1175 10 11780 https://hmha.missionhouses.org/files/original/aa65b9c4ba5959c3ea90c2be44571d68.tif d66a7a58b8e5e6525380cabb3889ea4c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Hawaiian Mission Children's Society Library - Film Negatives Photograph Collection Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hawaiian Mission Children's Society Library at the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource If you would like permission to publish or reproduce this material, please send your requests to archives@missionhouses.org Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource N-1750 Key Subject The topic of the resource Honolulu Oahu O'ahu Hawaii Hawai'i Key Schools Buildings Punahou Key Group photo Class picture 1873 Punahou class Schools Description An account of the resource Key for group photo of the 1873 Punahou class. Catalog card description: "Schools -- Oahu -- Punahou. Class picture, 1870s?" Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hawaiian Mission Children's Society Library at the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource If you would like permission to publish or reproduce this material, please send your requests to archives@missionhouses.org Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image https://hmha.missionhouses.org/files/original/3f5d0a7bec85239728832991d671d33b.tif 9c808efe980e7a7e09a8b3f8d1fbb0f9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Hawaiian Mission Children's Society Library - Film Negatives Photograph Collection Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hawaiian Mission Children's Society Library at the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource If you would like permission to publish or reproduce this material, please send your requests to archives@missionhouses.org Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Merchant Street view Subject The topic of the resource Buildings Honolulu Hawaii Hawai'i Downtown Merchant Street from Fort Description An account of the resource Captions: "Plate no. 31. Merchant Street from fort, 1885." Photograph. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hawaiian Mission Children's Society Library at the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1885 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource If you would like permission to publish or reproduce this material, please send your requests to archives@missionhouses.org Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource image https://hmha.missionhouses.org/files/original/d0b73db282240ddbbccc588f9581e0b1.tif 0215f741e4c7113c930b9d17d1d1aacd Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Hawaiian Mission Children's Society Library - Film Negatives Photograph Collection Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hawaiian Mission Children's Society Library at the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource If you would like permission to publish or reproduce this material, please send your requests to archives@missionhouses.org Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Downtown Honolulu Subject The topic of the resource Honolulu Hawaii Hawai'i Buildings Downtown Downtown Honolulu Hale Paikii. Ft. St. Church Description An account of the resource Captions: "Plate no. 32. Downtown Hon. 1880. Hale Paikii. Ft. St. Church. No telephone poles-picture ~1880." Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hawaiian Mission Children's Society Library at the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource c. 1880 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource If you would like permission to publish or reproduce this material, please send your requests to archives@missionhouses.org Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource image https://hmha.missionhouses.org/files/original/a22b1acfecb6462b836553d130cf149f.tif 4b5c0d4067cba955d4bd09940b769069 https://hmha.missionhouses.org/files/original/d1f574d8e9d8d2c8dc21a41cad8fe354.tif 49ae392b084d7bc31f33e9e1b7438307 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Hawaiian Mission Children's Society Library - Family Photograph Collection Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hawaiian Mission Children's Society Library at the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource If you would like permission to publish or reproduce this material, please send your requests to archives@missionhouses.org Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Cooke Descendants c. 1922. Subject The topic of the resource Cooke Atherton Hawaii Luakaha Nuuanu Valley Description An account of the resource 1922 or 1923. James "Bud" Morgan is on the far left in the front sitting on his father's lap. Taken at Luakaha in the back of Nuuanu Valley where the Cookes and then the Athertons had a large house. Athertons, Morgans, Guards or Richards in the photo. All those families are subsets of the Cookes down female lines. