Kosrae’s chief signs a lease for a mission training-school site; Dr. E. M. Pease opens the Mwot school (Habele: 1882).

What happened

Kosrae’s chief signed the land lease aboard the mission ship Morning Star III, and missionaries began clearing the site at Mwot for mission training schools for Marshallese and Gilbertese students. The COM-FSM outline has Dr. E. M. Pease and Mrs. Whitney starting a school for Gilbertese girls there in 1879; Habele says the Marshall Islanders’ school moved to Mwot in 1879 and the Gilbert Islands school followed in 1882.

Why it matters

Habele says Kosrae thus became the center of American missionary work in Micronesia.