# Life of Agnes Alexander

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-20 — 1 clipping.*

---

> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Duane Troxel, Life of Agnes Alexander, bahai-library.com.
> ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
> 
> Life of Agnes Alexander
> 
> Duane Troxel
> 
> 1998
> 
> EARLY in the nineteenth century Christian missionaries sailed from America
> to take Christianity to the Polynesians of the Pacific. Rev. William
> Patterson Alexander and his wife Mary Ann and the Rev. Dr. Dwight Baldwin
> and his wife Abigail Charlotte were among the very earliest missionaries
> who set sail from New Bedford, Massachusetts around South America to reach
> the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii). Among the grandchildren of the Alexanders
> and the Baldwins appeared Agnes Baldwin Alexander, who, in 1900 became the
> first Bahá'í of Hawaii and (perhaps) its first Esperantist.
> 
> Agnes Baldwin Alexander was born at home in Honolulu, Hawaii on July 21st,
> 1875. She enjoyed a high social rank because she was a descendent of two
> of the earliest and most distinguished Christian missionary families. Her
> father William DeWitt Alexander was one of Hawaii's most famous men. He
> was the Kingdom of Hawaii's first Surveyor General; a member of the King's
> Privy Council; President of Punahou School and Oahu College and author of
> "A Brief History of the Hawaiian People".
> 
> Though her family was not wealthy she lived comfortably and enjoyed a
> close-knit family life that included many uncles and aunts, cousins,
> nephews and nieces who lived on the various islands that make up the
> Hawaiian archipelago.
> 
> Ms. Alexander suffered from poor health in her youth. At age 20 she
> graduated from Oahu College in a class of seven students. She delivered
> her graduation essay on "Our Poor Relations," which urged everyone to show
> kindness to animals.
> 
> In 1900 Ms. Alexander joined a group of Island peers who were going on a
> trip to American and Europe. While she was in Rome visiting an aunt who
> had married an Italian gentleman she met Mrs. Charlotte Dixon, an American
> Bahá'í who was just returning from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, which is
> also the world headquarters of the Bahá'í Faith. Although Mrs. Dixon made
> no mention of the Bahá'í Faith by name she gave Agnes a prayer copied out
> in longhand. Agnes later wrote:
> 
> "The prayer seemed to answer all the longings of my heart.
> After that we met for three successive evenings. ... The third evening
> after meeting with Mrs. Dixon, when I retired to my room, sleep did not
> come. "That night (Nov. 26, 1900) an overwhelming realization came to me,
> which was neither a dream nor vision, that Christ had come on the
> earth.""
> 
> When Agnes told Mrs. Dixon of her epiphany she was taught some details of
> the Bahá'í revelation. It was the practice in those days to apply for
> membership directly to the head of the Bahá'í Faith, Abdul-Baha1. Ms.
> Alexander wrote to 'Abdu'l-Bahá and He accepted her membership in the
> Bahá'í worldwide community.
> 
> Ms. Alexander received further deepening in her new faith through Bahá'í
> groups in Paris, France and in Eliot, Maine in the U.S. On December 26,
> 1901 she returned home to Hawaii thereby becoming the first Bahá'í to set
> foot in those islands.
> 
> In the spring of 1913 Agnes Alexander's parents died. She left Hawaii with
> the intention of becoming a teacher of the Bahá'í Faith in some foreign
> land. Sometime in October, 1913 Ms. Alexander was visiting Mrs. May
> (Bolles) Maxwell in Montreal, Canada when she came across a passage from
> 'Abdu'l-Bahá in which he encouraged the study of Esperanto.2 "From that
> moment there was ignited in my heart the desire to obey His request."3
> 
> During the winter of 1913-1914 Agnes lived in Brooklyn, New York. It was
> there she received a Tablet from 'Abdu'l-Bahá directing her to take the
> Bahá'í teachings to Japan. He said, "if thou travelest toward Japan
> unquestionably Divine confirmations shall descend upon thee. . ."4 During
> that same winter in Brooklyn she received her first instruction in
> Esperanto from Mr. and Mrs. Rufus W. Powell, two Brooklyn Bahá'ís.5
> 
> In May, 1914, Ms. Alexander sailed from New York to Genoa, Italy. Mrs.
