Sybil Moseley Bingham (September 14, 1792 — February 27, 1848) was an American teacher in the

Hawaiian Islands The Hawaiian Islands ( haw, Nā Mokupuni o Hawai‘i) are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kur ...

, a member of the first company of missionaries sent by 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 ...

(ABCFM).

Early life

Sybil Moseley was born in

Westfield, Massachusetts Westfield is a city in Hampden County, Massachusetts, Hampden County, in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts, United States. Westfield was first settled by Europeans in 1660. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Springfield metrop ...

, the daughter of Pliny Moseley and Sophia Pomeroy Moseley. She was an orphan by age twenty, left to support three younger sisters.H. B. Restarick
"Sybil Bingham, As Youthful Bride, Came to Islands in Brig Thaddeus"
''Honolulu Star-Bulletin'' (August 15, 1931): 6. via

Newspapers.com Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites. In November 2018, ...

She was a teacher for nine years as a young woman,Barbara Bennett Peterson
"Sybil Moseley Bingham"
''American National Biography''. some of that time living in

Canandaigua, New York Canandaigua (; ''Utaʼnaráhkhwaʼ'' in Tuscarora language, Tuscarora) is a City (New York), city in Ontario County, New York, United States. Its population was 10,545 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Ontario County; some administrat ...

Mission years in Hawaii

Hiram Bingham I Hiram Bingham, formally Hiram Bingham I (October 30, 1789 – November 11, 1869), was leader of the first group of American Protestant missionary, missionaries to introduce Christianity to the Hawaiian islands. Like most of the missionaries, he w ...

was a missionary in

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...

for twenty years, from 1820 to 1840, and founder of the

Kawaiahaʻo Church Kawaiahaʻo Church is a historic Congregational church located in Downtown Honolulu on the Hawaiian Island of Oʻahu. The church, along with the Mission Houses, comprise the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site, which was designated a U.S. Natio ...

. As his wife, Sybil Moseley Bingham shared the work. "I believe God appoints my work," she wrote in her journal in 1823, "and it is enough for me to see that I do it all with an eye to his glory." She is credited with starting the first missionary school in the Hawaiian Islands, teaching Hawaiian adults in her home. The Binghams helped to develop a written

Hawaiian alphabet The Hawaiian alphabet (in haw, ka pīʻāpā Hawaiʻi) is an alphabet used to write Hawaiian. It was adapted from the English alphabet in the early 19th century by American missionaries to print a bible in the Hawaiian language. Origins In ...

, and some of the first printed materials in Hawaiian were made for use in her classes. She founded a weekly prayer meeting, attended by more than a thousand Hawaiian women. She also served as an unofficial nurse and midwife among the missionary families. After 1829, the Binghams lived in the

Manoa Valley Mānoa (, ) is a valley and a residential neighborhood of Honolulu, Hawaii. The neighborhood is approximately three miles (5 km) east and inland from downtown Honolulu and less than a mile (1600 m) from Ala Moana and Waikiki at . Neighbo ...

, on a banana and sugarcane plantation given for their use by

Queen Kaahumanu Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...

.Alfred M. Bingham
"Sybil's Bones, A Chronicle of the Three Hiram Binghams"
''Hawaiian Journal of History'' 9(1975): 3-36. The estate later became the site of the

Punahou School Punahou School (known as Oahu College until 1934) is a private, co-educational, college preparatory school in Honolulu, Hawaii. More than 3,700 students attend the school from kindergarten through twelfth grade, 12th grade. Protestant missionar ...

Personal life and legacy

Sybil Moseley married Hiram Bingham in 1819; they had met a few weeks before, and boarded a ship for Hawaii twelve days later.

Samuel F. B. Morse Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was an American inventor and painter. After having established his reputation as a portrait painter, in his middle age Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph ...

painted a portrait of the newlyweds before they left New England. Sybil Moseley Bingham and her husband returned to New England in 1841; she was ill with

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...

