Educational work of the
Seventh-day Adventist Church in the
Hawaiian Islands started in 1895 with a boarding school for boys, under the leadership of H. H. Brand. This school was named the Anglo-Chinese Academy in 1897 when Professor and Mrs. W. E. Howell came to Honolulu to head it. To accommodate expanding enrollment, several changes in location were made until Bethel Grammar, as it was known then, located on Keeaumoku Street, added secondary grades. Increased enrollment again called for larger quarters. In 1920 several properties on Makiki Street became the site of a combined elementary and secondary school designed to accommodate all Hawaiian Seventh-day Adventists mission schools, adopting the name Hawaiian Mission Academy. Enrollment peaked during
World War II. In 1946, the estate of former Princess
Abigail Campbell Kawānanakoa property on Pensacola Street, Royal Hawaiian land, became available as a site for a new secondary school. Construction began in summer 1949, and the secondary school and its administrative offices were moved to the campus in December, 1949. The elementary school remained at the Makiki Street campus. ==Overview==