Emerson, Nathaniel Bright, 1839-1915

Nathaniel Bright Emerson, born in Waialua, Oahu, on July 1, 1839, was the son of Reverend John Smith Emerson and Ursula Sophia Newell Emerson, missionaries who came to Hawaii in 1832. After completing his education at Punahou, Emerson left Hawaii and moved to the United States to attend Williams College, in Williamstown, Massachusetts. In September 1862, he enlisted in the First Regiment of the Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. His regiment was involved in several major battles including Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and several skirmishes of the Wilderness Campaign; he was wounded at both Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville and spent several months in army hospitals. In May 1864 he was mustered out of the army and returned to college. Emerson studied medicine at Harvard and at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. He graduated with his medical degree in 1869 and remained in New York City where he had his own medical practice.

In 1878, at the invitation of S. G. Wilder, Hawaiian Minister of Interior and president of the Hawaiian Board of Health, Emerson returned to Hawaii to work at Kalaupapa, a leper colony on the island of Molokai. In 1885, Nathaniel married Dr. Sarah Eliza Pierce, one of the first female doctors in Hawaii; they had one child, Arthur Webster Emerson, who was born in 1887. Besides having his own medical practice in Honolulu, Emerson also held several offices in Hawaii including vaccinating officer for Oahu, president of the Board of Health, and prison physician, a position he held until his death. Emerson was a member of several groups including the Hawaiian Historical Society, the Polynesian Society, the American Social Science Association, the American Neurologists' Association and he was also a trustee of Oahu College for seventeen years.

Emerson, having grown up in Hawaii, became fascinated by Hawaiian history, the language, the folklore and the culture and was one of the more notable Hawaiian ethnographers and historians of his time. Emerson wrote several monographs, articles and speeches regarding Hawaiian ethnology, history and culture. His research culminated in four published works: a translation of Davida Malo's Moolelo Hawaii (Hawaiian Antiquities); an address to the Hawaiian Historical Society entitled The Long Voyages of the Ancient Hawaiians (which was published by the Hawaiian Gazette); Unwritten Literature of Hawaii: The Sacred Songs of the Hula, published by the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of American Ethnology; and Pele and Hiiaka: A Myth from Hawaii. Emerson died while on a sea voyage with his son in July 1915, at the age of 76.