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| She was a bride of
26 when in 1819 she boarded ship for Hawaii on the brig Thaddeus,
together with 13 other missionaries and their children. The daughter of
Jemima (Bidwell) and William Partridge of Pittsfield, she was to live
the rest of her life in Hawaii, dying there at the age of 77.
Described by local historian Weston Merrill as "pretty, pert, prim and pious and full of missionary zeal", Mercy attracted the attention of Samuel Whitney who was required to be married in order to take up a post with the Sandwich Island Mission. |
Portrait 1819 by Samuel F. B. Morse, NY |
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| Merrill writes that "Mrs. Whitney's letters back home brought her very near to the women of Pittsfield. She wrote of such matters as her efforts to teach the willing natives to make butter, quoting direct from her letter, 'settling the milk in gourd, shells and skimming the cream with seashells, the food and milk being kept on high benches whose legs stood in seashells filled with oil or their food would at once be filled with filthy insects'." As a result, we are told, the ladies of the Free Will Society of Pittsfield's First Church sent her 24 milk pans, 12 small pans for the oil, 6 skimmers and every tin thing they thought could do the job. In return, mercy sent packets of seashells for every woman who had contributed. | |||
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| The above are copies of photographs uncovered in the archives of the Hawaiian Mission Children's Society by historian Kathy Wasniuk, who will deliver a program on her research September 9th, 2000, on the occasion of the Bidwell Family Reunion. Mercy was 65 years old when the right-hand photograph was taken. | |||
