Hawaiian Missionaries – The Folks and the Stamps
American missionaries began arriving in the Hawaiian Islands in 1820. A bestselling book from that time Memoirs of Henry Obookiah alarmed the missionaries and inspired them to leave New England and sail close to Cape Horn on a mission to the Hawaiian Islands. Their pioneering effort was courageous and in truth a leap of religion.
The pioneer American Mission company was led by Reverend Hiram Bingham a graduate of Middlebury School and the Theological Seminary at Andover, Massachusetts. The missionaries were supplied a area of land on Oahu where by they established a mission station. That land was referred to as Ka wai a Ha’o (the water of Ha’o) in reference to the fresh water spring found there in which Chiefess Ha’o bathed. Upcoming to the spring Reverend Bingham founded the initial church in Honolulu he named it Kawaiahao.
The Pioneer Company of missionaries initially set up a few mission stations on the islands of Hawaii, Oahu and Kauai. Reverend Bingham directed the mission station enlargement from the Honolulu mission station. From at the rear of the Kawaihao church the business of the missionaries was carried out. Over the subsequent 20 many years nineteen mission stations ended up recognized at populace facilities in the Hawaiian Islands. As new missionaries arrived from The usa they would continue to be at the Honolulu mission station right until they had been assigned to one of the nineteen mission stations. Also at the Honolulu mission station a mission depository was crafted that served as a warehouse where by shipments have been gained and provisions were sent to the distant stations.
A person of the most hard jobs the missionaries faced was studying the Hawaiian language. The language did not exist in a published type. They had to produce an alphabet that would capture all of the nuances of the Hawaiian language. The moment that was accomplished they started translating the Bible from the unique Greek and Latin specifically into the Hawaiian language.
The pioneer and subsequent mission companies arriving from New England brought with them printing presses and extra supplies for the mission stations and for the Mission Push. The initial Mission Push developing was built at the Honolulu mission station just several feet from the Mission Depository. About the 1st twenty yrs of operation the Mission Press printed 113,017,173 Hawaiian language web pages. All supplies for the Mission Push, the paper, the ink powders, (pigments, driers and extenders) ended up saved in the Mission Depository.
When the American Missionaries arrived no postal procedure existed. The Mission Depository received deliveries that integrated mail in addition to supplies. When mail was shipped mail that experienced been prepared by mission associates was waiting around to go out. Samuel N. Castle who operated the Mission Depository wrote in his Journal a Post Office environment Legislation that he would have the learn of the ship examine just before he would entrust them with mission mail. Mr. Castle kept thorough data of mission correspondence, dates sent, to whom and on which ship the mail was carried. Of certain worth was mail that was sent to J.B. Moore the postmaster of San Francisco. Mr. Castle contacted Mr. Moore to build a regular postal supply in between Honolulu and San Francisco. Individuals letters have been sent in August and September of 1850.
In Oct of 1850 Henry M. Whitney was offered postal responsibility for California. Mr. Whitney was the grownup kid of an American mission family members. He experienced been sent back to The united states for schooling when he was a baby. He discovered the printing trade and returned to Hawaii to immediate the government printing office environment in Honolulu. In November of 1850 Whitney employed William S. Emerson as his apprentice. The younger adult men have been both of those mission children, considering the fact that their moms and dads known as each individual brother and sister they preferred to call every other cousins. William was given extra accountability at the post office when Henry went to take a look at his sister Maria Pogue in March of 1851. The 1st postage stamps issued by the Kingdom of Hawaii were being also issued in 1851, they have come to be regarded as the Hawaiian Missionaries.
In 1918 George Grinnell a Los Angeles university teacher reported he was given some Hawaiian Missionary stamps by a gentleman named Charles Shattuck. When Grinnell marketed some of them a couple of a long time later on they were seized by the United States Solution Services and ended up the subject matter of a exceptional court docket situation. The courtroom made a decision that the stamps Grinnell offered for sales have been worthless parts of paper.
A lot has been learned because the trial. It was afterwards acquired the mother of Charles Shattuck and the mom of William Emerson ended up good friends. They experienced prepared to each individual other. The Grinnell stamps are typographically various individuals stamps that are thought to be authentic. Also the cancellations are distinctive that individuals that are believed to be genuine. The solution to the secret lies in the journal of William Emerson in which he recorded the dates and several hours he worked for Whitney. Those people work information which had been identified by Patrick Culhane a Shattuck descendant at the Mission Houses museum library in Honolulu. The cancellation dates that look on the utilised Grinnell stamps do not show a 12 months. The creator believes that the dates had been used in January, February and March of 1851 when William had added accountability at the post business. The work report of William Emerson corroborates this, eighty per cent of the dates that show on the Grinnell stamps are dates that William Emerson was working at the post office.
Summary: The Grinnell Hawaiian Missionary stamps are Authentic.
They are a to start with printing created by William Emerson as section of his apprenticeship to Henry Whitney in the to start with quarter of 1851 when he had extra duty at the post business. The existence of these in the arms of only 1 family members suggests that William was tests out his design and style.