> Rufus Powell came to see her off. She brought Agnes "an Esperanto student
> book, which she had covered with linen on which she had embroidered a
> green star. The precious little book . . . gave me the foundation of the
> Esperanto language."6 From that time forth Ms. Alexander studied Esperanto
> on her own becoming accomplished in the new language.
> 
> While in Locarno, Italy during the summer of 1914, Ms. Alexander joined
> the Universal Esperanto Association (UEA). It was through her UEA
> membership that she met a Russian Esperantist in Geneva. When Agnes told
> the woman that she was headed to Japan the lady asked her to look up
> Vasily Eroshenko7, a blind Russian Esperantist living in Tokyo.
> 
> When Agnes reached Tokyo she found the twenty-four year old Mr. Eroshenko.
> "He is the first fruits of my joining the Universal Esperanto
> Association."8 Eroshenko became the means by which Ms. Alexander was able
> to teach the Bahá'í Faith to both the blind and female Japanese. "It was
> he who helped me to learn English and Esperanto Braille,9 bringing me in
> close touch with the blind of Japan. It was through his effort that I had
> the joy of sharing the Bahá'í Message with Tokujiro Torii10 and through
> him with the blind of Japan. It was he who introduced me to the writer,
> U.[jaku] Akita, who was sympathetic to the Cause, and wrote magazine
> articles through which the first Japanese young woman accepted the Bahá'í
> Message."11
> 
> Ms. Alexander would read the Bahá'í teachings in English to Eroshenko and
> he would take them down in English Braille. From these Braille renderings
> he then translated the words into Esperanto so they could be published in
> the Japanese Esperanto newspaper, La Orienta Azio. This collaboration also
> resulted in the translation of Bahá'u'lláh's mystic composition The Hidden
> Words into Esperanto.
> 
> Ms. Alexander attended her first Esperanto meeting in Japan on February 4,
> 1915. She took along a copy of the Bahá'í Revelation in Esperanto. She
> later wrote of Esperanto:
> 
> God used this language, which came into the world through the
> Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, to spread His Message in Japan. That night, two
> weeks after I had reached Tokyo, when I attended the first Esperanto
> meeting in Japan, was the beginning of my work in making the Bahá'í
> teachings known among the Esperantists of Japan. From the northern island
> of Hokkaido to Nagasaki in Kyushu, as well as Korea, the Message of
> Bahá'u'lláh was heard, for Esperanto was more widely spread in Japan than
> in any country outside of Russia.12
> 
> In the summer of 1918 Ms. Alexander was the invited guest of the Esperanto
> Association of North America which met at Green Acre in Maine. She spoke
> on the Esperantists of Japan. "This gave me a wonderful opportunity, not
> only in making a better understanding between the Esperantists of the two
> countries, but in bringing to their attention the Bahá'í teachings and
> words of 'Abdu'l-Bahá concerning a universal language. When I quoted the
> words of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, they were received with great applause."13
> 
> Ms. Alexander was ever thankful to Esperanto as it was her connection to
> the Japanese people and the precious means for disseminating the Bahá'í
> teachings. She said, "Through the wonderful means of Esperanto, the Bahá'í
> Message became known in the important centers of Japan, where it met with
> keen response and no prejudice."14
> 
> Agnes was also active in promoting the Bahá'í teachings through Esperanto
> in Korea and China. As early as 1921 a China-born Korean who was living in
> Tokyo asked Ms. Alexander if she would teach Esperanto to a group of
> Chinese at the Chinese YMCA. She accepted and taught the sixteen students
> Esperanto conversation.15 Following the great Japanese earthquake of 1
> September 1923, which took place during the Esperanto convention, Agnes
> left Japan with her sister and teamed up with the famous Bahá'í, Martha
> Root,16 in Peiping (Beijing) China. On a number of occasions they spoke of
> the Bahá'í Faith at an Esperanto school in Peiping where Martha had been
> assisting in the teaching of English.17
> 
> Ms. Alexander was a good friend and correspondent of Lidia Zamenhof,18
> daughter of Esperanto's creator who had become an ardent Bahá'í. Ms.
> Zamenhof translated the basic Bahá'í text, Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era, by
> John Esslemont, into Esperanto. Ms. Alexander's review of the translation
> was published in the Japanese Esperanto magazine, Orienta Revuo along with
> a picture of Lidia.19
> 
> Agnes Baldwin Alexander moved back and forth between Hawaii and Japan
> numerous times between 1914 and 1967. All the while she continued her
> Bahá'í work through its conduit: Esperanto. In July 1965, as she was
> preparing to attend the World Congress of Esperantists in Tokyo, she fell
> and broke her hip.20 She was brought home to Honolulu in 1967 where she
> lived out her last four years in a retirement residence that overlooked
> the site of her birth.
