It was in Kawaihae, on April 1, 1820, that the first company of American missionaries to Hawaii led by Asa and Lucy Goodale Thurston, who later founded Mokuaikaua Church in Kailua Kona, arrived aboard the "Thaddeus" and set foot on the islands. Kawaihae thrived for the duration of the sandalwood trade, which depleted its forest, and the whaling age. Whalers and merchant ships annually visited its harbor, where they would stock up on agricultural products and beef from the region. But by the late 1800s, Kawaihae had declined in importance due to the end of whaling, the decimation of its population by foreign diseases and migration of its people to other parts of Hawaii; it became a sleeping and forgotten village serving mainly as a cattle landing.