Asa Thurston | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

June 22, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Missionary Travel to the Islands

“What wonder that we so long for release from this little prison-house!” (Laura Fish Judd – 1828)

From 1820 to 1847, there were 12-Companies of missionaries sent under the auspices of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) to the Islands. Every group of missionaries arrived by ship, sailing from New England, around Cape Horn and finally reaching the Hawaiian Islands usually after a five-month sea voyage. (Miller)

The Prudential Committee of the ABCFM in giving instructions 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 Pioneer Company, led by Hiram Bingham, left New England on the “Thaddeus” and arrived in the Islands on April 4, 1820, two centuries after their forebears, the pilgrims, landed from the “Mayflower” in New England.

For the most part, the missionaries were married – typically ‘just married’ a few weeks or months of their departure. In the Pioneer Company, by the middle of the trip, four of the wives were pregnant. (The following is a composite from writers from different Companies describing the trip.)

Travel wasn’t easy.

“We were hardly able to stand even by holding on with both hands and every now and then we were called to belch up the contents of our stomachs without discrimination.” Sea sickness was a constant issue for these non-sailors. (Judd; Miller)

Things were stored everywhere. Stephen Shepard observed that “the way to our room is blocked up with potato bags and other provisions, so as to render it almost impassable; having to scramble over a large quantity of luggage to get in or out.” (Miller)

Sleeping quarters were tight. A journal entry by Maria Patton noted, “It (the stateroom – serving 4 people) is 7 feet wide and 5½-feet long, and has a window about the size of a tea cup directly over my berth. … it contains a bureau, 8 trunks, 4 bandboxes, each of us a writing desk, 8 bags, 4 baskets …” (Maria Patton; Miller)

“Last evening, found myself much exhausted in consequence of fatigue through the day in putting order in our little room. To accomplish a little, costs much labor on board a vessel. I am grieved to find it too much the case, that with my bodily strength, my spirits sink. Several such seasons have arisen in my new situation.” (Sybil Bingham)

“… those who occupy the higher berths have to climb before we can get into them. And what is still worse, not a breath of fresh air can get in, and the cockroaches are so thick, they crawl over us and the smell is intolerable. My berth is the highest in the place, so high that there is only 12 inches between my head and the deck.” (Patton; Miller)

The “day commenced (with) the study of the Owhyhee language. … This evening held our first singing school. It is greatly to be wished that we could all join with our hearts and voices too …” (Sybil Bingham)

“After having been out ninety-four days, and witnessing nothing but floating barques like our own, some monsters of the deep, the expansive ocean and the wide-spread heavens, I can not describe to you the joyful emotions which the sight of land has this day produced. We have a fair view of Terra del Fuego on the right, and Staten Land on the left.” (Lucy Thurston)

Then, after many more days at sea, “Memorable day – a day which brings us in full view of that … land so long the object of our most interested thoughts. Between twelve and one this morning, the word was … ‘land appears’ … ‘Owhyhee sight!’”

“There was but little sleep. When the day afforded more light than the moon we were all out, and judge you, if possible, what sensation filled our breasts as we fixed our eyes upon the lofty mountains of Owhyhee!”

“O! It would be in vain to paint them. I attempt it not.”

“A fair wind carried us by different parts of the island near enough to discern its verdure, here and there a cataract rushing down the bold precipice.” (Sybil Bingham)

Upon landing, an observer ashore noted, “They look careworn and feeble; Mr. W- said ‘hungry.’” (Laura Fish Judd)

Intelligence of the arrival of our mission at the Islands, reached the United States seventeen months after we left Boston. (Lucy Thurston)

Over the course of a little over 40-years (1820-1863 – the “Missionary Period”,) about 180-men and women in twelve Companies served in Hawaiʻi to carry out the mission of the ABCFM in the Hawaiian Islands.

