Dr. Doremus Scudder and Rev. Frank Scudder,
Missionaries to Japan and Hawaii:
First Cousins and Grandchildren of Dr. John and Harriet Scudder
By Jack Gillmar, Member of the Board of Directors and Family History Committee
© Scudder Association Foundation, 2021
Google Satellite Image, Vellore to Tokyo to Honolulu
In the 1880s, there were so many Scudder missionaries in India, that family members began being sent to mission fields elsewhere.
Doremus Scudder M.D., D.D., 1858–1942, was in Niigata, Japan from 1885 to 1889 whereupon he returned to the U.S. ministering to a church in Chicago. From 1902 to 1904 he supervised mission work with Japanese immigrants in Hawaii. His first cousin, Frank Scudder, succeeded him in this work. Doremus was in charge of the Congregational Mission in Hawaii until he became minister of Central Union Church in Honolulu from 1907-1916.
Doremus Scudder, M.D., D.D.
During this time, he was on the Board of the Mission’s multi-ethnic primary and secondary school, the Mid-Pacific Institute. He was on the board of the Institute from 1907 to 1915 and its President from 1915 to 1916. Thus, in rapid succession, Doremus was the superintendent of the Hawaiian Congregational Mission and minister of its largest church.
His first wife Ruth Kendall died while he was the church’s minister. The church maintains a scholarship in her name. While on Mid-Pacific Institute’s board of directors he met, admired and married Mabel Bosher, the principal of the Girls division. Scudder Hall on the campus is named after her.
Mabel (Bosher) Scudder
From 1916 to 1919 he and Mabel were in Japan where he was minister of the Tokyo Union Church. From 1918 to 1919 he put his medical education to use directing civilian relief for the White Russian Army in Siberia.
From 1919 to 1920 he and Mabel were back in Hawaii where he was in charge of celebrating Hawaii’s Missionary Centennial. They returned to the United States where his last church position was as Executive Secretary of The Greater Boston Federation of Churches.
Dr. Doremus Scudder was the youngest son Dr. Henry Martyn Scudder and grandson of Dr. John and Harriet (Waterbury) Scudder, the original foreign missionaries in the Scudder family. He was a first cousin to Frank Scudder and was instrumental in Frank’s mission assignments.
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