Hiram Bingham I
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- This article is about the Hawaiian missionary.
For other uses, see Bingham.
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Hiram Bingham (1789 - 1869), born in Bennington, Vermont, was in the first group of Protestant missionaries to introduce Christianity to the Hawaiian islands. Bingham is descended from Deacon Thomas Bingham who had come to the American colonies in 1650 and settled in Connecticut. He attended Middlebury College and the Andover Theological Seminary. He broke off an engagement and found a new wife, Sybil Mosley, in order to become a missionary. He was sent as a missionary by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. The board grew concerned that he was interfering too often in Hawaiian politics. The Binghams returned to New England in the 1840s for what was intended to be a sabbatical due to Sybil's poor health, but the board refused to reappoint him as a missionary even after Sybil's death. He remained in New England as the pastor of an African American church. He is buried at Grove Street Cemetery, in New Haven, Connecticut.
Bingham designed the Kawaiahaʻo Church, on the Hawaiian Island of Oʻahu. The church which was constructed between 1836 and 1842, was in the New England style of the Hawaiian missionariesis and is one of the oldest standing Christian places of worship in Hawaiʻi.
Bingham's son, Hiram Bingham II, was also a missionary to the Kingdom of Hawai'i; his grandson Hiram Bingham III was an explorer who became a US Senator and Governor of Connecticut, and his great-grandson Hiram Bingham IV was the US Vice Consul in Marseille, France during World War II who rescued Jews from the Holocaust.
In World War II the United States liberty ship SS Hiram Bingham was named in his honor.
[edit] References
- Sarah Johnson and Eileen Moffett (Spring 2006). "Lord, Send Us". Christian History & Biography 90: 37-38.
