The Lyman House Memorial Museum, also known as the Lyman Museum, is a Hilo, Hawaii

Hawaii

Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

-based natural history museum founded in 1931 in the Lyman family mission house, originally built in 1838.

The mission

Reverend David Belden Lyman

David Belden Lyman

David Belden Lyman was an early American missionary to Hawaii who opened a boarding school for Hawaiians. His wife Sarah Joiner Lyman taught at the boarding school and kept an important journal. They had several notable descendants.-Family life:David Belden Lyman was born in on July 28, 1803 in...

 and his wife, Sarah Joiner Lyman
arrived in 1832, missionaries from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was the first American Christian foreign mission agency. It was proposed in 1810 by recent graduates of Williams College and officially chartered in 1812. In 1961 it merged with other societies to form the United Church Board for World...

. It was one of the first houses on the island to be built in the style of their native New England. Guests included Mark Twain

Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...

 and Isabella Bird

Isabella Bird

Isabella Lucy Bird was a nineteenth-century English explorer, writer, and a natural historian.-Early life:Bird was born in Boroughbridge in 1831 and grew up in Tattenhall, Cheshire...

. In 1854 - 1859 the new Haili Church was built across the street, replacing the thatched structures that served previously for the congregation.

The mission house was added to the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 on March 24, 1978 as site 78001012. It is located at 276 Haili Street in Hilo, coordinates 19°43′18"N 155°5′28"W.

The museum

Almost a century after the missionaries, a museum was founded in 1931 by their descendents.
In the late 1960s noted architect Vladimir Ossipoff

Vladimir Ossipoff

Vladimir ‘Val’ Ossipoff was an American architect best known for his works in Hawaii.Vladimir Ossipoff was born November 25, 1907 in Vladivostok, Russia, but grew up in Tokyo, Japan, where his father was a military attaché of the Russian embassy, and emigrated to the United States in 1923...

 designed and built a Museum building adjacent to the mission house. Upon its completion, the Museum moved there and expanded its exhibits. It has extensive displays on Hawaiian culture and is renowned for its collection of shells and minerals, including a specimen of orlymanite, named for Orlando Hammond Lyman (1903–1986), the museum's founder and great grandson of David and Sarah Lyman. The Museum has been an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution

Smithsonian Institution

The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...

since 2002.