A Year Concludes, and a New One Begins. Happy 2013!

One-hundred and fifty years ago the following appeared in the cover page of The Friend, a monthly intelligencer published in Honolulu by Rev. Samuel C. Damon:

We most heartily wish our donors, subscribers and readers, a Happy New Year. 

Through the liberality of our donors and the prompt payment of our subscribers, we are enabled to pay our printer, and commence a new volume of the Friend, hopeful and buoyant. 

Although the number of our readers may have essentially diminished with the decline of the whale-fishery in the North Pacific, yet there are still many hundreds of seamen afloat in this ocean whose visits to our shores encourage us to send forth a monthly sheet for their perusal. The number of our readers ashore is certainly not diminished. From many of them resident upon these islands, and on other islands of the Pacific, we are frequently receiving the most gratifying assurances that the Friend is a welcome visitor. 

A correspondent at Tahiti thus writes us: "The Friend improves in interest as it advances in age, and that is saying much, when we remember its vigorous and fascinating youth." This number commences the XXth volume. In regard to the future, we have no extravagant promises to make, but hope to keep along the even tenor of our way; our readers will always find us most strenuously advocating. 

"Whatsover things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report."

We wish all of our friends, supporters, history teachers, students, historians and history buffs the best aloha and for a prosperous 2013. As the New Year dawns you can be assured that you "will always find us most strenuously advocating" historical literacy, for our history teachers across Hawaii, and beyond.