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hawaiian Mission Children's Society Library at the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource c. 1922 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource If you would like permission to publish or reproduce this material, please send your requests to archives@missionhouses.org Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource image https://hmha.missionhouses.org/files/original/87d3ae5c15920988173f58dc09a5c8c1.tif c35792fdd1aea503eb195c60583b4371 https://hmha.missionhouses.org/files/original/7ecdaa7bbe544e89efe5fcfe2181dffa.tif aae070710399ad51a3f719f09d981e13 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Hawaiian Mission Children's Society Library - Family Photograph Collection Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hawaiian Mission Children's Society Library at the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource If you would like permission to publish or reproduce this material, please send your requests to archives@missionhouses.org Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Cooke descendants family photo Subject The topic of the resource Cooke Family Honolulu Hawaii Description An account of the resource Photograph of the descendants of the Cooke family c. 1940 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hawaiian Mission Children's Society Library at the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource c. 1940 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource If you would like permission to publish or reproduce this material, please send your requests to archives@missionhouses.org Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource image https://hmha.missionhouses.org/files/original/2df67395c9b6f590014c5912a4604461.tif 571f796a60c387e4fbe4ab6abaa8d076 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William Kanui Subject The topic of the resource William Kanui Missionaries Hawaii Cemeteries Biography Description An account of the resource William Kanui (ca. 1796 - January 14, 1864) There are three names on Kanui’s memorial stone: Kanui, his birth name, meaning, The Big or Great One; William, a name given him by an American ship’s captain when he sailed as crew, and Tennooe, an anglicization of Kanui, used by his American friends. Kanui was an adventurous teenager. In the year 1809, when he was about 13 years old, he and his brother left the islands as ship’s crew. After touching at ports in the American northwest, they arrived at their ship’s home port of Boston, Massachusetts. A return to the islands was made impossible when the east coast of America was blockaded by the British during the War of 1812 The brothers took on farm work and then signed on as crew to several privateer ships licensed to confuse, attack and raid British ships. At the end of the war, the brothers sought to sign onto a ship returning to Hawai`i. Having found nothing between Boston and New York, they went to Providence, Rhode Island. In Providence, Kanui’s brother took ill and died. Kanui, alone for the first time in a foreign land, took up work near Yale College. Here Kanui met Henry ʻŌpūkahaʻia, a Hawaiian who had begun studying at the Cornwall Foreign Mission School, begun for foreign missionary students in the year 1817 by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM). ʻŌpūkahaʻia dreamed of taking his knowledge of the Christian god to his homeland, but died in February, 1818, with his fellow Hawaiians at his deathbed – Kanui included. Kanui was a member of the pioneer company of ABCFM missionaries to Hawaiʻi that left on October 23, 1819, from Boston. On the six-month voyage from Boston to Hawaii, he and two fellow Hawaiians gave the mission band their first lessons in the Hawaiian language and culture. After the nearly six-month journey brought ship Thaddeus carrying the mission to the islands, Kanui was chosen with Asa and Lucy Thurston, John Honoliʻi and Dr. and Mrs Holman to set up a mission on Hawaiʻi Island, while the rest of the party continued to Oʻahu. Kanui became friends with the King and joined in his drinking and games, which was frowned upon by the mission to the point that Kanui was excommunicated from the mission church. He did not repent and not long after sailed for the American continent. The teachings of the church did not leave him, however, and one day, working in a forest cutting wood, he heard a voice calling for him to repent and return home. He returned to Hawaiʻi, returned to the church, and began an English school in Palolo Valley, Oʻahu. It was a spiritual success but difficult and expensive to run. In 1848, he decided to go to California and find his fortune in the California gold fields. He left the islands with a letter from the office of foreign affairs of Kamehameha III, giving him a list of directions for Hawaiian natives then in California, encouraging them to be upright in their behavior and to return to the islands when they had made their fortunes. Kanui himself was successful and