Excerpt from Pamphlets: Sandwich Islands

Kapiolani belonged to what may be called the nobility of the Hawaiian Islands. She descended from one of the ancient kings of Hawaii. Her husband Naihe had also a noble descent. They had large landed possessions, which bordered on the quiet and beautiful waters of the Kealakekua Bay, and rose into the woodlands of Maunaloa, with one of the most delightful climates and oceanic prospects in the world. The people inhabiting these lands were in the lowest intellectual and social degradation, and both chiefs and vassals were alike dark minded and savage pagans, preferring their grass huts down on the heated lava of the shore, to the verdant and temperate regions above.

When first seen, Kapiolani is said to have been sitting on a rock, oiling her naked person. Her habits, at that time, were intemperate and dissolute. This was in the year 1820, when the Rev. Mr. Thurston commenced his mission at Kailua, sixteen miles northward of the place noted for the death of Captain Cook. The name of this place was Kaawaloa, and there was the home of Naihe and Kapiolani. Liholiho, king of the Sandwich Islands, and his young brother, afterward known as Kamehameha III., then resided at Kailua; and these, with several chiefs, old and young, were daily instructed by Mr. and Mrs. Thurston, so far as the kings intemperate habits would permit. The missionaries were an object of curiosity to the people, and many came to see them from distant parts of the island, which has a circuit of nearly three hundred miles. Kapiolani was among the more frequent visitors, coming in her well-manned, double canoe. Her sprightly, inquisitive mind soon seized upon the outlines of the gospel, and a change came over her morals. She gave herself to study and to the means of grace.

Near the close of the year 1820, the royal family removed to Honolulu, on the island of Oahu, which soon after became the acknowledged capital of the kingdom; and it was thought prudent for Mr. and Mrs. Thurston, in view of the rude manners of the people, to do the same. Kapiolani and her husband soon followed, and remained at Honolulu till the arrival of the first reinforcement of the mission, in the spring of 1823. In the distribution of the new company, Kapiolani urged the claims of Kailua, and of her own people at Kaawaloa, and great was her joy when it was decided to reoccupy the former place, now under the efficient rule of Kuakini, or (as he was called by American seamen) John Adams. She united with her husbandin proffering to Mr. and Mrs. Thurston and to Mr. and Mrs. Ely the best accommodations afforded by their own little schooner. Mrs. Ely could not at that time endure the ordeal of such a voyage. And it is distressing, in these days of steamboats, to think of the suffering endured by our missionary brethren and sisters on board those small, ill-ventilated, closely-crowded native vessels in their protracted voyages, which sometimes were a week and more only from Honolulu to Lahaina, now occupying only a single night.

The king was at that time cherishing the plan, which he lived to execute in part only, of visiting foreign countries, and seeing in person the King of England and the President of the United States. His departure had the effect to throw the government of the islands into better hands - with Kaahumanu at the centre as regent, and Kuakini as governor of the great island of Hawaii. Mr. Thurston found, on his return to Kailua, that the governor had nearly finished a neatly thatched house of worship, with pulpit, and seats around the walls, and mats neatly spread over the intervening ground.

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