1823-1835?
Judson Ward Rowe
Missionary Child India/Alabama?
While recovering from liver problems in the US under the care of Dr. Elnathan Judson, brother of Adoniram Judson, Ann Judson published her best-selling book, A Particular Relation of the American Baptist Mission to the Burman Empire informing Americans of the first-hand work of missionaries. In that same year, America’s first appointed missionary (Ann Judson was never appointed as a missionary) birthed a baby with a tragic story.
Reid Trulson tells the story of America’s first appointed woman missionary in his book Charlotte Atlee White Rowe.[1] Charlotte Atlee was orphaned by age 11 and probably grew up under the care of an older sister and in the Anglican faith. In 1803 she married Nathaniel White but within 18 months both her husband and their infant son had died. The grieving widow joined the Haverhill Baptist Church and was surprisingly appointed as the first woman missionary by the newly formed Baptist Board of Foreign Missions. (Read Dr. Trulson’s book to get the entire scandalous story of that short appointment.) Charlotte sailed on the same ship to India in 1815 as George and Phebe Hough who were on their way to Burma as the first missionaries assigned to work with Adoniram Judson.
Charlotte Atlee White disembarked in Calcutta and joined William Carey’s Serampore mission. She married British missionary Joshua Rowe who was a widower with 3 sons. After fathering twin daughters and a son, Rev. Rowe died leaving Charlotte with six children under 17 years old.
Charlotte was supported by her brother Edwin Atlee, a physician in Philadelphia. In appreciation of her brother, Charlotte named her last child, Edwin Atlee Rowe. Not having a husband nor close American friends in Digah, India, Charlotte wrote to her brother as a confidant occasionally questioning decisions and leadership provided by the Serampore Trio–Carey, Marshman and Ward. Her letters were not intended for public reading but rather as a collegial chat with a colleague. Edwin, however, allowed portions of these letters to be circulated in an anti-missionary publication where Charlotte was depicted as a victim of the treachery of nonbiblical, organized missionary work.
Because Dr. Edwin Atlee allowed this series of letters to be publicized without authorization, Charlotte Rowe changed the name of her recently born son. No longer would he be called Edwin Atlee Rowe, but rather Judson Ward Rowe.
Rather than look to his Uncle Edwin, Charlotte encouraged him to emulate her fellow missionaries, the courageous Adoniram Judson who was laboring in Burma, and the warm-hearted William Ward, who had died of cholera in Serampore a month before little Judson’s birth.[2]
It is hard to trace the story of this lad encouraged to be like missionaries rather than emulate his traitorous Uncle Edwin. Charlotte Rowe, whose missionary appointment by American Baptists had been rescinded and whose appointment by British Baptists was never affirmed, returned to Pennsylvania in 1829 with the twin girls and little Judson. The older three boys were left in the care of the Serampore Mission.
By 1835 she is living in Lowndesboro, Alabama, and teaching with one of her 17-year-old twin daughters. “No record of Judson Ward Rowe has been found following the family’s move to Alabama.”[3] By 1850 Charlotte and her girls had moved back north to Strasburg, PA, but there is no mention of her son, Judson. The unmarried daughters, at age 32 and 33, died within a year and were buried next to Charlotte’s parents in Lancaster, PA, in the St. James Episcopal Cemetery.
In 1863 at age 68, Charlotte Atlee White Rowe, died and was buried in plot #9 next to her twin daughters. “America’s first appointed woman foreign missionary was laid to rest unheralded, in an unmarked grave.”[4] In like fashion both her son, named Judson, and her missionary hero, Adoniram Judson, lie in unmarked graves awaiting an eternal resurrection.
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[1] Reid S. Trulson, Charlotte Atlee White Rowe: The Story of America’s First Appointed Woman Missionary (Mercer, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 2021), pp 115-120.
[2] Ibid., p. 120.
[3] Ibid., p. 168.
[4] Ibid., p. 196