Missionaries to Hawaii (1997)

by Jeffrey Bingham Mead
Greenwich History, Volume 2, Fall 1997. Pages 17-26.
Published by the Greenwich Historical Society,
Greenwich, Connecticut USA

If the early years of the nineteenth century, events in two widely separate parts of the world foretold the future of the American foreign mission movement. In August of 1807, near a grove of maple trees standing in Sloane's Meadows in Massachusetts, Samuel J. Mills, Jr. and five other Williams College students sought protection from an impending thunderstorm in a haystack. They devoted their time to fasting, prayer, and discussion of ways and means of converting the world's "heathens." It was here, in what would later be known as the Haystack Meeting, that the American foreign mission movement had its beginnings.

At about the same time but a world away from the rolling hills of New England, an American trading ship, Triumph, anchored in Kealakekua Bay off the western shore of the island of Hawaii. A young Hawaiian boy named Opukahaia, who dreamed of sailing to distant climes, swam out to the ship. Captain Caleb Brintall of New Haven invited the Hawaiian youth to go with him to America as his cabin boy. Opukahaia (known thereafter as Henry Obookiah) eagerly accepted the invitation. Eventually arriving in New Haven,  Obookiah learned to read and write under the tutelage of Edwin Dwight, son of Yale president Timothy Dwight. Receiving extensive religious training, he became the first Hawaiian-born Christian. A book of his posthumously published memoirs became a bestseller, and soon missionaries were preparing to carry on the work Obookiah had inspired. 

A most important event in the effort was the arrival in 1820 of Congregational missionaries and several American-educated Hawaiians. They were welcomed by the Hawaiian people and met with gratifying success in the decades that followed. Some of Greenwich's citizens were enthusiastic participants in this educational effort.

The first half of the nineteenth century was a period of great social, religious, political change in America. With advances in technology, the far corners of the world were becoming more accessible. Yankee clipper ships and those of other nations plied the oceans opening up markets in far-flung places. Religious revivalism was also facilitated by improvement in communication. The Great Awakening, the 1720s revivalist enthusiasm among primarily Congregational and Presbyterian denominations, was echoed a century later in the Second Great Awakening. The missionary movement was an outgrowth of the second wave of religious zeal.

The missionaries of the Second Great Awakening sought to construct and perpetuate a global Protestant Christian commonwealth using a network of volunteer local, state and national societies outside the realm of government control. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) coordinated mission activities across the continent and the world. Gospel truth, the absolute sovereignty of God over mankind, and Christ's atoning love through direct conversion were believe subscribe to by participants.

Religious enthusiasm was widespread in the New England states, America's Bible belt in the early 19th century, and Greenwich was no exception. The vitality and devotion of New England-led missionary activism was unprecedented. 

The Female Foreign Mission Society of Greenwich's Second Congregational Church was founded in April, 1815. The Female Heathen School Society was founded on June 11, 1817, with Mrs. Hannah Lewis elected to the office of first directress. In 1825, with Benjamin Brush, Jr. as president, the Stanwich Gentleman's Association was founded. The chief purpose of all these societies was to raise funds for the mission cause and to provide moral support. (Also, click here). 

A few individuals in Greenwich dedicated their lives to missionary service in the Hawaiian Islands under the auspices of the ABCFM. Among them were Horton Owen Knapp of Round Hill and his wife, Charlotte Close, and Dr. James William Smith of Stamford and his wife, Millicent Knapp, a sister of Horton Owen Knapp. Another sister, Deborah, went to the island of Kauai for several years. Amos Starr Cooke and his wife Juliette Montaque, though not born in town, had family ties there and left Greenwich for Hawaii in 1836 with Horton and Charlotte Close Knapp. All lived out their lives in Hawaii.

The Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives, Honolulu. 

What motivated young people like those from Greenwich and elsewhere to forgo the comforts of life and the familiar surroundings of New England for a total commitment to the cause of foreign missions? 