By the time the Pioneer Company arrived, Kamehameha I had died and the centuries-old kapu system had been abolished; through the actions of King Kamehameha II (Liholiho,) with encouragement by former Queens Kaʻahumanu and Keōpūolani (Liholiho’s mother,) the Hawaiian people had already dismantled their heiau and had rejected their religious beliefs.

Today, the Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society, a nonprofit educational institution and genealogical society, exists to promote an understanding of the social history of nineteenth-century Hawai‘i and its critical role in the formation of modern Hawai‘i.

The Society operates the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives, comprised of three historic houses and a research archives with reading room. The Society also compiles the genealogical records of the American Protestant missionaries in Hawai‘i and promotes the participation of missionary descendants in the Society’s activities.

Through the Site and Archives, the Society collects and preserves the documents, artifacts and other records of the missionaries in Hawai‘i’s history; makes these collections available for research and educational purposes; and interprets the historic site and collections to reflect the social history of nineteenth century Hawai‘i and America.

Brig_Thaddeus-Friend19341101

Thaddeus

Portraits_of_Hiram_and_Sybil_Moseley_Bingham,_1819,_by_Samuel_F.B._Morse

Asa Thurston and Lucy Goodale Thurston

Rocks where Thaddeus landed-Ahuena ruins in background-1928

A_Missionary_Preaching_to_the_Natives,_under_a_Skreen_of_platted_Cocoa-nut_leaves_at_Kairua_by_William_Ellis-1823

Map of Kailua Bay

Terra del Ffuego-Strait of Magellan

Tierra-del-Fuego-Map

May 11, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Happy Mother’s Day!

The image shows my mother, grandmother, grandfather and some of their friends in 1928 in front of Moku‘aikaua Church. (My mother is the littlest girl sitting near the middle, her mother is sitting next to her near the middle (wearing a hat) and her father is on the right.

This stone and mortar building, completed in 1837, is the oldest surviving Christian church in the state of Hawaiʻi, started by the first Protestant missionaries to land in Hawaiʻi and the oldest intact Western structure on the Island of Hawai‘i.

With the permission of Liholiho (Kamehameha II), the missionaries first built a grass house for worship in 1823 and, later, a large, thatched meeting house.

Missionary Asa Thurston directed the construction of the present Moku’aikaua Church, then the largest building in Kailua-Kona. Its massive size indicates the large Hawaiian population living in or near Kailua at that time.

Built of stones taken from a nearby heiau and lime made of burned coral, it represents the new western architecture of early 19th-century Hawaiʻi and became an example that other missionaries would imitate.

The original thatch church which was built in 1823 but was destroyed by fire in 1835, the present structure was completed in 1837. Moku‘aikaua takes its name from a forest area above Kailua from which timbers were cut and dragged by hand to construct the ceiling and interior.

In 1910, a memorial arch was erected at the entrance to the church grounds to commemorate the arrival of the first missionaries.

My mother was the great-great grand-daughter (and her father was great grandson) of Hiram Bingham, leader of first missionaries to Hawaiʻi who first landed in the Islands, here at Kailua-Kona in 1820.

Happy Mother’s Day!

December 19, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Sarona Road

Mai ka Lani mai nei ka leo kahea,
Pio mai la kona nani i ka lua kupapau.
A o oe la e, e Opukahaia, Hauoli avanei,
ke ike aku oe, O kou aina hanau, ke pua mai nei;
Opuu ae la na rose, aala mai hoi,
Nani loa o Sarona, hiehie moana.

The call came from Heaven,
His glory faded from the grave.
And you, Opukahaia, be happy now,
when you see, Your native land is blooming;
The roses bloomed and smelled,
Sharon is very beautiful, the sea is beautiful.
(Ka Moolelo o Heneri Opukahaia; Chris Cook)

ʻIsaia 65:10, A e lilo nō ʻo Sārona i pā no nā hipa, A ʻo ke kahawai ʻo ʻAkora i wahi moe no nā bipi, No koʻu poʻe kānaka i ʻimi mai ai iaʻu.