, and died in 1848, in

Easthampton, Massachusetts Easthampton is a city in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The city is on the southeastern edge of the Pioneer Valley near the five colleges in the college towns of Northampton and Amherst. The population was 16,211 at the 2020 c ...

. The Binghams had seven children, all born in the Hawaiian Islands, beginning with Sophia Bingham, the first American missionary child born on Oahu. Another daughter, Lydia Bingham Coan, wrote a biography of Sybil Moseley Bingham, published in 1895. Two sons died in infancy, in 1823 and 1825;

Hiram Bingham II Hiram Bingham II (August 16, 1831 – October 25, 1908) was a Protestant Christian missionary to Hawaii and the Gilbert Islands. Life and career Born in Honolulu, Bingham was the sixth child of early missionary Hiram Bingham I (1789–186 ...

was the only surviving son. Her grandson

Hiram Bingham III Hiram Bingham III (November 19, 1875 – June 6, 1956) was an American academic, explorer and politician. He made public the existence of the Inca Empire, Inca citadel of Machu Picchu in 1911 with the guidance of local indigenous farmers. Late ...

was an explorer in South America, a Senator, and Governor of Connecticut. Her grandson Edwin Lincoln Moseley was a naturalist. Her great-grandson

Hiram Bingham IV Hiram "Harry" Bingham IV (July 17, 1903 – January 12, 1988) was an American diplomat. He served as a Vice Consul in Marseilles, France, during World War II, and, along with Varian Fry, helped over 2,500 Jews to flee from France as Nazi forc ...

was an American diplomat; another great-grandson,

Jonathan Brewster Bingham Jonathan Brewster Bingham (April 24, 1914 – July 3, 1986) was an American politician and diplomat. He was the US delegate to the United Nations General Assembly and was elected to Congress from The Bronx, serving in the House of Representatives ...

, was a Congressman. Living descendants of Sybil Moseley Bingham include musician

Sam Endicott Samuel Bingham Endicott (born August 13, 1978) is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, actor and director. He is best known as the lead vocalist of The Bravery with whom he recorded three studio albums. Career At age 11 Endico ...

. The Bingham family's papers, including Sybil's journal of her life in Hawaii in the 1820s, are archived at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

, with another large collection at the

Hawaiian Historical Society The Hawaiian Historical Society, established in 1892, is a private non-profit organized by a group of prominent citizens dedicated to preserving historical materials, presenting public lectures, and publishing scholarly research on Hawaiian history. ...

and the Hawaiian Mission Children's Society Library in Honolulu, donated by a descendant in 1966."A Finding Aid for the Bingham Family Papers"
Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives.

References

External links

An 1819 silhouette portrait of Sybil Moseley Bingham
in the Historic New England. * * Michelle Ruth Stonis, "'On Heathen Ground': The Double Bind of Women's Roles in the Sandwich Islands Mission, 1819-1863" (M. A. thesis, California State University, Long Beach, 2005). via

ProQuest ProQuest LLC is an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based global information-content and technology company, founded in 1938 as University Microfilms by Eugene B. Power. ProQuest is known for its applications and information services for libraries, provid ...

* Joy Schulz, "Empire of the Young: Missionary Children in Hawai'i and the Birth of U. S. Colonialism in the Pacific, 1820-1898" (PhD diss., University of Nebraska Lincoln, 2011). via

* Jennifer Thigpen, "'Obligations of Gratitude': Gender, Interaction, and Exchange in the Nineteenth-Century Hawaiian Islands" (PhD diss., University of California Irvine 2007). via

*Jennifer Thigpen, "'You Have Been Very Thoughtful Today': The Significance of Gratitude and Reciprocity in Missionary-Hawaiian Gift Exchange" ''Pacific Historical Review'' 79(4)(November 2010): 545-572. DOI:10.1525/phr.2010.79.4.545 via

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bingham, Sybil Moseley 1792 births 1848 deaths People from Westfield, Massachusetts American educators American Protestant missionaries Protestant missionaries in Hawaii Female Christian missionaries