Sarah Lewis, daughter of the Rev. Dr. Isaac Lewis of Greenwich's Second Congregational Church and secretary of the Female Foreign Mission Society from its founding in 1815 until her death in 1861, provided one answer to this question. In 1815 she wrote that "it is the duty of those who enjoy the precious privileges of [the] gospel to make vigorous and united efforts for its  propagation among the benighted heathen… [W]hen God hath been pleased again to restore the blessing of peace to our beloved Country… shall we refuse to lend a helping hand to those who would carry the light of the gospel to such as now sit in darkness and see no light?" (1)

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The Hawaiian Islands
The Hawaiian Islands, inhabited by the descendants of Polynesian settlers, were opened to Western contact on January 18, 1778 by Capt. James Cook. He named them the Sandwich Islands after the Earl of Sandwich. In time, the islands became a stopping place for whaling ships and fur-trading vessels. The native population, estimated to be 250,000 in 1778, welcomed its visitors. The Hawaiians, however, had no immunity to smallpox, measles and the venereal diseases that these visitors brought. The population began to decrease substantially, and word of the plight of the Hawaiians reached the far shores of America.

Local chiefs ruled the Hawaiian Islands until about 1800, when they were united under King Kamehameha. His son, Liholiho, became king in 1819 and abolished the local Hawaiian religion. Protestant Christianity, brought by the Rev. Hiram Bingham and his New England missionary colleagues in 1820, was embraced by most Hawaiians. Mission stations throughout the islands were established, with reinforcement sent by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions over succeeding decades.

Change soon followed. A system of schools a written language, and constitutional government, and a judicial system were reforms the missionaries helped create.

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Those Greenwich residents about whom Sarah Lewis wrote fervently felt the need to dedicate their lives to the missionary movement in Hawaii. Here are some of their stories.

HORTON OWEN KNAPP 

Horton O. Knapp was born in the Round Hill section of Greenwich on March 21, 1813. A contemporary account described him as descended from a pious ancestry, although his parents did not embrace religion until the "time of those extensive revivals of religion which prevailed throughout the United States in 1831." In 1836, Knapp abandoned his goal of studying for the Congregational ministry, deciding to go to the Sandwich Islands as a teacher in response to a call published by the ABCFM. (2)

Horton and his new bride boarded the barque Mary Frazer in Boston and, as members of the Eighth Company Reinforcement, set sail for the Hawaiian Islands. (The first groups of missionaries, sent out in 1820 as "companies," were augmented by subsequent groups of "reinforcements.") The ship became a floating community for the missionaries with morning and evening prayer in the passengers' cabins. By the end of the voyage, about half the crew was converted, including Captain Charles Sumner. Charlotte Knapp noted in her journal that the captain "used to think the subject of religion of little importance…but he had been led by our examples and teaching to examine the subject…and there was a change in his views and feelings." A vote among the missionaries during the voyage put Knapp in charge of the Singing School. "I immediately objected to being their chorister," he wrote home to Deacon Silas Hervey Mead. "My objections, however, were unsuccessful." (3)

Horton and Charlotte were assigned to the mission station at Waimea on Hawaii, where Horton worked as an associate to Rev. Lorenzo Lyons. About this time, an upswing of religious fervor swept the Islands and Reverend Lyons was often absent on "preaching tours." Knapp then took on the labors of the station. He conducted the school in the Hawaiian language and ran religious meetings for the native population. The meetinghouse was a grass shelter.

Knapp was one of thirteen founding members of the Hawaiian Association of Teachers in 1837. This organization was dedicated to discussions of science and to the advancement of education and Christianity in the Sandwich Islands. At each annual meeting members were required to submit an essay. Knapp proffered one entitled, "Should the Conversion of His Pupils be the Teachers Highest Aim in Giving Instruction?" In the essay he answered that the question with a persuasive "Yes."

