Ann Hasseltine Judson and the Tabernacle Church
58 Washington Street at Federal Street
The building that stands on this site is not the same structure
that stood during the late eighteenth century. It was torn down
in 1854, but the current church was designed specifically to recreate
some of the older building’s original Samuel McIntire features.
The day after her marriage in 1812, Ann Hasseltine Judson (1789-1826),
who was born in nearby Bradford, Massachusetts, and her husband,
Adoniram, were commissioned from the Tabernacle Church to travel
to Burma out of Salem Harbor in the last ship to leave port during
the war with Britain. The only Christians in a Buddhist land governed
by a despotic emperor, Ann quickly learned the native languages
to allow her to translate Christian texts and lay a foundation for
the work of missionaries who would follow her. In 1824, during the
first Anglo-Burmese War, Ann’s husband was imprisoned for twenty-one
months and saved three times from execution only through the determined
efforts of his wife. But only a few months after his release, Ann
died after a two-year battle with disease and malnutrition. Today,
the Judsons are considered leading figures in American evangelism,
having helped to define the nature of foreign missionary work for
an entire generation.43
Notes
43. Rosalie Hunt files.
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