Mormons and the Smallpox Epidemic of 1853 (2)

Uaua arrives in Honolulu on a mission and creates a stir. He and Kauwahi preach to large audiences, baptize scores. Isaaka an important convert. Kahoouluwa, Paku, and Bigler baptize over a hundred and organize Kaeohe branch. Honolulu branch organized. Utah elders in constant demand to administer to the sick.

Uaua arrives on Oahu   Fortunately, on March 30 Uaua, who had enjoyed great proselyting success on Maui and Molokai, came to Honolulu. And on April 2, Kauwahi, in town to attend the legislature, teamed up with Farrer in the suburb of Waikahalulu, where most of Honolulu Saints lived.

to Honolulu: T. Keeler, March 29, 1853; W. Farrer, 2 April 1853.

Saints lived: W. Farrer, March 25, April 2, 3, 1853.

First sermon   On Sunday, April 10, Uaua preached his first sermon in Honolulu. Three were baptized the next morning. Tanner was elated.
  
 

All the farern Elders will have to do hereafter will be to instruct the native Elders in prinsaple they haveing the power of their one language & I now think if I can be able to teach them the prinsaples of truth … they can teach it to the balance of the nation.

   N Tanner, April 10, 1853.
Uaua's preaching   The following Sunday, Uaua spoke to a packed audience and three more were baptized, followed by five on Monday, six on Tuesday, and two on Wednesday.
  
Uaua a thunder storm   "Sum of the cheafs are very believing," Tanner rejoiced, & we are incuredging br Uaua all that we can and instructing him what to dow & he is doing the best he can … inlightning the King & the chiefs." Uaua's name "when inturpeted is rane rane, but I think he is a purfect thunder storm & will soon flood these Isleands with Mormonism.   N. Tanner, March 20; April 8, 10–22, 1853.
Ordain the men  

We adopted the policy of ordaining every native that we thought would do any good, and instructed them, and set them at work in Honolulu and surrounding country.

   Tanner to Brother Campbell, September 9, 1853 in Deseret News, December 15, 1853, 3.
Uaua, Kauwahi, Paku, Kahumoku   On April 22 Uaua and Kauwahi were ordained elders; Thomas Paku and John W. Kahumoku were ordained priests, and Isaaka Kahoouluwa was ordained a teacher. Kahumoku would soon go to Hawai‘i as spokesman for Tanner and Karren. Kahoouluwa and Paku became Henry Bigler's spokesmen, and in just two weeks they would baptize a hundred and organize a branch at Kaeohe.
   Isaaka: See note.

Kahumoku: See note.

at Kaeohe: W. Farrer, June 11, July 19, 1853.
Uaua and Kauwahi speak to large crowd   On April 24, Uaua's third Sunday in Honolulu, he and Kauwahi spoke to a large, attentive audience. "The Spirit of the Lord was with them," Farrer attested, "& they spoke with power. … The crowd gathered round & soon after meeting commenced the house was filled to overflowing & more outside … than could get near to hear."
   W. Farrer, April 24, 1853.
Parade to King's Falls   That afternoon Farrer and Kauwahi announced their intention to organize a branch, and invited all who wished to be baptized to join them at "King's falls" (Kapena) a mile and a half from town. As the people filed out of the meeting hall, the Calvinist meeting also broke up. The cry went out, ‘What's up? What's up?' ‘The Mormans going to babtise.'" Curious onlookers poured into the streets until those in the middle of the throng could not see the end of the procession in either direction.
   join them: W. Farrer, April 24, 1853.

The cry: N Tanner, April 24, 1853.
Uaua interviews, baptizes 35   At the falls, a thousand onlookers positioned themselves on the banks around the pool. The proselytes were invited to come forward and give their names. Uaua questioned them regarding their faith and their commitment to forsake their sins. Then he instructed them on the nature of the covenants they were about to make. The candidates stepped up to the water's edge and he "called on the multitude to Keep good order while the ordinance was being performed & … called on the people to take of[f] their hats while singing & prayer was attended to." Following the hymn, Uaua prayed. Then he and Farrer went down into the water and baptized thirty-nine. It was, Farrer wrote, "a scene long to be remembered."
   W. Farrer, April 24, 1853.
Honolulu branch organized   The Honolulu branch was organized two days later with seventy-five members. After the meeting six more were added, and three teachers and five deacons were ordained.
   N. Tanner, April 26, 1853.
Uaua and Kauwahi speak again

