Brown, Nathan (1807-1886)
American Baptist missionary in Burma, Assam, and Japan
Born in Ipswich, New Hampshire, Brown graduated from Williams College, the valedictorian of his class, and was for a time a student at Newton Theological Institution. For two years he taught school in Bennington, Vermont, and edited the Vermont Telegraph, a weekly religious newspaper. In December 1832 Brown and his wife, Eliza, sailed for Burma (Myanmar) under appointment of the Baptist General Convention. In Burma he worked with Adoniram Judson on translation projects until Judson recommended him for a new work in Assam. In 1834 he became head of the Assam field, organizing the mission among four language groups. In 1845 the Browns moved to Sibsagar, but owing to ill health, Eliza Brown returned to the United States where she was enthusiastically received by the churches. Back in Assam, Nathan translated the first Assamese New Testament (1848) and, by 1851, organized an association of churches. He returned to the United States in 1855 and withdrew from the mission in protest over the bureaucracy and policies of the board. He joined the newly formed American Baptist Free Mission Society, an abolitionist movement. In 1862 he personally presented President Abraham Lincoln with a memorial respecting emancipation. Eliza Brown died in 1871. With the merger of his original mission with the Free Mission Society in 1872, Brown was recommissioned and sent the next year with his second wife, Charlotte Amelia Worth Marlit (d.1923), to Japan to join Jonathan Goble. At 65 years of age, he actively engaged in church planting at Yokohama, finished the translation of the Bible into Japanese, and published a Japanese hymnbook. He died in Japan.
William H. Brackney, “Brown, Nathan,” in Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, ed. Gerald H. Anderson (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 1998), 95.
This article is reprinted from Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, Macmillan Reference USA, copyright © 1998 Gerald H. Anderson, by permission of Macmillan Reference USA, New York, NY. All rights reserved.
Bibliography
Digital Primary
Brown, Nathan. “Specimens of the Naga Language of Asam.” In Journal of the American Oriental Society: Proceedings from the American Oriental Society Prepared from the Records, 1849-1850 2 (1851): 155-165.
_____. The History of Magnus Maharba and the Black Dragon. New York: n.p., 1867.
_____. De Histori ov Magnus Maha’rba and de Blak Dragun. New York: n.p., 1867.
_____. ZYX and His Fairy, or, The Soul in Search of Peace. New York: Brown and Duer, 1867.
_____. “Dr. Brown and the Japanese Scripture” [published version of a paper by Brown for the translation committee in which he argues for the direct transfer of baptizo]. In Baptist Missionary Magazine 54 no. 8 (August 1874): 298-300.
Brown, Nathan. Personal scrapbook including letters, newspaper clippings, etc. Boston University School of Theology Archives. Boston, MA, n.d.
Scrapbook001
Digital Secondary
American Baptist Missionary Union. The Baptist Missionary Magazine 54 (1874).
_____. The Baptist Missionary Magazine 75-76 (1895-1896).
Burrage, Henry S. “Nathan Brown. 1807-1886.” In Baptist Hymn Writers and Their Hymns. Portland, ME: B. Thurston & Co., 1888.
Cathcart, William (ed.). The Baptist Encyclopaedia: a Dictionary of the Doctrines, Ordinances, Usages, Confessions of Faith, Sufferings, Labors, and Successes, and of the General History of the Baptist Denominations in All Lands. With Numerous Biographical Sketches of Distinguished American and Foreign Baptists, and a Supplement. Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1881, pp. 72, 147.
Primary
_____. Catechism in Tai Lik An thim Au lau. n.p: n.p., 1938.
_____. History of Assam. n.p: n.p., 1844.
_____. Two Sermons on the Gospel Message and Christian Ordinances, Preached at Gowhati and Nowgong, Assam. n.p: n.p., 1847.
_____. Grammatical Notices of the Asamese Language. Sibsagor: American Baptist Mission Press, 1848.
_____. “Specimens of the Naga Language of Asam.” In Journal of the American Oriental Society: Proceedings from the American Oriental Society Prepared from the Records, 1849-1850 2 (1851): 155-165.
_____. The History of Magnus Maharba and the Black Dragon. New York: n.p., 1867.
_____. De Histori ov Magnus Maha’rba and de Blak Dragun. New York: n.p., 1867.
_____. ZYX and His Fairy, or, The Soul in Search of Peace. New York: Brown and Duer, 1867.
_____. “Dr. Brown and the Japanese Scripture” [published version of a paper by Brown for the Scripture translation committee in which he argues for the direct transfer of baptizo from the Greek]. In The Baptist Missionary Magazine 54 no. 8 (August 1874): 298-300.
_____. Introduction to the Scholar’s Edition of the New Testament in Vernacular Japanese. n.p: n.p., 1885.
School of Oriental and Asian Studies (ed.). “Missionary Letters from Burma, 1828-1839.” In Bulletin of Burma Research 3 no. 2 (Autumn 2005): 548-623.
Secondary
American Baptist Missionary Union. The Baptist Missionary Magazine 54 (1874): 61, 254-6, 284, 298, 450-2.
_____. The Baptist Missionary Magazine 76 (1896): 94, 157.
Bennett, Albert A. A Biographical Sketch of Rev. Nathan Brown, D.D.. n.p.: n.p., 1895.
Burrage, Henry S. Baptist Hymn Writers and Their Hymns. Portland, ME: B. Thurston & Co., 1888.
Cathcart, William (ed.). The Baptist Encyclopaedia: a Dictionary of the Doctrines, Ordinances, Usages, Confessions of Faith, Sufferings, Labors, and Successes, and of the General History of the Baptist Denominations in All Lands. With Numerous Biographical Sketches of Distinguished American and Foreign Baptists, and a Supplement. Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1881, pp. 72, 147.
N., M. “Brown, Nathan.” In The Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature. Ed. Amaresh Datta, 589. n.p.: South Asia Books, c. 1990.
Rhodes, Dennis E. “Early Printing in Assam.” In The Spread of Printing: Eastern Hemisphere: India, Burma, Ceylon. Ed. Colin Clair, 61-66. New York: Abner Schram, 1969.
Stewart, Walter S. Early Baptist Missionaries and Pioneers. Vol. 2. Valley Forge, PA: The Judson Press, 1925, pp. 53-78.
Sword, Victor H. Baptists in Assam: A Century of Missionary Service, 1836-1936. Guwahati: Spectrum Publications, 1992.
Wight, Fred H. “Nathan Brown, Baptist Missionary to Burma, Assam, and Japan.” In Watchman-Examiner (September 9, 1937): 1006.
Links
Online photo album and historical notes about “Baptist churches in pre-WWII imperial Japan”