JUDSON, ADONIRAM (1788-185o), American mission ary, was born at Malden, Mass., on Aug. 9, 1788, the son of a Con gregational minister. He graduated at Brown university in 1807, was successively a school teacher and an actor, completed a course at the Andover Theological seminary in Sept. 181o, and was at once licensed to preach as a Congregational clergyman. A petition to the general association of ministers that he and several of his fel low students be sent to Asiatic missionary fields, resulted in the establishment of the American board of commissioners for foreign missions. Judson was sent to England to secure, if possible, the co-operation of the London Missionary Society, was captured by a French privateer but completed his mission. On his return he found the American board ready to act independently. His ap pointment to Burma followed, and in 1812, accompanied by his wife, Ann Hasseltine Judson (1789-1826), he went to Calcutta. Having become advocates of baptism by immersion, and being thus cut off from Congregationalism, they began independent work, although they met with much opposition from the East In dia Company. In 1814 they began to receive support from the American Baptist Missionary Union, which had been founded with the primary object of keeping them in the field. After a short period at Madras they settled at Rangoon. There Judson mas tered Burmese, into which he translated part of the Gospels with his wife's help. In 1824 he removed to Ava, where, during the war between the British and Burma, he was imprisoned for almost two years. In 1827 Judson removed his headquarters to Moulmein, where school buildings and a church were erected, and where in 1834 he married Sarah Hall Boardman (1803-45). In 1834 he
completed his translation of the Bible ; in succeeding years he compiled a Burmese grammar, a Burmese dictionary and a Pali dictionary. In 1845 his wife's failing health decided Judson to re turn to America, but she died during the voyage, and was buried at St. Helena. In the United States Judson married Emily Chub buck (1817-54), a minor poet and novelist, who was one of the earliest advocates in America of the higher education of women. She returned with him in 1846 to Burma, where the rest of his life was devoted largely to the rewriting of his Burmese dictionary. He died at sea on April 12, 1850, while on his way to Martinique, in search of health. Judson was perhaps the greatest, as he was practically the first, of the many missionaries sent from the United States into foreign fields ; his fervour, his devotion to duty and his fortitude in the face of danger mark him as the prototype of the American missionary.
A son, Edward, pastor of the Judson Memorial church, in New York city, which was erected largely through his efforts, prepared a biog raphy of Dr. Judson (1883). Others are by Francis Wayland (1854) and R. T. Middleditch (1859). For the three Mrs. Judsons, see J. D. Knowles, Memoir of Ann Hasseltine Judson (1829), and Ethel D. Hubbard, Ann of Ava (1913) ; Emily C. Judson, Life of Sarah Hall Boardman Judson (1849), and A. C. Kendrick, Life and Letters of Emily Chubbuck Judson (1861), also monographs by W. N. Wyeth on each of the Mrs. Judsons.