Sheldon Dibble (January 26, 1809 – January 22, 1845) was a missionary to Hawaii who organized one of the first books on Hawaiian history, and inspired students to write more.

Early life

Dibble was born in

Skaneateles, New York Skaneateles ( , ) is a town in Onondaga County, New York, United States. The population was 7,112 at the 2020 census. The name is from the Iroquois term for the adjacent ''Skaneateles'' Lake, which means "long lake." The town is on the western ...

on January 26, 1809. He graduated from

Hamilton College Hamilton College is a private liberal arts college in Clinton, Oneida County, New York. It was founded as Hamilton-Oneida Academy in 1793 and was chartered as Hamilton College in 1812 in honor of inaugural trustee Alexander Hamilton, following ...

in 1827, and the Auburn Theological Seminary in October 1830, where he married Maria M. Tomlinson (1808–1837). They arrived in the fourth company from the

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) was among the first American Christian missionary organizations. It was created in 1810 by recent graduates of Williams College. In the 19th century it was the largest and most imp ...

in 1831 on the ship ''New England'' from New Bedford. He was one of the youngest missionaries, only 22 years old when he arrived. They had a son who died young and a daughter Mary, who died at 18 months in 1831, and is buried in Lahainaluna alongside her parents. After the death of his first wife, he married a cousin of his first wife, Antoinette Tomlinson (1809–1897), in 1839. They had a son Seymour and a daughter Clara. Antoinette and the children moved back to the United States in 1848.

Work

Sheldon Dibble House at Lahainaluna, engraved by Kalama

He was first stationed at the Hilo mission, but transferred to

Maui The island of Maui (; Hawaiian: ) is the second-largest of the islands of the state of Hawaii at 727.2 square miles (1,883 km2) and is the 17th largest island in the United States. Maui is the largest of Maui County's four islands, which ...

island in 1836. He became a teacher at

Lahainaluna School Lahainaluna High School is a public high school with the grades 9-12 located in Lahaina (on the island of Maui). Lahainaluna High School is also a public boarding school. It was founded in 1831 as a Protestant missionary school, originally name ...

, the mission seminary founded by

Lorrin Andrews Lorrin Andrews (April 29, 1795 – September 29, 1868) was an early American missionary to Hawaii and judge. He opened the first post-secondary school for Hawaiians called Lahainaluna Seminary, prepared a Hawaiian dictionary and several works o ...

at the time. He thought it strange that students were learning history of other nations, but had no books describing their own history. Starting in 1836 he organized a group of students collecting notes from the chiefs and elders of the community, guided by a questionnaire. One of the older students,

David Malo David Malo or Davida Malo (1795–1853) was a chiefly counselor, a Hawaiian intellectual, educator, politician and minister. He is remembered by subsequent generations of Hawaiian people and scholars primarily as a Native Hawaiian historian of the ...

, had served as court genealogist during the time of

Kamehameha I Kamehameha I (; Kalani Paiea Wohi o Kaleikini Kealiikui Kamehameha o Iolani i Kaiwikapu kaui Ka Liholiho Kūnuiākea; – May 8 or 14, 1819), also known as Kamehameha the Great, was the conqueror and first ruler of the Kingdom of Hawaii. T ...

so took the lead. In November 1837 (after the death of his first wife) he left and returned to the Auburn Seminary in New York in spring of 1838. In the winter of 1838–1839 he toured the southern United States and gave lectures on Hawaiian history, publishing a 250-page volume of notes. By the fall of 1839 he sailed back to Hawaii, arriving again in the spring of 1840. At the general meeting of missionaries in May 1841 he was assigned the task of continuing to refine the book.

had a printing press delivered to the Lahainaluna school in 1833, and a number of students had been using it to print newspapers and short text books. The first edition was published on April 28, 1843. He helped establish a Royal Historical Society with Malo and

Samuel Kamakau Samuel Mānaiakalani Kamakau (October 29, 1815 – September 5, 1876) was a Hawaiian historian and scholar. His work appeared in local newspapers and was later compiled into books, becoming an invaluable resource on the Hawaiian people, Hawaiian ...

and others, and acted as the first secretary. He translated books of the Old Testament of the Bible, and prepared text books on grammar and natural history in the

Hawaiian language Hawaiian (', ) is a Polynesian language of the Austronesian language family that takes its name from Hawaii, the largest island in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed. Hawaiian, along with English, is an official language o ...

. He died on January 22, 1845, just before his 36th birthday. A second edition of his history was published in 1909 after the circulation of a letter from Dibble containing some corrections. Although his life was cut short, his students, especially Malo and Kamakau went on to be invaluable at preserving Hawaiian history.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dibble, Sheldon 1809 births 1845 deaths People from Skaneateles, New York American Congregationalist missionaries Congregationalist missionaries in Hawaii Translators of the Bible into Polynesian languages 19th-century American historians 19th-century American male writers 19th-century translators Auburn Theological Seminary alumni Hamilton College (New York) alumni Historians from New York (state) American expatriates in the Hawaiian Kingdom Missionary linguists American male non-fiction writers

Early life

Work

See also

References

External links