Isaiah 65:10, Sharon will become a pasture for flocks, and the Valley of Achor a resting place for herds, for my people who seek me.

Song of Solomon 2:1, “ʻO wau nō ka rose o Sārona, A me ka līlia o nā awāwa.“ “I am the rose of Sharon, And the lily of the valleys.” (Hawaiian Baibala)

“The Rose of Sharon is a flower that grows on mountaintops, and that’s why the Lord referred to Himself as The Rose of Sharon. His mountaintop was Golgotha, and the Lord let me know that people can only find this Rose on Mount Calvary.”

“Roses are noted for their fragrances, and the fragrance from this great Rose travels down from the mount of God and into the valley for us.” (Ernest Angley Ministries)

Sharon is the Mediterranean coastal plain between Joppa and Caesarea. In the time of Solomon, it was a place of great fertility. It is in North Palestine, between Mount Tabor and Lake Tiberias. (Bible-org)

Sarona is the name of a road in Kailua-Kona in the immediate vicinity of Moku‘aikaua Church. As noted in the translations above, Sarona is the Hawaiian word for Sharon.

Moku‘aikaua Church started in 1820 with the arrival of the first American Protestant missionaries. With the permission of Liholiho (Kamehameha II), the missionaries built a grass house for worship in 1823.

It soon was found that the church was incapable of holding the growing following of the missionaries. The Kona District had by the mid-1820s, an estimated population of 20,000 and congregations became so large that a considerable number had to be excluded from services.

Governor Kuakini immediately agreed to help in the erection of a new structure. Every male in the district was sent into the mountains to help cut and haul timber. On September 27, 1826, the church was dedicated. (NPS)

It was destroyed by fire in 1835; the present lava rock and coral mortared church, capped with a gable roof, was dedicated on February 4, 1837. It is the oldest intact Western structure on the Island of Hawai‘i.

Moku‘aikaua Church is on a small level lot near the center of Kailua-Kona. Its high steeple stands out conspicuously and has become a landmark from both land and sea.

Some believe Sarona Road was the path people took to/from Mokuaikaua Church that takes an idyllic biblical name (reminiscent of the Rose of Sharon and other Sharon references in the Bible) that was named by Asa Thurston.

Reverend Asa and Lucy Thurston were in the Pioneer company of American Protestant Missionaries to the Hawaiian Islands, arriving in Kailua-Kona on the Thaddeus in 1820.

The Thurstons made their home in Kailua Village, in a house the Hawaiians named Laniākea. Thurston received Laniākea, a 5.26-acre homestead parcel as a gift from Governor Kuakini.

As noted by Rev. Sereno Edwards Bishop, in his book “Reminiscences Of Old Hawaii”: “In the early [1830s,] Kailua was a large native village, of about 4,000 inhabitants rather closely packed along one hundred rods [1650-feet] of shore, and averaging twenty rods [330-feet] inland.”

“It had been the chief residence of King Kamehameha, who in 1819 died there in a rudely built stone house whose walls are probably still standing on the west shore of the little bay. Nearby stood a better stone house occupied by the doughty Governor Kuakini.”

“All other buildings in Kailua were thatched, until Rev. Artemas Bishop built his two-story stone dwelling in 1831 and Rev. Asa Thurston in 1833 built his wooden two-story house at Laniakea, a quarter of a mile inland.”

“Most of the native huts were thatched with the stiff pili grass. The better ones were thatched with lau-hala (pandanus leaf) or with la-i.”

“The second company [of missionaries] consisted of six married couples and two single persons. They sailed from New Haven, Conn., Nov. 19, 1822, and arrived at Honolulu, April 27, 1823, in 158 days. Among the second company was Rey. Artemas Bishop, a native of Pompey, NY …”

“He was married in November, 1822, to Elizabeth Edwards, who was born at Marlborough, Mass., June 17, 1796. Mrs. Bishop had been a girlhood friend of Mrs. Lucy G. Thurston, who had preceded her to Hawaii as a missionary, some four years earlier.”