In January 1839, plagued by respiratory problems, he and Charlotte moved to Honolulu where better medical care was available. He also assisted in the schools there, taking over the duties previously assigned to Amos Starr Cooke. On November 26, 1844, Charlotte Close Knapp wrote in her journal, 

"Today is the anniversary of our marriage and it is more than probable the last we shall ever see. Eight years of past rapidly and happily away, but the future seems dark and uncertain. But I would trust in Him who can bring light out of darkness, that He will cause light to shine on my path and give me the consolation I need in every hour of trial."

Horton Owen Knapp died in Honolulu on March 23, 1845, and was buried in the Missionary Cemetery behind the Kawaiahao Church. He was 32 years old. 

His obituary, published by the [Rev. Samuel Chenery Damon in 'The Friend'] of the American Seamen's Friend Society, used the language of the time. "His heart seemed to overflow with affection for those who stood around his bed," wrote Rev. Richard Armstrong, "and in fact for all the members of the mission generally to all whom he sent messages of love, not forgetting even the children. He mentioned the name of his far distant and aged mother, together with his brothers and sisters, expressing a strong desire that the native church members might grow in grace and walk worthy of their high calling, and that his beloved pupils might be brought to Christ." (5)

CHARLOTTE CLOSE KNAPP DOLE

Charlotte Close was born on May 26, 1813, the daughter of Gilbert Close and Sally Howe Close. Both Charlotte and her mother were members of the Female Foreign Mission Society of the Second Congregational Church, and Mrs. Close was a major influence on her daughter's decision to commit her life to mission work in the Sandwich Islands. "To You, my beloved Mother," Charlotte wrote at the beginning of her journal, "these pages are dedicated."

That Charlotte was an unusually bright and accomplished woman we can see from the letter of candidacy written to the ABCFM by Rev. Chauncey Wilcox. "She is a person of more than common natural abilities," he wrote. A postscript added to the letter by a former teacher, H. Doane, stated that "her present education and her ability as a scholar were unquestionably good. She reads fluently in Latin and Greek…As a writer perhaps she is inferior to few of her sex."(6)

The Second Congregational Church, Greenwich, Connecticut. Mary Mason. Early 19th century. 

Charlotte's record of her journey to Hawaii gives evidence of her keen powers of observation and her true talent in articulating them. Soon after their marriage on it November 24, 1836, Charlotte and Horton Owen Knapp sailed to Hawaii on the barque Mary Frazer. Charlotte recorded her impressions of the risky voyage. After departing from Boston the ship sailed south, through the Straits of Magellan, to Tierra del Fuego and around Cape Horn, the north in the Pacific to Hawaii. 

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Charlotte Knapp recorded in her journal the meeting, shortly after her arrival in Honolulu with Kamehameha IV's and Queen Emma Kaleleonalani [CORRECTION: Kamehameha III, also known as Kauikeaouli, and Queen Kalama] at the home of Oahu's governor, with the Rev. Hiram Bingham acting as interpreter. "We were received with all the cordiality and dignity that could be expected," wrote Charlotte, "He pledged us his protection an extended his warmest salutations. [The Queen] rejoiced that God had sent us from an enlightened land to use/ 

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Of Tierra del Fuego she wrote, "Its lofty hills were in full view and the sun was just setting behind them. It was indeed a novel site to us to see the sunset behind the hills, and my thoughts quickly reverted to my native hills behind which the sun had so often retired from my view. We had the additional pleasure of seeing it twice. After it had sank behind a mountain peak as we sailed along it again became visible at its side. There was a sensible difference in the smell of the atmosphere. I perceive the smell of a shore the moment I came on deck." 

