Ann Hasseltine attended the
Bradford Academy and during a
revival there read
Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education by
Hannah More, which led her to "seek a life of 'usefulness'". Born in
Bradford, Massachusetts a teacher from graduation until marriage. Her father, John Hasseltine, was a deacon at the church that hosted the gathering that, in 1810, founded the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and, according to Ann's sister, the family first met her husband
Adoniram Judson at that time. She married Adoniram in 1812, and two weeks later they embarked on their mission trip to India. The following year, they moved on to Burma. She had three pregnancies. The first ended in a
miscarriage while moving from India to Burma; their son Roger was born in 1815 and died at eight months of age, and their third child, Maria, lived for only six months after her mother's death. While in Burma, the couple's first undertaking was to acquire the language of the locals. Missionary efforts followed, with the first local converting to Christianity in 1819. Due to liver problems, Ann returned to the United States briefly in 1822–23. During the
first Anglo-Burmese war (1824–26), her husband was imprisoned for 17 months under suspicion of being an English spy, and Ann moved into a shack outside the prison gates so as to support her husband. She lobbied vigorously for months to convince the authorities to release her husband and his fellow prisoners, but her efforts were unsuccessful. She also sent food and sleeping mats to the prisoners to make their time in prison more bearable. During this time, Ann wrote stories of life on the mission field and the struggles she faced. She wrote tragic descriptions of child marriages, female infanticide, and the trials of the Burmese women who had no rights except for the ones their husbands gave them. Ann's health was fragile by the time her husband was released. Her efforts to be near him when he was moved to a new location, all while she was nursing a newborn child, had involved strenuous travel and living conditions that may have contributed to her illness. After her husband's release, they both remained in Burma to continue their work. Ann died at Amherst, Lower Burma, of
smallpox in 1826. She wrote a
catechism in
Burmese, and translated the books of
Daniel and
Jonah into Burmese. She was the first Protestant to translate any of the scriptures into
Thai when in 1819 she translated the
Gospel of Matthew. Her work and writings made "the role of missionary wife as a 'calling'" legitimate for nineteenth-century Americans. ==Publications==