Missionaries | Page 3 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

September 17, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM)

There are three prominent names associated with the history of Missions in America, Eliot of the 17th century, Brainerd of the 18th century and Mills of the 19th century.

John Eliot (c. 1604 – 21 May 1690) was a Puritan missionary to the American Indians. His efforts earned him the designation “the apostle to the Indians.”

David Brainerd (April 20, 1718–October 9, 1747) was an American missionary to the Native Americans who had a ministry among the Delaware Indians of New Jersey.

Samuel John Mills (1783-1818) was the key instigator of American foreign missions. He grew up in Torringford, Connecticut, where his father, also named Samuel John Mills (1743-1833,) was pastor of the Congregational Church.

In the early-1800s, the US was swept by religious revivalism and many people were converted in the wake of the newly born religious fervor. The Second Great Awakening spread from its origins in Connecticut to Williamstown, Massachusetts; enlightenment ideals from France were gradually being countered by an increase in religious fervor, first in the town, and then in Williams College.

In 1806, Mills headed off to Williams College in Massachusetts; he shared his thoughts on a missionary life with a few friends at college.

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

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

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

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

In February, 1812, Rev. and Mrs. Judson, Rev. and Mrs. Newall, Rev. and Mrs. Nott, Rev. Gordon Hall and Rev. Luther Rice were commissioned as the Board’s first missionaries and set sail for Calcutta, India. (williams-edu)

In 1818, following a brief stay in England, Mills sailed to the west coast of Africa to purchase land for the American Colonization Society, then embarked for the United States on May 22 – he died at sea on June 16, 1818.

The story of the Foreign Mission School (1817-1826) connects the town of Cornwall, Connecticut, to a larger, national religious fervor of the Second Great Awakening. Cornwall’s Foreign Mission School exemplified evangelical efforts to recruit young men from indigenous cultures around the world, convert them to Christianity, educate them, and train them to become preachers, health workers, translators and teachers back in their native lands.

The school’s first student was Henry ʻŌpūkahaʻia (Obookiah,) a native Hawaiian from the Island of Hawaiʻi who in 1809 (at the age of 16, after his parents had been killed) boarded a sailing ship anchored in Kealakekua Bay and sailed to the continent. In its first year, the Foreign Mission School had 12 students, more than half of whom were Hawaiian.

The next year, the enrollment doubled to 24 and, in addition to Chinese, Hindu and Bengali students, also consisted of seven Native Americans of Choctaw, Abnaki and Cherokee descent. By 1820, Native Americans from six different tribes made up half of the school’s students.

Once enrolled, students spent seven hours a day in study. Subjects included chemistry, geography, calculus and theology, as well as Greek, French and Latin. They were also taught special skills like coopering (the making of barrels and other storage casks), blacksmithing, navigation and surveying. When not in class, students attended mandatory church and prayer sessions and also worked on making improvements to the school’s lands.

ʻŌpūkahaʻia died suddenly of typhus fever in 1818; the “Memoirs of Henry Obookiah” served as an inspiration for missionaries to volunteer to carry his message to the Sandwich Islands.

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

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)

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.

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 buildings 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.

Here is a link to some more on the ABCFM
https://imagesofoldhawaii.com/wp-content/uploads/ABCFM.pdf

September 16, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Keōpūolani Baptism

On the arrival of the American missionaries in April 1820, all the chiefs were consulted respecting the expediency of their establishment in the islands. Some of the chiefs seemed to doubt; but Keōpūolani without hesitation approved their proposals. (Memoir)

Keōpūolani welcomed them. As the highest ranking ali‘i of her time, her embracing of Christianity set a crucial seal of approval on the missionaries and their god. (Langlas & Lyon)

Keōpūolani was the daughter of Kīwalaʻo. Kīwalaʻo was the son of Kalaniʻōpuʻu by Kalola (sister of Kahekili.) Her mother was Kekuiapoiwa Liliha, Kīwalaʻo sister. She was aliʻi kapu of nī‘aupi‘o (high-born – offspring of the marriage of a high-born brother and sister or half-brother and half-sister.)

Her ancestors on her mother’s side were ruling chiefs of Maui; her ancestors on her father’s side were the ruling chiefs of the island of Hawai‘i. Keōpūolani’s genealogy traced back to Ulu, who descended from Hulihonua and Keakahulilani, the first man and woman created by the gods.

