A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Judson, Emily C.
JUDSON, EMILY C.,
First known to the American public by her nomme de plume of "Fanny Forester," was born in the interior of the State of New York; her birth-place she has made celebrated by the name of "Alderbrook." Her maiden-name was Chubbuck; her family axe of "the excellent," to whom belong the hopes of a better world, if not the wealth of this. After the usual school advantages enjoyed by young girls in the country, Miss Chubbuck had the good sense to seek the higher advantage of training others, in order to perfect her own education. She was for some years a teacher in the Female Seminary at Utica, New York. Here she commenced her literary life, by contributing several poems to the Knickerbocker Magazine; she also wrote for the American Baptist Publication Society, and her little works illustrative of practical religion were well approved. She then began to write for several periodicals, and, among others, for the New Mirror, published in New York city, and then edited by Morris and Willis. Miss Chubbock, in her first communication to the New Mirror, had assumed the name of "Fanny Forester;" the article pleased the editors; Mr. Willis was liberal in praises, and this encouragement decided the writer to devote herself to literary pursuits. But her constitution was delicate, and after two or three years of close and successful application to her pen, "Fanny Forester," as she was usually called, found her health failing, and went to Philadelphia to pass the winter of 1845-6, in the family of the Rev. A. D. Gillette, a Baptist clergyman of high standing in the city. Here she met the Rev. Dr. Judson, American Missionary to the heathen world of the East, who returned about this time, for a short visit to his native land. He was for a second time a widower, and much older than Miss Chubbuck: but his noble deeds, and the true glory of his character, rendered him attractive to one who sympathized with the warm Christian benevolence that had made him indeed a hero of the Cross.
Dr. Judson and Miss Chubbuck were married, July, 1846, and they immediately sailed for India. They safely reached their home at Maulmain, in the Burman empire, where they continued to reside, the reverend Missionary devoting himself to his studies, earnestly striving to complete his great work on the Burman language, while his wife was the guiding angel of his young children. Towards the close of the year 1847, Mrs. Judson gave birth to a daughter, but her domestic happiness was not to endure. Dr. Judson's health failed; he embarked on a voyage to Mauritius, hoping benefit from the change; but his hour of release had arrived. He died at sea, April 12th., 1850, when about nine days from Maulmain. His widow and children returned to the United States.
Mrs. Emily C. Judson's published works are-—"Alderbrook: a Collection of Fanny Forester's Village Sketches and Poems," in two volumes, issued in Boston, 1846. She has also made a rich contribution to the Missionary cause in her "Biographical Sketch of Mrs. Sarah B. Judson," second wife of the Rev. Dr. Judson. This work was sent from India, and published in New York in 1849. It is the tribute of love from the true heart of a Christian woman on earth to the true merits of a sister Christian who has passed to her reward in heaven.