Ann Judson

Ann Hasseltine was born on December 22, 1789, in Bradford, Massachusetts. Her father was a deacon and a man of means, and the family was lively and sociable. Ann grew up fond of parties and fashion, and she did not think much about God. She was bright and sharp, and she studied at Bradford Academy, one of the few schools open to girls. When she was sixteen, a religious awakening came to her school, and she was gripped by a sense of her sin. She later wrote that she was shaken to find how little she cared for God. After a long struggle she turned to Christ, and her life took a new direction.

In 1810 she met a young seminary student named Adoniram Judson, who was one of a small group of men preparing to go overseas as missionaries. He asked her to marry him and to join him in a life of hardship in a far-off land. At that time, no American woman had gone abroad as a missionary, and many people thought it a reckless idea. Her friends warned her that she would die. She prayed and thought it over for months, and she said yes. They were married on February 5, 1812, and sailed two weeks later.

She was twenty-two. On the long voyage to India, both she and Adoniram studied the question of baptism, and both became convinced that the New Testament teaches baptism of believers. They were baptized as Baptists in Calcutta. This ended their connection with the Congregational board that had sent them, and they had to depend on Baptists in America, who formed a new mission society to support them. In 1813 they settled in Rangoon, in Burma, a land with an absolute king and no tolerance for foreign religion.

She learned the Burmese language with remarkable speed and became one of the first foreigners to speak it well. She held meetings with Burmese women, taught children and went to the homes of the people. She also learned Siamese and translated parts of Scripture for the Siamese-speaking people who lived in Burma. She bore a child who died in infancy, and she suffered repeated bouts of illness. Through it all she wrote letters home that were printed in America, and they moved many believers to support the mission.

Her greatest trial came when war broke out between Britain and Burma in 1824. Adoniram was arrested as a suspected spy and thrown into prison, bound in chains. For many months Ann walked each day to the prison to bring him food and to plead with the officials for mercy. She was pregnant, and she had a small child to care for. She bribed jailers, wrote petitions and sat outside the prison in the heat. She also saved the manuscript of his translation of the New Testament by sewing it into a pillow, which he was allowed to keep. The pillow was so hard that the guards did not want it, and the translation survived.

After Adoniram was finally released in 1826, they hoped for a time of rest. But Ann had been worn down by fever and by the strain of the past years. While he was away on a diplomatic errand for the government, she fell ill again, and she died on October 24, 1826, at the age of thirty-six. Her little daughter, Maria, died six months later. Adoniram was crushed by the loss.

She left behind a book, An Account of the American Baptist Mission to the Burman Empire, which told the story of the mission and appealed for support. It was widely read and helped to establish the work. She also left the example of a woman who gave herself without reserve, who was willing to face disease, war and loneliness for the sake of people she had never met. She is remembered as one of the pioneers of the modern missionary movement, and as a woman whose courage helped to open the way for thousands of women who followed.