made a fortune of six thousand dollars, which he put in the Page , Bacon and Company bank. The bank failed and his fortune was lost in a single day. Following this setback, Kanui tried his hand at being a bootblack, a barber, a tavern keeper, and lastly as an iron and rag merchant. Friends asked Kamehameha III to find him a way home to the islands, which was done, and Kanui enjoyed a short few months on O`ahu before his death in 1864. As much as fortune tossed him around, Kanui found, lost and found again his faith and then kept it, ending his life in humble poverty but convinced that God had led him home. His memorial stone reads: In Memory of, William Tennooe Kanui, Born about AD 1796, On the island of Oahu, Went to America, 1809. Educated in Cornwall, Ct. Returned to Honolulu, 1820. Twice visited California, Died in Honolulu, Janu’y 14, 1864 In the life and death of Kanui, God’s Providence and Grace were wonderfully manifested. This stone was erected by J.H. [James Hunnewell] of Boston & S.C.D. [Samuel Chenery Damon] of Honolulu. Willam Kanui Born ca. 1796, Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi Died January 14, 1864, Honolulu, Hawaiʻi Sources: The Story Behind the Headstone: The Life of William Kanui . Douglas Warne. Hawaiian Journal of History Volume 43 (2009) Ka Nupepa Kuokoa, Buke II, Helu 30 Iulai 25, 1863 Twain, Mark. Roughing It. Chapter 72 P 493 American Publishing Company, Hartford Connecticut, 1872. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hawaiian Mission Children's Society Library at the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource If you would like permission to publish or reproduce this material, please send your requests to archives@missionhouses.org Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource text https://hmha.missionhouses.org/files/original/feec329b2f4275a6c37b8761d37196a1.jpg ab35cc45beb86eedd9ef80c1e2150580 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Levi Parsons, American Missionary to Palestine (1792-1822) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Levi Parsons Bingham Subject The topic of the resource Missionaries Biographies Hawaii Cemeteries Levi Parsons Bingham Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hawaiian Mission Children's Society Library at the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource If you would like permission to publish or reproduce this material, please send your requests to archives@missionhouses.org Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text, jpeg, QR code Description An account of the resource Levi Parsons Bingham (December 31, 1822 - January 16, 1823) A unobtrusive grave stone commemorates the first burial in the Kawaiaha‘o cemetery missionary plot. A white common stone rectangle about 18 inches tall is marked with an inscription chiseled by a stone worker with the words of pioneer Hawai‘i missionary company leader Hiram Bingham. The graceful lettering reads in part: “LEVI PARSONS, died Jan. 16, 1823, aged 16 days.” The death of new-born Levi Parsons Bingham, the first-born child of the Rev. Hiram Bingham and his wife Sybil Moseley Bingham, resulted in a key turning point for the good in the relationship of the royal Hawaiian Ali‘i and the early missionary families stationed in Honolulu. The Binghams baptized the child, suffering from jaundice, a day before his death. The Sandwich Islands Mission Journal for January 15, 1823 reads: “At a meeting of the family, the king, queen and several chiefs, brother and sister B’s babe, called Levi Parsons was dedicated to Christ, by baptism. It was a truly interesting scene.” Kuhina nui Ka‘ahumanu and her husband King Kaumuali‘i offered condolences to the Binghams when Levi Parsons Bingham died the next day. Hiram’s journal gives us a clue to the story behind his son Levi’s name. “L. Parsons Bingham, at the age of sixteen days, passed away suddenly, as did the dear missionary in Alexandria, whose name he was expected to bear, and by which he had been baptized.” Levi Parsons earned a foreign missions minister-qualifying degree along with Hiram at Andover Theological Seminary in Massachusetts. But their most poignant tie lies in the life of a missions-minded school teacher named Sybil Moseley from Westfield, Massachusetts. Sybil and Hiram’s daughter Lydia Bingham Coan remembered the story of her mother meeting Hiram at Goshen: “The name attracted him at once. A fellow student at Andover designated to the mission in Palestine to which it was not thought wise by the ABCFM to send married men had told him that if he were allowed to take a wife Miss Sybil Moseley would be his choice. As the young man now heard the name, he earnestly scanned her face and mentally queried if it could be possible that the lady so esteemed by his friend, but supposed to be at the far west was here before him! Ah, yes! The Lord had led her there. Providence was wondrously opening another door.” Levi Parsons and his fellow missionary Pliny Fisk were the