Henry ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia

A ship called the Thaddeus set sail from Boston, Massachusetts, headed for the Hawaiian Islands. Aboard it were Protestant missionaries and their families. The Reverend Asa Thurston and his wife, Lucy, and the Reverend Hiram Bingham and his wife, Alfreda, were among them. Others of the party included a doctor, a printer, teachers, farmers, and Hawaiian youths who had studied in America. It took six months for these missionaries to sail from their homes to begin a new life in the islands. They had to go from New England to the bottom of South America and then up into the Pacific Ocean to Hawai‘i. Their mission would be to build homes, schools, and churches; to learn the language and teach the Hawaiian people to read and write; and, above all else, to teach them about Christian ways and values.