Nathaniel Bright Emerson
Born in Waialua, Oahu, on July 1, 1839, Emerson was the son of two missionaries in Hawaiʻi. Emerson graduated from Punahou High School and then continued to further his education at Williams 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 NYC where he had his own medical practice.
In 1878, at the invitation of the Hawaiian Minister of Interior and president of the Hawaiian Board of Health, Emerson returned to Hawaii to work at Kalaupapa. In 1885, Nathaniel married Dr. Sarah Eliza Pierce, one of the first female doctors in Hawaii and they had one child named Arthur Webster Emerson .
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, was fascinated by Hawaiian history, the language, the folklore and the culture and he 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; 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.
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