Adoniram Judson

1788-1850. Missionary, lexicographer, and Bible translator. Born at Malden, Massachusetts, son of a Congregational minister, he was graduated as valedictorian from Brown University (1807). After teaching for a year at Plymouth, he studied divinity in Andover Theological Seminary. He was a leader in the founding of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.* In 1812 he was ordained, and he and his wife embarked for Burma as Congregational missionaries. During that voyage they reexamined their views on baptism and both were baptized in Calcutta (1812). That cut off their support, but this was taken over by the Baptist Triennial Convention, organized in 1814. Reaching Rangoon, Judson learned Burmese to preach and translate the Bible, and worked on an English-Burmese dictionary. The war with England (1824) brought him seventeen months' imprisonment, but the peace saw him work as an interpreter. He continued missionary work at Ava, but by 1826 he had lost his wife and two children. He then went to Maulmain. His second wife died in 1845, and he remarried again. In 1849 the Burmese-English half of his dictionary was published. He died at sea.