Emma Kaili Metcalf Beckley Nakuina
| Emma Kaili Metcalf Beckley Nakuina | |
|---|---|
Emma Kaili Metcalf Beckley Nakuina, c. 1904
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| Born |
March 5, 1847 Kauaʻala, Manoa Valley, Oahu, Kingdom of Hawaii |
| Died | April 27, 1929 (aged 82) |
| Resting place | Oahu Cemetery |
| Alma mater |
Young Ladies Seminary Punahou School Sacred Hearts Academy |
| Known for | being the first female judge of Hawaii |
| Spouse(s) |
Frederick William Beckley Sr. Moses Kuaea Nakuina |
| Children | Frederick William Beckley Jr. and others |
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Emma Kaʻilikapuolono Metcalf Beckley Nakuina (March 5, 1847 – April 27, 1929) was an early Hawaiian female judge, curator and cultural writer. She served as Commissioner of Private Ways and Water Rights from 1892 to 1907 and curator of the Hawaiian National Museum from 1882 to 1887. Her literary works include Hawaii, Its People, Their Legends (1904) and many other publications and contributions.
She was born March 5, 1847, at Kauaʻala in the Manoa Valley, at the Metcalf family homestead where the University of Hawaii at Manoa now stands. Her father Theophilus Metcalf, originally from Ontario County, New York, arrived in Hawaii on May 19, 1842 and was naturalized as a citizen on March 9, 1846. He worked as a sugar planter and government land surveyor during the Great Mahele. Her mother Kaʻilikapuolono was a descendant of the aliʻi lineages of Oahu associated with the Kūkaniloko Birthstones, where the highest ranking chiefs of the islands were once born, and also Nahili, a chief from the island of Hawaii and one of the generals of King Kamehameha I during his conquest of the Hawaiian Islands. Her maternal family were considered to be of the Hawaiian kaukau aliʻi class, or lower ranking chiefs in service to the royal family.
Emma was educated at Sacred Hearts Academy and Punahou School in Honolulu. She was later sent to the Young Ladies Seminary in Benicia, California and was also privately tutored in many languages by her father including Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French, German, English, and Hawaiian. According to later biographies, King Kamehameha IV ordered her to be trained in traditional water rights and customs.
On December 3, 1867, she married Frederick William Beckley Sr. (1845–1881), a part-Hawaiian noble like herself. She served as the lady-in-waiting of Queen Kapiolani, the wife of King Kalākaua, while her husband served as the Chamberlain of the Royal Household and in the Hawaiian government as a member of the House of Representatives and as the Royal Governor of Kauai. They had seven children including son Frederick William Beckley Jr. (1874–1943) and daughter Sabina Beckley Hutchinson (1868–1935). He died in 1881, leaving Emma a widow. In 1887, she remarried to the Reverend Moses Kuaea Nakuina (1867–1911), who was twenty years her junior and also a descendant of Hawaiian nobility. They had two children: a short-lived son named Irving Metcalf Nakuina, who was born and died in 1888, and a daughter who contracted leprosy and was sent to the Kalaupapa Leprosy Settlement.
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