1872-Present
Town of Judsonia
White County, Arkansas AR
Judsonia, Arkansas, is the only incorporated town in America named for our missionary champion, Adoniram Judson, and it may be the only town in America named for any missionary. The community was founded by Martin R. Forey (also spelled Fory) and incorporated in 1872. Forey was a Baptist educator, entrepreneur, preacher and probably even a carpet bagger. “Professor Forey was unquestionably a dreamer but he was gifted with powers of salesmanship and organization that are seldom found in men of such vision.” [1]Born in New York he led several schools in Virginia and South Carolina before arriving at the University of Chicago. He came to Arkansas as the leader of the Baptist College Colony of about 40 northerners who moved to the Natural State only 6 years after the end of the Civil War. They purchased over 250 acres on the northern edge of unincorporated Prospect Bluff.
To anyone but a dreamer the Prospect Bluff of that day would have been difficult to fit into plans for a great Baptist university. Log cabins, whiskey, gambling—and above all a still existing prejudice against anything from the North, made his chances of success seem very unlikely.[2]
Behold then, the miracle! Within five short years these few, outnumbered and in a strange land, made a conquest more remarkable than those of Grant and Sherman. So strong were their characters, so masterful their personalities, that in those five years they had closed the saloons and actually changed the name of the town. More than that they had… pushed (detractors) under the surface of the Little Red (River) and made good Baptists out of them.[3]
Though streets in the original Prospect Bluff were named for presidents, the streets in the new Judsonia were named after people in the Judson legacy:
- Haseltine Street (for Ann Hasseltine, first wife of Adoniram);
- Judson Avenue (for Adoniram Judson, the missionary, though it is an extension of Van Buren Avenue, the main street in Prospect Bluff),
- Wade Street (for Deborah and Jonathan Wade who codified the Karen language and created the Karen dictionary in Burma),
- Boardman Street, (for Sarah and George who baptized the first Karen evangelist, Ko Tha Byu),
- Wayland Street, (for Francis Wayland who penned the first biography of Adoniram Judson[4]);
- And Fory Street (for Martin Fory the founder of Judsonia and the first president of Judson University).
After two years of coexistence, Prospect Bluff and Judsonia merged in 1874 taking the name of the latter. The university survived for only 12 years but Judsonia has lived on for over 150 years and now sports over 1800 residents. Because Martin Forey imported Yankees to populate the university, there has always been a covey of northern sympathizers in Judsonia where the first chapter of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) in Arkansas was organized. Sixteen veterans from the Union Army are buried in Judsonia’s Evergreen Cemetery. Church historian Elizabeth Short reports
…problems of prejudice against the northerners, who, already hated for their Civil War stand, had brought their silver, crystal, china and fine household furnishings, more eloquent possessions to flaunt before their poorer southern neighbors. However, some witnesses give testimony that conditions between the two groups were friendly from the first.[5]
The town became a center for raising strawberries in the late 1800’s and White County became the strawberry capital of the world. Tornadoes swept through Arkansas on March 21, 1952, leaving over 50 people dead in Judsonia. But true to its namesake, the town rebounded and was named a year later by Grit Magazine, “The Most Community Centered Small Town in America.”[6] The village retains pride in its founding and its namesake as the only incorporated town in the U.S. named for a missionary, Adoniram Judson.
[Compiler’s note: Just outside Judsonia in White County is Judson Memorial Missionary Baptist Church with an address of Griffithville, AR, population 262. It is a part of American Baptist Association with headquarters in Texarkana, TX.]
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[1] W. E. Orr, That’s Judsonia: An Informal History of a Small Town in Arkansas (Judsonia, AR: White County Printing Company, 1957), p. 42.
[2] Ibid., p. 43.
[3] Ibid., p. 44.
[4] Francis Wayland, A Memoir of the Life and Labors of the Rev. Adoniram Judson, D.D. in two volumes (Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1853.)
[5] Elizabeth Short, So Great a Cloud of Witnesses: A History of First Baptist Church, Judsonia, Arkansas (Winona, MN: Apollo Books, 1985), p. 10.
[6] Orr, That’s Judsonia, p. 217-218.