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Brother Joseph Dutton
Stowe (Vermont) enjoys the distinction of being the
birthplace of a man who has become famous throughout the
civilized world— Brother Joseph Dutton. Ira B. Dutton
was born in Stowe, April 27, 1843, a son of Ezra and
Abigail Barnes Dutton. His mother was a sister of Royal
and Samuel Barnes, lifelong residents of Stowe. When he
was three years old his parents moved to Janesville,
Wis. At the age of twenty he enlisted in the 13th
Wisconsin Infantry and served throughout the Civil War.
He then went to Tennessee and when he was forty years
old was baptized as a convert to the Catholic faith and
became affiliated as a missionary with the Trappists-Franciscans.
In 1886 he went to Kalawao, Island of Molokai, Hawaii,
and offered his service to Father Damien in the care of
lepers. He never left the island from that date,
devoting his whole life to care of victims of the
loathsome disease. A few years after Father Damien's
death he secured the construction of a home for orphaned
boys and helpless cases among adult lepers. For years he
seldom left this building. Several years ago the
territorial legislature of Hawaii prepared to pass a
bill to give Brother Dutton a life pension of $50 a
month. He refused to accept it. During his life on the
island Brother Dutton contributed over $10,000 of his
own money to the work of the colony. On March 26, 1931,
he passed away at Honolulu where he had been taken for
the removal of a cataract from his eye, which had
rendered him nearly blind for several years.
Source: "History of Stowe, Vermont : (from 1763 to
1934)" by W.J. Bigelow
Submitted by K. Torp
Brother Joseph Dutton
Devotes 36 Years To Care Of Lepers
Brother Dutton Celebrates Seventy-Ninth Birthday As Exile
Honolulu, T.H., July 25-Brother Dutton the hermit priest of Molokai, the leper island of the Hawaiian group, celebrated his 79th birthday and his 36th year of labor among the exiled inhabitants of the colony of the rockbound peninsula of Kalawao recently, according to Messages to friends in Honolulu.
"I am still happy and the outside world has no attraction for me" writes the successor to the family martyr priest, Father Damien who died a victim of leprosy after years of devotion to the care of the Kalawao exiles. "I find my duty and my pleasure in trying to ease the sufferings of stricken humanity here" Brother Dutton added.
The life story of Brother Dutton is unique, according to Honolulu friends. He has never set foot off the lonely isle since his arrival there 36 years ago to work with Father Damien. Once a soldier, he retired with the rank of captain after the Civil War. He was "debonair, a lover of the pleasures of life, a Beau Brummel, and he sowed his wild oats until he was 35 years old." Then he concluded that "his life had been wasted and he must salvage it through penance."
As a convert to Catholicism he was baptized at the Trappist monastery at Gethsemane, Ky. He determined to bury himself from the world and to pass the remainder of his days in self abnegation.
In the Redemptorist monastry in New Orleans he read a magazine article describing the life of Father Damien on Molokai. He decided that his life should be devoted to the care of the lepers and he sailed from San Francisco in 1886. When Father Damien died he took over all of his duties.
No mother nursed her children with more tender care than Brother Dutton bestows on his charges visitors to the colony have said. In life he comforts them in body and ministers to their spiritual needs. (Submitted by S. Williams)
Contributed by Shaun Williams - July 25, 1922 New Castle News, New Castle Pennsylvania
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