Eleanor Macomber

rdf:langString Eleanor Macomber

rdf:langString Eleanor Macomber (February 22, 1801 – April 16, 1840) was an American missionary and teacher who founded a Protestant school and church among the Karen. In 1830, she was sent by the American missionary board of the Baptist church as a teacher among the Ojibwe at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. After four years' service her health failed. After her health improved, she connected herself with the Karen mission in 1836, in Burma. She then settled at , an out-station located about 35 miles (56 km) from Mawlamyine. With the help of Karen evangelistic assistants, she labored among the adjoining Karen groups. With the aid of two or three native assistants, she maintained public worship on the Sabbath, and morning and evening prayers at her own dwelling; and also opened a school, which soon numbered ten or twelve pupils. Before the close of the first dry season, she had the happiness of seeing twelve Karens baptized and formed into a Christian church. She spent the period of the rains from May to September at Maulmain, and on her return to the jungle, found the church and the schools prospering under the charge of the native preachers. The little church was soon committed to the care of Rev. Mr. Edward A. Stevens, of the Theological School, and was occasionally visited by other missionaries from Maulmain. Amidst the prejudices and the occasional persecution of the priests and the votaries of Buddhism, the gospel continued to spread among the people; and Dong-yahn, by the instrumentality of Macomber, soon became the seat of a flourishing station, and the centre of religious knowledge to a wide region of Karens. Her influence upon other women was considered to be extraordinary, and its results were visible in numerous dwellings among the villages of the jungle. Her death was the result of a jungle fever that she contracted while she was on a mission to a distant tribe.