author
Titus Coan
1801–1882
A New England minister who spent most of his life in Hawaiʻi, he became known for decades of missionary work in Hilo and for his vivid memoir of island life. His story also includes an early exploratory voyage to Patagonia and a long, eventful career far from the mainland he was born in.
3 Audiobooks
About the author
Born in Connecticut in 1801, Titus Coan trained for the ministry at Auburn Theological Seminary and was ordained in 1833. Before reaching Hawaiʻi, he took part in an exploratory mission journey to Patagonia, an unusual beginning that hints at the range and determination that marked the rest of his life.
Coan arrived in Hawaiʻi in the 1830s with his wife, Fidelia, and became closely identified with Hilo on the island of Hawaiʻi. He spent most of his life there as a missionary and pastor, learning the local language and building a reputation for energetic preaching and wide pastoral work. Accounts of his career often note the large growth of the church community connected with his ministry.
He is also remembered as the author of Life in Hawaii, an autobiographical sketch published in 1882, the year of his death. That book helped preserve his own view of missionary life and the dramatic changes he witnessed in nineteenth-century Hawaiʻi.