‘Ōpūkaha‘ia Touring

Upcoming Tours – 200th Anniversary Plans

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Plans are underway to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the death of Ōpūkaha‘ia-Henry Obookiah in Cornwall, Connecticut on February 17, 1818.

• Dave Buehring in mid-February held his second annual Hana Hou History Tour on Hawai‘i Island. Dave is taking reservations for the 2018 version of the tour (February 16-19, 2018), which will be tied into local events tied into the 200th anniversary of Henry’s death.

• In advance of the 200th anniversary, Deborah Lee of Ahahui O Ōpūkaha‘ia in Hilo, Hawai‘i, is organizing a tour to Cornwall, Connecticut to mark the founding of the Foreign Mission School where Henry was the star pupil at its opening in 1817, and of the designation of the FMS’s Steward’s House as a National Historical Monument. At the Steward’s House Henry took meals and socialized. The Foreign Mission School academy building burnt down in the 19th century, but the clapboard-faced Steward’s House at 14 Bolton Hill Road in South Cornwall still stands, as do other buildings in Cornwall tied in Henry’s life. The Foreign Mission School steward took care of practical matters at the landmark school. A press release from the National Park Service states: “The Steward’s House was part of a three-building complex that provided an evangelical education for over 100 students from approximately 30 different nations, primarily Asia, the Pacific Islands and North America.”

A report from Brown University, reporting on Brown’s team who wrote the National Historic Site description of the house, mentions that Yale professor and author John Demos played an important role in securing the historic designation. Demos is the author of The Heathen School, a detailed book on the Foreign Mission School that includes an account of Ōpūkaha‘ia.

For those traveling to Cornwall, the National Park Service press release describes the location of buildings connected to Henry’s story, and the story of the Foreign Mission School:

“In the village center is a late nineteenth-century Town Hall and a white carriage house that is now the Cornwall Historical Society. Not far from the Town Hall, off of Bolton Hill Road (historic West Road) and near the intersection with School Road, stands a plaque that marks the FMS’s location. About fifty yards from this marker, lies another plaque that marks Kellogg’s General Store where FMS students (referred to at the time as “scholars”) and school officials purchased supplies and mingled with the community. The Steward’s House also stands in this portion of the present-day village. Together with a few other houses (the Principal’s House; the original residence of the prominent Gold family; and Reverend Timothy Stone’s house), these buildings serve as the school’s physical memory.”

Yale University’s Yale Indian Papers Project blog posted a current photo and brief story on the designation of the building as a National Historic Site.

• Peter Young of the popular Images of Old Hawai‘i blog is posting informative updates on the upcoming series of bicentennial events tied into Ōpūkaha‘ia and the Sandwich Islands Mission pioneer company.

• February 17, 2018 is Ōpūkaha‘ia’s bicentennial of his passing. October 23, 2019, the First Company of Missionaries leave Boston. March 30, 2020, the mission first sights Hawai‘i Island, April 4, 2020, the arrival of the missionaries at the Plymouth Rock of Hawai‘i in Kailua-Kona.

The Story of Mokuaikaua Congregational Church

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The Story of Mokuaikaua Church booklet cover

The Story of Mokuaikaua Congreational Church is 32-page booklet I helped create over summer 2016. Mokuaikaua Church (www.mokuaikaua.org) is located along the waterfront in Kailua-Kona on central west shore of the Island of Hawai‘i. Here the first missionary party sent to Hawai‘i formally landed in early April 1820. Mokuaikaua is the “first-gathered” church in Hawaiʻi, and the “oldest-stand” church building in Hawaiʻi. Construction funded by Hawaiʻi Island Governor Kuakini (John Adams) in 1836 built the stone-and-mortar walled church that still stands today. The church is pictured in the cover illustration above, you can’t miss the church as it then towered over all the thatched hale and wood-frame western buildings of old Kailua town.

Mokuaikaua Church Historian Yolanda Olson wrote the main text of the booklet. I did the background research, editing, graphic design, photography. I contributed a section I call “A New England Church with a Hawaiian Heart.” This contribution details the dual, hybrid New England-Native Hawaiian architectural features found in the Mokuaikaua Church building.

Proceeds from sale of The Story of Mokuaikaua Church are helping to raise funds for a $3 million restoration needed to make the historic church earthquake proof, to replace hardwood ʻōhiʻa beams that date back to the 1820s, and other repairs needed to preserve Mokuaikaua. Go www.mokuaikaua.org for more details.