sole members of the pioneer Palestine Mission of the ABCFM. Levi died of consumption in Alexandria, Egypt on February 5, 1822 at age 29. His body was interred in the church yard of a Greek Orthodox convent in Alexandria alongside the dead of the English expatriate community who dwelt in Alexandria. News of his death reached the Binghams almost a year later in Honolulu through a report in a copy of the Missionary Herald sent aboard a ship carrying mission supplies headed for Hawai‘i. Hiram wrote of his son’s burial, “As strangers and sojourners…we felt the affecting necessity of asking of the rulers a burying-place among them. A spot of ground near the church was, according to our wishes, readily granted us. There, with mournful but not desponding feelings, we broke the ground to deposit the beautiful flower that had fallen, where we expected the mission family would, one after another, be gathered around it, and where we should choose to be buried when our work is done. The funeral services and burial took place on the Sabbath, the 19th of January. The king and his principal chiefs, male and female, several foreign residents and others, assembled at the mission house and walked in procession to the church, where Mr. Thurston preached an appropriate sermon. We then drew around the grave, and with tenderness laid the little sleeper in its lonely, silent bed….” Thus was established the site of today’s Kawaiaha‘o missionary cemetery plot. Levi Parsons Bingham Born Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, December 31, 1822 Died Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, January 16, 1823 The image is of Levi Parsons, the American Missionary to Palestine for which Levi Parsons Bingham is named after. Type The nature or genre of the resource text https://hmha.missionhouses.org/files/original/d88714321045b79359fb2f6c2881e46b.png c5789b5a84434928bd2e0f32dcf9f973 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Agnes Baldwin Alexander Subject The topic of the resource Missionaries Biographies Hawaii Cemeteries Agnes Baldwin Alexander Description An account of the resource Agnes Baldwin Alexander (July 21, 1875 - January 1, 1971) Ms. Alexander is best known as the first Bahá’i of Hawai`i and the missioner who carried the faith to Japan and eastern Asia. She was the youngest of five children born to William DeWitt Alexander* and Abigail Charlotte (Baldwin) Alexander and granddaughter of two mission families - Reverend William and Mary Ann Alexander and Reverend Dr. Dwight and Charlotte Baldwin. Born in Honolulu, she attended Oahu College (now Punahou School) and furthered her studies in education at the University of California at Berkeley and at Oberlin College. She worked at Punahou school assisting in the kindergarten, then as a second-grade teacher from 1898 to 1900. Due to ill health, she toured North America and Europe in 1900. “It was in far off Rome,” Miss Alexander wrote, that she received the “Light of this New Day.” She learned from Mrs. Charlotte Dixon about Bahá’u’lláh, prophet-founder of the Bahá’i faith, as a new messenger from God. After three meetings with her, Agnes wrote she could not sleep, “an overwhelming realization came to me, which was neither a dream nor vision, that Christ had come on earth.” She embraced the Bahá’i cause that morning, November 26, 1900. `Abdu’l-Bahá, son of Bahá’u’lláh and head of the faith, wrote Ms. Alexander requesting her to return to Hawaii to spread the New Gospel. As Bahá’i believe God to be the author of all the world’s major religions, Ms. Alexander regarded her Bahá’i missionary work as an extension of her grandparents’ efforts. Returning to Honolulu, she lived with her parents and sister Mary, however the new religion upset her parents. She wrote: “Among my relatives a rumor had spread that I had taken up some strange belief. I had to show through my life, and not be words, the great happiness that had come into my life.” She continued her Bahá’i teaching quietly, patiently and person-to-person, eventually gathering together a small group of local believers. The first public opposition to Ms. Alexander’s new beliefs came from her father. In November 1909, two itinerant Bahá’i teachers stopped in Honolulu. Ms. Alexander persuaded her father to let them deliver their first address on the lanai of the Alexander home in Makiki. Afterwards Professor Alexander wrote a newspaper editorial critical of the faith. After her parents’ deaths in 1913, Ms. Alexander sailed to America and received a letter from `Abdu’l-Bahá directing her to travel to Japan to introduce the faith. For twenty-three years she labored to spread the Bahá’i faith in Japan and eastern Asia, including Korea and China. She supervised the translation and publication of Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era into Japanese and assisted in the translation of that work into Japanese Braille as well. During visits home to Hawaiʻi, Ms. Alexander introduced Bahá’i teachings on