Missionaries that served at the Kailua-Kona Mission Station, whose principal church was Moku‘aikaua, included, Asa Thurston, Thomas Holman, Artemas Bishop, James Ely, Delia Stone and Seth L Andrews.

Back to the naming of the road … Hawaiian Place Names notes the reference to the Land Commission Award Book and Tax Map, apparently, all references are linked to the Land Commission decisions.

Early references to ‘Sarona’ are found in the Land Commission Awards (LCA) Book 3 related to awards to Leleiōhoku. Leleiōhoku was son of Kalanimōku; Leleiōhoku married Princess Ruth (Keʻelikōlani).

On August 30, 1851, the Land Commission records note LCA 1028 and LCA 9971 Apana 46 and 47 (as well as many other parcels) were in a partial list of lands agreed upon by the Mahele to belong to the more important Aliis and Chiefs and confirmed to Leleiōhoku by Award of the Commission to Quiet Land Titles.

Mapping for LCA 1028 noted ‘Ala Ololi Sarona’ (Narrow Sharon Path) as a boundary and mauka of the parcel the trail/road is noted as ‘Ala Ololi Pii Sarona’ (Narrow Sharon Path going up).

Mapping for the LCA 9971 Apana parcels 46 and 47 note “Alanui Sarona” (Sharon Road/Trail) as a boundary. The ‘Alanui’ reference suggests larger trails/road.

LCA 9971 Apana 47 also notes Alanui Tatina (now spelled Kakina) as a boundary – Tatina was the Hawaiian name for Thurston. Alanui Tatina is likely the trail used by the Thurstons that lead from their home, ‘Laniakea’, down into Kailua-Kona).

Given its location, the early reference of the name (1851), the biblical nature of the name, the religious passion of Asa Thurston, Artemas Bishop and the other missionaries and their families, it is plausible (probable) that Sarona Road was named by the missionaries and was a trail used by the Hawaiians from the surrounding area to get to Moku‘aikaua Church.

By Resolution 288, dated January 19, 1956, the Hawai‘i County Board of Supervisors approved the ‘Naming of Streets in Kailua Keahou [sic] Area, Kona’; the list of ten streets included Sarona Road.

April 4, 2024 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Pioneer Company

The coming of Henry Obookiah (ʻŌpūkahaʻia) and other young Hawaiians to the continent had awakened a deep Christian sympathy in the churches and moved the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) to establish a mission in the Hawaiian Islands.

Among the other Hawaiian students at the Foreign Mission School were Thomas Hopu, William Kanui, John Honoliʻi and Prince Humehume (son of Kauaiʻi’s King Kaumuali‘i.)

When asked “Who will return with these boys to their native land to teach the truths of salvation?” Hiram Bingham and his classmate, Asa Thurston, were the first to respond and offer their services to the Board. (Congregational Quarterly)

Bingham and Thurston were ordained at Goshen, Ct on September 29, 1819; it was the first ordination of foreign missionaries in the State of Connecticut.

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

There were seven American couples sent by the ABCFM to convert the Hawaiians to Christianity in this first company.

These included two Ordained Preachers, Hiram Bingham and his wife Sybil and Asa Thurston and his wife Lucy; two Teachers, Mr. Samuel Whitney and his wife Mercy and Samuel Ruggles and his wife Mary; a Doctor, Thomas Holman and his wife Lucia; a Printer, Elisha Loomis and his wife Maria; and a Farmer, Daniel Chamberlain, his wife and five children.

Although a large part of the motivation for the Hawaiʻi missionary movement, Henry ʻŌpūkahaʻia unfortunately died of typhus fever in 1818 and didn’t return home to teach the gospel. However, his book, “Memoirs of Henry Obookiah,” was the inspiration for this and subsequent Hawaiian missionary companies.