In the year 1822, while at Honolulu, she was very ill, and her attention seems to have been then first drawn to the instructions of the missionaries. (Anderson)

In May 1823, Keōpūolani and her husband Hoapili expressed a desire to have an instructor connected with them. They selected Taua, a native teacher sent by the church at Huaheine, in company with the Rev. Mr. Ellis, to instruct them and their people in the first principles of the Gospel, and teach them to read and write.

The mission approved, and Taua resided until the death of Keōpūolani. He proved a faithful teacher, and by the blessing of God, we believe, he did much to establish her in the Christian faith. (Memoir)

Keōpūolani requested, as did the king and chiefs, that missionaries might accompany her. As Lahaina had been previously selected for a missionary station, the missionaries were happy to commence their labors there under such auspices. William Richards and Charles Samuel Stewart therefore accompanied her. (Memoir)

On the May 31, 1823, Keōpūolani arrived in Lahaina with Messrs. Richards and Stewart and their families. On their passage, she told them she would be their mother; and indeed she acted the part of a mother ever afterwards.

Immediately on their arrival, she requested them to commence teaching, and said, also, “It is very proper that my sons (meaning the missionaries) be present with me at morning and evening prayers.”

They were always present, sung a hymn in the native language, and when nothing special prevented, addressed through an interpreter the people who were present, when Taua, or the interpreter, concluded the service with prayer.

She spent a principal part of her time every day in learning how to read. and notwithstanding her age, numerous cares, constant company, and various other hindrances, made respectable proficiency.

She was indeed a diligent pupil, seldom weary with study; often spent hours over her little spelling book; and when her teachers rose to leave her, rarely laid it aside, but usually continued studying after they had retired.

She was apparently as diligent in searching for divine truth, as in learning to read, and evidently gave attention to her book, that she might know more of her duty to her Maker. (Memoir)

On the last week in August, Keōpūolani began to be seriously affected by a local indisposition, which soon seemed to relax her whole system, and in her view was a premonition of her approaching death.

On the first day of September, the chiefs began to collect in consequence of her illness. This was agreeable to their universal custom. Whenever a high chief is taken ill, although there may be nothing threatening in his illness, all the chiefs assemble from every part of the islands, and wait the result.

Thus, it was in Keōpūolani’s sickness. Vessels were dispatched to the different islands before there was any occasion for alarm. It was not many days, however, before it was seriously apprehended that the disease would prove fatal. (Memoir)

“They regarded her as a fit subject for baptism, but were unwilling to administer the ordinance without some means of communicating with her and with the people, so that there might be no danger of misunderstanding on so interesting an occasion.”

“They feared lest there should be erroneous impressions as to the place the ordinance held in the Christian system. Happily, Mr. Ellis arrived just in season, and the dying woman was thus publicly acknowledged as a member of the visible church.”

“The king and ail the heads of the nation listened with profound attention to Mr. Ellis’s statement of the grounds on which baptism was administered to the queen …”

“… and when they saw that water was sprinkled on her in the name of God, they said, ‘Surely she is no longer ours. She has given herself to Jesus Christ. We believe she is his, and death will go to dwell with him.’ An hour afterwards, near the close of September 16, 1823, she died.” (Anderson)

Keōpūolani is said to have been the first convert of the missionaries in the islands and the first to receive a Protestant baptism. (Kalanimōku and Boki had previously (1819) been baptized by the French Catholics. Kalanimōku later (1825) joined the Protestant Church, at the same time as Ka‘ahumanu.)

July 30, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Missionaries Lay The Foundation for a System of Public Instruction

Merze Tate, Professor of History at Howard University, wrote a 1961 article titled, The Sandwich Island Missionaries Lay the Foundation for a system of Public Education in Hawaii. The following is taken from that article.

“Aside from conversions, one of the most notable achievements of the Congregational and Presbyterian missionaries sent to the Sandwich Islands under the auspices of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was the development of an educational system for the nation.”

“A broad enlightenment program for the islanders depended upon instruction in the indigenous tongue and this, of necessity, was delayed until the pioneer teachers had learned the language and reduced it to a written form. Nevertheless, before the evangelists were well settled at [Kailua-Kona], on Hawaii, and Honolulu and Waimea, on Oahu, they made a start in English.”

