Name Amos Sutton | Died 1854 | |
Amos Sutton (1802 in Sevenoaks in Kent – 17 August 1854 in Cuttack, Odisha) was an English General Baptist missionary to Odisha, India, and hymn writer.
Contents
He published the first English grammar of the Odia language (1831), a History (1839), and Geography (1840), then the first dictionary of the Odia language (1841-3). and translated the Bible into the Odia language.
He also composed a hymn to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne": "Hail, sweetest, dearest tie." and wrote a History of the mission to Orissa: the site of the temple of Juggernaut 1835.
Biography
At the age of 21, he was recruited by General Baptist Foreign Missionary Society for missionary service. He is trained for the ministry under J.G. Pike, founder of the Connexion's Missionary Society in Derby. After a brief period in home ministry, he was sent as a missionary to India in 1824 by Baptist Missionary Society, two years after William Bampton and James Peggs, the first two Baptist missionaries, had entered Odisha. Sutton along with his wife Charlotte Sutton (née Charlotte Collins) sailed to Calcutta (present Kolkata) and joined the missionary work at station Cuttack on 11 March 1825. Soon after their arrival to his mission station, his first wife Charlotte died due to sickness at Puri, Odisha; later, he married James Coleman, second wife and an American Baptist missionary widow.
Missionary work
The missionary began the evangelism and recorded the first Odia conversion in 1828. By 1841, he trained three Odia evangelists at Cuttack. By 1846, when the students increased to eight, he formalised the class as the Cuttack Mission Academy. By 1805, Baptist missionary society and later Amos Sutton under the auspices of Serampore Trio -- William Carey, Joshua Marshman, and William Ward attempted to preach Telugu-speaking people in northernmost parts of present Andhra Pradesh—adjoining areas to Odisha like Chicacole (present Srikakulam) and Vizagapatnam (present Vizag or Visakhapatnam). Baptist missionary attempts and Amos Sutton objectives to evangelize Telugus failed and missionaries didn't venture the Telugu regions again, confining themselves to Odia speaking districts.
As Baptists Missionary Society was not able to support the Odisha missionary work, through his second wife he was able to get contact details of American Free Will Baptists. Sutton contacted Free Will Baptists Mission mentioning the great needs of Odisha and adjoining Telugu speaking areas; accordingly, he received an invitation from the convention to visit America.
Sutton and his wife visited England and America and spent two years between 1833 and 1835 sharing their mission fields. During their visit to United States, he spoke in the seventh General conference of the Free Will Baptists in October 1833 before an audience of 3,000 people inspiring them to devote their life to the missionary service. In this conference, Jeremiah Phillips and Eli Noyes came forward to offer their service to Odia speaking people.
While visiting his relatives in the United States in 1835, he urged the Baptist convention in Virginia to take over the abandoned work among the Telugus; accordingly, Samuel S. Day, a Canadian-born American Baptist missionary, and E.L. Abbot, including their wives were sent by American Baptist Foreign Mission Board to Telugu speaking provinces along with Sutton.
On 22 September 1835, Amos Sutton, Jeremiah Phillips, Eli Noyes, Samuel S. Day, including their wives and several other missionaries sailed to India. After 136 days of sailing, they arrived Calcutta. From Calcutta, they travelled by land and joined their respective mission stations—E.L. Abbot departed to Burma, while Samuel family proceeded to Telugu speaking provinces and arrived at Vizagapatnam - Amos Sutton, Eli Noyes, and Jeremiah Phillips proceeded to Odia-speaking provinces and arrived at Cuttack where the British Baptist Missionaries were already working - Jeremiah Phillips and Eli Noyes dedicated their missionary service to Santals. Amos Sutton soon became the corresponding secretary of the new society Free Will Baptist Missionary.