The Prudential Committee of the 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)

After 164-days at sea, on April 4, 1820, the Thaddeus arrived and anchored at Kailua-Kona on the Island of Hawaiʻi. Hawai‘i’s “Plymouth Rock” is about where the Kailua pier is today.

One of the first things Bingham and his fellow missionaries did was begin to learn the Hawaiian language and create an alphabet for a written format of the language. Their emphasis was on teaching and preaching.

On July 14, 1826, the missionaries selected a 12-letter alphabet for the written Hawaiian language, using five vowels (a, e, i, o, and u) and seven consonants (h, k, l, m, n, p and w) in their “Report of the committee of health on the state of the Hawaiian language.” The report is signed by Hiram Bingham and Levi Chamberlain.

The arrival of the first company of American missionaries in Hawaiʻi 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.

By 1831, in just eleven years from the first arrival of the missionaries, Hawaiians had built 1,103 schoolhouses. This covered every district throughout the eight major islands and serviced an estimated 52,882 students. (Laimana)

The proliferation of schoolhouses was augmented by the printing of 140,000 copies of the pīʻāpā (elementary Hawaiian spelling book) by 1829 and the staffing of the schools with 1,000-plus Hawaiian teachers. (Laimana)

Interestingly, these same early missionaries 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.

Within five years of the missionaries’ arrival, a dozen chiefs had sought Christian baptism and church membership, including the king’s regent Kaʻahumanu. The Hawaiian people followed their native leaders, accepting the missionaries as their new priestly class. The process culminated in Hawaiian King Kamehameha III’s adoption of Christianity and a Biblically-based constitution in 1840. (Schulz)

Over the course of a little over 40-years (1820-1863) (the “Missionary Period”,) about 180-men and women in twelve Companies served in Hawaiʻi to carry out the mission of the ABCFM in the Hawaiian Islands.

As did all residents of the Islands, the Missionaries had to surrender their American citizenship before they could preach. They, and their children…and their childrens’ children were Hawaiian subjects – not Americans.

US Secretary of State Daniel Webster wrote to the Commissioner in Hawaiʻi in 1851, “You inform us that many American citizens have gone to settle in the islands; if so they have ceased to be American citizens.”

“The Government of the United States must, of course, feel an interest in them not extended to foreigners, but by the law of nations they have no right further to demand the protection of this Government.”

“Whatever aid or protection might under any circumstances be given them must be given, not as a matter of right on their part, but in consistency with the general policy and duty of the Government and its relations with friendly powers.” (Webster, July 14, 1851)

In 1844, as Hawaiian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Gerrit Judd wrote the ABCFM encouraging it to allow missionaries to become naturalized Hawaiian citizens, “[The missionary] children born here are native born subjects of the king and would many of them settle here were it not for the anxiety of their parents.” (Schulz)

The image shows the early Mission house and Chapel in Honolulu (the precursor of today’s Kawaiahaʻo Church.)

January 3, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

‘We stopped, and trembled’

“Messrs (William) Ellis, (Asa) Thurston, (Artemas) Bishop and (Joseph) Goodrich made a tour round the island of Hawai‘i, examining its various districts, conversing with the natives, and preaching the gospel 130 different times.” (History of ABCFM)

“Hitherto we had travelled close to the sea-shore, in order to visit the most populous villages in the districts through which we had passed. But here receiving information that we should find more inhabitants a few miles inland, than nearer the sea, we thought it best to direct our course towards the mountains.”

Makoa, their guide, “objected strongly to our going thither, as we should most likely be mischievous, and offend Pele or Nahoaarii, gods of the volcano, by plucking the ohelo, (sacred berries,) digging up the sand, or throwing stones into the crater, …”

“… and then they would either rise out of the crater in volumes of smoke, send up large stones to fall upon us and kill us, or cause darkness and rain to overtake us, so that we should never find our way back.”

