Hawai’i Aloha: How Rev. Lorenzo Lyons helped save the Hawaiian language

by Nick Freeman

Rev. Lorenzo Lyons, the songbird of Hawaii, Ka Makua Laiana, Haku Mele o ka Aina Mauna, as the Hawaiian’s called him, arrived in the Hawaiian Islands in 1832 on the ship Averick, with his wife Betsy C. Lyons.

He served on the island of Hawaii at Waimea for fifty-four years,[1] never returning to the United States after his arrival.

He is credited with helping to save the Hawaiian language from extinction.

His wife Betsy served faithfully by his side, including serving as a teacher, five years later she passed away during the annual general meeting of the missionaries at Honolulu in 1837[2] at the early age of 24 years.  Their son Luke died the year before on June 21, 1836.[3]  Amidst this tragedy however, God’s sovereignty was displayed in that Betsy had not seen her sister Emily for five years, but several days prior to Betsy’s death, Emily arrived in Honolulu as a missionary, and they were able to reunite before Betsy passed away.[4]

Afterwards, a year passed as Rev. Lyons served in Hawaii and eventually he was remarried to Lucia Lyons at Hilo on July 14, 1838[5], with Titus Coan administering the ceremony. Lucia had previously served as a missionary teacher to Indians on a New York reservation, but with the encouragement of her sister was called to Hawaii and arrived in the Islands in April 1837. After marriage, she served with Lyons throughout the rest of his ministry, being a well-suited addition to the ministry at Waimea.[6]

In providing an overview of Lorenzo Lyons work on Hawaii, particularly during the years of the great revival, one is immediately struck by his letters back and forth to Rev. Titus Coan at Hilo, as well as the many letters between his first and second wives and missionaries on each of the islands. His ministry was marked with a tremendous love not only for the Hawaiian people but also for his firm belief in the power of the Spirit of the Lord.

David W. Forbes’ work, Partners in Change, describes the spirit: “Of all the American missionaries to come to and labor in the Hawaiian Islands, none is remembered with as much affection by Native Hawaiians as Rev. Lorenzo Lyons.”[7] Lyons was also “acknowledged as the best Hawaiian scholar living,” in his day, and was heavily involved in a revision of the Hawaiian dictionary originally published by missionary Lorrin Andrews.[8] In their work Hawaiian Grammar, Samuel Elbert and Mary Kawena Pukui give credit to Lyons for helping save the Hawaiian language stating that as early as 1878 the extinction of the Hawaiian language was near, and that because of Lyons’ love for the Hawaiians and his championing of their language, its inevitable extinction was turned around.[9] 

In a letter published in The Friend publication, Lyons described the Hawaiian language: "An interminable language...it is one of the oldest living languages of the earth, as some conjecture, and may well be classed among the best...the thought to displace it, or to doom it to oblivion by substituting the English language, ought not for a moment to be indulged.  Long live the grand old, sonorous, poetical Hawaiian language."[10] 

On Isabella L. Bird’s visit to Waimea, speaking with Lyons about the Hawaiian language he described it to her as, “lending itself very readily to a rhythmical expression.”^[11]

His congregation at Waimea, Imiola Church, which was dedicated in the year 1830 by King Kamehameha III[12], still stands today and is thriving with prayer and a desire to reach the nation with the gospel. This researcher had the honor of attending a Sunday morning service there in January, 2025, and was able to witness first-hand their faithfulness to Christ still having a tremendous effect to this day.

While much research and time has been expended on the ministry of Titus Coan, very little of this sort has been focused most of the other missionaries of the revival, including Lyons, whose church experienced phenomenal growth even before the church at Hilo. Part of this may be the result of the lack of an autobiography or consistent journal kept by Lyons.

The impact that Lyons had on not only Coan’s ministry, but the amazing revival results in Lyon’s field of Waimea, Hamakua, Wialoa Valley, and Kowahai should not be underestimated. Daws acknowledges this fact noting that both Lyons and Coan were of the same mind as it came to the revival and the valid works which became of it. Lyons had become an expert in the Hawaiian language, far more proficient than most of his colleagues, learning most of its most detailed intricacies, was an accomplished preacher, dedicated traveler along his ministry route recording over 1,000 miles on foot annually for many years, along with serving as a school teacher and choir director.^[13] Bird describes him as a younger preacher in Hawaii being let down four times the sides of the cliffs on a rope in the Waimanu Valley, to preach the gospel.^[14] But as the years came and went, his physical frame became worn out much sooner than Coan’s, which left him homebound, but he still remained active in the planning and building of new church buildings along with weekly Sunday school lessons and Hawaiian newspaper contributions. At the close of the revival, Lyons was leading seventeen church locations and consumed in the construction of church buildings at each location. Today, three of those buildings still stand, all of which have thriving congregations. For over fifty years Lyons served at Waimea, and under his leadership a total of thirteen permanent church buildings were constructed.^[15]

Much of his time writing was spent developing multiple Hawaiian hymnbooks (Ka Buke Himeni Hawaii in 1872 and 1897) with over six hundred hymns, along with Sunday school materials including the Sabbath School Hymn and Tune book, “Ka Lei Alii.”[16]  Over half of the hymns in Na Himeni Haipule Hawaii originated from his pen.[17]

Ralph Thomas Kam writes that “Lyons has been called the “Dr. Watts of Hawaii, comparing him to the nonconformist minister, the Rev. Dr. Isaac Watts, considered by many to be the father of English hymnody.”[18] Missionary Bonds at Kohala, just North of Waimea said of Lyons, “His lyrics have given to the islanders the best things of our English poets.”[19]

Lyons also published a hymn twice monthly in the Hawaiian language paper Ke Kumu Hawaii, including “E Iesu Ka Mohai No'u”, published in April 1839,[20] during the height of the revival. These hymns would affect not only those living during his lifetime but also many years to come as noted in the Hawaiian newspaper Ka Nupepa Kuokoa in a January 1887 edition that described his influencing stating, “there is a voice because he is always speaking to the new generations of these islands, after his death, through verses and songs, with the constant increase of religious sacrifices that are justified in the thoughts and words that have been given to him.[21] In 1881, the board of Sunday Schools of Hawaii gave him a gift of $1,000 in celebrating his fiftieth year of service in Hawaii, of which he used to print an additional hymnal.[22] At his death, this amount and more was set aside in his will for the completion of the last hymnal’s printing.[23]

Ethel M. Damon in her article, Ka Oihana Haku Mele, noted wrote that Lyons “was so filled with the poignant beauty of his adopted land that it became indeed the land of his spiritual birth and he poured forth in Hawaiian verse an ode which stands forever as the young people’s song of Hawaii nei”[24], known as Hawaii Aloha, which today is sung across the islands and at opening sessions of the state legislature. 

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[1] The Hawaiian Gazette, Death of Rev. L. Lyons, Tuesday, October 19, 1886, Honolulu, HI, p. 7.