C. S. (Charles Samuel) Stewart

Born in 1795, he studied at the College of New Jersey and Princeton Theological Seminary before becoming a Presbyterian minister. In the early 1820s he went to the Sandwich Islands as a missionary, and his experiences there became the basis for the travel writing and memoir-like works readers still know him for.

His best-known books include Journal of a Residence in the Sandwich Islands and other accounts of Hawaiian life, landscape, and politics during a time of major change. Whatever modern readers make of his missionary viewpoint, his writing remains valuable as a detailed contemporary record of the islands and of early contact between Hawaiians and Americans.

After leaving the mission field, he served for many years as a chaplain in the United States Navy. He died in 1870, leaving behind a body of work that blends religious conviction, travel narrative, and eyewitness history.