“We told him we did not apprehend any danger from the gods … If we were determined on going, he said, we must go by ourselves, he would go with us as far Kapapala, the last village at which we should stop, and about twenty miles on this side of it …”

“… from thence he would descend to the sea-shore, and wait till we overtook him. The governor, he said, had told him not to go there, and, if he had not, he should not venture near it, for it was a fearful place. … [W]e proceeded on our way, leaving Makoa to wait for them, and come after us as far as Kapapala, where we expected to spend the night.”

In 1823, they were the first Westerners to visit Kilauea volcano. Ellis describes his first impressions, “After walking some distance over the sunken plain, which in several places sounded hollow under our feet, we at length came to edge of the great crater, where a spectacle, sublime and even appalling, presented itself before us“.

“‘We stopped, and trembled.’”

“Astonishment and awe for some moments rendered us mute, and, like statues, we stood fixed to the spot, with our eyes riveted on the abyss below.”

“Immediately before us yawned an immense gulf, in the form of a crescent, about two miles in length, from north-east to south-west, nearly a mile in width, and apparently 800 feet deep.”

“The bottom was covered with lava, and the south-west and northern parts of it were one vast flood of burning matter, in a state of terrific ebullition; rolling to and fro its ‘fiery surge’ and flaming billows.”

“Fifty-one conical islands, of varied form and size, containing so many craters, rose either round the edge or from the surface of the burning lake.”

“Twenty-two constantly emitted columns of grey smoke, or pyramids of brilliant flame; and several of these at the same time vomited from their ignited mouths streams of lava, which tolled in blazing torrents down their black indented sides into the boiling mass below.”

“The existence of these conical craters led us to conclude, that the boiling caldron of lava before us did not form the focus of the volcano; that this mass of melted lava was comparatively shallow; and that the basin, in which it was contained was separated, by a stratum of solid matter, from the great volcano abyss, which constantly poured out its melted contents through these numerous craters into this upper reservoir.”

“We were further inclined to this opinion, from the vast columns of vapour continually ascending from the chasms in the vicinity of the sulphur banks and pools of water, for they must have been produced by other fire than that which caused the ebullition in the lava at the bottom of the great crater …”

“… and also by noticing a number of small craters, in vigorous action, situated high up the sides of the great gulf, and apparently quite detached from it.”

“The streams of lava which they emitted rolled down into the lake, and mingled with the melted mass there, which, though thrown up by different apertures, had perhaps been originally fused in one vast furnace.”

“The sides of the gulf before us, although composed, of different strata of ancient lava, were perpendicular for about 400 feet, and rose from a wide horizontal ledge of solid black lava of irregular breadth, but extending completely round.”

“Beneath this ledge the sides sloped gradually towards the burning lake, which, was, as nearly as we could judge, 300 or 400 feet lower. It was evident, that the large crater had been recently filled with liquid lava up to this black ledge, and had, by some subterranean canal, emptied itself into the sea, or upon the low land on the shore.”

“The grey, and in some places apparently calcined, sides of the great crater before us; the fissures which intersected the surface of the plain on which we were standing; the long banks of sulphur on the opposite side of the abyss; the vigorous action of the numerous small craters on its borders …”

“… the dense columns of vapour and smoke, that rose at the north and south end of the plain; together with the ridge of steep rocks by which it was surrounded, rising probably in some places 300 or 400 feet in perpendicular height, presented an immense volcanic panorama, the effect of which was greatly augmented by the constant roaring of the vast furnaces below.”

“After the first feelings of astonishment had subsided, we remained a considerable time contemplating a scene, which it is impossible to describe, and which filled us with wonder and admiration at the almost overwhelming manifestation it affords of the power of that dread Being who created the world, and who has declared that by fire he will one day destroy it.”

“We then walked along the west side of the crater, and in half an hour reached the north end.” (All here is from William Ellis’ Narrative of a Tour Through Hawaii.)