“The missionaries reasoned that if the masses were to be made literate within a reasonable period they would have to be taught in their own tongue.” (Merze Tate)

The cycle of missionary educational endeavor divides itself roughly into three periods: first was a decade of establishment and experimentation, lasting from 1820 to about 1831. Here the language was reduced to a written form, teaching materials were printed and adults learned the rudiments of reading and writing.

The second period, from 1831 to 1840 was characterized by a shift from adult to child education. By improvement in training teachers to teach.

Finally, the following two decades where the missionaries gradually relinquished their control of educational activities; this saw the establishment of public education under governmental control in 1840, and lasted to 1863 when the ABCFM ended the mission in Hawai‘i. (Whist)

“After the first printed sheets came from the press in the Hawaiian language, on January 7, 1822, and all were able to see their own words in print, learning to read, write, and spell was comparatively easy”.

“After the chiefs beheld their language in print they began to manifest a more lively interest in education for themselves and for their children and in the establishment and maintenance of schools for their people.”

“After the public advocacy of instruction by the highest chiefs, in April 1824, similar action came from all parts of the kingdom. Learning also received a great impulse from the personal tours of the vigorous Kaahumanu, who went all through the islands commanding the people to listen to the Kumus, or missionary teachers, and the chiefs to provide facilities for schools.”

“Because of the lack of paper and slates, writing was taught only to a very limited extent, and arithmetic hardly at all until an eight-page pamphlet on the subject was published at the beginning of 1828.”

“By 1825 the people stood waiting for instruction while the missionaries were endeavoring to bring out a new supply of spelling books, which would make possible the doubling of the number of schools.”

“Between April 1 and October 15, 1825, the mission station on Oahu distributed 16,000 copies of their Elementary Lessons [Pi-a-pa], nearly all of which were used in schools. Outside these, however, there were multitudes anxious to learn but could not be furnished with competent teachers or palapala.”

“Men and women as well as children, requested enrollment in the first schools and eagerly sought the materials of instruction by bringing at different times in the course of the season sugar cane, taro, a bunch of bananas, a fowl, or a kid, a bundle of sticks for firewood, a ball of native cord, or the offer of some kind of work to exchange for a spelling book.”

“Obviously, the few missionaries in Hawaii could not, in addition to their primary evangelical duties, personally instruct the multitude of pupils seeking education or give adequate supervision to numerous schools scattered throughout the islands.”

“It was necessary to utilize the services of Hawaiian teachers. For the periodic inspection of the numerous schools two methods were used: quarterly examination (hoike) of as many as possible of the pupils of a whole district in a convenient place, and tours throughout a district or about an island by one or more missionaries or Hawaiians appointed for that purpose.”

“The first method, however, stimulated community interest, made the youth more eager in their pursuit of the new learning, and became gala occasions, ending in a feast.”

“The evangelists’ initial educational work, despite its limitations, produced important and enduring results and laid the foundation upon which they were able to intensify their educational efforts and to establish permanent educational monuments in the 1830’s.”

“There was continued increase in the number of people receiving instruction. In 1828, 37,000 were in school, while two years later the number stood at 41,283, with 20,000 scholars on Hawaii, 10,385 or Maui, 6,398 on Oahu, and about 4,500 on Kauai.”

“The following year there were 1,100 common schools in operation with a pupil enrollment of 52,000. By the close of that year the Pi-a-pa had gone through nine editions to place a total of 190,000 copies in circulation.”

“However, at times during this period of educational expansion schools in some districts were practically deserted for work on the land or in collecting sandalwood in the forests.”

“After the heaviest pressure of adult education was over, the missionaries, realizing that the hope of the nation lay in its children, gave more attention to teaching youngsters.”

“The first school built exclusively for Hawaiian children met in 1832 in a large, badly constructed, unfurnished building which used adobe bricks for seats and desks, and had no glass windows. But even this ‘step in the ladder of progress’ was demolished in an autumn storm.”

“The Sandwich Islands Mission, in June 1831, however, resolved to establish a high school to ‘instruct men of peity and promising talents’ in order that they might become assistant teachers.”

“The school, with Rev. Lorrin Andrews as principal and sole instructor, was delightfully located at Lahainaluna, or Upper Lahaina, on a high elevation about two miles back from the port of Lahaina, on Maui. Governor Hoopili made a grant of land of one thousand acres, which concession was later confirmed by King Kamehameha III.”

