Samuel Chenery Damon

February 7, 2019 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Father Damon

“Samuel Damon … was known to sailors from all the Four Seas as Father Damon, pastor of the Seaman’s Bethel of Honolulu. The wife of Father Damon was the daughter of Samuel Mills of “Haystack Meeting” fame …”

“… one of the five young men who met and decided that they should go out into the world to advance the cause of Christianity among heathen people.” (Honolulu Times, December 1, 1909)

“Beloved by all – he and his wife always collecting & caring for the poor. Old whalers like him.” (Twain)

“Samuel Chenery Damon, chaplain of the American Seamen’s Friend Society and pastor of Bethel Union Church at Honolulu. His (wife) Julia Sherman Mills Damon, no less a tireless worker in Christ’s service, was first president of the Stranger’s Friend Society.” (Dye)

Damon came of Hawaii in 1842. On January 1, 1843 he began publication of the American Temperance Advocate, briefly called The Friend of Temperance & Seamen and then simply The Friend. (Twain)

Damon served as the chaplain at O‘ahu Bethel Church (Seamen’s Bethel) for 42 years, serving the sailors of vessels who entered the port of Honolulu.

“Beth-el” was designated as a refuge for sojourners. At that time more than 100 whaling vessels with approximately 6,000 sailors aboard entered the port of Honolulu annually.

Materials for the building had been contributed by several ship owners in Norwich and New London, Connecticut. A residence for the chaplain was also built nearby.

The chapel was of average size, measuring 48 feet by 30 feet. The main hall seated 300 persons; the basement had a reading room, a book depository, and a marine museum. Dedicated in 1833, the chapel stood until 1886. (Watson)

“Father Damon’s chief life-work has flowed in a different channel … Whereas their mission was emphatically to those Islanders who had never before heard the Gospel message, his was distinctively to the white settlers at Honolulu …”

“… but especially to the multitude of sailors from all lands who forty years ago flocked to the Hawaiian isles in very far larger numbers than at the present day, and many being wild and reckless, proved far more serious foes to mission-work than any which arose from mere indigenous heathenism.”

“In those days Honolulu was the winter rendezvous for the American whaling fleet, and about a hundred and fifty ships sometimes assembled here; bringing, of course, an immense influx of wild, undisciplined men.”

“Of those days Dr. Damon himself has said: ‘During the years between 1842 and 1867, at the lowest estimate, six thousand sailors annually entered the port, sometimes far more.’”

“‘I recollect one Sunday morning over thirty whale-ships and sixteen vessels of war rounded Diamond Head, besides all the merchant vessels. There could not have been less than ten thousand seamen during that year in the port of Honolulu.’”

“‘The Rev. S. E. Bishop reports from three to four thousand as visiting Lahaina, while the Rev. Titus Coan reports as many more, calling at Hilo.’” (Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine, August 1886)

“Leaving New York in March, 1842, he and his bride sailed for Honolulu, where he at once commenced work as pastor of the Bethel Chapel, which had been erected in 1833, and was the only place of worship for the English-speaking community.”

“Busy as was his life, he yet found time to care for all. Every traveller who has visited the isles can tell the same tale, of how ‘Father Damon’ was the first to welcome the coming, the last to speed the parting guest …”

“… and so he remains linked in the first and last Hawaiian memories of many a wanderer in distant lands, all of whom will assuredly endorse words spoken concerning him:”

“‘All will feel that the Honolulu they have known will not be Honolulu to them without Dr. Damon’s genial cordiality to give warmth and brightness to their enjoyment of its sunshine, and memories of bis courteous friendliness.” (Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine, August 1886)

“After a short but severe illness he passed away on the 7th of February (1885), carried off by inflammation of the brain, when within eight days of completing his seventieth year.”

“I believe that to many besides myself, it must have been a surprise to learn that he had so nearly attained the three-score years and ten …”

“… for he was so young-looking, and so full of unbounded energy, both physical and mental, and so eager to enlarge his work in a new field of usefulness, that, though he likewise was honoured with the affectionate title of ‘Father,’ it seemed as though he must belong to a younger generation than those of whom I have hitherto spoken.”

