Concerning the Sources

There have been many biographies of Adoniram Judson, most of them published in the nineteenth century within a few decades of his death. Three stand out: FRANCis WAYLAND’S, the “Official” biography; EDWARD JUDsON’s, perhaps the most interesting; and STACY R. WAR- BURTON’S, briefer than the Others, but perhaps the first twentieth-century biography embodying new material and modern methods Of research.

All the biographies draw upon the same basic material, Of which Wayland remarks in his preface:

From peculiar views of duty, Dr. Judson had caused to be destroyed all his early letters written to his family, together with all his papers Of a personal character. Mrs. Ann H. Judson, from prudential reasons, during their captivity in Ava, destroyed all his letters in her possession. Manuscripts were also consumed by the burning Of Mr. Stevens’s house in Maulmain. Dr. Judson’s correspondence with Dr. Staughton perished by the shipwreck Of a vessel on the passage from Philadelphia to Washington. Last Of all, his letters to his missionary brethren in Burmah were lost by the foundering of the ship which was conveying them to this country. My materials, therefore, consisted chiefly of his official corre- Spondence, much of which had been published in missionary periodicals. TO these I have been able tO add such letters as had escaped destruction, together with very valuable reminiscences from the pen Of Mrs. [Emily] Judson. Enough has been preserved to present his missionary charaCter with remarkable distinctness. His Opinions on many subjects can never be recovered, but the record Of his deeds is beyond the reach of bOth fire and flood.

Wayland’s words could not be improved today, although a few additional personal letters from Judson, from Nancy and from Emily have turned up within the past several years and are now in the library of the Andover-Newton Theological Seminary. Surely Others exist and will yet come to light.

But a man’s own writings are by nO means the only sources of information about him. And with a civil war, two world wars, industrialization, imperialism—the list is endless—between the early 1800’s and today, the challenge has seemed to this biographer less one of recovering a few letters than of recovering an individual and his associates—even an epoch and a culture.

The complete bibliography involved in such an effort would be im« possibly lengthy. What follows is therefore a selection. For example, town and village histories and probate, real estate and vital records, both published and unpublished, have been arbitrarily omitted. So have newspaper files. But it is hoped that enough has been retained for the interested reader to follow up aspects of the subject that might seem attractive; and some titles have been included in the hope they will help scholars who will write better biographies of Judson than this one.