1879-1936
Judson Coleman King
Physician/Missionary MA/Congo
Judson Coleman King was born to Sylvester Monroe and Marilda Coleman King on May 9, 1879 in Malden, Massachusetts. His father was City Missionary for Tremont Street Baptist Church before moving to Beacon Hill where young Judson started to school.
When the boy was 10 years old the family moved to Melbourne Beach, FL, where the lad worked on a ferry boat delivering mail, freight and passengers across the river back and forth over two miles each way to Melbourne, Florida. His mother died in Florida when Judson was but 11 years old. Judson King’s annual education consisted of 4 months instruction if his father could collect enough money to augment that given by the state of Florida and if someone could find a teacher. Miss Sue Hopkins from Ypsilanti, Michigan, was one of those teachers and through her interest in missions, Judson became interested in missions.
In 1895, at age 16, Judson returned to Boston to seek his fortune and soon became a pastry chef. While thus employed and when spending a vacation at the home of his aunt at North Marshfield, MA, Judson became a Christian and was baptized in the Marshfield Hills Baptist Church. Encouraged by his aunt, Angie C. Damon, and with her tutoring and financial help, together with money he earned baking at the Hotel Northfield, Northfield, MA, Judson was able to graduate from Dwight L. Moody’s Mount Hermon Prep School in 1909 when he was 20 years old. At Mount Hermon, Judson excelled in cross-country running, hockey, debate and YMCA district work.
Judson Coleman King entered the University of Michigan Medical School and graduated four years later in 1913. At Michigan he was captain of the hockey team, served in Christian ministry through the Baptist Guild Evangelistic Band and graduated vice president of his class. He married the secretary of the Baptist Guild, Cora Emma Wolff, in 1913 and accepted a missionary appointment with the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society.
After an academic year studying at the London School of Tropical Medicine and a time in Bruxelles, Belgium, learning French, Dr. and Mrs. Judson King arrived in the Belgian Congo. Here they worked developing a general medical practice, which included major surgery and research in sleeping sickness under the direction of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. His vast and effective ministry proved to be too much for this body and exhausted he was returned to the U.S. on January 1, 1928. Dr. Judson assumed the role of Medical Advisor to the Foreign Missionary Society and often spent his summers volunteering at youth camps and telling missionary stories. He died in 1936 though his wife, Cora, lived another 30 years after his passing.[1]
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[1] Mr. and Mrs. Clarence V. Bosworth, Judson Coleman King, M.D., an unpublished three-page paper available from the American Baptist Home Mission Society. The Bosworth’s were from Auburn, Rhode Island, and worked with Dr. King in summer camps.