True to his word, Mr. Judson enrolled Adoniram in the navigation school in nearby Salem, the richest town in New England. Adoniram loved attending the school, where he learned to use a sextant to take readings from the sun and stars to chart his position, as well as how to read marine maps so as not to run aground. But even more than the school, he loved being in Salem. When his father came to visit, they walked together all the way from Derby Wharf to Crowninshield’s Wharf, watching as exotic cargo from far-off ports in China and Europe was unloaded. As they watched, brilliantly colored parrots from the Malay Islands fluttered their wings in the gentle breeze or perched on their owners’ shoulders. And the smell of unknown spices filled the air.
Three weeks after Adoniram began attending the new school, disaster struck the Judson family. Six-month-old Mary died. She had been sick for several weeks and eventually got so weak she just stopped breathing. All of the Judson children were saddened by her death, but none more than Adoniram. He had recently been paying closer attention to his father’s sermons and knew that in his father’s opinion a child, even a tiny baby, had to make a decision to become a Christian or would be damned to hell. As he looked down at his tiny sister in her white smocked dress lying in a wooden coffin, Adoniram wondered about a God who would be so cruel as to send his innocent sister to hell. Something about it didn’t seem right, and although he was far too scared to discuss it with his father, he secretly wanted nothing more to do with the God his father preached about so passionately in church on Sunday mornings.
No sooner had Mary been buried than Mr. Judson became ill. He was so sick that the doctor told him if he did not rest at Saratoga Springs in New York, he too would die. So Adoniram’s father spent six weeks recuperating at Saratoga Springs. However, when he finally returned to Wenham he was not much better. Since there was no way he could fulfill all his duties as pastor, on October 22, 1799, he resigned from his position in the church.
As a new century dawned, the Judson family found themselves in a precarious situation. They had moved to Braintree, several miles south of Boston, where Adoniram’s father thought he could find work. Indeed, he found a job, but it paid so little that Abigail Judson, Adoniram’s mother, found herself eking out the family budget from only a third of the money her husband had been earning in Wenham. Somehow the Judsons managed to scrape together enough money to keep their three children in school. Adoniram continued to outshine his peers academically.
In 1797, there had been great celebrations in Braintree (today called Quincy) as a farmer and lawyer from the town was elected president of the United States. Adoniram and his father often walked past the farm where John Adams had grown up. As they did so, the conversation was always the same. If John Adams could make something great of himself, so could Adoniram Judson!
The Judson family struggled on in Braintree for two years until the newly established Third Congregational Church of Plymouth, Massachusetts, offered the Reverend Mr. Judson the pastorate of the church. Adoniram’s father felt much better now and eagerly accepted, moving the family to Plymouth.
Fourteen-year-old Adoniram loved his new hometown with its bustling population of thirty-five thousand people. On the undeveloped east side of town, his father bought a plot of land that sloped down to the sea where the family built a wonderful new house. The family had lived in the house only a few months when Adoniram himself became very ill. It was a year before he was up and about again and able to return to school. It was 1803, and Adoniram was determined to catch up on all the schoolwork he had missed during the year he was sick. He threw himself into his studies. In fact, he worked so hard that he not only caught up on the year he had missed but also completed his next year’s work. He was pronounced ready to go on to college.
Adoniram’s father was a graduate of Yale University, but since New Haven, Connecticut, was a long way from Plymouth, he looked for a college closer to home for his eldest son to attend. Harvard University was only fifty miles to the north, but Adoniram’s father was not impressed with the religious education given there. It was too watered down for his liking. Eventually, it was decided that Adoniram should attend Rhode Island College at Providence, fifty miles to the south.
On August 15, 1804, just six days after his sixteenth birthday, Adoniram, accompanied by his father, set off by stagecoach for Providence. He carried with him a spare set of clothes and his books, all stuffed into the same old leather duffel bag his father had used when he went to college. As they stood in the August afternoon heat in Providence, waiting for the wooden gates of Rhode Island College to be swung open, questions swirled through Adoniram’s mind. What would it be like to be away from his family? He had scooped the academic prizes in his local school, but could he keep up with the influential young men who normally attended colleges such as this? And what kind of man would he be when, after four years of study, he passed back out through the gates with his degree in hand?
Chapter 3
The World Was an Open Book
Adoniram sat nervously at his desk. The astronomy paper in front of him was the last of his entrance exams. It worried him as he looked around. The other students were still bent studiously over their work, but Adoniram could not find anything to add to his paper, and there was still an hour to go. He hoped he had not forgotten something important, and so he read over his answers one more time. Taking examinations was all he had done since arriving at Rhode Island College. So far he had taken Greek, Latin, mathematics, geography, logic, oratory, and philosophy exams. Astronomy was his last exam, and it would be a week before he knew whether he had passed. He hoped he had; otherwise he would not be admitted to the college and would be sent back home.