“Although started as an experiment to qualify Hawaiian teachers in ‘the best methods of communicating instruction to others,’ the first twenty-five students had already taught and had had some training at the mission stations. Moreover, almost all were married men who brought their wives with them.”

“In 1833, the missionaries resolved to initiate a manual labor system in connection with the studies at the high school and in the following year decided to enlarge and put the institution on a permanent basis/”

“From Lahainaluna, on February 14, 1834, was issued the first Hawaiian newspaper, in fact the first paper west of the Rocky Mountains in the North Pacific, Ka Lama Hawaii, or Hawaiian Luminary, which contained miscellaneous instruction for the school.”

“In addition to Lahainaluna, several other educational institutions were established during the decade of the 1830’s.”

“In 1839, at the request of the chiefs, a family or boarding school was opened in Honolulu for the education of their children [Chiefs’ Children’s School, Royal School]. That these young chiefs should be in school under systematic instruction was considered of immense importance, both for their and the Hawaiian kingdom’s welfare and future.”

“The old chiefs were rapidly disappearing and if their heirs were to fill their places, they must be well prepared. They must either acquire a good education or become extinct as chiefs.”

“Up to 1840, when the mission surrendered the administration of the common schools to the government, the major share of the responsibility for the education of Hawaiian youth was in the hands of the American Protestant missionaries.”

“After that date, as we have seen, they established and continued to operate more select and boarding schools for an increasing number of Hawaiians who were able to pay something toward the education of their children.”

“The station and boarding schools for native Hawaiians which the missionaries founded were their pride, their joy, their hope, and their stronghold of the nation.”

“Through their instrumentality the evangelists expected to raise and influence an intelligent and somewhat educated people, and in this aspiration they were not disappointed.”

“Initially, the Sandwich Islands Mission – for both humanitarian and selfish reasons – resisted the proposal to make English the language of the nation and to teach the subject in all the mission schools.” (Merze Tate)

In a letter to the Sandwich Island Mission, Rufus Anderson, corresponding secretary for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission (ABCFM) in Boston, wrote on April 10, 1846: “I trust you will not fall in with the notion, which I am told is favored by some one at least in the government, of introducing the English language, to take the place of the Hawaiian.”

“I cannot suppose there is a design to bring the Saxon race in to supplant the native, but nothing would be more sure to accomplish this result, and that speedily.” (Hawaiian Language Policy and the Courts, Lucas)

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

John Laimana tells us that 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.

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

By 1832, the literacy rate of Hawaiians (at the time was 78 percent) had surpassed that of Americans on the continent. The literacy rate of the adult Hawaiian population skyrocketed from near zero in 1820 to a conservative estimate of 91-percent – and perhaps as high as 95-percent – by 1834. (Laimana)

Missionary Hiram Bingham stated that the rise in literacy and education, “was like laying a corner stone of an important edifice for the nation.”

“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)

“The Missionaries have been the fathers, the builders and the supporters of education in these Islands”. (Lee, December 2, 1847, Privy Council Minutes)

“Thus we may conclude that the educational work of the Sandwich Islands Mission was of incalculable value in disseminating knowledge to all classes of people, in the kingdom, in planting and nurturing religious concepts and some of the better features of western civilization, and in laying the foundation for a system of public instruction”. (Merze Tate)

July 10, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Harvey Rexford Hitchcock

Harvey Rexford Hitchcock, the oldest son of eleven children of David (a shoemaker and author of several books) and Sarah (Swan) Hitchcock, was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, March 13, 1800.

Hitchcock joined the Congregational church in Great Barrington, January 5, 1817. He entered Williams College as a Junior in 1826; he graduated on September 3, 1828.

After graduation, Hitchcock studied theology at Auburn Seminary, where he was graduated in 1831. On August 26, 1831, he married Miss Rebecca Howard of Auburn, New York.

Within a couple of months, he sailed as a missionary with the Fifth Company of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. They sailed aboard the Averick, leaving New Bedford, November 26, 1831 and arriving in Honolulu, May 17, 1832.

Others in the Fifth Company included Rev. William P Alexander, Richard Armstrong, John S Emerson, Cochran Forbes, David B Lyman (Hitchcock’s college classmate,) Lorenzo Lyons, Ephraim Spaulding (their wives and others.)

