At the same meeting it was also decided that the missionaries should be allotted $666.66 a year if they were married and $444.45 if they were single, plus the same amount to equip themselves to go and $300 extra for books. It was a generous amount of money to offer. Of course, outside of waiting for the money from Mr. Norris’s will, no one knew where the allotments would come from.
As 1811 rolled on and the vibrant colors of fall gave way to a particularly harsh winter, Adoniram became more concerned about the war brewing between England and the United States. Already New York harbor was under a British blockade. Finally, in mid-January 1812, a message reached Adoniram. Samuel Newell had located a ship, the Harmony, which was headed from Philadelphia to Calcutta, India, and the captain had permission to transport the missionaries to India. Adoniram and Ann raced into action. This was the opportunity they had been waiting for, and they both knew it might be the last ship leaving American waters for a very long time.
Adoniram made a rushed trip home to Plymouth to say good-bye to his parents and to Abigail and Elnathan. It was a difficult time for them all. His family was convinced they would never see him again. Early on Monday morning, February 3, 1812, Adoniram said a final good-bye to his parents and Abigail before mounting his horse to ride back to Bradford. Eighteen-year-old Elnathan accompanied his older brother as far as Boston before wishing him well and turning his horse around to head back home. Adoniram rode on alone through thick snow to Bradford to meet with Ann.
It was time to get married—quickly. A crowd joined twenty-three-year-old Adoniram and twenty-two-year-old Ann as they exchanged wedding vows on Wednesday, February 5, 1812. The ceremony was held in the Hasseltines’ west living room, the same room where Ann and Adoniram had first laid eyes on each other twenty months before. Samuel Newell was there, too, with Harriet. They were due to be married the following week. Samuel Nott was also in attendance with his fiancee, Roxana.
The following day, February 6, a special service was held at Tabernacle Church in Salem to officially send off the missionaries headed for India. There were now five men, since Luther Rice had joined the group. Over two thousand people attended the service, many of them setting out before dawn to walk to the church. It was the coldest day of the year, but the number of people packed into the church made it as warm as summer inside.
Several days after the service, more good news arrived. A second ship, a small brig named the Caravan, lay at anchor in Salem Harbor. It was about to set sail for Calcutta, India, and the captain was willing to transport the missionaries. With this news, it was decided that the group should split up so that if one of the ships was lost at sea or overrun by privateers, at least half the missionaries would make it to their destination. Samuel Nott and his new wife, Roxana, along with Gordon Hall and Luther Rice, would head for Philadelphia to sail aboard the Harmony, while Samuel Newell and his new wife, Harriet, and Adoniram and Ann would sail aboard the Caravan.
Before the Newells and the Judsons could set sail, the worst storm in years hit the northern coast of Massachusetts, dumping several feet of snow across the area. The Caravan was forced to lay at anchor off the end of Crowninshield’s Wharf. It was too small to brave the fierce seas whipped up by the storm. One day went by, and then another, as the two missionary couples waited patiently. Adoniram busied himself preaching and talking about missions wherever he could find an audience. The results of his efforts stunned him. When he had first heard that the Caravan was available to transport them to India, the American Board had only twelve hundred dollars in the bank. As a result of his speaking engagements, Adoniram had raised an extra five thousand dollars. It was more than enough money to send the missionaries out with a year’s pay in advance without having to rely on the money that would be coming from Mr. Norris’s will.
One delay followed another as the anxious missionaries waited for the Caravan to set sail. First it was the weather, and then the captain informed them that he needed to wait for some special cargo to arrive. Finally, on February 18, Adoniram received word that it was time to board the ship. They would be sailing with the high tide the following morning. Adoniram took their last pieces of baggage down to the dock, leaving Ann to say good-bye to several of her friends who had gathered.
When Adoniram returned, the house where they were staying was filled with well-wishers. Adoniram marveled at the way his new wife could make a party out of anything. There was just one problem with this party: Ann didn’t understand the dread her husband felt over saying good-bye. Adoniram braced himself as he stepped inside the house, but he couldn’t bear it. Quietly he slipped out, leaving a note for Ann saying he would meet her aboard ship. When Ann read the note, she was very upset. There were many things she did not understand about her new husband. Still, she graciously said good-bye to all her friends and accepted a sleighride down to the dock.
Sure enough, Adoniram was standing on the icy deck of the Caravan waiting for Ann. He clambered onto the dock and took his wife’s hand and guided her up the gangplank and onto the ship, which was now tied up alongside Crowninshield’s Wharf. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can take only so many good-byes.”
Ann nodded as she climbed aboard the ship. Adoniram squeezed her hand gently as a sign of thanks. He also knew how brave it was for his wife to board any ship, since her only brother had been drowned in a shipwreck only months before. As a result of the incident, Ann had developed a great fear of drowning.
