Woman of the Century/Harriet Atwood Newell

NEWELL, Mrs. Harriet Atwood, pioneer missionary worker, born in Haverhill, Mass., in 1792. Her maiden name was Harriet Atwood. She was educated in the academy in Bradford. While in school, she became deeply religious and decided to devote her life to the foreign missionary cause. At an early age she became the wife of Rev. Samuel J. Newell. She was the first woman sent out to India as a missionary, leaving her native country in her eighteenth year. They were ordered away from India by the government, and she and her husband decided to try to establish a mission on the Isle of France. Their long trip to India and then to the Isle of France kept them nearly a year on shipboard, and her health was failing when they lauded, in 181 1. Within a month she died. Her husband was one of the five men who, in 1811, were selected by the Board of Com- missioners for Foreign Missions to go to India. Her career was pathetic.