William Drake Westervelt

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

William Drake Westervelt (b.Dec 26 1849 - d. Mar 9 1939) is the author of several books and magazines on Hawaiian history and legends. He drew upon the collections of David Malo, Samuel M. Kamakau, and Abraham Fornander to popularize Hawaiian folklore in his Legends of Maui (1910), Legends of Old Honolulu (1915), Legends of Gods and Ghost-Gods (1915), Hawaiian Legends of Volcanoes (1916) and Hawaiian Historical Legends (1923).

Rev. William D. Westervelt was born in Oberlin, Ohio. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1871 with a B.A. degree, and from Oberlin Theological Seminary in 1874 with a B.D. degree. Pastor of churches in Cleveland, Ohio and Colorado, he settled in Hawaii in 1899, marrying a missionary descendant, Caroline D. Castle.

Westervelt's interest in Hawaiian folklore was an avocation that led to numerous magazine and newspaper articles, many reprinted in his several collections. He is noted as one of Hawaii's foremost authorities on island folklore in English language. His anthologies of Hawaiian myths, legends and folk tales are considered among the best of the English versions of a Hawaiian view of the sacred and profane.

Oberlin College bestowed an honorary Doctor of Divinity in 1926. He died at his Waikiki home in March 1939.