“His funeral was attended by His Majesty King Kalākaua, and various members of the Royal Family; also by the Anglican bishop and the majority of the Anglican congregation; for all the community have good reason to mourn the death of one of Honolulu’s noblest citizens.” (Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine, August 1886)

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The Seamen’s Bethel Chapel-1896

Bethel’s Church, Honolulu, Hawaii, founded in 1833 as Seamen’s Bethel Church

The_Friend_Building-approximate_location_of_Bethel_Chapel-926_Bethel_Street

January 29, 2018 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

In the Colonial Records in the Boston Libraries relating to the founders of Scituate, Massachusetts, and their descendants, the name John Damon was spelled Daman. He came to the colony of Plymouth probably as early as 1628, with his sister Hannah and Uncle William Gilson who was their guardian.

After the ‘Boston Tea Party’ the Colonists enrolled themselves into companies of ‘Minute Men’ to assemble at a moment’s warning, which was to be given by the ringing of bells, firing of guns, etc; Samuel Damon and Simeon Damon, his brother, were under the command of Capt. Joseph Stetson.

Among the men to respond to the ‘Lexington Alarm’ on April 19th, 177 5, enrolled in Captain John Clapp’s Company of Minute men, appear the names of Samuel Damon, Daniel Damon, John Damon (brothers), and Stephen Damon.

“In the year 1793, Samuel Damon with his family consisting of his wife and eleven children, came from Scitnate, Mass. And located a farm on what was known as Parker’s Hill, near Springfield. Here he built a log house in which he reared his family. This farm was known for many years as the Damon farm”. (Damon)

Samuel Chenery Damon, son of Colonel Samuel Damon, was born in Holden, Massachusetts, February 15, 1815. He was graduated from Amherst College in 1836, studied at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1838-39, and was graduated at Andover Theological Seminary in 1841. He was an American missionary.

He was preparing to go to India as a missionary and was studying the Tamil language for that purpose, when an urgent call came for a seaman’s chaplain at the port of Honolulu in the Hawaiian Islands. He was ordained September 15, 1841, and he decided to accept the position at Honolulu.

He married Julia Sherman Mills of Natick, Massachusetts on October 6, 1841. Julia’s uncle, Samuel John Mills Jr, was one of five participants in the famous 1806 Williams College ‘Haystack Prayer Meeting’ that led to the beginning of a secret missionary fraternity called the Society of Brethren, the first Protestant foreign missions organization in America.

Mills later led in the formation the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions or ABCFM (the Protestant missionaries who came to Hawaiʻi in 1820.)

In 1842, the Damons moved to Honolulu at the direction of the American Seamen’s Friend Society – Damon served as the chaplain at O‘ahu Bethel Church (Seamen’s Bethel) for 42 years, serving the sailors of vessels who entered the port of Honolulu.

“Beth-el” was designated as a refuge for sojourners. At that time more than 100 whaling vessels with approximately 6,000 sailors aboard entered the port of Honolulu annually.

Materials for the building had been contributed by several ship owners in Norwich and New London, Connecticut. A residence for the chaplain was also built nearby.

Damon preached two sermons on Sunday with an additional service on Wednesday. He ministered to the needs of the visiting sailors, which could include food, clothing, and temporary shelter.

He encouraged sailors to refrain from liquor and carousing while on leave. He also collected the sailors’ mail until a post office was established in 1851. Concerned with educating his seagoing flock, he collected books on spelling and arithmetic.

In 1886 a raging waterfront fire destroyed the Seamen’s Bethel, which was still Bethel Union’s home. The idea surfaced of combining Bethel Union, now without a home, with the well-established Fort Street Church (at what is now the ʻEwa Makai corner of Fort Street and Beretania at the top of the Fort Street Mall.)

In 1887 a formal merger of Bethel Union and Fort Street Church created Central Union Church, with 337 members. They first built a church across from Washington Place (1891,) then built the present Central Union in 1920.)

