Gerrit P. Judd
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Gerrit Parmele Judd (April 23, 1803 - July 12, 1873) was an American missionary to Hawaii who later became a trusted advisor and finance minister to King Kamehameha III.
He was born in Paris, Oneida Co., New York, the son of Elnathan Judd and his wife Betsey Hastings, and educated a physician. He went out to the Sandwich Islands in 1827, as a missionary physician, and continued in that employment fifteen years. He became conspicuous in the civil concerns of the Islands, and was the king’s Minister of Finance. He was commissioned in 1849 as Minister Plenipotentiary to England, France and the United States.
He was one of the founders of the Punahou School in 1841, the founder of Hawaii's first medical school in 1870, and was the author of one of the first medical texts written in Hawaiian, Anatomia : he palapala ia e hoike ai i ke ano o ko ke kanaka kino, in 1838.
His life was the basis of the novel The White King. A biography, Dr. Judd, Hawaii’s Friend, was published in 1960.
