Waine'e Church

The first stone church in Hawaii, Waine'e Church was built in 1832 and cursed with a run of bad luck. First the steeple collapsed in 1858, then in 1894 royalists enraged that the minister supported Hawaii's annexation torched it to the ground. A second church, built to replace the original, burned in 1947, and the third was blown away in a storm a few years later. One might get the impression that the old Hawaiian gods didn't take kindly to the house of this foreign deity!

The fourth version, however, has been standing since 1953 and still holds regular Sunday services.

The adjacent cemetery holds as much intrigue as the church. Here lie several notables: Governor Hoapili, who ordered the original church built; Queen Keopuolani, a wife of Kamehameha I; and Reverend William Richards, Lahaina's first missionary.