Henry Opukahaʻia Chapel

Hawaiʻi the Big Island


A small rock chapel and cemetery above Kawa Bay is dedicated to Punaluʻu resident, Henry Opukahaʻia. Several years after watching his parents get killed in a war between rival chiefs, he boarded a ship for Boston. Although he never returned to Hawaii (he died of typhus at age 26), his conversion to Christianity and desire to take it back home inspired the first wave of missionaries to the islands.


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