25 Years on Molokai.
Last Saturday, the friends of Bro. J. R. Dutton celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of his living at the sanatorium at Molokai, where he chose to be amongst the patients, and to teach them of the kingdom of heaven and the righteousness of the spirit.
Bro. Dutton was invited to come to Hawaii as a result of his desire to minister on Molokai amongst the people afflicted with leprosy; and it is true, from the moment he stepped upon the soil of Kalawao, until living there for 25 years, there was not a single moment he spent away, but he remained there at Kalawao at the Baldwin Boys’ Home at all times, as if he made this his home.
In his many years living there, there was only a single time he showed signs of grief, when he climbed into the hills many years ago, his eyes looked out to the wide ocean, and he returned immediately to the Baldwin Home to his room. He then began to write. However, it is unknown what happened that day, except through conjecture.
Bro. Dutton was a soldier engaged in a fierce battle between the north and the south; and he saw the dead bodies of his comrades in battle. He visited the graves of his many friends, and he remains a member of the soldiers of the Republic.
(Kuokoa, 8/4/1911, p. 5)
Ka Nupepa Kuokoa, Buke XLVII, Helu 31, Aoao 5. Augate 4, 1911.
Brother Dutton was the postmaster for Kalaupapa and in the early 20th century he sent and received many postcards, which were an international fad at that time. (Picture postcards had only been invented in the late 1890s.) Some of his postcard collection came to Bishop Museum Archives.