Elijah Coleman Bridgman

Elijah Coleman Bridgman
Missionary to China
Born	(1801-04-22)April 22, 1801 Belchertown, Massachusetts
Died	November 2, 1861(1861-11-02) (aged 60) Shanghai, China
Nationality	American
Education	Amherst College Andover Theological School
Title	D.D.
Spouse(s)	Eliza Jane Bridgeman (née Gillett)
Parent(s)	Theodore Bridgman Lucretia Warner

Elijah Coleman Bridgman (April 22, 1801 – November 2, 1861) was the first American Protestant Christian missionary appointed to China. He served with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. One of the first few Protestant missionaries to arrive in China prior to the First Opium War, Bridgman was a pioneering scholar and cultural intermediary, and laid the foundations for American sinology. His work shaped the development of early Sino-American relations. He contributed immensely to America's knowledge and understanding of Chinese civilization through his extensive writings on the country's history and culture in publications such as The Chinese Repository — the world's first major journal of sinology, which he began and edited. Bridgman became America's first "China expert." Among his other works was the first Chinese language history of the United States: "Short Account of the United States of America" (or "Meilike Heshengguo Zhilüe") and "The East-West Monthly Examiner" (or "Dong Hsi Yang Kao Meiyue Tongji Zhuan"). As a translator he contributed greatly to the formulation of America’s first treaty with the Chinese government under the Qing Dynasty.

Bridgman was born in Belchertown, Massachusetts to a Lieutenant Theodore Bridgman and his wife Lucretia (Warner) who owned a farm at Pond hill which had belonged to his father, grandfather, and great grandfather, Ebenezer. Elijah was his second son, converted to Christianity when only eleven years old during a revival in Hampshire county. Elijah graduated from Amherst College (1826) and Andover Theological Seminary (1829).

In response to the urging of Robert Morrison of the London Missionary Society and the Christian American merchant David Olyphant, who offered free sailing passage, Bridgman was ordained and was appointed for service in China by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions on October 6, 1829 as their first appointee. In 1829 he sailed to China with David Abeel aboard the Olyphant & Co. owned ship Roman. They arrived in Canton on February 19, 1830, where they were welcomed by Morrison. Bridgman and Abeel studied Chinese and Elijah soon began the literary labors to which he devoted much of his life. In 1832 Bridgman started a mission press and began publication of "The Chinese Repository", which he edited until 1847.