1. Joseph Fielding Smith, Life of Joseph F. Smith: Sixth President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1938), 304–5.

2. The collection of photographs, PH 5841, consists of a total of thirty-eight images, seventeen of which are featured in this photo document. The collection is housed in Church Archives, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City.

3. Samuel Edwin Woolley, Diaries, 1880–1915, January 26, 1899, Church Archives.

4. Woolley, Diaries, February 3, 1899.

5. Samuel Woolley misspelled Otto Hassing’s name in his journal. Church and other records spell the last name as Hassing, which spelling is used in this article.

6. Ellen Chase Cole, Journals, 1898–1901, February 11, 1899, microfilm, Church Archives.

7. Family Search Ancestral File, which source I have used in the text, lists Otto Hassing’s date and place of birth as July 12, 1874, Namsos, Nord-Trøndheim, Norway. Otto Hassing’s Church membership record lists his date and place of birth as July 12, 1875, Tronkjen, Norway. His military service card lists his birth place as Nausas, Norway. The 1900 Census Records list his birth month and year as July 1874.

8. U.S. Census Record, 1900, Salt Lake County, Enumeration District No. 33, Sheet No. 2, Line 68.

9. Hassing married Sarah Elizabeth “Lizzie” Swaner in 1893 in Salt Lake City. Previous to his enlistment, Hassing had been a member of the Utah National Guard.

10. Military Service Card, “Hassing, Otto,” Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City; Military Service Card, “Silver, Frank J.,” Utah State Archives. Silver enlisted on June 29, 1898.

11. Will A. Leatham, “U.S. Volunteer Engineers,” in The History of the Utah Volunteers in the Spanish American War and in the Philippine Islands, ed. A. Prentiss (Salt Lake City: Tribune Job, 1900), 68–76.

12. Hawaiian Mission Manuscript History, February 7, 1899, Church Archives.

13. Dale L. Berge, “Laie Plantation Sugar Mill (1858–1900): Archaeology and History,” in Mormon History in the Pacific, proceedings of the seventh annual conference of the Mormon Pacific Historical Society (Laie, Hawaii: Mormon Pacific Historical Society, 1986), 41–52.

14. H. H. Cluff, “Progress of the Work on the Islands of the Sea,” Millennial Star 34 (December 24, 1872): 826–27.

15. Berge, “Laie Plantation Sugar Mill.”

16. Cole, Journals, June 13, 1898.

17. Woolley, Diaries, June 2, 1898.

18. Hawaiian Mission Manuscript History, December 1898.

19. The Coles returned to Nephi, Utah, in September 1901. In May 1903, the Coles were called to go to Iosepa, Utah, and labored for three years among the Hawaiian people living in that settlement. In 1908, the Coles were called on another mission to Hawaii. They left in April 1908, taking their five children with them. Sister Cole returned home in 1915 “for only a visit,” after an absence of nearly eight years. She returned to the islands in December 1915, and the Coles remained there for another five years. Ellen Cole returned to Nephi in September 1920 with the couple’s seven children. Wilford Cole remained on the islands until April 1922. Wilford and Ellen Cole lived in Nephi until Wilford’s death on January 23, 1951. Ellen Cole died in El Cerritos, California, on December 30, 1956.

20. Cole, Journals, June 11, 1898.

21. Hawaiian Mission Missionaries, s.v. “William Williams” and “Elizabeth Williams,” Church Archives.

22. Hawaiian Mission Missionaries, s.v. “Martha Jane Musser.”

23. Hawaiian Mission Missionaries, s.v. “Clara Hansen” and “Daniel Hansen.”

24. Hawaiian Mission Missionaries, s.v. “Margaret Fifield” and “Edwin W. Fifield.”

25. Smith, Life of Joseph F. Smith, 306. Joseph F. Smith served three missions to Hawaii. At age fifteen, Joseph F. Smith was called on his first mission to what were then called the Sandwich Islands, where he labored for more than three years, 1854–57. He pursued the study of the Hawaiian language with diligence and faith, soon bearing witness “by the gift of God as well as by study,” as promised him when he was set apart by Parley P. Pratt. Smith, Life of Joseph F. Smith, 164. He returned to Hawaii in March 1864 with Apostles Ezra T. Benson and Lorenzo Snow to regulate the affairs of the Church on the islands. The Apostles soon returned to America, leaving Joseph F. Smith in charge of the mission until his return home in December 1864. His third mission to Hawaii was as mission president, 1885–87, during the time Church leaders went into hiding to escape arrest on polygamy charges. During his years as mission president, Joseph F. Smith would have lived in the old mission home (which was replaced by the Lanihuli House) on the Laie Plantation. See Russell T. Clement, “Apostle in Exile: Joseph F. Smith’s Third Mission to Hawaii, 1885–1887,” in Mormon History in the Pacific, 53–59.

26. The Mission House in Honolulu was a lodging house where newly arrived missionaries and visitors could stay until they journeyed to the plantation.

27. Smith, Life of Joseph F. Smith, 306.

28. Ruth Austin, “Our Lei to You: A Biography of Samuel Edwin Woolley,” in Mormon History in the Pacific, 35–40. Abraham Fernandez was an early convert to the Church, and the Fernandez family opened their home to the missionaries and anyone visiting from Utah.

29. Cole, Journals, January 16–21, 1899.

30. Woolley, Diaries, January 21, 1899.

31. Cole, Journals, February 15, 1899.

32. Woolley, Diaries, February 8, 1899.

33. Woolley, Diaries, February 13, 1899.

34. Woolley, Diaries, February 2, 1899.

35. Woolley, Diaries, February 20, 1899.

36. Woolley, Diaries, February 21, 1899.

37. Smith, Life of Joseph F. Smith, 307.

38. See Robert A. Weinstein and Larry Booth, Collection, Use, and Care of Historical Photographs (Nashville: American Association for State and Local History, 1982), 127.

Brian W. Sokolowsky

BYU Studies Publications