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Reverend Hiram Bingham
1789 - 1869 (80 years)-
Name Hiram Bingham Prefix Reverend Birth 30 Oct 1789 Bennington, Vermont 
Gender Male Death 11 Nov 1869 Connecticut Burial New Haven, Connecticut Person ID I14233 Scudder Last Modified 16 Dec 2014
Father Deacon Calvin Bingham, b. 8 Oct 1750, Norwich, New London, Connecticut d. 19 Feb 1831, Bennington, Bennington, Vermont (Age 80 years) Mother Lydia Denton, b. 11 Mar 1757, Amenia, Dutchess, New York d. 30 Mar 1831, Bennington, Bennington, Vermont (Age 74 years) Marriage 6 Jan 1777 Family ID F4855 Group Sheet | Family Chart
Family 1 Sybil Moseley d. 27 Feb 1848, Connecticut Children 1. Elizabeth Kaahumanu Bingham, b. 1829, Hawaii d. 1899 (Age 70 years)2. Reverend Dr. Hiram Bingham, II, b. 16 Aug 1831, Honolulu, Hawaii d. 25 Oct 1908, Baltimore, Maryland (Age 77 years)3. Lydia Bingham, b. 1834, Hawaii d. 1918 (Age 84 years)Family ID F17614 Group Sheet | Family Chart Last Modified 3 Mar 2024
Family 2 Naomi E. Morse Marriage 1852 Connecticut Family ID F17615 Group Sheet | Family Chart Last Modified 3 Mar 2024
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Notes - Hiram was leader of the first group of American Protestant missionaries to introduce Christianity to the Hawaiian islands. He attended Middlebury College and the Andover Theological Seminary. On October 23, 1819, he and his young bride sailed out of Boston aboard the brig Thaddeus, along with Asa and Lucy Goodale Thurston, to lead a mission in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.
Hiram and Sybil arrived first on the Island of Hawaii in 1820, and sailed on to Honolulu on Oahu on April 19. In 1823, Queen Kaʻahumanu and six high chiefs requested baptism. Soon after, the Hawaiian government banned prostitution and drunkenness, which resulted in the shipping industry and the foreign community resenting Bingham's influence. Bingham wrote extensively about the natives and was critical of their land-holding regime and of their state of "civilization." He supported the introduction of market values along with Christianity. Those writings are now used by historians to illustrate the imperial values that were central to the attitudes of the United States towards Hawaii. He was involved in the creation of the spelling system for writing the Hawaiian Language, and also translated some books of the Bible into Hawaiian.
Hiram 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 typical of the Hawaiian missionaries. It is one of the oldest standing Christian places of worship in Hawaiʻi.
Hiram used his influence with Queen Kaʻahumanu to instigate a strongly anti-Catholic policy in Hawaii, considerably impeding the work of the French Catholic missionary Alexis Bachelot and resulting in decades of persecution of Hawaiians who were converted to Catholicism. This was motivated by opposition to the spread of French influence in Hawaii as well as by the religious Protestant-Catholic rivalry and enmity.
The board grew concerned that Hiram was interfering too often in Hawaiian politics and recalled him. The Binghams left August 3, 1840 and reached New England February 4, 1841. It was intended to be a sabbatical due to Sybil's poor health, but the board refused to reappoint Bingham 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.
Hiram remained in New England, where he served as the pastor of an African-American church. He remarried to Naomi Morse in 1852, who ran a girl's school. 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.
Leonard Bacon gave the address at his funeral.
- Hiram was leader of the first group of American Protestant missionaries to introduce Christianity to the Hawaiian islands. He attended Middlebury College and the Andover Theological Seminary. On October 23, 1819, he and his young bride sailed out of Boston aboard the brig Thaddeus, along with Asa and Lucy Goodale Thurston, to lead a mission in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.