author
Titus Coan
1801–1882
Best known for his decades in Hilo, he became one of the most influential Protestant missionaries in 19th-century Hawaiʻi and wrote vividly about island life and faith. His story also includes an earlier exploratory journey to Patagonia, adding an adventurous edge to a life usually remembered for ministry.
2 Audiobooks
About the author
Born in Connecticut in 1801, Titus Coan trained for the ministry after a religious conversion in upstate New York and graduating from Auburn Theological Seminary. He first traveled on a missionary exploration to Patagonia, then sailed with his wife Fidelia to the Hawaiian Islands in the 1830s.
Coan spent most of his life in Hilo on Hawaiʻi Island, where he served as a minister and became widely known for the scale of his work during a major period of religious revival. Contemporary accounts and later histories describe him as a central Protestant figure in 19th-century Hawaiʻi, remembered both for energetic preaching and for long years of pastoral work.
He also wrote about his experiences, most notably in Life in Hawaii, which helped preserve his impressions of the islands and the people among whom he lived. He died in Hilo in 1882, after nearly half a century in Hawaiʻi.