Background
Hiram Bingham was born on August 16, 1831, in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States, the sixth child of Hiram Bingham and Sybil (Moseley) Bingham.
Hiram Bingham was born on August 16, 1831, in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States, the sixth child of Hiram Bingham and Sybil (Moseley) Bingham.
Hiram's elementary education was obtained in the Honolulu school for missionary children. A fortnight before his ninth birthday he started for America with his parents and two sisters. Sometime after his arrival he entered Williston Academy, Easthampton, Massachussets. From there he went to Yale, where he graduated in 1853. Yale University awarded him the Doctorate of Divinity in 1895.
For one year Bingham served as principal of the Northampton High School. The next he spent abroad as a private tutor. Then with his mind turned toward a missionary career he entered Andover Seminary, but ill health compelled him to leave in the spring of 1856. On November 9, 1856, he was ordained in New Haven, and with his family sailed from Boston on the brig Morning Star, the first of several missionary vessels of that name, bound for Honolulu and Micronesia. They arrived at Ponape, Gilbert Islands, September 23, and established a missionary station at Apaiang. The Gilbert Islands lie along the equator and were then as now almost unendurable to white men. Proper food was scarce, epidemics of disease frequently broke out amongst the islanders, and unscrupulous traders were bitter in their opposition to mission work. Yet Bingham remained seven years. His work was destined to be mainly with the language. He put in his seven years to good advantage, and when ill health compelled his withdrawal he was equipped to proceed with the creation of a Gilbertese literature.
Bingham visited the United States in 1865 and on November 12, 1866, sailed from Boston in command of the second Morning Star, a small two-masted schooner. As commander of this vessel he visited the Marquesas Islands mission of the native Hawaiian churches and made the tour of Micronesia, returning to Honolulu December 16, 1868. Taking up his residence in the Hawaiian capital, he gave his time to work on the Gilbertese Bible. On Friday evening, April 11, 1873, at "a joyful gathering at Honolulu" Bingham announced the completion of the translation of the entire New Testament, and had copies for distribution. Sharing the honor of the occasion was Moses Kaure, a Gilbert Islander who assisted Bingham in his translations.
On June 9, 1873, Mr. and Mrs. Bingham sailed again for the Gilbert Islands and resumed their residence at Apaiang. He preached at least once every week in the church, taught in the school, and began work on a Gilbertese dictionary. New schools and churches were organized in inland regions, and many new members were received into the Apaiang Church. Early in April 1875, however, Bingham's health gave way again and he had to leave the Islands. Receiving some medical aid en route, Mrs. Bingham was able to get her feeble husband back to Honolulu in November by way of Samoa and Australia. He did not venture again to Apaiang and Micronesia, but remained in Honolulu except for several trips to the United States (1887, 1892 - 1893, 1908), on behalf of the printing of translation materials. By 1890 Bingham had finished the Gilbertese translation of the entire Bible, and before his death had seen seven editions of it. His Gilbertese dictionary was published in 1908.
Bingham was also the author of a Gilbertese hymn and tune book (1880), and of commentaries on the Gospels and the book of Acts, and of a Gilbert Islands Bible Dictionary (1895). Mrs. Bingham published a book of Bible Stories in the Gilbertese (1875). No small result of their literary work was the amplification to 12, 000 words of a poverty-stricken language of 4, 000. Bingham's end came suddenly at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, where he had gone for an operation, October 25, 1908.
On November 18, 1856 Bingham was married to Minerva Clarissa Brewster of Northampton.