Ann Hassletine (1789-1826)
An incredible story of a young lady and her service to Burma
Ann Hasseltine was born in Bradford, Massachusettson 22 December 1789. After accepting Christ as her Saviour at the age of sixteen, Ann Hasseltine experienced the New England religious revival of 1806, prompting her to dedicate her life to God. By the age of twenty-one (in 1810), she knew she wanted to be a missionary in a foreign land. While attending a missionary meeting hosted by her father, she heard four young students from Andover Theological Seminary petition to be sent as foreign missionaries. One of them was Adoniram Judson, who was invited to the Hasseltine home for dinner. They were soon engaged.
On 5 February 1812, they were married. The next day they started on a four-month ocean journey for Calcutta, India, with six other missionaries. At the time, both the government of India and the East India Company were opposed to missions. Soon the missionaries were ordered to leave the country. In 1913 they began their work in a land that had never heard the gospel, the seaport of Rangoon, Burma (Myanmar).
Ann was a great assett to the missionary work but the severity of her labours, and the exhausting effect of the climate obliged her to go home in 1822. During this period, She wrote a history of the Burmese mission, American Baptist Mission to the Burman Empire, which inspired many to become missionaries, especially women. She was also involved in lecturing extensively in the cause of missions.
Ann soon adopted Burmese dress with its light tunic of bright-colored gauze and a skirt of bright silk, slit at the ankle. A dedicated missionary, Ann formed a society of native women who met together on Sundays to pray and read the Scriptures and conducted classes for women. Her greatest contribution to the cause of women and missions was her inspirational writing. She wrote enthralling stories of life on the mission field and the struggles she faced, predominantly when her husband was confined to a Burmese prison for nearly two years. She also wrote tragic descriptions of child marriages, female infanticide, and the trials of the Burmese women who had virtually no rights except what rights their husbands allowed them.
Three months after their daughter was born, Adoniram caught a tropical fever. Ann cared for him until the guards secretly moved him to another prison eight miles away. For a year and a half Ann, with her baby in her arms, followed her husband from prison to prison, supplying him with food which was not provided by government, and working in every way to secure his release. She exercised such influence over the mind of the governor, that though her husband was several times condemned to death with others, he was preserved though the rest were executed. When the war ended, Adoniram was freed and joined his wife and daughter after being imprisoned for eighteen months. However in 1826, because of the weakness brought on by the illnesses, Ann died of a fever at the age of thirty-seven having served for thirteen years in Burma. Her daughter died six months later.
After twenty-four years, Adoniram had translated the entire Bible into Burmese. By the time of his death in 1850, Burma had sixty-three churches with 163 missionaries and native church leaders to carry on his mission.