Birth: 12-03-1796
Home Calling: 08-12-1877
Native Place: New Jersey
Country: United States of America
Place of Vision: Hawaiian Islands and Japan
The household of Gulick is a well-known name in the American Protestant overseas missions. Many of them traveled to disparate places such as Hawaii, Spain, and Japan. Peter Johnson Gulick was the patriarch of the Gulick household who initiated the great lineage of missionaries. After accepting the Lord at the age of 20, he dedicated his life to the advancement of God’s Kingdom in foreign countries.
After graduating from the Princeton Theological Seminary in 1827, Peter joined the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM). A month later, he was ordained as a minister, and along with his wife Fanny, he sailed from Boston to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii). For the next fifteen years, he was stationed on the island of Kauai. The islanders were firm believers in spirits and depended on them for almost everything. They worshipped the dead Hawaiian warriors and called on to their spirits for help. Hence to improve the social condition first, the couple immediately concentrated on providing education to the natives. Fanny opened up the island’s first school. Apart from formal education, she taught women how to sew and make hats, while her husband taught men how to use plows and wheeled vehicles. Then they moved to Molokai and Oahu. Wherever they went, they established schools, changed society with Christian love, and ultimately won many for Christ.
Both Gulick and his wife suffered from persistent ill-health. Despite the problems, they pressed on, and God made them a part of the great spiritual awakening at the Hawaii Islands during 1836-37. Although Peter and Fanny Gulick intended to live out their days in Honolulu, their ill health forced them in 1874 to join their son, who was already serving in Japan. After having raised eight Godly children and serving the Lord faithfully, Peter went to be with the Lord in 1877. Like Joshua in the Bible, he lived up to the verse “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15).