He was assigned to Molokai and established the first permanent Mission Station on the Island at Kaluaʻaha in 1832. Rebecca Hitchcock noted shortly after their arrival that there was not a foreigner on the island and no horses except for a lame one belonging to a chief. (Curtis)

In 1834, the Hitchcocks received additional help with the arrival of Rev and Mrs Lowell Smith (Smith was a college mate of Hitchcock – who arrived on the Sixth Company in 1833.)

The expanding mission was growing close to 500 members and two outstations, one in the east and one in the west, had been established.

Smith gave this description of the Island and its people: “The people reside mostly on the eastern part of the island, on the north and south sides; but the greater number are on the latter.” (The estimated Island population was about 6,000.)

“Their houses, many of them, are no more than five or six feet long by four wide and five feet from the ridge-pole to the ground; and these are not unfrequently the habitations of two, three, and sometimes more individuals of both sexes.” Each is “But one apartment, no floor, no window, no chimney, except the humble door at which you enter.”

“The name of the elation is Kaluaʻaha; it is owned by the best and one of the most pious high chiefs on the islands, who desired us to take it as our station, assuring us at the same time, that she would act the part of a parent to us. We have fenced off about two acres of land as a door yard and garden, and might have extended our limits much farther had we chosen. “

“There is a delightful cluster of shade trees before our door, which was formerly a favorite resort of the chiefs; and under it, for several successive weeks, we met for the worship … On our arrival, there was no house of any importance, and few of any kind in the vicinity.”

“During the year, however, many comfortable houses have been built, with sleeping apartments, and other accommodations which give to them an air of neatness and comfort hitherto unknown on the island.” (Smith; Missionary Herald)

Hitchcock preached his first sermon in Hawaiian the last week of September 1832 in the open air. In the Molokai Station Report, Hitchcock wrote, “in about two months a meeting house was finished 30 feet by 120.” It was probably built of thatch. (HABS)

“A spacious school-house is nearly completed, so that the station begins to assume the appearance of a small village.” (Smith; Missionary Herald)

Nearby was Pukoʻo; it had a natural break in the reef with a perfect beach for landing canoes. Hitchcock’s early church records often mentioned this location as the most convenient for travel to Lāhainā. (Curtis)

In a January 1840 letter from Hitchcock, we get a glimpse of his daily life, “I hope to continue without interruption my present system of labors; that is, to hold a Bible class Sabbath morning of twenty-five girls, preach at ten o’clock, have an adult Sabbath-school at noon, and preach again at four.”

“My week-day labors are as follows, – a Bible class daily with the above-mentioned company of females, who are committing Matthew to memory at the rate of six verses a day. I spend some time with them in teaching singing.”

“On Tuesday and Thursday mornings I preach at sunrise, and preach regularly on Wednesday afternoon. Saturday evening I have a lecture for the church. Once in two weeks on Friday I address the men’s benevolent society, or catechise them on the New Testament; and on Tuesday have a Bible class of adults.”

“I make it a point, as far as possible, to visit some parts of the parish daily, and hold direct religious conversation with the people. In these visits I am happy to say that I am received with respect, and listened to by the people. Rarely have I gone to one house and commenced conversation, without drawing around me others, particularly the aged.”

“My miscellaneous labors consist in conversing with those who resort to my study for the purpose, and giving out medicine for the sick. I am trying also to crowd in a weekly lecture on the most important points in theology, designed for several of the most pious and intelligent members of our church, in order to enable them to become more efficient helpers in the great work.” (Hitchcock, Missionary Herald)

In the mid-1840s, they were working on building a new church; “Our main work the past year has been the erection of a permanent house of worship … Preparing most of the timber and getting it onto the ground from the distance of ten miles or more, procuring many of the stones for building …”

It was dedicated on April 3, 1844; “The house has been completed nearly two months. It is 100 feet long by 50 broad outside; walls 2-1/2 feet thick and 18 feet high. …. The thatching is pilimaoli. It leaks but little; has 4 doors three of which are 7 feet high and about as wide…” (Hitchcock; HABS) (Remnants of the church are still there; in 2009, a new roof was built inside the walls of the existing church.)

