Life
Rudolph Wilhelm Meyer was born on April 2, 1826 to Rudolph Heinrich Meyer and Christine Ludewike Sengevald. They lived in the Hanse district of Hamburg, Germany on the estuary of the Elbe River in Schleswig-Holstein, about 250 kilometres (160 mi) northwest of Berlin. Meyer graduated from the local Hochschule (technical school) city as a civil engineer specializing in hydraulics and survey work; and he became an employee of the Water Works Department of Hamburg. He left behind a sister named Bertha and two half brothers.
Because of an argument with his stepmother, he intended to join the California Gold Rush in 1848, but was delayed on a stopover in Sydney, Australia, and again in Tahiti. He landed at the port of Lahaina on the island of Maui in the Kingdom of Hawaii on January 20, 1850 on the British Brigantine Cheerful, along with three others: Theodore Christopher Heuch, age 20, a German carpenter, Fredrich Sockyer, age 25 a British grazier and also Edmund Sockyer, age 34, a British grazier. Rudolph Meyer listed his occupation as a surveyor.
Meyer spoke German, French, and English and soon wrote and spoke the Hawaiian language. He found his way to the island of Molokaʻi instead of continuing to California. On Molokaʻi he met Reverend Harvey Rexford Hitchcock, who accepted him as a house guest at his missionary station known as Kalua'aha on the east coast of Molokaʻi. While living with Reverend Hitchcock he met High Chiefess Kalama Waha (1832–1899). She was a student of the Hitchcocks at the time. Kalama's father was Apahu Waha and her mother was Akela Hu'a. She was named after Kalama-A-Kuakini, an aliʻi (member of the royal family) from Maui related to High Chief Kalanimoku. Kalama also had a sister, Maraea Apahu and two brothers, one named William and the other, Ka-Waha O Kalola. The two boys were interested in Christianity and became missionaries and went to Tahiti as young men to do missionary work. Meyer married Kalama Waha on March 20, 1851 when she was 18 years old. As a foreigner marrying a citizen of the kingdom of Hawaii, Meyer was required to post a $1000 bond before he could obtain permission to marry Kalama Dorcas Waha. He also became a citizen of the kingdom on July 21, 1851.
Meyer and Kalama lived for a while with the Hitchcocks where they had their first child, Emma Amalia (Meyer) Duncan (November 20, 1851–August 5, 1932), and then they moved to another location in Kaluaʻaha. Sometime later he moved his family to Honolulu where he worked for Austin and Becker at an office located on Maunakea Street.
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