On the morning of February 12, 1837, they passed Cape Horn. As Charlotte stood surveying the scene her thoughts returned to home again. "I thought of the friends I had left as they gather, more probably assemble, for public worship. I thought that perhaps they were at that very moment sending up their petitions to God, that He would cast us prosperously on toward our destined port. I also thought if they could know where we were and how we were prospered they would let their thanksgiving ascend with their petitions." (7)

After eight years as wife and helpmate, Charlotte was widowed. One year after Horton's death, she married the Reverend Daniel Dole, the first principal of Punahou School. For twenty years, Charlotte worked with her husband at this school for the children of the missionaries, sharing his teaching chores. 

Charlotte Close Knapp Dole's gravestone in Honolulu, behind Kawaiahao Church. 

She died in Honolulu on July 5, 1874. Her funeral service was held in the historic Kawaiahao Church, and she was laid to rest in the Missionary Cemetery, not far from the grave of her first husband.

DR. JAMES WILLIAM SMITH 

AND 

MELICENT KNAPP SMITH

James William Smith was born July 8, 1810, in Stamford, son of Philander Smith and Clarissa Holley. Smith studied medicine in Stamford and at the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Since the ABCFM felt that Christian homes were models to the islanders the missionaries served, it required all departing missionaries to be married. James Smith found his bride in Horton Knapp's sister Melicent, born on October 15, 1816. James Smith wrote to his future mother-in-law of his desire to marry her daughter and to take her far away from home.

"I know it is rather hard question to ask a mother to part with a beloved daughter, especially to part with her for the purpose of going far hence to heathen lands… I presume, that as a Christian mother, you have often considered that you might be called upon to part with one...of your children for the Gospel's sake. May I then feel…that I have the consent and approbation of her dear mother?"

Within three weeks of their wedding, James and Melicent were on the brig Sarah Abigail out of Boston for the 143-day journey to Hawaii, arriving in Honolulu on September 12, 1842. (8)

In November they were stationed at Koloa on the island of Kauai, where from 1842 to 1882 Dr. Smith was the only physician. It one "house call" he made in February 1866, he rode forty miles in four and a half hours to attend to a young boy at Princeville Plantation. Dr. Smith was fifty-six years old at the time.

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"It is twenty-one years since we left home. I remember the morning well. It was cloudy with some showers, we took breakfast, had prayers, bade you 'goodbye,' got in the old two-horse wagon, cast a last look at the old family cottage and proceeded to Rocky Neck. Too the steamboat to New York, and there bid goodbye to one of my brothers and other friends, and then embarked for Boston. Towards evening we passed Greenwich. Sw Horseneck meeting house and took our last look at those familiar shores, by the light of the setting sun. Twenty-one years have passed since that day, how strange it seems, and how much, too, they have passed. I am now fifty-two years old and begin to feel myself almost and old man"

Dr. James William Smith to his mother-in-law April 20, 1863.

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From 1854 to 1869 Dr. Smith also served as the first ordained minister on Kauai and as pastor of the Koloa Mission (Hawaiian Church of Koloa). In 1862, he and his wife established the Koloa Boarding School for Girls. Melicent served as teacher and superintendent for ten years. Her sister Deborah came from North Greenwich to serve as her assistant teacher.

Dr. and Mrs. Smith had nine children, with seven surviving to adulthood. All spoke the Hawaiian language fluently. Descendants of the Smiths still live on Kauai.

In 1880 Dr. Smith made a brief visit to his old New England home. He died in Koloa on November 30, 1887. Mrs. Smith never left the Hawaiian Islands after her arrival. She was confined to bed for twenty months preceding her death, a month before reaching the age of seventy-five in 1891. Both are buried in the Smith Waterhouse Cemetery in Koloa.

