Hiram Bingham I
| Hiram Bingham I | |
|---|---|
 Missionary to Hawaii |
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| Born | October 30, 1789 Bennington, Vermont, USA |
| Died | November 11, 1869 (aged 80) New Haven, Connecticut, USA |
| Alma mater | Middlebury College |
| Occupation | Missionary, Writer, Translator, Royal Advisor |
| Known for | converting the Kingdom of Hawaii to Christianity and serving as Kawaiahaʻo Church's first pastor |
| Religion | Protestant Christian |
| Spouse | Sybil Moseley Naomi E. Morse |
| Children | Hiram Bingham II, and six other |
| Parents | Calvin and Lydia Bingham |
| Signature |  |
Hiram Bingham, formally Hiram Bingham I (1789–1869), was leader of the first group of Protestant missionaries to introduce Christianity to the Hawaiian islands.
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[edit] Life
Bingham was descended from Deacon Thomas Bingham who had come to the American colonies in 1650 and settled in Connecticut. He was born October 30, 1789 in Bennington, Vermont. He was one of thirteen children of his father Calvin Bingham and mother Lydia.[1] He attended Middlebury College and the Andover Theological Seminary.[2] He broke off an engagement and found a new bride, Sybil Mosley, in order to become a missionary. On October 23, 1819 he was sent from Boston aboard the brig Thaddeus along with Asa and Lucy Goodale Thurston to lead a mission by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.[3]
[edit] Hawaii
Bingham and his wife arrived first on the Island of Hawaii in 1820, and then sailed on to Honolulu April 19. In 1823, Queen Kaʻahumanu and six high chiefs requested baptism. Soon after, the government banned prostitution and drunkenness, which resulted in the shipping industry and the foreign community resenting Bingham's impact.[4] Bingham was involved in the creation of the spelling system for the Hawaiian Language and also translated some books of the Bible into Hawaiian.[5]
Bingham designed the Kawaiahaʻo Church in Honolulu on the Hawaiian Island of Oʻahu. The church was constructed between 1836 and 1842 in the New England style of the Hawaiian missionaries and is one of the oldest standing Christian places of worship in Hawaiʻi.
Bingham also has a math building in Punahou School named after him. Bingham Tract School was an academically rigorous elementary school operating on the Bingham lands until the mid-1990s.
[edit] Return
The board grew concerned that he was interfering too often in Hawaiian politics. The Binghams left August 3, 1840 and returned to New England February 4, 1841.[6] for what was intended to be a sabbatical due to Sybil's poor health, but the board refused to reappoint him as a missionary even after Sybil's death on February 27, 1848. He published a memoir, A Residence of Twenty-One Years in the Sandwich Islands in 1847.[7]
He remained in New England as the pastor of an African American church. He remarried to Naomi Morse in 1852, who ran a girl's school. He died November 11, 1869 and was buried at Grove Street Cemetery, in New Haven, Connecticut. Leonard Bacon gave the address at his funeral.[1]
[edit] Legacy
Bingham's son, Hiram Bingham II, was also a missionary to the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. His daughter Lydia married the later Hawaiian missionary Titus Coan. His grandson Hiram Bingham III was an explorer who claimed to have discovered Machu Picchu and became a US Senator and Governor of Connecticut. His great-grandson Hiram Bingham IV was the US Vice Consul in Marseille, France during World War II who rescued Jews from the Holocaust.
In World War II, the United States liberty ship SS Hiram Bingham was named in his honor. It was hull number 1726. Bingham was caricatured as the character Reverend Abner Hale in James Michener's novel Hawaii.[5]
[edit] References
- ^ a b "Congregational Necrology"The Congregational quarterly (American Congregational Association) Volume 13: pp. 593–596. http://books.google.com/books?id=o-rNAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA593.
- ^ Sarah Johnson and Eileen Moffett (Spring 2006). "Lord, Send Us: A Kaleidoscope of evangelists"Christian History & Biography 90: 37–38. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/2006/issue90/13.35.html.
- ^ Lucy Goodale Thurston (1872). Life and Times of Mrs. Lucy G. Thurston: Wife of Rev. Asa Thurston, Pioneer Missionary to the Sandwich Islands. reprinted by Kessinger Publishing, LLC, 2007. ISBN 978-1432545475. http://books.google.com/?id=f1MXAAAAYAAJ.
- ^ Fortune, Kate. 2000. Hiram Bingham. The Pacific Islands: An Encyclopedia, ed. by Brij V. Lala and Kate Fortune, p. 188. University of Hawai'i Press
- ^ a b David Stowe (1999). "Bingham, Hiram". In Gerald H. Anderson. Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions. William B. Eerdmans Publishing. pp. 63–64. ISBN 9780802846808. http://books.google.com/?id=oQ8BFk9K0ToC&pg=PA63.
- ^ Hawaiian Mission Children's Society (1901). Portraits of American Protestant missionaries to Hawaii. Honolulu: Hawaiian gazette co.. p. 2. http://www.archive.org/details/portraitsofameri00hawarich.
- ^ Hiram Bingham I (1855) [1848]. A Residence of Twenty-one Years in the Sandwich Islands (Third ed.). H.D. Goodwin. http://books.google.com/?id=T1VFAAAAYAAJ.
[edit] Further reading
- Hiram Bingham I (1988). Char Miller. ed. Selected writings of Hiram Bingham, Missionary to the Hawaiian Islands: To Raise the Lord's Banner. E. Mellen Press, Lewiston, NY. ISBN 9780889466753.
- Char Miller (1982). Fathers and sons, the Bingham family and the American mission. Temple University Press. ISBN 9780877222484.
[edit] External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Hiram Bingham I |
- Darlene E. Kelley (November 19, 2000). "Queen Kaahumanu — Part 2: First Arrival of Missionaries". Keepers of the Culture. U.S. GenWeb Archives web site. http://files.usgwarchives.org/hi/keepers/koc33.txt. Retrieved 2010-02-20.
- Hiram Bingham at Find a Grave
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