Bingham, Hiram

Bingham, Hiram a Congregational minister, was a native of Bennington, Vt. At the age of twentyone he was converted, and began preparation for college with the Rev. Elisha Yale, D.D., of Kingsbury, N. Y., and graduated from Middlebury College in 1816. Three years afterwards he graduated from Andover Theological Seminary. He was ordained at Goshen, Conn., Sept. 29, 1819, as a foreign missionary — the first ordination of a foreign missionary in Connecticut. In company with other missionaries, he sailed from Boston, Oct. 23, for the Sandwich Islands, the voyage occupying one hundred and sixty days. After an exploration of the islands, Mr. Bingham, in September, 1823, established himself at Honolulu on the island of Oahu; and thus began the first mission to the islands of the Pacific. He translated hymns, school-books, and large portions of Scripture into the language of Polynesia. On account of the failing health of his wife, he returned to the United States in 1840, and began to act as stated supply to various churches, particularly the church in Chester, Mass., and the Temple-street Church, New Haven, Conn. He died at New Haven, Nov. 11, 1869, aged eighty years. Mr. Bingham made a valuable contribution to missionary literature in a work entitled, A Residence of Twenty-one Years on the Sandwich Islands (Hartford, 1847). He also printed a little work, Bartimeus of the Sandwich Islands, published by the American Tract Society. See Cong. Quarterly, 1871, p. 593.