David Dwight Baldwin was born November 26, 1831 in Honolulu. His father was early missionary doctor Dwight Baldwin, and his mother was Charlotte Fowler Baldwin. After a few years living in Waimea, the family moved to the island of Maui around 1837. From 1841 through 1851, Baldwin attended Punahou School in Honolulu, and graduated from Yale in 1857. He married Lois Gregory Morris on October 7 of that year at Bridgeport, Connecticut. The couple returned to the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1858, and had nine children, although one died young. From 1860 to 1862 Baldwin served in the Kingdom House of Representatives. Around 1865 he became manager of the sugarcaneplantation in Kohala on the northern coast of Hawaiii Island. This plantation had been founded by the missionary Elias Bond. In 1872 Baldwin and his family lived in New Haven, Connecticut while he worked in the Yale Law School library and earned his Master of Arts degree. On his return to Hawaii he started an almost 40-year association with the education department of the Hawaiian government. He was vice-principal of Lahainaluna School from 1874 to 1877. While he was inspector-general of the schools from 1877 to 1885, instruction was changed from the Hawaiian language to English. Baldwin returned to Lahainaluna and served as vice-principal again until 1890. In 1890 he moved to Haʻikū where his younger brother Henry Perrine Baldwin had founded the agricultural venture Alexander & Baldwin with his brother-in-law Samuel Thomas Alexander. He organized a small school for the plantation employees. Baldwin had earlier published a list of Hawaiian mosses and liverworts.
Malacology
In the 1890s he devoted much of his time to studying mollusks, specifically the study of Hawaiian land snails, some of which he named and described. In addition, several land snail species in the family Achatinellidae were named in honor of him, as well as a subgenus Baldwinia of the genus Partulina. He produced the first catalog of Hawaiian land snails and freshwater snails in 1893. His schoolmate from Punahou, J. T. Gulick, had published early theories of evolution which were based on their mollusc shell collections. In the Hawaiian language, the word for any kind of snail is pūpū. The same word also referred to small bits of fish, chicken, or banana relish served with kava. Because of the mixture of various cultures and cuisines in the islands, the word pupu became associated with any relish, appetizer, canapé, or hors d'oeuvre, and the modern pu pu platter.
Retirement and last years
Upon David Baldwin's retirement from teaching in 1903, the Baldwin brothers invested in the first commercial cultivation of pineapple on Maui. Three years later, Belle Dickey, who was the niece of both a brother-in-law and a sister-in-law of Baldwin, married James Dole, who popularized Hawaiian pineapple. After a cancer operation in February 1911, Baldwin died on June 16, 1912 at the Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu. His remains were shipped to Maui and buried at the Makawao Union Church cemetery.
The following mollusks were named in honor of Baldwin. Land snails:
Nesopupa baldwini Ancey, 1904
Leptachatina baldwini Cooke, 1910
Pacificella baldwini
Philonesia baldwini
Nesophila baldwini
Cecilioides baldwini
Catinella baldwini
Orobophana baldwini
Freshwater snails:
Thiara baldwini
Sea snails:
Mitrabaldwinii Melvill, 1899 is a synonym of Vexillummoelleri
Murex cyclostoma var. baldwiniana Pilsbry, 1921 is a synonym of Favartiagarrettii
Bivalves:
Solecurtus baldwini Dall, Bartsch & Rehder, 1938
Children
Daughter Lillian Baldwin married Frank E. Atwater. Son Erdman Dwight Baldwin was born December 9, 1859, married Nellie Virginia Curtis, became a Civil Engineer and died July 11, 1942. He surveyed Mauna Kea and published one of the first maps of its summit in 1891. Son Charles Wickliffe Baldwin was born December 20, 1860. In 1909 he married Olive Elvira Steele at Los Altos, California. He became a principal at various schools on Maui, and published a textbook on Hawaiian geography in 1908. His book was revised and republished several times. Son Lincoln Mansfield Baldwin was born a twin of Winnifred Morris Baldwin on August 19, 1863. He married Ellen Melbourne Dickenson of Lahaina, daughter of Henry Dickenson, Sr. and Mary Ann Caroline Rowley, on August 7, 1891 and had seven children. He worked for a while in the sugar business and a store. In 1894 he became deputy sheriff of Maui. In November 1896 he was appointed sheriff of Maui island, where he served for 14 years. In 1910 he became treasurer of Maui County, and died on November 18, 1919. Son Benjamin Douglas Baldwin was born April 12, 1868, managed sugar plantations on Maui and Kauai. Son William Atwater Baldwin was born July 20, 1869, became manager of three different sugar plantations and then President of Haiku Fruit & Packing Company. In 1902 he married Mina Prime at Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Baldwin holdings would eventually evolve into the Maui Land & Pineapple Company. Baldwin relatives were involved in the company until 2005. Daughter Mary W. Baldwin married Duncan Bell Murdoch. Daughter Winifred Morris Baldwin married Physician John Weddick in October 1896. Son Nathaniel Hewitt Baldwin was born in 1873 but died age six. His snail collection was a featured display at the Bailey House Museum. Henry Augustus Pilsbry called Baldwin "the Nestor of Hawaiian conchologists".