Maui, Kauaʻi, and Hawaiʻi Island. She initiated a Bahá’i children’s class in 1927 and broadcast in 1933 over the radio. Ms. Alexander earned many distinctions for her work with the faith, and her longevity enabled Ms. Alexander to see the results of her work when, in 1964 the first National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’is of the Hawaiian Islands was formed. Ms. Alexander’s seventy years’ service to her beloved faith is unparalleled among the Bahá’is of the Western world. Today Bahá’is from around the world visit this site to honor this extraordinary woman of Hawaii. As one believer has said, “It is not possible to convey to anyone who did not know her the strength of character possessed by Agnes—her extraordinary courage, her complete selflessness, the supreme degree of renunciation apparent in all her actions, and her unshakeable faith. She was a willing and loving thrall of the cause, and in her bondage, she was as free as the ‘divine bird’ `Abdu’l-Bahá had asked her to be.” *Ms. Alexander’s father, William DeWitt Alexander, also buried here, was born on the Mission Houses site and after serving as President of Oahu College, became surveyor-general (1871-1901) of the kingdom as well as a recognized scholar and author. Agnes Baldwin Alexander Born July 21, 1875 Died January 1, 1971 As written by Duane K. Troxel in Notable Women of Hawaii, ed Barbara Bennett Peterson, (1984) pp 1-4 Sources: Agnes B Alexander: Forty Years of the Bahai Cause in Hawaii 1902-1942 (rev. 1974) Agnes B Alexander: History of the Bahai Faith in Japan, 1914-1938 (1977) Elena Maria Marsella: “Agnes Baldwin Alexander: 1875-1971,” The Bahai World, vol 15 (1976), pp 423-430 Honolulu Advertiser, Jan 4, 1971 Honolulu Star Bulletin Jan 4, 1971 Eighty Golden Years, the Bahai Faith in Hawaii 1901-1981 Personal papers located in the Hawaii Bahai National Archives, Honolulu, and in the Bahai National Archives of Japan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hawaiian Mission Children's Society Library at the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource If you would like permission to publish or reproduce this material, please send your requests to archives@missionhouses.org Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text, jpeg, QR code Type The nature or genre of the resource text Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Agnes Baldwin Alexander Subject The topic of the resource Missionaries Biographies Hawaii Cemeteries Agnes Baldwin Alexander Description An account of the resource Agnes Baldwin Alexander (July 21, 1875 - January 1, 1971) Ms. Alexander is best known as the first Bahá’i of Hawai`i and the missioner who carried the faith to Japan and eastern Asia. She was the youngest of five children born to William DeWitt Alexander* and Abigail Charlotte (Baldwin) Alexander and granddaughter of two mission families - Reverend William and Mary Ann Alexander and Reverend Dr. Dwight and Charlotte Baldwin. Born in Honolulu, she attended Oahu College (now Punahou School) and furthered her studies in education at the University of California at Berkeley and at Oberlin College. She worked at Punahou school assisting in the kindergarten, then as a second-grade teacher from 1898 to 1900. Due to ill health, she toured North America and Europe in 1900. “It was in far off Rome,” Miss Alexander wrote, that she received the “Light of this New Day.” She learned from Mrs. Charlotte Dixon about Bahá’u’lláh, prophet-founder of the Bahá’i faith, as a new messenger from God. After three meetings with her, Agnes wrote she could not sleep, “an overwhelming realization came to me, which was neither a dream nor vision, that Christ had come on earth.” She embraced the Bahá’i cause that morning, November 26, 1900. `Abdu’l-Bahá, son of Bahá’u’lláh and head of the faith, wrote Ms. Alexander requesting her to return to Hawaii to spread the New Gospel. As Bahá’i believe God to be the author of all the world’s major religions, Ms. Alexander regarded her Bahá’i missionary work as an extension of her grandparents’ efforts. Returning to Honolulu, she lived with her parents and sister Mary, however the new religion upset her parents. She wrote: “Among my relatives a rumor had spread that I had taken up some strange belief. I had to show through my life, and not be words, the great happiness that had come into my life.” She continued her Bahá’i teaching quietly, patiently and person-to-person, eventually gathering together a small group of local believers. The first public opposition to Ms. Alexander’s new beliefs came from her father. In November 1909, two itinerant Bahá’i teachers stopped in Honolulu. Ms. Alexander persuaded her father to let them deliver their first address on the lanai of the Alexander home in Makiki. Afterwards Professor Alexander wrote a newspaper editorial critical of the faith. After her parents’ deaths in 1913, Ms. Alexander sailed to America and received a letter from `Abdu’l-Bahá directing her to