Editor’s note: On Dec. 3, the Kaua‘i Museum celebrates its 50th anniversary. Museum leaders have chosen 50 stories from exhibits, collections and the archives of the museum to share with the public. One story will run daily through Dec. 3.
Editor’s note: On Dec. 3, the Kaua‘i Museum celebrates its 50th anniversary. Museum leaders have chosen 50 stories from exhibits, collections and the archives of the museum to share with the public. One story will run daily through Dec. 3.
LIHU‘E — There was no missionary station in Lihu‘e.
By the time Lihu‘e Plantation had established itself in the early 1850s, Dr. Smith would come over and offer services in a small thatched house near the plantation office and store.
In 1853, the church was moved to a site in the midst of a beautiful kukui grove. It was constructed of thatch with an earthen floor covered in lauhala mats.
William Harrison Rice, upon taking over duties as manager of Lihu‘e Plantation in 1854, also assumed responsibilities for caring for the church. His wife conducted the Sunday school. Dr. Smith conducted service in this church too, assisted by Hookui, Paul Kanoa, Solomon Kamahalo and Auamo.
Auamo, was the most eloquent lay speaker and able to hold the attention of his congregation of some 200 by the hour. The Hawaiians that made up this congregation lived at Nawiliwili and at Hule‘ia. Each family brought a calabash of water for any person who might want it.
Eventually the church gained a wooden roof and ceiling, wood floors and pews and even a church bell donated by the plantation.
The church services were not as would be expected from what is said about these missionaries. They did expect the congregation to dress “modestly” in the haole fashion. Col. DeLaVergne remembered on one occasion “seeing a portly dame in a black velvet dress, and a man’s hat, and barefooted.”
It was not uncommon for them to have a family pair of shoes which did duty for the whole household.
On Sunday this pair of shoes went through a particular type of ceremony. The fist member of the family would wear them into church and pass them out to the next family member, who in turn entered the church and passed the shoes out the window until the whole family had the “benefit and glory of them.” Fit was not a consideration.
The congregation sat on mats on the floor with Mrs. Rice sitting with dignity on a saw horse. At that time William Hyde Rice, then a small boy, vividly remembered how the women and children scrambled when a lizard would cross the mats.
Since dogs were allowed to accompany their masters into church, a dog fight was not unexpected and certainly livened up many Sunday mornings. Services were conducted with much applause and give and take between the reader and congregation.
When a church subscription list was being circulated one man was known to have demanded a promise that the dogs would be kept out of church else he would withhold his subscription.
DeLaVergne noted that the congregation gave very liberally to the collection. “There was a tin pan on the table near the pulpit and they marched up to deposit their gift. When a piece of money fell into the pan, you could generally tell how much it was, as it was never any more than it sounded.”
The communion cup and collection plate reside in the Kaua‘i Museum gifts of Dora Isenberg. They are made of pewter, not tin. Early Hawaiian bibles, unfortunately very fragile, are also on display but not open.