Perceiving a need for a newspaper, Damon founded ‘The Temperance Advocate and Seamen’s Friend’ (later reduced to ‘The Friend,’) which published local and world news, announcements, messages from the visiting sailors, and articles and sermons written by the chaplain himself. Printed regularly, the newspaper totaled an estimated one-half million copies over the years. (Watson)

The Friend described itself as the “Oldest Newspaper West of the Rockies” in the early 1900s; it was a monthly newspaper for seamen which included news from both American and English newspapers as well as announcements of upcoming events, reprints of sermons, poetry, local news, editorials, ship arrivals and departures and a listing of marriages and deaths.

In the mid-1800s, many professing Christians migrated to Hawaii from South China looking for a better life working on the Sugar Plantations. In February 1869, with the support of Damon, Sabbath Evening meetings for the Chinese were held under the guidance of Samuel Aheong, a Chinese plantation worker.

Aheong returned to China in 1870. Damon made the facilities of the Bethel Church available for Sunday afternoon services and personally taught a small group of Chinese English in a night school in the parish hall. (FirstChinese)

Samuel and his wife Julia visited missions overseas in Egypt and Syria. They also made a trip to the United States to observe the settlements in California. In 1849 revisited Holden during a trip to the centennial celebration in Philadelphia, to which he was a delegate.

Damon passed away in 1885 at the age of seventy and lies buried at O‘ahu Cemetery. Three years after his passing, his brother-in-law Samuel C Gale gave the citizens of Holden the beautiful Damon Memorial that housed both the Gale Free Library and the Holden High School. The library, said Gale in his dedicatory speech, was Damon’s inspiration.

Click the following link of a portrayal of Reverend Samuel Chenery Damon (portrayed by David C Farmer) as a Mission Houses Cemetery Pupu Theatre (recorded on cellphone, sound is weak:)

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The Seamen’s Bethel Chapel-1896

Bethel’s Church, Honolulu, Hawaii, founded in 1833 as Seamen’s Bethel Church

The_Friend_Building-approximate_location_of_Bethel_Chapel-926_Bethel_Street

August 1, 2017 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Queen’s Hospital Subscribers

Hawaiians called the hospital and dispensary Hale Ma‘i o ka Wahine Ali‘i (literally, sick house of the lady chief,) or Hale Ma‘i for short. Opening day was August 1, 1859. (Greer)

“The Queen’s Hospital was founded in 1859 by their Majesties Kamehameha IV and his consort Emma Kaleleonalani. The hospital is organized as a corporation …”

“… and by the terms of its charter the board of trustees is composed of ten members elected by the society and ten members nominated by the Government ….” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, July 31, 1901)

“(A) number of persons, resident in Honolulu and other parts of the Kingdom have entered into a voluntary contribution, by subscription, for the purpose of creating a fund, for the erection and establishment of a Hospital at Honolulu, for the relief of indigent sick, and disabled people of the Hawaiian Kingdom, as well as of such foreigners, and others, as may desire to avail themselves of the same …”

The “subscribers … resolved that they should associate themselves together as a Body Politic and Corporate, for the purpose of carrying into effect the objects and intentions of the said subscribers …”

“…the following on behalf of the said subscribers were elected by ballot to act as Trustees, on behalf of the said subscribers, viz, BF Snow, SC Damon, SN Castle, CR Bishop, JW Austin, EO Hall, TJ Waterhouse, WA Aldrich, WL Green and H Hackfeld …”

“His Majesty then designated the following ten persons, Trustees, on behalf of the Government, viz, His Royal Highness Prince L (Lot) Kamehameha, David L Gregg, Wm Webster, GM Robertson, TC Heuck, John Ladd, James Bissen, HIH Holdsworth, AB Baker, L John Montgomery.” (Charter of the Queen’s Hospital)

Some 250 businesses, groups, and individuals had subscribed $13,530; the king and queen headed the list of subscribers with pledges of $500 each. (Greer) The following are the initial 10-Trustees who were elected:

Benjamin Franklin Snow had “a spacious two-story coral building that stood on Merchant street, near the corner of Fort … The building was erected early in the forties,’’ and for some time was occupied by Makee & Jones, afterwards Makee & Anthon.