travel to Japan to introduce the faith. For twenty-three years she labored to spread the Bahá’i faith in Japan and eastern Asia, including Korea and China. She supervised the translation and publication of Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era into Japanese and assisted in the translation of that work into Japanese Braille as well. During visits home to Hawaiʻi, Ms. Alexander introduced Bahá’i teachings on Maui, Kauaʻi, and Hawaiʻi Island. She initiated a Bahá’i children’s class in 1927 and broadcast in 1933 over the radio. Ms. Alexander earned many distinctions for her work with the faith, and her longevity enabled Ms. Alexander to see the results of her work when, in 1964 the first National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’is of the Hawaiian Islands was formed. Ms. Alexander’s seventy years’ service to her beloved faith is unparalleled among the Bahá’is of the Western world. Today Bahá’is from around the world visit this site to honor this extraordinary woman of Hawaii. As one believer has said, “It is not possible to convey to anyone who did not know her the strength of character possessed by Agnes—her extraordinary courage, her complete selflessness, the supreme degree of renunciation apparent in all her actions, and her unshakeable faith. She was a willing and loving thrall of the cause, and in her bondage, she was as free as the ‘divine bird’ `Abdu’l-Bahá had asked her to be.” *Ms. Alexander’s father, William DeWitt Alexander, also buried here, was born on the Mission Houses site and after serving as President of Oahu College, became surveyor-general (1871-1901) of the kingdom as well as a recognized scholar and author. Agnes Baldwin Alexander Born July 21, 1875 Died January 1, 1971 As written by Duane K. Troxel in Notable Women of Hawaii, ed Barbara Bennett Peterson, (1984) pp 1-4 Sources: Agnes B Alexander: Forty Years of the Bahai Cause in Hawaii 1902-1942 (rev. 1974) Agnes B Alexander: History of the Bahai Faith in Japan, 1914-1938 (1977) Elena Maria Marsella: “Agnes Baldwin Alexander: 1875-1971,” The Bahai World, vol 15 (1976), pp 423-430 Honolulu Advertiser, Jan 4, 1971 Honolulu Star Bulletin Jan 4, 1971 Eighty Golden Years, the Bahai Faith in Hawaii 1901-1981 Personal papers located in the Hawaii Bahai National Archives, Honolulu, and in the Bahai National Archives of Japan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hawaiian Mission Children's Society Library at the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource If you would like permission to publish or reproduce this material, please send your requests to archives@missionhouses.org Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text, jpeg, QR code Type The nature or genre of the resource text Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Meredith Gairdner Subject The topic of the resource Meredith Gairdner Missionaries Biographies Hawaii Cemeteries Description An account of the resource Meredith Gairdner (1809-March 25, 1837) In the fall of 1832, Meredith Gairdner, a young Scots doctor, journeyed south from his home in Edinburgh to Kew, home to the Royal Horticultural Society’s collection of plant specimens on the outskirts of London. He had studied under Sir William Jackson Hooker, who at that time had at Kew the largest collection of known plant life, and there Gairdner was introduced to the work of David Douglas, a fellow Scot. Douglas, for whom the Douglas Fir is named, had sailed to America and had sent back to England a collection of plant life exotic to Europe. Gairdner promised to send additional specimens from the new world, as he had signed on to sail to the Pacific Northwest as a ship’s doctor with the Hudson’s Bay Company. He found on arrival at Fort Vancouver, in what is now the state of Washington, that his chances to explore the natural world of Northwest America were few, as his indenture kept him close to the settlement, dealing with the medical crises of the company’s men and Native Americans alike. At Fort Vancouver, Gairdner met David Douglas himself, who encouraged him to travel to Hawaiʻi to study the unique flora in the islands. Gairdner was tied to the company by contract, but when it became clear that he was beginning to fail in his health because of his workload, he sailed to Hawai`i. He took a reconnaissance mission around Oʻahu, writing and publishing a geological survey of that island, during a short visit to the islands in 1833, noting that “The King's country seat, the Mission House & the Billiard Room are the most conspicuous buildings." After two more years in the Northwest, Gairdner returned to Hawaiʻi in hope of a cure with the change of climate. Although unwell, he reported on his colleague Douglas’ death on Hawaiʻi Island in a letter to Hooker at Kew Gardens, which he sent with various boxes of specimens. From 1835 on he was looked after by mission families including both Artemas and Delia Bishop in Ka’awaloa and Asa and Lucy Thurston in Kailua-Kona. The