Hyde mentored native Hawaiians who wanted to enter the Christian ministry, and he helped provide smallpox vaccinations for the population.

Hyde's maternal grandfather Charles McEwen was a New York judge who was active in the Bible Society, and a descendant of the original Covenanters in Scotland.

[2] Hyde was ordained as a Congregational minister on August 19, 1862, and received his calling to his first church at Brimfield, Massachusetts.

Hyde and his wife tried to instill work ethics into the Hawaiian males, and teach housekeeping skills to the women.

[4] He later became president of the Board of Trustees of the Kawaiahaʻo Female Seminary, which helped train women who were interested in becoming wives of Christian ministers.

[5] When Bernice Pauahi Bishop wrote her will on October 31, 1883, she named Hyde as one of the original five trustees of her estate.

Without Hyde's permission, the correspondence was published in a Sydney, Australia newspaper, and angered many of Damien's supporters.

if that world at all remember you, on the day when Father Damien of Molokai shall be named Saint, it will be in virtue of one work: your letter to Reverend H.B.