lower ranking chiefs in service to the royal family. He and his sister Maraea were born in the family's home in Waimea, which stood across the Waikōloa Stream from the residence of early American Protestant missionary Lorenzo Lyons who was a close friend of the family. Iaukea was given the first name Curtis after Lyons' son Curtis Jere Lyons. When he was later presented to King Kamehameha IV as a young child, the king gave him the additional name Piʻehu in respect of his shyness and lighter skin complexion. At court, he was known and referred to by his Hawaiian name Piʻehu. Shortly after birth, he was adopted by his maternal uncle Kaihupaʻa to be raised in the Hawaiian custom of hānai, an informal form of adoption between extended families practiced by Hawaiian royals and commoners alike. His uncle had been educated by the American Protestant missionary Levi Chamberlain and had served his entire life as a personal assistant and servant to King Kamehameha III and later his successor Kamehameha IV. Iaukea was taken to the kingdom's capital at Honolulu to live with Kaihupaʻa and his wife Keliaipala. They lived near the grounds of the old ʻIolani Palace, in the building of the former Royal School. Renamed Halepoepoe (meaning circular or round house), this building had been turned into a home for royal retainers and the kahu (caretakers) for the reigning King Kamehameha IV. Around the time he was five or six, Iaukea fell into a well and his uncle Kaihupaʻa broke his foot in the process of saving him, later dying from the injuries he sustained. Childhood and education Iaukea was raised at the Hawaiian court to become a kahu and continue his family kuleana (responsibility) of serving the Hawaiian royal family. The young boy was intended to be raised as a page or valet, and companion for Prince Albert Edward Kamehameha, the only son and heir of Kamehameha IV and his wife Queen Emma. These plans were never realized because the prince died in 1862, at the age of four. In later life, Iaukea noted, As a ward of the Hawaiian government, he was sent to an Anglican boarding school. Around 1862 or 1863, Iaukea was enrolled in St. Alban's College, founded by Bishop Thomas Nettleship Staley and his assistants Archdeacon George Mason and Rev. Edmund Ibbotson, which was located in the Pauoa Valley. Here he first developed