Peter Johnson Gulick was a missionary to the Kingdom of Hawaii and Japan. His descendants carried on the tradition of missionary work, and included several scientists.
Life
Peter Johnson Gulick was born March 12, 1796 in Freehold Borough, New Jersey to John Gulick and Lydia Combs. He studied at the private Lawrenceville School from 1820 to 1822. Along with James Brainerd Taylor and two other students, Gulick helped found Princeton University's Philadelphian Society of Nassau Hall. He graduated from Princeton in 1825, and did additional studies at the Princeton Theological Seminary in 1827. On September 5, 1827 he married Frances "Fanny" Hinckley Thomas who was born April 16, 1798 in Lebanon, Connecticut. He was ordained as a Presbyterian minister on October 3, 1827. On November 3, 1827 the couple sailed from Boston as part of the third company of missionaries from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. They reached Honolulu, Hawaii on March 30, 1828. They were first assigned to the mission at Waimea on the island of Kauai. In 1835 they moved to Kōloa on Kauai, where the Kōloa sugar plantation had just been started by Ladd & Co. After the Ladd company failed in 1843, they moved to the island of Molokai where they assisted Harvey Rexford Hitchcock and his wife Rebecca Howard Hitchcock. In 1847 they moved to Waialua on the island of Oahu. In 1857 they moved to Honolulu. His brother William Gulick married Fanny's sister Eliza Throop Thomas. Their son Charles T. Gulick also went to Hawaii to serve as a missionary. In 1874, the Gulicks went to Kobe, Japan to join their sons. Peter Gulick died on December 8, 1877. Fanny died May 24, 1883 in Kobe. They had a total of 8 children who traveled throughout the world.
Son Orramel Hinckley Gulick was born in Honolulu October 7, 1830, married Ann Eliza Clark, daughter of missionary Ephraim Weston Clark. He served as a missionary to Japan, and returned to Hawaii, where he died September 18, 1923. They published a history of the missions in 1918.
He moved to Boston in 1919 where he died April 14, 1922.
Son Theodore Weld Gulick was born May 8, 1837, married Mary Agnes Thompson in 1867. He trained as a dentist, but became a missionary to various places from Kyoto, Japan to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He died April 7, 1924 in Long Beach, California.
*Their son Walter Vose Gulick, became a physician and author in Washington state.
Daughter Julia Ann Eliza Gulick was born June 5, 1845, and moved with her parents to live with Orramel in Kobe in 1874. She worked as a missionary there, until returning to Honolulu and working with Japanese people in Hawaii; she died in 1936.
She, Orramel, John, and Sidney are buried in the Mission House cemetery at Kawaiahaʻo Church. Since Julia had not yet been born when her brother Luther Halsey Gulick left for the United States in 1840, the family never was all together in the same place at one time. All the children except Luther graduated from Punahou School Luther Gulick served as a trustee from 1865-1870.
