After missionary teacher and mechanic Samuel Whitney (1793-1845) had established the Waimea Mission Station in 1820 with his wife, Mercy, he began preaching all around Kaua‘i, traveling from village to village, 70 in all, with thousands of Hawaiians coming to hear him speak.
One notable preaching expedition occurred in 1821, when he and the Rev. Bingham of the O‘ahu Mission Station climbed over the mountains from Waimea to spread their message northward into the Hanalei district — likely the first foreigners to travel along that route.
With Hawaiian guides and helpers, they climbed on foot into the mountains above Waimea, on into Koke‘e, and across the Alakai Swamp to the edge of the pali, some 4,000 feet above Wainiha Valley.
The trek down into Wainiha Valley was very steep, angling at 60-75 degrees, on a trail that has long since vanished.
Hawaiians living in Wainiha Valley had never seen white men before, and they welcomed the missionaries and offered them food.
Whitney and Bingham prayed with them and later walked to the beach, where both Kaua‘i’s King Kaumuali‘i and King Kamehameha II were camping near the mouth of the Wainiha River.
After spending the night at this encampment of kings, sleeping on mats of grass with covers made of kapa under a tent of green leaves situated within a grove of hala, they traveled by canoe to the village at Hanalei, where few, if any, Hawaiians had ever been visited by white men.
There, the missionaries preached to the people, and on the following day, they set off for Waimea by canoe via the Napali Coast, where many people lived in those days.
Along the coast, Whitney and Bingham observed men, women, and children fishing by placing an intoxicating native plant called auhuhu among stones in the sea.
The stupefied fish were then caught easily by hand or with fishnets.
Samuel Whitney died at Lahaina, Maui in 1845, but his wife, Mercy Partridge Whitney, lived in the Hawaiian Islands for 52 years, passing away in Waimea in 1872.
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Hank Soboleski has been a resident of Kauai since the 1960s. Hank’s love of the island and its history has inspired him, in conjunction with The Garden Island Newspaper, to share the island’s history weekly. The collection of these articles can be found here: https://bit.ly/2IfbxL9 and here https://bit.ly/2STw9gi Hank can be reached at hssgms@gmail.com
