Charlotte White
Charlotte White (July 13, 1782 – December 25, 1863), also known as Charlotte Atlee and Charlotte Rowe, was the first American woman appointed as a missionary and sent to a foreign country. She was sponsored by the
Early life
Charlotte "Susanna" Hazen Atlee was born in 1782 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Judge William Augustus Atlee and Esther Bowes Sayre. Orphaned at age eleven, Charlotte Atlee was raised by her older sister, Elizabeth, in Massachusetts. She married Nathaniel Hazen White in 1803. He died in 1804 and the couple's one child died in 1805. White joined the First Baptist Church in Haverhill, Massachusetts, in 1807.[1][2]
Missionary to India
In 1815, Charlotte White applied to become a missionary in
On arrival in Calcutta in 1816, White remained only two months with the Houghs, marrying a widower with three sons, Joshua Rowe (1781-1823), a missionary with the English
Joshua and Charlotte Rowe had three children. Joshua Rowe died in 1823. Charlotte remained in Digah for three more years supervising the schools and church, receiving no salary or financial assistance from any missionary organization. Short of funds, in 1826 she left India for England with her three children. Rowe's three sons from a previous marriage remained in India. She again petitioned the British BMS to appoint her as a missionary so she could return to India with financial assistance. She was turned down, although provided money to return to the United States. In 1829 she returned to the U.S. with her children, twins Charlotte (1818-1852) and Esther (1818-1851) and son Judson (1823-?).[8][4]
Later life
In the United States, Charlotte Rowe founded a girls school in Philadelphia and wrote articles with the pseudonym of "Honesta" for a newspaper. In the 1830s, she taught English, music, and drawing in a girls' school in Lowndesboro, Alabama. By 1850 she had moved back to her birthplace of Lancaster where she worked as Principal of Strasburg Female Seminary.[9] She died December 25, 1863, in Philadelphia. She was buried in the family plot in Lancaster.[10][4] As of 2021, her grave was unmarked.[11]
In 2021, Reid S. Trulson published the first and only biography of White entitled, Charlotte Atlee White Rowe: The Story of America's First Appointed Woman Missionary.
References
- ^ Barber, Edwin Atlee Genealogical Record of the Atlee Family Philadelphia: Wm. F. Fell & Co, 1884, pp. 80-81
- ^ Cornelius, Earle. "Researcher finds that Lancaster native Charlotte Atlee Rowe was America's first female missionary". Lancaster Online. Retrieved 29 November 2022.
- ^ Anderson, Gerald H. Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdman's Publishing Co., 1991, p. 727; Proceedings of the Baptist Convention for Missionary Purposes, Philadelphia, 1814, pp. 65, 112
- ^ a b c d Cornelius.
- ^ Hillman, kathy Robinson. "Charlotte Atlee Rowe: The Story of America's First Appointed Woman Missioanary". Baptist Standard. Retrieved 29 November 2022.
- ^ The Reformer, Vol. 3, December 1, 1821, [1], pp. 283-284; and Vol. 4, April 2, 1823, [2], pp. 73-79
- ^ Laird, M. A. (1968). "The Contribution of the Serampore Missionaries to Education in Bengal, 1793-1837". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 31 (1): 92–112. Retrieved 29 November 2022.
- ^ Brackney, William H The A to Z of Baptists Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2009, p. 605; Missionary Herald, 1827, p. 293
- ^ Anderson, p. 727
- ^ "Charlotte H. Rowe, https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=2535&h=344170&tid=&pid=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=nRu413&_phstart=successSource, accessed 2 Feb 2018
- ^ Hillman.