Thurstons, who were impressed with the young man’s scientific knowledge and adventuresome spirit, gave their fifth child, Thomas, the middle name Gairdner in the year before Doctor Gairdner died in Honolulu, of tuberculosis, at the age of 28. Meredith Gairdner Born 1809, London, England Died March 25, 1837, Honolulu, Hawaiʻi Sources: British Columbia Historical Quarterly, April, 1945 pp 89-112 also has the full inscription from his grave stone Partners in Change, Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society, 2018 Letter : Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; Meredith Gairdner to Sir William Jackson Hooker, 19 November, 1835, Library and Archives; Directors correspondence www.kew.org Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hawaiian Mission Children's Society Library at the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource If you would like permission to publish or reproduce this material, please send your requests to archives@missionhouses.org Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text, jpeg, QR code Type The nature or genre of the resource text https://hmha.missionhouses.org/files/original/2c05659a1aa471a0e02a7ed56e2eb134.tif bf1269cdf4727c9e9774a4168c9a000c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Maria Paton Chamberlain Subject The topic of the resource Missionaries Biographies Hawaii Cemeteries Maria Paton Chamberlain Description An account of the resource Maria Patton Chamberlain (March 19, 1803 - January 19, 1880) Looking across Mission Lane, which divides this cemetery from the Mission Houses grounds, you will see the Chamberlain House, the tall stone-built building on the left. Imagine the yard full of children, and the continually busy storehouse receiving and sending goods. The Chamberlain House was the home of Maria Patton Chamberlain , her husband Levi, and their children during the years 1831 until 1877. Maria was born in Salisbury Township, Pennsylvania in the year 1803. Unusually for a missionary, her deep interest in religion was not shared by her family. She sailed as a missionary in 1827 as one of four single women in the third company of missionaries to the islands, on the ship Parthian. Her first assignment was as a helper to Reverend William Richards and his family in Lahaina, Maui. There she met Levi Chamberlain, the head of secular affairs for the mission, and they married soon after in 1828. Maria’s first home at the Mission Houses compound in Honolulu was a grass house; most of the early missionaries lived in them to begin with. By 1831, however, the Chamberlain House was built and the couple moved in. The Chamberlains had eight children: one died in infancy, but they raised seven children in the house, although the two eldest were sent back to the United States for schooling, as the earliest missionaries did not feel it safe to raise their children among the Hawaiians. Maria was particularly interested in child welfare and taught classes with a view to lessening the rate of child mortality in the islands. The congregation of Kawaiahaʻo church, which borders this cemetery, met at the mission compound each Sunday and Wednesday. Newly arrived missionaries were welcomed there. The annual meeting of all of the mission stations around the islands took place there. The Chamberlain House was busy with classes and home care of children and orphans. When her husband Levi died in 1847, Maria was forty-six. With a small inheritance from her husband, Maria continued her teaching, sending her children to Punahou School while supplementing her income by taking in boarders. She managed her business by herself, for the rest of her life, a further thirty-one years. Maria returned to the United States once to visit family and friends, in 1859. She is buried alongside her husband and five of their children in this cemetery. Maria Patton Chamberlain Born Salisbury Township, Pequa, Pennsylvania, March 19, 1803 Died Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, January 19, 1880 Sources: Partners in Change, David Forbes, Ralph Kam, Thomas Woods, editors; Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society, 2018 Notable Women of Hawaii, Barbara Bennett Peterson, editor, University of Hawaii Press 1984 Sojourners Among Strangers:The first two companies of missionaries to the Hawaiian Islands, Sandra Elaine Wagner, PHD Dissertation, University of Hawaii, 1986 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hawaiian Mission Children's Society Library (HMCSL), located on the campus of the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This material is for reference only. If you would like permission to publish or reproduce this material, please send your requests to archives@missionhouses.org Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text, jpeg, QR code Type The nature or genre of the resource text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context https://hmha.missionhouses.org/items/show/14038