> 
> On the first day of January, 1971 her spirit winged its flight to the
> world of never-fading splendour. She was 95. She was buried behind
> Hawaii's historic Kawaiahao Church with her missionary forebears with whom
> she was united by service both in life and in death.
> 
> Ms. Alexander's contributions to the cause of Esperanto in Southeast Asia
> would be difficult to exaggerate. It became her principal means of
> piercing the barrier of traditional languages. With it she extended to
> women, the blind and mainstream Japanese, Chinese and Koreans the healing
> Message of Bahá'u'lláh. She taught its language in schools, assisted in it
> Esperanto translations of key Bahá'í works, gave radio broadcasts[21 Ibid.
> p.76.22] in its tongue, sang its songs and shared warm fellowship with its
> adherents in many lands.
> 
> Notes:
> (footnotes missing)
> 
> Family tree, from Wikipedia:
> 
> William P. Alexander
> 
> (1805–1884)
> 
> Mary Ann McKinney
> 
> (1810–1888)
> 
> Amos Starr Cooke
> 
> (1810–1871)
> 
> Juliette Montague
> 
> (1812–1896)
> 
> Dwight Baldwin
> 
> (1798–1886)
> 
> Charlotte Fowler
> 
> (1805–1873)
> 
> J. W. Smith
> 
> (1810–1887
> 
> David Dwight Baldwin
> 
> (1831–1912)
> 
> W. O. Smith
> 
> (1848–1929)
> 
> William D. Alexander
> 
> (1833–1913)
> 
> Abigail Baldwin
> 
> (1847–1912)
> 
> Samuel T. Alexander
> 
> (1836–1904)
> 
> Martha Eliza Cooke
> 
> Ann Elizabeth Alexander
> 
> (1843–1940)
> 
> Henry P. Baldwin
> 
> (1842–1911)
> 
> Emily Whitney Alexander
> 
> (1846–1943)
> 
> Agnes Alexander
> 
> (1875–1971)
> 
> Annie Montague Alexander
> 
> (1867–1950)
> 
> C.W. Dickey
> 
> (1871–1942)
> 
> Belle Dickey
> 
> (1880–1972)
> 
> James Dole
> 
> (1877–1958)
> 
> Henry Alexander Baldwin
> 
> (1871–1946)
> 
> Ethel Frances Smith
> 
> (1879–1967)
> 
> J. Walter Cameron
> 
> (1895–1976)
> 
> Francis Baldwin
> 
> (1904–1996)
> 
> Colin C. Cameron
> 
> (1927–1992)
> 
> (Kapalua)
> 
> METADATA
> 
> Views22701 views since posted 1999; last edit 2025-04-05 13:23 UTC;
> 
> previous at archive.org.../troxel_life_agnes_alexander;
> URLs changed in 2010, see archive.org.../bahai-library.org
> Language
> English
> Permission
> author
> Share
> 
> Shortlink: bahai-library.com/465
> Citation: ris/465
> 
> select Collection:
> Archives
> Articles
> Articles-unpublished
> Audio
> Bibliographies
> BIC
> Biographies
> Books
> Chronologies
> Compilations
> Compilations-NSA
> Compilations-personal
> Documents
> East-asia
> Encyclopedia
> Essays
> Etc
> Excerpts
> Fiction
> Glossaries
> Guardian
> Histories
> Introductory
> Letters
> Maps
> Music
> Newspapers
> NSA-documents
> NSA-letters
> Personal
> Pilgrims
> Poetry
> Presentations
> Resources
> Reviews
> Scripts
> Software
> Statistics
> Study
> Talks
> Theses
> Transcripts
> Translations
> UHJ-documents
> UHJ-letters
> Video
> Visual
> Writings
> 
> home
> 
> sitemap
> 
> series
> 
> chronology
> 
> search:
> author
> 
> title
> 
> date
> 
> tags
> 
> adv. search
> languages
> 
> inventory
> 
> bibliography
> 
> abbreviations
> 
> links
> 
> about
> 
> contact
> 
> RSS
> 
> new
>
> — *Life of Agnes Alexander (Used by permission of the curator)*