Early the next morning Adoniram and Ann stood together on deck as the Caravan slipped out into the open harbor. The last time Adoniram had sailed aboard a ship he had been kidnapped and imprisoned. He hoped that he and Ann would not meet the same fate. But the truth was, the Caravan was a much more lucrative prize than the Packet. Thinking his ship would be the last vessel to leave Salem for India before the British blockaded the harbor, Captain Heard had loaded up his ship with forty thousand dollars’ worth of trading goods. And not only that, he had confided to Adoniram that there was two thousand dollars in silver coins in the ship’s safe. All of this weighed on Adoniram. If the Caravan was boarded by privateers or pirates, this time he would have a wife to worry about and keep safe.
“God,” he prayed, as the Caravan headed towards open sea, “may we all live to see India.”
Chapter 8
Passage to India
Five days after setting sail from Salem, Adoniram anxiously paced the deck of the Caravan, praying as he walked. Things were not going well. Ann and Harriet were both violently ill below deck, which, given the situation, Adoniram decided was a good thing. At least he wouldn’t need to tell them right away that the ship had sprung a leak. Unless the desperate crew moved enough cargo in the hold to uncover it, the Caravan could well sink before the day was out. Even the pigs penned on the starboard side of the ship seemed to sense that danger was near. They squealed loudly and pushed at the flimsy gate that held them captive.
“All hands to the pumps,” the captain bellowed. Two sailors scurried down from the rigging and ran past Adoniram, who followed them as they disappeared down a hatchway into the dingy bowels of the ship. Two feet of water was sloshing around in the bottom of the hold.
“Over here,” yelled the first mate. “I’ve found the leak. It’s a gusher. We’re going to need a bucket of pitch. In the meantime, keep pumping, you lot,” he told the sailors manning the bilge pumps.
Water was pouring in between two of the planks in the ship’s hull. Gently, using a knife and a hammer, the first mate jammed some pieces of hemp rope into the gap. The flow of water into the ship slowed. As the first mate jammed the rope farther and farther into the hole, the flow was almost completely stemmed. Soon a sailor arrived with a bucket of hot pitch. The first mate worked the black goo down into the crack on top of the rope, making sure he used as much of it as possible. As the pitch cooled, it hardened into a permanent seal over the hole. Soon the sailors had the water pumped out of the Caravan’s hold, and the ship was no longer in danger of sinking. At least not from that hole.
After the excitement of the leak, things began to settle into a steady routine for the missionaries. Ann and Harriet felt better and were able to join the men in the mornings for Bible study and prayer. They all ate lunch with the captain and then did their “exercise.” On his ill-fated trip to England, Adoniram had walked the decks of the Packet for exercise. But the Caravan was a particularly small vessel—only two hundred sixty feet long—and walking her decks was tedious and uninvigorating. To solve the problem, Ann mischievously opened her bag one morning and pulled out two jump ropes. Handing one to Adoniram, she laughed. “Here, I bet I can skip without stopping longer than you can!”
Adoniram broke into loud peals of laughter as he took the rope from his wife. He loved the way Ann was so full of life. The rope skipping turned out to be good exercise, and Samuel Newell often skipped with them, but not Harriet. After finally adjusting to the constant motion of the ship, she had become sick for another reason: She was pregnant. The baby was expected to arrive in November and, if all went well, in India.
The weeks slipped by, and as the ship moved south, the weather became hotter and the voyage more monotonous. Once a week the cook ordered a pig or some chickens killed so there would be fresh meat to eat. Water, though, was rationed because Captain Heard didn’t expect to put in to any ports along the way. As far as he was concerned, the less contact they had with others, the less chance they had of being robbed. Occasionally they spotted another ship on the horizon, but the captain would always steer the Caravan away from it.
During the voyage Adoniram had plenty of time for the work he loved—Bible translation. He was attempting his own translation of the New Testament from Greek into English, and he had many interesting discussions with Samuel Newell over the exact meaning of the original words. One word particularly interested him, though he had no idea how thinking about that one word would change his entire life. It was the word baptism. Adoniram had been born and raised a member of the Congregational church, which taught that babies should be baptized soon after they were born by being sprinkled with water. Adoniram had been baptized that way himself, and he had always expected to baptize his children in the same manner. But aboard the Caravan, somewhere near the equator, he was coming to a disturbing conclusion. As he studied the meaning of the Greek word for baptism, he discovered that it never meant “to sprinkle.” Rather, it was used to convey the way that Christians in the Bible were immersed into the water in rivers and lakes to be baptized.
This was quite a problem for Adoniram. He was one of the first group of Congregational missionaries ever to be sent out from America, and even before he had arrived at his destination he was having doubts about whether the way his church carried out baptisms was correct. He discussed it with Ann, who at first laughed at him. But when Ann realized how the issue was playing on her husband’s mind, she tried to reason with him. But Adoniram continued to worry. What should he do after he had converted non-Christians in Burma? Should he sprinkle them with water or take them to the river and immerse them as the Baptists did? He had no answer, but Ann did. She was a strict Congregationalist, all her family and friends were Congregationalists, and the people who had sponsored their voyage were Congregationalists. Whatever Adoniram decided to do was his business, but she informed him there was no way she was ever going to desert her denomination.