Finally, the teacher pulled a watch from his pocket and announced it was time to stop. Adoniram quickly handed in his test paper and went for a long walk to try to forget about all the exams.
A week later the results were posted. Adoniram’s heart sank as he read the list of freshman students for each subject. His name was not on any of the lists. Just as a cold sweat was breaking out on his forehead, his new friend, Jacob Eames, strolled over to the notice board. “Congratulations, Adoniram,” he said. “You’ve made quite an impact.”
Adoniram turned to Jacob. “What do you mean?” he asked, bewildered.
Jacob laughed. “You mean you don’t know? Look at this. You’ve made it into the sophomore classes. Your grades were so good that they’re letting you skip your freshman year. I haven’t heard of it being done before.”
Adoniram swung around and searched the list of sophomore classes. Sure enough, there was his name listed in the second-year classes. “I can hardly believe it!” he said. At this rate he would finish college in three years and not the usual four.
As time went by, Adoniram found he had no difficulty keeping up with a class of boys a year older than he. In fact, he was soon running neck and neck with his friend John Bailey for the honor of being top student in the class. Although this meant a lot of study for Adoniram, he managed to fit in fun times with his friends. John Bailey and Jacob Eames, his two best friends, were both from wealthy families, and they were invited to some of the most lavish parties in Providence. Adoniram was invited to go along with them, and he enjoyed mixing in such rich and intellectual circles. At one party he even met the extremely wealthy Nicholas Brown, who had just given an enormous sum of money to Rhode Island College—so much, in fact, that the college had changed its name to Brown University in honor of him.
Mr. Judson knew little of his son’s partying. All he had was a letter from Dr. Messer, the president of the university. Regarding Adoniram, Dr. Messer had written to Adoniram’s father, “A uniform propriety of conduct, as well as an intense application to study, distinguishes his character. Your expectations of him, however sanguine, must certainly be gratified. I most heartily congratulate you, my dear sir, on that charming prospect which you have exhibited in this very amiable and promising son.…”
Not only did Mr. Judson have no knowledge of Adoniram’s partying, he also had no idea of something he would have considered a hundred times worse. Adoniram’s friend Jacob Eames was a Deist. Jacob did not believe that the Christian religion was any more important or true than any other religion in the world. He believed there was a god, but that God had little or no interest in the lives of people. Many well-known people in 1806 were Deists, among them the inventor Benjamin Franklin and the great revolutionary writer Thomas Paine.
As Jacob and Adoniram talked about what they believed, Deism began to make a lot of sense to Adoniram, who decided to become a Deist himself, though he decided never to tell his father. That would put an end to his college career right then and there.
Not only did they talk about religion, Jacob Eames and Adoniram also spent many hours discussing their futures. What would they be? Where would they go? The world was an open book for a young man with a degree. They imagined themselves as senators, judges, even the president of the United States.
The three years at Brown University passed quickly and happily for Adoniram. During his last year, Adoniram set himself the goal of becoming valedictorian, first in his graduating class. His father heartily encouraged him in this pursuit. They were both upset, though, when money ran low and Adoniram had to drop out of college for six weeks to teach in Plymouth to earn the money needed to finish out the year at Brown. Still, Adoniram was a determined young man, and once back at college, he soon caught up on his missed courses. At the end of his senior year, he sent the shortest letter he had ever written home to his father. It read: “Dear Father, I have got it. Your affectionate son, A.J.” Of course, the “it” was the honor of being valedictorian. The entire Judson family glowed with pride as commencement was held on September 2, 1807.
Having graduated, Adoniram was expected to do something important, but what? He had no particular interests, so to fill in time while he planned his future, nineteen-year-old Adoniram went home and opened a small school, which he named the Plymouth Independent Academy. Dismayed by the poor quality of the textbooks available to his students, he wrote two of his own: Elements of English Grammar and The Young Lady’s Arithmetic. Both books were well written, and with the backing of the president of Brown University, both were published that year.
All of this should have made Adoniram proud, but it did not. He was bored. He was living with his family again, and his father expected him to take part in family Bible reading and prayer. Adoniram could hardly stand it as his father droned on from the Bible after each meal. He was a Deist and didn’t have time for such trivial things as Bible reading, though he dared not tell his father that.
Finally one day, when Adoniram was twenty years old, he decided he’d had enough of being a schoolteacher. He wanted to experience some of the excitement he and Jacob Eames had talked about so often in college. And when he asked himself where he would find such excitement, there was only one answer: New York City!
“New York?” his mother gasped, the color draining from her face. “You can’t be serious, Adoniram! Whatever would make you want to go there?”
“I forbid it!” snapped his father. “New York is a den of iniquity. No son of mine is going to New York.”
Adoniram stood beside the fire, staring at the kitchen wall. This was exactly the reaction he had expected. He knew his parents wouldn’t be able to accept his closing the school and moving away.
