Autograph Letter, not signed as it is missing at least the last page. 4 pp. The lot also includes a 10x15 cm (4x6") engraved certificate on paper, "American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions." Certifying Boswell Boutivell has contributed 1 dime for the new Missionary Packet, Morning Star.
"Dear Friends at home, If you could have prolonged your visit to the shores of Honolulu, on the 14th of June at 1 P.M. you might have witnessed a pleasing sight. A sea of heads covered the wharf + decks of the vessel, ready for the services of praise which always precedes the going of the "Star." The verses of the missionary hymn, beginning "Shall we whose souls are lighted + waft, waft ye winds + e" were sung, in Eng. + Hawaiian at the same time prayer was offered by Dr. Hyde, remarks made by Mr. Forbes, Miss Chamberlain's brother-in-law, prayer in native by Dr. Coan, remarks by the father of one of the Hawaiian missionaries, going with me...The course of the vessel is not the same as usual this year. It seems that some Gilbert=islanders were stolen from their homes + taken to Fanning's Island which is a thousand miles or more, almost directly south of the Sanwich Is. Mr. Gregg, who owns the island + for whom these men have been at work, went to Honolulu sometime ago + made arrangements to have the "Star" go there, before going to the westward, + take them home." The letter continues to discuss sea sickness, and hope for the missionary's travels. An interesting first hand account of departure of the missionaries aboard the Third Morning Star, which was built in Boston, and was first sailed in February 1871. The ship sailed to various islands in the Pacific such as Micronesia, and the Marquesas Islands, and in the later 1870s and early 1880s the ship sailed to Honolulu on annual voyages. It was during an annual voyage in 1884 that the ship was wrecked, only six miles away from where the second "Morning Star" had been wrecked, the treacherously windy harbor of Kusaie.