Judson, Adoniram
JUDSON, ADONIRAM
Baptist missionary; b. Malden, MA, Aug. 9, 1788;d. at sea, April 12, 1850. He was the son of a Congregationalist minister. While studying for the ministry at Andover Seminary, MA, in 1810, he and several other students determined to devote themselves to the foreign missions. Their petition led to the establishment of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Judson was ordained at Salem, MA, Feb. 6, 1812, and sailed for India 13 days later. On shipboard his views on the necessity of faith before baptism changed. Upon arriving in Calcutta, India, he and his bride, Ann Hasseltine Judson, were rebaptized by English Baptist missionaries. In 1813 the Judsons went to Burma and opened a mission in Rangoon. The mission prospered, but in June 1824 Judson was imprisoned for 18 months, and in 1827 he moved his station to Maulmain. He published a complete translation of the Bible in Burmese (1840) and an English-Burmese dictionary (1849).
Bibliography: f. wayland, Memoir of … Rev. Adoniram Judson, 2 v. (Boston 1853). e. judson, Life of Adoniram Judson (New York 1883). c. anderson, To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson (Boston 1956).
[r. k. macmaster]