Levi Chamberlain

Levi Chamberlain (Hawaiian name, Mikamalena; 1792–1849) was an American Protestant missionary, teacher of penmanship, and examiner of the native schools in Hawaii, He served as secular agent of the Sandwich Islands Mission, in the service of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM). He is the namesake of the Chamberlain House in Honolulu, Hawaii, which he designed.

Early life and education Levi Chamberlain was born in Wardsborough, South District (now Dover), Vermont August 28, 1792. His parents were Joseph Chamberlain and Lucy Whitney.

His father dying in 1800, the child, at the age of eight years, was taken to live in the family of an uncle, a prosperous merchant of Boston. Quite early, he began serving a mercantile apprenticeship under this relative, remaining until 1817.

Career Massachusetts In 1817, Chamberlain and another young man formed a partnership and went into business on their own account as a dry-goods dealer in Boston (Chamberlain and Holbrook), at Lahaina, Maui, September 1, 1828, officiated by the Rev. Lorrin Andrews. Miss Patton had been one of the third company of missionaries who reached Honolulu in the ship Parthian, March 30 of that same year. Bringing his bride to Honolulu, they lived in a thatched house until the coral stone Chamberlain House was completed in 1831.

Chamberlain's original journals are held by the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives in Honolulu. Their transcripts are held in the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University.