[3][4][5] His father, originally from Edinburgh, was an influential politician during the reign of King Kamehameha V and served as president of the Board of Health during the early development and management of the Kalaupapa Leprosy Settlement.

He wrote, in later life, that he may have contracted leprosy from a man "with large ears and bloated face, swollen hands and feet", who his aunt had treated.

He worked as chief butcher and beef dispenser and head storekeeper of the Kalawao store until 1884 when he was appointed as resident superintendent succeeding Clayton Strawn and Rudolph Wilhelm Meyer.

After 1892, Hutchison was reappointed as acting superintendent, a position he held until replaced by Board of Health official C. B. Reynolds after the death of his main supporter Rudolph Meyer in 1897.

According to resident physician Arthur Albert St. Mouritz, he "displayed marked ability and highly creditable administrative powers for a man so young.

"[2][13] In 1898, Hutchison and his wife along with more than seven hundred people at Kalaupapa signed the famous Kūʻē Petitions against the annexation of Hawaii to the United States.

He was a vigorous, forceful and impellent man with a big kindly heart in the prime of life and a jack of all trades, carpenter, mason, baker, farmer, medico and nurse, grave digger ...

He was that type of man of action, bull headed, strong will high minded ... of determined tenacity to attain results of his aspiration, but of kindly disposition toward all who came into contact with him ...

De Veuster and Other Priests Who Have Labored in the Leper Settlement of Kalawao, Molokaʻi', his personal account of Father Damien's work on the island and a memoir of his own fifty-three year of experience living on Kalaupapa.