Mission Houses - New England in the Tropics

Photo: Joel Bradshaw, public domain (cropped)

A stop on Historic Downtown Honolulu Walk, a free self-guided tour.

The white wooden house with the small windows looks like it belongs in Massachusetts, and in a way it does. Its frame was cut in Boston and shipped around Cape Horn, then put together here in 1821, a year after the first company of American Protestant missionaries arrived. It was built for New England winters, which made for hot nights in Honolulu.

Next door, the coral-block Chamberlain House was the mission's storehouse, and the print house recalls the missionaries' most lasting work. Working with Hawaiian scholars, they set down the Hawaiian language in a written alphabet and printed the first books in it, and literacy spread across the islands with astonishing speed.

Their legacy is mixed. The mission also pressed Hawaiians to give up hula and other traditions, and some missionary children and grandchildren became sugar planters and business leaders. Lorrin Thurston, who led the 1893 overthrow, was a missionary grandson. The houses are a museum today; guided tours run on a schedule, so check the website.

Getting here: Walk a short way east along King Street past the churchyard; the Mission Houses are on the same side of the street.

Did you know?: The Frame House is often described as the oldest wood-frame house still standing in Hawaii.

Photo op: From the lawn, frame the white Frame House next to the darker coral walls of the Chamberlain House to show the two building styles.

More on Wikipedia: Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives · American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions · Hawaiian language

Mission Houses - New England in the Tropics

Stops on this tour