Biography
Harriet Atwood was born on October 10, 1793, in Haverhill, Massachusetts. Her father was a wealthy merchant, and she grew up in comfort. She was an able and lively girl who attended the academy in Bradford, the same school where Ann Hasseltine had studied. She was drawn to religion in her teens, though for a time she resisted. She was converted at the age of fourteen and was a devout young woman who read her Bible and prayed.
In 1811 she met Samuel Newell, a young man who was preparing to be a missionary with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. He asked her to marry him and to go with him to the other side of the world. It was a daring request. No American woman had yet gone abroad as a missionary. Her family was opposed, and her friends told her that she would die. She struggled with her own fears. After weeks of prayer, she gave her answer. She would go.
She and Samuel were married on February 9, 1812, and ten days later they sailed from Salem on the ship Caravan, bound for Calcutta. She was eighteen years old. On the same day, Adoniram and Ann Judson sailed on another ship. The voyage was long, and she wrote in her journal about her faith and her fear. She was often seasick, and she was homesick for her family. She had a sense of calling and wrote that she had given herself to the Lord.
They arrived in Calcutta in August 1812. The British East India Company, which governed the area, was hostile to missionaries and ordered the Newells and the Judsons to leave. They were not allowed to land in Burma either, and the Newells were sent to the Isle de France, now Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean. On the journey, Harriet gave birth to a daughter, who died within a few days. Harriet herself fell ill. She reached the island and was taken to a house in Port Louis, where she was cared for. She died on November 30, 1812, at the age of nineteen. She had spent less than a year as a missionary.
Her memoir was written by a minister, Leonard Woods, and published in 1814. It was widely read in America and Britain. It stirred many young people, especially women, to think of the mission field. The story of a girl who gave up a comfortable life for the sake of others and died in a foreign land moved the churches. Thousands of copies were sold, and it helped to arouse interest in missions. Her husband went on to serve in India for many years.
She did not do any great work in the field, and her life was short. Yet her sacrifice made a lasting mark. She was among the first of a long line of women who followed the call to go abroad. Her story shows that the value of a life is not measured in years, and that a quiet act of obedience can bear fruit far beyond what one sees.