If you have any additions please contact me

Dr Charles Hinkley Whetmore

He was born at Lebanon, CT on Feb 8, 1820.  He was the son of Augustus Wetmore and Emily T Hinckley Wetmore.  He became a medical doctor by teaching school in the winter and studying school in the summer.  He graduated from the Berkshire Medical Institute in Massachusetts in 1846.

He married Lucy Sheldon Taylor on Sept 25, 1848 and three weeks later they left for Hawaii on October 16, 1848 from Boston.  They landed in Honolulu on March 11, 1849. 

He was assigned to Hilo as a missionary doctor with the ABCFM and were at their post by May 18, 1849.  He was the first medical doctor in Hilo.  Dr Wetmore traveled by canoe or on foot to his patients who were scattered all over the island.  When smallpox broke out in 1853, Dr Wetmore was appointed by the King to serve as a Royal Commissioner of Public Health.  Dr Wetmore came down with a mild form of smallpox and when the commissioners decided to build a hospital to deal with the illness, Wetmore was the first to occupy it. 

In 1855 he severed his relations with the ABCFM and practiced medicine on his own.  He was appointed to be in charge of the American Hospital where sailors from American ships and Americans in need were cared for.  The building for the American Hospital was later given up and the building was turned over to the "First Foreign Church of Hilo".  Wetmore was a founding member. 

Dr Wetmore and his wife had one son, Charlie and three daughters: Fannie, and unknown.  Dr Wetmore gave ether to his wife when she was giving birth to their first child: Charlie.  This appears to be the earliest known use of general anesthesia on the islands.

Hilo Drug Store was probably founded by Dr Wetmore.  He also worked with the Hitchcocks in the establishment and management of Papaikou plantation.  He was also interested in Kohala and other sugar plantations.  After his wife died in 1883 he served as a delegate from the Hawaiian Board. 

He died May 13, 1898.

Source: Images of Old Hawaii

Back to Hawaii County, Hawaii Biographies