were ready to invest their money in public improvements and plantations.”

“American ships-of-war were at hand, anticipating the honor of bearing the important documents, signed and sealed, to Washington.”

“The signatures were yet wanting; His Majesty more determined and impatient than ever, when he was taken suddenly ill, and died in three weeks, December 15, 1854.”

“At the request of his successor, Kamehameha IV, the negotiations that had been carried on with the US Commissioner, Mr. Gregg, were broken off and Chief Justice WL Lee was sent as ambassador to Washington, where he concluded a treaty of reciprocity July 20, 1855.” (Laura Fish Judd, Suppressed Chapter)

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Kauikeaouli-Kamehameha-III

Gerrit_P_Judd

August 31, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Emerald Bower of Hilo

Lydia Bingham Coan, second wife of Titus Coan, assembled his letters and told some of his stories in a Memorial to her husband. She speaks of “‘Emerald Bower,’ as they called their Hilo home, was a place of many hospitalities, and for nine years, with the delightful Dr. Coan, Mrs. Coan enjoyed the many social, literary and pastoral experiences of missionary life.”

“After the death of Dr. Coan in 1882, she returned to Honolulu to enter into the home of her brother, Dr. Hiram Bingham, Jr., in Punahou, near the old home of the Bingham family.”

“When Dr. Bingham died in 1908 the American Board gladly gave her a life tenure of the Bingham home, called “Gilbertina,” where with the loving ministrations of her devoted niece, Miss Kate Reynolds, she happily passed her declining years. On Tuesday, Aug. 14, 1915, Mrs. Coan took a severe cold, which developed into pneumonia.”

“Though this disease was soon arrested the frail body could not bear the strain of recovery, and on August 31st Mrs. Coan entered into the rest for which she had long been waiting.” (HMCS) Following are passages from her memorial and remembrances of Coan and Emerald Bower.

“From Boston he wrote to his parents: “December 3, 1834.- ‘We have now been here nearly two weeks, waiting for the ship to be ready. We hope to go to-morrow. Twelve missionaries sailed to-day for Southeastern Africa. There are eight of our number, making twenty in all, who met in this city at the same time.’”

“‘We received our instructions together on Sunday evening, the 23d of November, in Park Street Church. The meeting was crowded, solemn and impressive. The people of Boston take a deep interest in the cause of missions, and are very hospitable to missionaries. We have been kindly entertained since our arrival here.’”

“‘Our ship, the Hellespont, is a very good one, of 340 tons burden, but she is deeply laden. We shall be pent up in small rooms, but they will be large enough to hold our Bibles and our God, if our spirits are contrite.’”

“To His Brother, Heman Coan, Honolulu, June 26, 1835. – ‘My eyes at last behold these ‘isles afar off,’ and my feet tread on these long desired shores. And I would here first record the goodness of God in guiding us through all the perils of the deep and in bringing us to the field of our labors’”.

“‘On the morning of the 5th inst., just six months from the time we lost sight of our native land, we first descried the island of Hawaii, at the distance of sixty or seventy miles. On the morning of the 6th we made this island (Oahu), and at 10 A. M. dropped anchor in the harbor.’”

“‘All the missionaries of the islands, except two, with their wives and little ones, were assembled in general meeting at this place, according to their annual custom.’”

“‘On hearing of our arrival, Messrs. Bingham, Chamberlain and Armstrong came off to the ship in a boat, to welcome and to take us on shore. When we landed, we found the band of brethren and sisters at the seaside awaiting our arrival and ready to embrace us. Every heart seemed to feel more than it could utter.’”

“‘After services Mr. B. introduced me to the governess and some of the high chiefs, who expressed much joy at the arrival of more teachers on their shores. When we turned from our interview with the chiefs, the common people pressed around me in crowds, each one striving to grasp my hand and express his warm welcome.’”

“‘I long to go into the work. I think this is my proper field of labor, and I would not go back for the world, unless I knew it to be the will of God. There is pressing need of laborers here. Thousands who are anxious for instruction must die without it unless help can be obtained.’”

“‘Our location for the present year will be at Hilo, on the island of Hawaii. Our associate is to be Rev. Mr. Lyman. We shall probably be two hundred and fifty miles from medical aid, and can expect none. We have only to trust in God. Dear brother, live near to God and labor for souls. If we are faithful to our Master we shall soon meet in joy.’”

“Mr. and Mrs. Coan remained a month in Honolulu. Then, their location having been assigned by the mission, and an opportunity of reaching it presenting, they went forth to their appointed station.”

“Hilo was to them at the first, ‘a picture of loveliness,’ and forty years later Mr. Coan would write: ‘The ecstatic romance with which I first saw these emerald isles has not abated by familiarity or by age. The picture is photographed in unfading tints upon my heart, and it has become to me the romance of reality.’”

“‘Where can you find within so small a space such a collecting, such massing, such blending of the bland, the beautiful, the exquisite, the gorgeous, the grand and the terrific as on Hawaii?’” Of Hilo he notes, “our lovely, our inimitable landscape, our emerald bowers, our crescent strand and our silver bay”.