It was moved into by Captain Snow, following his fire in the Brewer premises on Fort street in 1852. Snow was associated with the early entities that eventually formed C Brewer. Snow died December 20, 1866 on the fortieth anniversary of his arrival in Honolulu from Boston in the brig Active. (Thrum)

Damon was pastor of the Seamen’s Bethel Church, chaplain of the Honolulu American Seamen’s Friend Society and editor of the monthly newspaper The Friend. He died February 7, 1885, at Honolulu, and his funeral next day was attended by a very large congregation, including King Kalākaua his ministers. (Crane, Historic Homes, 1907)

Samuel Northrup Castle landed in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaiʻi) in 1837 as part of the 8th Company of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. He was assigned to the ‘depository’ (a combination store, warehouse and bank) to help the missionaries pool and purchase their supplies, to negotiate shipments around the Horn and to distribute and collect for the goods when received.

Twelve years after Castle had landed in the Islands, the American board decided that its purposes had been accomplished. It advised its representatives that their work was done and the board’s financial support would end. He needed to make a living since monetary support from Missions headquarters had been discontinued.

Castle and his good friend Amos Starr Cooke decided they would become business partners. Many of the missionaries were planning to remain; their needs must be met, so those of other residents and the crews of the whaling ships which wintered in Honolulu harbor. On June 2, 1851, they formed Castle & Cooke.

Charles Reed Bishop was born January 25, 1822 in Glens Falls, New York, and was an orphan at an early age and went to live with his grandparents on their 120-acre farm learning to care for sheep, cattle and horses and repairing wagons, buggies and stage coaches.

By January 1846, Bishop was ready to broaden his horizons. He and a friend, William Little Lee, planned to travel to the Oregon territory, Lee to practice law and Bishop to survey land. They sailed around Cape Horn on the way to Oregon. The vessel made a stop in Honolulu on October 12, 1846; both decided to stay. (Lee later became the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi.)

Bishop met and married Bernice Pauahi Paki. Bishop was primarily a banker (he has been referred to as “Hawaiʻi’s First Banker.”) An astute financial businessman, he became one of the wealthiest men in the kingdom from banking, agriculture, real estate and other investments.

James Walker Austin was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, January 8, 1829. He graduated from Harvard College in 1849, and from the Law School two years later. He went in 1851 to California, and then to the Sandwich Islands and was determined to settle there. He was admitted to the Bar in that country, and in 1852 was appointed district attorney.

He was elected to the Hawaiian Parliament, and reelected for three sessions. He was speaker of the House one session. In 1868 he was appointed justice of the Supreme Court by a special act of the Legislature, and he was chosen to revise the criminal code of the islands, in connection with two other judges of the Supreme Court. He was the guardian a number of years, of Lunalilo, heir to the throne.

He returned to the US in 1872 for the education of his children, after a residence at the Sandwich Islands of twenty-one years. He went to Europe the last year of his life, with his wife and daughter; he died in Southampton, England, October 15, 1895. (New England Historic Genealogical Society)

Edwin Oscar Hall arrived with the 7th Company of American missionaries in 1835. He was a Printer and Assistant Secular Agent. He was released in 1850 and became the editor of “The Polynesian” and manager of the Government printing office, 1850-52. The business of EO Hall & Son, Limited started in 1852 at the corner of Fort and King streets.

The firm continued to deal in hardware, agricultural implements, dry goods, leather, paints and oils, silver-plated ware, wooden ware, tools of all kinds, kerosene oil, etc, until about the year 1878, when dry goods were dropped, except a few staple articles. (Alexander)

On May 7, 1891 several EO Hall corporate officers, under the direction of Jonathan Austin, filed with the Hawaiian government to form a partnership to produce and supply electricity as the Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO.) (HAER) Five months later – on October 13, 1891 – the co-partnership was dissolved and Hawaiian Electric was incorporated, with total assets of $17,000 and William W Hall as its first President. (HECO)

John Thomas Waterhouse “was born in Berkshire, England, in 1816, and went to school at Wood House Grove boarding school in 1825. The school was a Methodist preacher’s son’s school. I attended that until I was 13 years of age.” He became a businessman.

