Members of a family who donated a rare 1855 edition of the Hawaiian Book of Mormon to the Brigham Young University Hawaii Archives 30 years ago participated on November 7 in unveiling a permanent display of Ka Buke a Moramona in the Laie Hawaii Temple Visitors Center.
The new display culminates four years of efforts by BYU-Hawaii 7th Ward Bishop Dean Ellis — grandson of the late Elder Ford Clark, who received the book as a parting gift at the end of his first mission to Hawaii in 1920 — to have the 1855 Ka Buke a Moramona take a prominent place among the other translations of the Book of Mormon at the Visitors Center.
BYUH Archivist Dr. Matthew Kester, Ph.D., earlier explained that Elder George Q. Cannon, a missionary called from Utah to help open the Sandwich Islands Mission in 1850, and Judge Ionatana Napela, a Native Hawaiian alii [chief or noble] and early convert to the Church from Maui, translated the Book of Mormon into Hawaiian over the next several years. Soon after returning from his mission, Elder Cannon and his wife were called to San Francisco in 1855 where he printed 3,000 copies of the book, but only 200 were bound. Almost all of the copies were shipped back to Hawaii where most of them were destroyed in a fire in 1868. Kester noted several subsequent editions were printed about 50 years later, which are more common. The 1855 edition has more recently been photocopied and published, and copies can be purchased at the BYUH Bookstore or through ldscatalog.com; but only about 15-30 copies of the original 1855 edition are believed to be extant — two of them in the BYU-Hawaii collection.
A statue of Elders Cannon and Napela holding aloft Ka Buke a Moramona in front of the Cannon Activities Center commemorates their efforts. In addition, the BYUH Hawaiian Studies program is named in Napela's honor.
"There is no greater missionary tool than the Book of Mormon, and the possibility of having this one where many people can see it, feel its spirit and be told about why it's so special will add to the wonderful blessing of having the temple and the Visitors Center so close to us," said BYU-Hawaii President Steven C. Wheelwright at a banquet honoring the Clark family members in the Aloha Center.
During the unveiling program at the Temple Visitors Center, Bishop Ellis explained that his grandfather served his first mission primarily in the Hamakua district of the Big Island, where he learned to speak fluent Hawaiian. He and his wife were later called on another mission to Hawaii and eventually became life-long residents. He is buried in Punchbowl National Cemetery. Elder Clark's youngest and only surviving sister, Beth Noyes of American Fork, Utah, and his nephew, Win Rosa of Kailua, Oahu, also participated in unveiling the display.
"After he died, my mother, June Clark Ellis, and her sister, Norma Jean Clark Rosa, found Ka Buke a Moramona along with many other Hawaiian treasures in his possession," Ellis continued. "Feeling that these items belonged to the Hawaiian people, arrangements were made to donate the book and the other articles to BYU-Hawaii."
He added when he moved to Hauula four years ago and saw the then-new Book of Mormon display in the Visitors Center, "I thought about grandpa's Ka Buke a Moramona," and he told the director the exhibit was missing one thing: "An original copy of the 1855 edition of the Hawaiian Book of Mormon...and I knew where he could get one."
With the cooperation of the BYU-Hawaii Archives, the former and the current Visitors Center director, Elder Richard W. Jacobs, plans moved forward to accomplish the display. Until just a week ago, Ka Buke a Moramona donated by the Clark family had been undergoing extensive conservation at BYU Provo.
Mark Pollei, department chair of the BYU Provo Conservation Lab who also attended the unveiling, explained he and his staff recently spent approximately four months conserving the rare Hawaiian Book of Mormon, "eight hours a day, full time. We completely dismantled the book, page by page. Each page was carefully washed and de-acidified in three aqueous processes." The process also included mending, resizing and new binding.
He added that both the front and back boards of the book were detached when they received it, and about one-third of the spine was missing. "The pages were still sewn together, but it was yellowed, moldy, and water-stained. Now that it's been fully conserved, with the processes we've done on it, I would expect it should last about 500 years. The curators at BYU tell me there are less than a handful of these in existence. We also have one in our collection."
"Mark [Pollei] did a remarkable job bringing the book back to its original condition," said Ellis, who also read several excerpts from Elder Clark's missionary journals: One detailing how Elder Clark attended the dedication of the Hawaii Temple in 1919 and a few days later helped carry Ma Manuhi'i — the Hawaiian woman who helped care for young Elder Joseph F. Smith during his first mission in Hawaii in 1854 and is memorialized in the statue by the Temple fale — through her endowments. A few days later she passed away.
"We're so pleased this could happen. I hope this is the beginning of bringing many Hawaiian treasures here and putting them on display. We're going to need a place bigger than the Visitors Center...because these things don't belong on a bookshelf. They don't belong in a vault," Ellis said. "They belong to Hawaii and the Hawaiian people."
"This is a special celebration of Hawaiian and Latter-day Saint history," Kester added. A Hawaiian choir from the surrounding communities, led by Bobby Akoi, also sang during the unveiling program.
The BYU-Hawaii Archives are located on the second floor of the Joseph F. Smith Library, above the administrative offices. The Laie Hawaii Temple Visitors Center, located at 55-600 Naniloa Loop, is open every day of the year from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
— Photos by Mike Foley. Top: The conserved Ka Buke a Moramona open to Alma chapters 2-3; middle: Hawaiian community members inspect the new Visitors Center display; Bottom (left-right) Clark family members Bishop Dean Ellis, Beth Noyes and Win Rosa.