Hitchcock died August 29, 1855 … “for 23 years he has labored with unusual devotion, zeal and earnestness to enlighten, purify and elevate the people … He lived to see his labors crowned with wonderful success.”

“His great work was indeed the preaching of the gospel; yet in the infant state of the people, he had to superintend every thing, schools were to be created and managed; the sick, the aged and the destitute to be cared for; civil officers to be advised, the whole people clad and civilized and their souls saved.”

“He gave himself heartily to his work and made an unreserved consecration. … He did desire to live longer, not however for any selfish end, but that he might preach the gospel.” (The Friend, September 29, 1855) (His grandson was David Howard Hitchcock, the notable artist in Hawaiʻi.)

June 29, 2024 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

A Day in the Life

“June 29th. A busy day. – – – -”

In part, the sole entry for that day in Sybil Bingham’s journal (1820) helps to describe what life was like for the families of the early missionaries in Hawaiʻi.

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.

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

The missionaries were scattered across the Islands, each home was usually in a thickly inhabited village, so that the missionary and his wife could be close to their work among the people.

In the early years, they lived in the traditional thatched houses – “our little cottage built chiefly of poles, dried grass and mats, being so peculiarly exposed to fire … consisting only of one room with a little partition and one door.” (Sybil Bingham) The thatched cottages were raised upon a low stone platform. Later, they lived in wood, stone or adobe homes.

The missionaries did not bring much furniture with them (and there were no stores or lumber yards,) so boxes in which their goods had been packed coming to the Islands served as tables and chairs.

However, “To-day I have been presented with what I may call an elegant chair …. My husband, I believe, was never a chair-maker before, but happy for me and the Mission family that he is every thing.” (Sybil Bingham, June 22, 1820)

(When the Binghams left the Islands in 1840, they took the chair with them; Sybil refused to part with it. Her wish was that when the last summons came she might be found in that chair, and her wish was granted when she died in 1848. (Bingham Journal))

The missionary family’s day began at 4 am (… it continued into the night, with no breaks.)

The mission children were up then, too; in the early morning, the parents taught their children. “We had one tin whale-oil lamp between us, with a single wick…. Soon after five we had breakfast.” (Bishop)

By 9 am, after accomplishing all domestic duties and schooling of the children, the wives would begin the instruction of the Hawaiian children – and taught them for six solid hours, occasionally running into the house to see that all was straight.

“Very soon I gathered up 12 or 15 little native girls to come once a day to the house so that as early as possible the business of instruction might be commenced. That was an interesting day to me to lay the foundation of the first school ever assembled”. (Sybil Bingham)

These 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.)

“It has been a busy day – have done fitting work, of gowns, for two or three native women, – attending to the reading of others, – instructing our school children, entertaining Mr. Allen, and his little Peggy who has been with us through the day, writing a little, etc., etc. The days glide smoothly with us inwardly.” (Sybil Bingham)

“During the period from infancy to the age of ten or twelve years, children in the almost isolated family of a missionary could be well provided for and instructed in the rudiments of education without a regular school … But after that period, difficulties in most cases multiplied.” (Hiram Bingham)

“Owing to the then lack of advanced schools in Hawaii, the earlier mission children were all ‘sent home’ around Cape Horn, to ‘be educated.’ This was the darkest day in the life history of the mission child.”

“Peculiarly dependent upon the family life, at the age of eight to twelve years, they were suddenly torn from the only intimates they had ever known, and banished, lonely and homesick, to a mythical country on the other side of the world …”

“… where they could receive letters but once or twice a year; where they must remain isolated from friends and relatives for years and from which they might never return.” (Bishop)

Missionaries were torn between preaching the gospel and teaching their kids. “(M)ission parents were busy translating, preaching and teaching. Usually parents only had a couple of hours each day to spare with their children.” (Schultz)

Very prominent in the old mission life was the annual “General Meeting” where all of the missionaries from across the Islands gathered at Honolulu from four to six weeks.

“Often some forty or more of the missionaries besides their wives were present, as well as many of the older children. … Much business was transacted relating to the multifarious work and business of the Mission. New missionaries were to be located, and older ones transferred.” (Bishop)

The annual gathering of the Cousins, descendants of the early missionaries, continues. Our family is part of the Society and Cousins. Hiram and Sybil Bingham (Hiram was leader of the first 1820 group of missionaries to Hawai‘i) are my great-great-great grandparents.