“To Mrs. E. Coan. March 8, 1867. – ‘I have just reached home in the dear old Emerald Bower. I went about fifty miles north to meet Bro. Bond, of Kohala, and the native pastors and delegates of N: Hawaii at the meeting of an ecclesiastical association.’”

“‘Thence I went to Waimea, seventy miles from Hilo, to see our dear Brother Lyons, who has not been able to leave his station for more than three years on account of ill health.’”

“To His Children. February 1, 1881. – ‘This is a joyful day. The heavens shine with glory. The earth glows with beauty. The sea sparkles with brilliants. The radiant orbs sing praises. The bland zephyrs murmur sweetly. The rippling rills leap and laugh.’”

“‘The emerald fields rejoice. Silvery notes of praise rise from glen and forest, and mingling strains of harmony and love ascend to the Creator from all his works.’”

“‘I am this day four score years old. God gave me a happy childhood, a cheerful youth, a vigorous manhood, and now a calm old age. My health is good, my spirits buoyant, and my heart is happy in the companion of my choice. My faith is firm, my hope anchored, and my love for you all is deathless as the soul.’”

“‘My experiences have been varied, and I look back upon my life as marked with many mistakes, numerous sins, and much unworthiness.’”

“‘But I also adore the grace of God in his pardoning love, and humbly trust that the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, will cleanse me from all sin. I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to the salvation of every true believer.’”

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Hilo_illustration,_c._1870s

August 11, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

‘Door to the Heart of the People’

“One turns from the study of old genealogies, myths, and traditions of the Hawaiians with a hungry despair at finding in them means so small for picturing the people themselves, their human interests and passions …”

“… but when it comes to the hula and the whole train of feelings and sentiments that made their entrances and exits in the halau (the hall of the hula) one perceives that in this he has found the door to the heart of the people.”

“So intimate and of so simple confidence are the revelations the people make of themselves in their songs and prattlings that when one undertakes to report what he has heard and to translate into the terms of modern speech what he has received in confidence, as it were, he almost blushes, as if he had been guilty of spying on Adam and Eve in their nuptial bower.”

“Alas, if one could but muffle his speech with the unconscious lisp of infancy, or veil and tone his picture to correspond to the perspective of antiquity, he might feel at least that, like Watteau, he had dealt worthily, if not truly, with that ideal age which we ever think of as the world’s garden period.”

“For an account of the first hula we may look to the story of Pele. On one occasion that goddess begged her sisters to dance and sing before her, but they all excused themselves, saying they did not know the art.”

“At that moment in came little Hiiaka, the youngest and the favorite. Unknown to her sisters, the little maiden had practised the dance under the tuition of her friend, the beautiful but ill-fated Hopoe.”

“When banteringly invited to dance, to the surprise of all, Hiiaka modestly complied. The wave-beaten sand-beach was her floor, the open air her hall; Feet and hands and swaying form kept time to her improvisation:”

“Look, Puna is a dance in the wind;
The palm groves of Kea-au shaken.
Haena and the woman Hopoe dance and sing
On the beach Nana-huki,
A dance of purest delight,
Down by the sea Nana-huki.”

“The most telling record of a people’s intimate life is the record which it unconsciously makes in its songs. This record which the Hawaiian people have left of themselves is full and specific.”

“When, therefore, we ask what emotions stirred the heart of the old-time Hawaiian as he approached the great themes of life and death, of ambition and jealousy, of sexual passion, of romantic love, of conjugal love, and parental love …”

“… what his attitude toward nature and the dread forces of earthquake and storm, and the mysteries of spirit and the hereafter, we shall find our answer in the songs and prayers and recitations of the hula.”

“The hula, it is true, has been unfortunate in the mode and manner of its introduction to us moderns.”

“An institution of divine, that is, religious, origin, the hula in modern times has wandered so far and fallen so low that foreign and critical esteem has come to associate it with the riotous and passionate ebullitions of Polynesian kings and the amorous posturing of their voluptuaries.”

“We must make a just distinction, however, between the gestures and bodily contortions presented by the men and women, the actors in the hula, and their uttered words. ‘The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.’”

“In truth, the actors in the hula no longer suit the action to the word.”

“The utterance harks back to the golden age; the gesture is trumped up by the passion of the hour, or dictated by the master of the hula, to whom the real meaning of the old bards is ofttimes a sealed casket.”

“Whatever indelicacy attaches in modern times to some of the gestures and contortions of the hula dancers, the old-time hula songs in large measure were untainted with grossness.”

“If there ever were a Polynesian Arcadia, and if it were possible for true reports of the doings and sayings of the Polynesians to reach us from that happy land …”

“… reports of their joys and sorrows, their love-makings and their jealousies, their family spats and reconciliations, their worship of beauty and of the gods and goddesses who walked in the garden of beauty …”

“… we may say, I think, that such a report would be in substantial agreement with the report that is here offered; but, if one’s virtue will not endure the love-making of Arcadia, let him banish the myth from his imagination and hue to a convent or a nunnery.” (All here is from Nathaniel Bright Emerson, a son of missionaries.)

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