As an introduction to the approaching sesquicentennial of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' first settlement in Hawaii, on the island of Lanai, a visiting professor at BYU-Hawaii will lecture on July 26 and 27 at the Bishop Museum on "Mormon Gathering Places in the Pacific."
Dr. Fred E. Woods, Professor of Church History and Doctrine at BYU in Provo, will present "From Honolulu to Lanai (1850-1864)" and "From Lanai to Laie (1864-2004)" on those dates, respectively, from noon to 1 p.m. in Paki Conference Room 2 of the Bishop Museum in Honolulu.
Professor Woods, who is teaching an Old Testament class at BYU-Hawaii this summer, will explain how at the same time Mormon pioneers from the U.S. mainland and Europe were immigrating to Salt Lake City, the LDS Church's doctrine of gathering led to the growth of the first Hawaiian Mormon gathering place in the Pacific on the island of Lanai in the summer of 1854, and eventually to its permanent island home in Laie in 1865.
"During this period there was a strict emigration legislation which made it virtually impossible for native Hawaiians to immigrate anywhere," Dr. Woods explained. He added that on October 3, 1854, the "City of Joseph" was surveyed in the Palawai Basin, called the "Valley of Ephraim" by the local Saints. Eventually local circumstances necessitated a new gathering place.
"As a historian, I wondered why we spend so much time focusing on the Church crossing the plains, when 90% came by water," Dr. Woods said, noting he did his dissertation on "water in the Hebrew Bible, which led to the question, why don't Mormons spend more time studying Mormon maritime migration."
"What I found is that Mormons live inland, and don't really think of the ocean," he continued. "I grew up less than an hour from the ocean, with a love for the Pacific, and I served my mission in Adelaide, Australia."
Growing out of that interest, Dr. Woods compiled 90,000 first-person immigrant accounts of Latter-day Saints crossing the ocean on 543 voyages between 1840-90, augmented by over 1,000 first-person accounts. The LDS Church published this work on CD as the "Mormon Immigration Index" in 2000.
"As far as I know, it's the largest collection of immigrant accounts ever compiled," Dr. Woods said. "Only about one percent of all the Saints that gathered to America in the 19th century came from the Pacific, while the primary gathering place for Hawaiians became Laie, commencing in 1865."
Since then, Dr. Woods said, "Laie has become a successful model that reflects the importance of gathering cultural, spiritual and academic knowledge in order to dispense greater peace and understanding internationally."
"This includes the concept that Laie has become a living laboratory where individuals have come to develop greater tolerance, appreciation and esteem for each other," he continued, citing Marion G. Romney, who said: "For what can be done here interculturally in a small way, is what mankind must do on a large scale, if we are to ever have real brotherhood on this earth."
"Even though I've only been here for one month, Laie has impacted me. As a teacher, I've had more international students in my class here than ever before."
In addition to his teaching and publishing, Dr. Woods is also the executive director of the nonprofit Mormon Historic Sites Foundation, which has been involved in commemorating and restoring historic LDS sites in Kirtland and other parts of Ohio; the Outdoor Icelandic Museum in Spanish Fork, Utah; the Oneida Stake Academy in Preston, Idaho; the Far West burial grounds and other sites in Missouri; the Ensign Peak monument in Salt Lake City; and other sites in Iowa, Illinois, and Kansas.
He said the Foundation is also interested in identifying and commemorating other LDS historic sites in the islands. The foundation is currently working with Hawaii Reserves, Inc., and the Mormon Pacific Historical Society, looking at the possibility of erecting markers to commemorate Latter-day Saint history.
"In the meantime, I'm here for summer term only to teach a course and do research on a book that I'm co-authoring with Riley Moffat and others called Gathering to Laie," Dr. Woods said.