Copies of the booklet are available at the Mokuaikaua Church in Kailua-Kona. Check on their website for contact information.

 

‘Ōpūkahaīa’s home village located thanks to Rev. Henry Boshard Ph. D.

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Boshards-June-2016
Kahu Henry Boshard and his wife Iris Boshard sit at a regal koa wood table Henry handcrafted in 1968. He rounded the corners of this fine piece of koa wood furniture to resemble a traditional native Hawaiian taro pounding “poi board.” Henry holds a copy of my book, The Providential Life and Times of Henry Obookiah, and Iris holds a copy of In Obedience. Kahu Boshard’s books are available for sale at the Mokuaikaua Church.

The more I uncover historical details from the life of Henry ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia, the more I realize there is much still to be learned.

This week I had the pleasure of meeting the Rev. Henry Boshard Ph.D. and his lovely wife Iris Boshard. Kahu Boshard is the former pastor of the Mokuaikaua Church located on the waterfront in Kailua-Kona, Hawai‘i Island. Henry presented me with a copy of his book In Obedience. Kahu Boshard’s book tells the story of his decades of service (1964-retiring in 2006) as pastor of Mokuaikaua and its sister churches along the sunny Kona coast.

David Ross, a board member and long-time member at Mokuaikaua, arranged the meeting. I hoped to find out more about the childhood years of ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia along the black sand beach and lava rock coastline at Nīnole and Punalu‘u in the Ka‘ū District of Hawai‘i Island. I had read that Kahu Boshard grew up in Punalu‘u. At our meeting in the Thaddeus Room in the Mokuaikaua sanctuary I learned a lot more than expected.

Iris Boshard’s ties to Ka‘ū come through her paniolo father from the Kanaka‘ole family of the Kapapala Ranch. This still-large ranch once stretched from Na‘alehu to Volcano.

Hokuloa Chapel

A vintage photo of the old Hokuloa Church at Punalu‘u, Hawai‘i Island. Photo from The Master and Disciple by Rev. Dr. Henry Boshard.

Kahu Boshard’s grandmother Adeline Nihokula Akiu related to her family that the location of a beachfront parcel makai of the Hokuloa Chapel at Punalu‘u is the birthplace and childhood home of ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia. The Hokuloa Chapel, which was dedicated in 1957 in honor of ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia, looks out over the beachfront parcel.

Standing at the chapel this week on a one-day ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia tour with Scott Tompkins, long-time Univeristy of the Nations School of Writing instructor, I imagined Henry and his family departing Ka‘ū. Scott and I were there at Kealakekua Bay and at Kahikolu Church in Napo‘opo‘o back in the summer of 1993 when ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia’s remains were returned from Cornwall, Connecticut by his family.

Nīnole looking towards Punalu‘u. The homesite and birthplace of ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia is located several coves north of this black sand beach.

Nīnole looking towards Punalu‘u. The homesite and birthplace of ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia is located several coves north of this black sand beach.

In 1796 ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia’s father served as a minuteman type soldier in a Ka‘ū army marching under orders of the district ali‘i nui. The local chief hoped to reconquer lands taken earlier by Kamehameha, when the king was distracted completing his conquest of O‘ahu. The family’s fate was never to return to their kuleana at Punalu‘u. All except ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia were slaughtered following the Battle of Kaipalaoa near the Waiakea River in Hilo in the summer of 1796.

I have hiked to closely look over the coastline about a quarter mile south of the Hokuloa Chapel, a beach known as Koloa in the ahupua‘a of Nīnole. I assumed (a faulty practice in searching for pieces of history) that location was ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia’s home. Now I know better!

Boshard books

Kahu Boshard is the author of these two publications that are related to the Mokuaikaua Church. The History of the Mokuaikaua Church provides an insightful narrative of the sweep of time that brought native Hawaiians to Hawai‘i over a thousand years ago up to the arrival of the Sandwich Islands Mission in April 1820 and beyond. The Rev. Asa Thurston, co-leader of the first party of the Sandwich Islands Mission, served at Mokuaikaua from the early 1820s up to the years preceding the Civil War. The Master and His Disciples is a drama written and staged by Kahu Boshard for the 165th anniversary of the founding of Mokuaikaua. The drama portrays the story of ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia and his co-adventurer and close friend Thomas Hopu. The script for The Master and His Disciples appears in the booklet, along with very interesting historic photos of the old Hokuloa Church at Punalu‘u (which preceded today’s chapel) and a photo of the beach parcel where ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia lived as a child.