Asa Thurston

Asa and Lucy Goodale Thurston
From a daguerreotype circa 1864
Born	(1787-10-12)October 12, 1787 Fitchburg, Massachusetts (1795-10-29)October 29, 1795 Marlborough, Massachusetts
Died	March 11, 1868(1868-03-11) (aged 80) October 13, 1876(1876-10-13) (aged 80) Honolulu, Hawaii
Nationality	United States
Occupation	Missionary
Children	Persis Goodale, Lucy Goodale, Asa Goodale, Mary Howe, Thomas Gairdner
Signature

Asa Thurston (October 12, 1787 – March 11, 1868) and Lucy Goodale Thurston (October 29, 1795 – October 13, 1876) were in the first company of American Christian missionaries to the Hawaiian Islands.

Born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, on October 12, 1787, Asa Thurston worked as a scythe maker until he was 22 years old. His parents were Lydia (Davis) and Thomas Thurston. He attended Yale College, where he was a member of the Linonian Society and graduated in 1816, and completed Andover Theological Seminary in 1819.

He married Lucy Goodale, and together they went as missionaries to the Sandwich Islands. Thurston worked as a Protestant missionary in Hawaii for forty years, returning to New England only for the period 1840 to 1842. He also traveled to California in 1863. They saw religion and education as closely linked.

In Hawaii Thurston built churches and schools, and had a following among the people. He was one of the first to translate the Bible into the Hawaiian language. Together with the English missionary William Ellis, he explored the islands and viewed the volcano Kilauea.

After suffering a series of strokes, he began speaking in a mixture of English, Hawaiian, and Latin. He was moved to Honolulu, where he died on March 11, 1868.

Lucy Goodale was born on October 29, 1795, daughter of Abner Goodale, a Deacon in Marlborough, Massachusetts. She graduated from Bradford Academy and became a school teacher. The Thurstons, unlike most missionary couples, spent most of the rest of their lives in the islands. Lucy compiled her letters and other writings (completed by her daughter Persis Goodale Taylor and Walter Freer, and published under the title of Life and Times of Mrs. Lucy G. Thurston in Ann Arbor in 1876) into one of the most vivid accounts of the early mission days. As treatment for breast cancer, she had a mastectomy in 1855, although anaesthetic had not been developed. She died on October 13, 1876 in Honolulu.