In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

77  MOLOKA‘I  A Gulick is a tough sort of being. Luther Gulick, 1881 When the Gulicks arrived in the village of Ka-lua-‘aha in 1843, they found it much different from their former station, Kō-loa. There commerce flourished and freshwater was plentiful. But neither of those things abounded in Ka-lua-‘aha, which was the only station of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) on the rugged, mountainous island of Moloka‘i. Destined eventually to become the site of the world’s most infamous leper colony, Moloka‘i was not easily accessible. To reach it, travelers from Honolulu took a schooner to Maui, and from there they traveled by canoe across thirteen miles of shark-infested ocean to Ka-lua-‘aha. Located in southeastern Moloka‘i, the village was backed by mountains and fronted by the ocean, which was so rough in the area that Peter hated to cross it. “Going to sea in canoes,” he wrote, “with our infant & thoughtless children, is far from desirable.” Peter was no happier with the house he was to occupy. Described by Fanny as “the poorest house in the [Sandwich Islands] Mission,” it was small and dilapidated. “Every room in it leaks, & some of them badly,” Peter wrote in May 1844, and his son Orramel recalled that “what room we had could not be converted into a good garden.” Peter did like the climate of Moloka‘i, because it was “comparatively cool & pleasant,” and because it did not produce the kind of eye troubles that he and his family had suffered on Kaua‘i. Another reason for him to like Moloka‘i was the good relationship he had with the island’s senior missionary, Harvey Hitchcock, who gave such sharply worded sermons that his parishioners called him ka pahi (the knife). Peter described Harvey as “a very zealous laborious , & successful pastor,” and he admired Harvey’s wife, Rebecca. She was a “faithful & zealous” woman, and she was aided in her labors by Lydia Brown, a single woman who joined the Ka-lua-‘aha Mission in 1840. Four years later, the mission received another missionary, Claudius Andrews, “a 78 Chapter Four thorough going Western man from Ohio.” Andrews was handsome, but still single, and his bachelor status troubled his colleagues, who worried that he would be tempted to sleep with Hawaiian women on Moloka‘i. Hawaiian women probably did not sleep with Claudius Andrews, but they no doubt attracted him, even when their bodies were hidden by Western dress. Such garb was uncommon on Moloka‘i when Peter visited the island in 1838, but six years later he gladly reported that most of the people on Moloka‘i had clothes made out of Western cloth. “Even the children generally have a shirt or a frock,” Peter observed with satisfaction, although he was concerned by the Hawaiians’ declining numbers. “It is believed they are still decreasing rapidly,” he wrote in 1843, “& I fear ere long will be extinct.” Another thing that worried Peter was the decline in health that he and Fanny were experiencing. She had a prolapsed uterus that kept her in bed for six months in 1844, and she was becoming dependent on spectacles. Peter was becoming dependent on spectacles, too, and he had shaky handwriting. He was also inclined to sickness, and he spent most of his time “in languor & debility which is sometimes attended with severe pain.” To regain his health, Peter tried bloodletting and blistering, but these treatments were ine ffective, and he and Fanny wondered whether they were too ill to remain in Hawai‘i. “We have thought and talked a little on the subject of returning to U.S.,” Fanny wrote in 1845, “—But we are disposed to hold on as long as possible , (and the probability is, one of us will die in the field,) as our impression is, that generally, returned missionaries are less happy and less useful than those who remain. There are so many missionaries returned the church[es] are tired of seeing them, no wonder. But on the other hand the Missions are generally in favor of the return of those who are not able to do a good share of labor. Their houses etc. are wanted for the strong laborers.” In spite of his poor health, Peter endeavored to run things in Ka-lua-‘aha for Harvey Hitchcock, who took a long sick leave in 1844. During his absence , Peter supervised the replacement of the old...

Share