“I will tell you how the spirit of trade first came upon me. A man was allowed to come on the play ground once a week, Saturdays, to sell notions, etc. I used to invest my little money in sundries which I bought from this man, and sell them again to my playmates during the week at an advance, on credit.”

“Well, I had made a little money, and had heard of the United States, and concluded to cross the Atlantic to (the US.) I had become infatuated with reading the life of John Jacob Astor, and I started out from England, April, 1833, with a determination to become a John Jacob Astor”.

Later, “My father was appointed to a position at Australia and Polynesia and he went there with our entire family, ten brothers and sisters and my wife. I was in business in Hobert Town, Tasmania, for ten years, owning a large number of vessels, and I was a very active man in business there.”

“I had very poor health and was recommended to go to Honolulu, in the Sandwich Islands. Well, I went there in one of my own vessels and purchased the property where I now live. That was in 1851, and from San Francisco I travelled backward and forward a great deal and improved very much in health …”

“… and I wish to say right here that the Sandwich Islands are really as fine islands as you can find anywhere in any part of the Pacific, and are known as the ‘Paradise of the Pacific.’” (Hawaiian Gazette, September 24, 1889)

William Arnold Aldrich was born March 27, 1824 at Westmoreland, Cheshire County, New Hampshire. In 1853, Aldrich and Charles Reed Bishop were business partners in Aldrich & Bishop, Importers and Dealers in General Merchandise.

Their building was located on the ewa-mauka corner of Queen and Kaʻahumanu Streets. They primarily sold merchandise to be shipped to supply the California Gold Rush, as well as provisioning whaling vessels.

The general store partnership of Aldrich and Bishop terminated as the whaling industry declined and they later formed a banking institution, the kingdom’s largest financial institution (1858;) this later became First Hawaiian Bank.

William Lowthian Green “was born in Doughty street, London, September 13, 1819. He received his early education in Liverpool, which was completed at King William’s College in the Isle of Man. … He was by profession a merchant. His family for two generations had been engaged in commercial pursuits in the north of England.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, February 21, 1900)

He joined the rush to California to try his luck finding gold (some of his friends were fortunate, there – he wasn’t.) Green’s health failed after some time in the goldfields and in 1850 he determined to go to China. The ship called at Honolulu, and Green, unable to withstand the hardships of a sailor’s life, and having letters to prominent residents of Honolulu, presented his credentials. (Nellist)

“During the intervals of leisure in his several occupations as merchant, founder of the now prosperous iron works, sugar planter, Deputy British Commissioner, Senator and at times Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, his mind, we may be certain, was fixed upon the working out of the geological theory of the conformation of the earth’s crust.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, February 21, 1900)

Heinrich (Henry) Hackfeld arrived in Honolulu with his wife, Marie, her 16-year-old brother Johann Carl Pflueger and a nephew BF Ehlers on September 26, 1849. Having purchased an assorted cargo at Hamburg, Germany, Hackfeld opened a general merchandise business (dry goods, crockery, hardware and stationery,) wholesale, as well as retail store on Queen Street.

As business grew its shipping interest, manufacturing and jobbing lines developed a web of commercial relationships with Europe, England and the eastern seaboard. Hackfeld outfitted several whalers and engaged in the trans-shipment trade.

Hackfeld developed a business of importing machinery and supplies for the spreading sugar plantations and exported raw sugar. H Hackfeld & Co became a prominent factor – business agent and shipper – for the plantations. They also opened BF Ehlers dry goods store.

With the advent of the US involvement in World War I, things changed significantly for the worst for the folks at H Hackfeld & Co. In 1918, using the terms of the Trading with the Enemy Act and its amendments, the US government the companies and ordered the sale of German-owned shares. (Jung)

Shares in the companies were sold to American interests and the former H Hackfeld & Co took a patriotic sounding name, ‘American Factors, Ltd;’ BF Ehlers dry goods store also took a patriotic name, ‘Liberty House.’

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