Kamehameha Schools - History

History

In 1883, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop directed that the remainder of her estate, primarily inherited from her cousin Princess Ruth Keʻelikōlani, be held in trust "to erect and maintain in the Hawaiian Islands two schools... one for boys and one for girls, to be known as, and called the Kamehameha Schools." She named her husband Charles Reed Bishop, Samuel Mills Damon, William Owen Smith, Charles Montague Cooke and Charles McEwen Hyde as the original five trustees to invest her estate at their discretion, use the income to operate the schools, and also "to devote a portion of each year's income to the support and education of orphans, and others in indigent circumstances, giving the preference to Hawaiians of pure or part aboriginal blood." She also directed the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court to appoint replacement trustees and required that all teachers be Protestant, without regard to denomination.

After Bishop's death in 1884, her husband Charles Reed Bishop carried out her will. Reverend William Brewster Oleson (1851–1915), former principal of the Hilo boarding school founded by David Belden Lyman in 1836, helped organize the schools on a similar model. The original Kamehameha School for Boys opened in 1887 on a site currently occupied by Bishop Museum. The girls' school opened nearby in 1894. The preparatory school, originally serving grades K–6, opened in 1888 adjacent to the boys' school. By 1955, all three schools had moved to the current 600-acre (2.4 km2) campus in Kapālama Heights. In 1996, the 180-acre (0.73 km2) campus on Maui opened, followed by the 300-acre (1.2 km2) campus on Hawaiʻi in 2001.