110 in seven days		   On the following Sunday, May 1, Uaua and Kauwahi spoke again, and 43 presented themselves for baptism. Again a large crowd witnessed the ordinance, while another group listened to Uaua's next sermon, a quarter of a mile away. Thirteen requested baptism there, and they too were followed to the water by a large number of people. In the next seven days 110 more were added.
  number of people: W. Farrer, May 1, 1853.

more were added: W. Farrer, May 1–12, 1853. Letters from the elders in Honolulu to Reddick Allred dated May 2 reported 148 baptisms in the city. R. N. Allred, May 9, 1853. Farrer's diary records five baptisms on May 2.
Protestant clergy: a sudden excitement   The baptisms attracted the attention of Reverend Ephraim Clark—and he was not pleased. "One or two [Mormon] converts from Lahainaluna … have made quite a stir for a week or two past," he reported, "leading captive silly women & silly men too laden with divers lust, most of them from the dregs of Honolulu. They have been urged into the water on a sudden excitement, thus turning the solemn ordinance of baptism into a farce."
   Ephraim Clark, Honolulu Station Report, May 18, 1853, Hawaiian Missionary Children's Society (Honolulu).
Utah elders administer to sick   While Uaua and Kauwahi were doing the preaching, the Utah elders—even though they could not speak to understand Hawaiian—were in great demand to administer to the sick.
  N. Tanner, May 7, 1853.

"Although I cant doe much preaching I am Kept prity buisley runing to administer to the Sick and to help to Confirm as Elder Farrer is the Only on[e] amoung us that are here that Can Speak the Language." T. Karren, May 6, 1853.
Faith in Honolulu  

There is hundreds of sick adminestered to hear & they are after us all the time & all maner of deseases, sum of the most despet cases you can a magen & none have failed to be wall satesfied as yet & I must say I have never seen more faith than I have in Honalulu.

  
Scabies   Scabies was a common, highly contageous disease, caused by mites that produced large, festering sores all over the body.   Scabies: Bushnell, The Gifts of Civilization: Germs and Genocide in Hawai‘i (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1993), 231.
Syphilis   As repulsive as scabies was to the Utah elders, however, syphilis was worse. One doctor described its effects as follows:  
Symptoms  

Foul ulcers, of many years standing … everywhere abound, and visages horribly deformed—eyes rendered blind—noses entirely destroyed—mouths monstrously drawn aside from their natural position, ulcerating palates and almost useless arms and legs mark most clearly the state and progress of the disease.

   Alonzo Chapin, who visited Hawai‘i in 1832-35, in Gifts, 233.
People wasting away   "It is heart sickning to see the awful affects of the venereal deseases upon this people," Elder Francis Hammond wrote, "they are litterally wasteing away under its influance."   F. Hammond, October 27, 1853.
Suffering   Perhaps it was syphilis Thomas Karren encountered when called upon to administer to a man with a sore leg. "It was frightfull to look on. It made my heart Eak to behold such Suffering to See men and the[ir] flesh rob[bed] of[f] their Bones which is the Case With many of this people. Such objects of Suffering I never before beheld."
   T. Karren, May 26, 1853, text.
  Tanner's diary entries for five days in May depict the magnitude of the suffering:
  
5 days in May  

May 9: 5 sick came to us to be healed before breckfast. …

May 10: We have had a bout 15 cases of sick to day. I think out of sum hundreds of administrations I onley kno of 2 cases that have failed to git [better?] … & sum of them have ben rased up from the loest & last stage of life that can be found in a filthy lude house to helth & lots of them that ware half rotton with their disease.

May 11: We are adminestering to the sick … lots of sick coming & going all the time.

 
Crippled man walks to baptism  

May 12: A house full of sick agan. 1 man that had not walked for 6 months, walked 3 forth of a mile to be babtised & back a gan rite threw the city. The children a long the streat sed the Calvins could not give men legs to walk like Mormons do.

May 13: … was it not for the will of god & that god did work with us & for the sake of suffering humanety we could never do the things that we are dewing daly.

   Karren text on the cripled man.
Many cures performed   Tanner's enthusiasic reports quickly spread to the other missionaries and to the States. On Maui, Hammond wrote to Parley P. Pratt in California, "The native Saints … manifested great faith in the power of healing," Hammond wrote, "and the Elders were greatly blessed in their administrations in this connection. … Many cures have been performed … the lame has been made to walk, the blind to see, and the weak made strong; and we feel to ascribe the praise to God our Heavenly Father."   Hammond to Pratt, June 6, 1853, P. Pratt Collection.
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