AMOS STARR COOKE 

AND 

JULIETTE MONTAGUE COOKE

Amos Starr Cooke, born in 1810 [in Danbury, Connecticut], and his wife, Juliette Montague, born in 1812, were missionary teachers in the same company as Horton Knapp and Charlotte Close Knapp. Cooke had been recruited by his brother-in-law, Reverend Chauncey Wilcox of the North Greenwich Congregational Church, to serve as a teacher in the Sandwich Islands. Cooke taught for two years in Honolulu before being asked to educate the young members of the Hawaiian royal family. For most ten years, Amos and Juliette Cooke were responsible for the education of the young Hawaiian chiefs. Their students included Prince Lot, later Kamehameha V; William Lunalilo, first elected Hawaiian King; Princess Victoria Kamamalu; David Kalakaua, last reigning king; Lydia, Kamakeha Liliuokalani, last monarch of Hawaii; and Princess Bernice Pauahi, the last of the descendants of Kamehameha I and founder of the Kamehameha Schools. During this busy period of their lives the Cookes had five children of their own.

In 1849 Cooke became ABCFM's Assistant Superintendent of Secular Affairs. He was released in 1851, and with Samuel N. Castle began the mercantile firm of Castle and Cooke, known until recently as one of Hawaii's "Big Five" conglomerates. He died on March 20, 1871, in Honolulu and is interred in the Missionary Cemetery, located between the Mission Houses and Kawaiahao Church. Juliet Montague Cooke died on August 11, 1896, and is buried next to her husband.

Amos Starr Cooke's gravestone, Missionary Cemetery, Honolulu.

Mary Atherton Richards, a Hawaiian resident of descendant of those early missionaries, succinctly summarized the missionary creed that drove her ancestors. Writing in 1987, she explained that to "understand New England, one must always remember that the impulse which found it was religion. In the early part of the nineteenth century, its children still grew up conscious that they had souls, and God-fearing fathers and mothers labored to the end that their children might dedicate themselves early in life to the service of God. And upon some of these young people, more sensitive perhaps than others, came to rest not only the responsibility of their own souls, but the burden of the unsaved portion to whom the Gospel was not being preached – the heathen."

This legacy is preserved in Hawaii today by the Hawaiian Mission Children's Society, formed in 1852, which owns and operates the Mission Houses Museum in Honolulu. The on-site library contains nineteenth century records from the Congregation missionaries, including those from Greenwich, Connecticut. (12)

That 1807 meeting in a New England haystack and the adventures in New Haven of the Hawaiian youth Opukahaia had consequences which effected profound change in the Sandwich Islands. Residents can feel a connection with Hawaii today because of those Connecticut – born Congregationalists of so many years ago.

Jeffrey Bingham Mead is a direct descendant of several founded of Greenwich. He wrote Chains Unbound: Slave Emancipations in Greenwich, Connecticut. His column "Looking Back" appears in the "neighbors" section of Greenwich Time. He currently resides in Hawaii.

ENDNOTES

1. Sarah Lewis, secretary, The Minutes and Reports of the Female Foreign Mission Society/Second Congregational Church, 1815. Second Congregational Church, Greenwich, Connecticut.

2. The Friend. (Honolulu: American Seaman's Friend Society), 18 April 1845.

3. Charlotte Close Knapp, unpublished journal, volume I, 12 February 1837. Horton Owen Knapp to Silas Hervey Mead, 25 December 1836. Hawaiian Mission Children's Society, Honolulu.

4. Charlotte Close Knapp, unpublished journal, volume 4, 26 November 1844. Hawaiian Mission Children's Society.

5. The Friend.

6. Reverend Chauncey Wilcox, unpublished letter of candidacy, Hawaiian Mission Children's Society.

7. Charlotte Close Knapp, unpublished journal, volume I, 11 February and 12 February 1837.

8. Dr. James William Smith to Mary Owen Knapp, 30 April 1841, Smith Family papers, Hawaiian Mission Children's Society.

9. Smith Family papers.

10. Smith Family papers.

11. Reverend Chauncey Wilcox, unpublished letters, Cooke Family papers, Hawaiian Mission Children's Society.

12. Mary Atherton Richards, Amos Starr Cooke and Juliette Montague Cooke: The Autobiographies Gleaned From Their Journals and Letters (Honolulu: The Daughters of Hawaii, 1987), 22.