Background
John Taylor was born on July 16, 1802 at New Ipswich, New Hampshire, United States, the son of Elisha and Persia (Taylor) Jones.
John Taylor was born on July 16, 1802 at New Ipswich, New Hampshire, United States, the son of Elisha and Persia (Taylor) Jones.
At the academies of his native village and of Bradford he obtained his preparatory education. After a year at Brown University he transferred to Amherst College, where he graduated in 1825. He then spent three years in Andover Theological Seminary and one year at Newton Theological Institute.
Upon completion of his studies Jones accepted appointment to the mission in Burma, just then notable because of the work of Adoniram Judson.
On July 28, 1830, he was ordained to the Baptist ministry. With his wife he sailed from Boston, August 2, arriving at Moulmein, February 17, 1831.
After a year and a half it was decided by the Burma mission that the two should go to Siam and establish a new mission. They reached Bangkok, after a six months' journey, on March 25, 1833. Jones was well qualified to be a pioneer missionary both by native characteristics and academic attainments.
His first major task was the conquest of the language. By the aid of Chinese teachers who knew both Siamese and English he gained the fundamental principles. By diligence and persistence he not only acquired the structure of the language but, what is more difficult, the tonal pronunciation. For the benefit of English students he prepared an elementary grammar (Brief Grammatical Notices of the Siamese Language, 1842), and together with his wife constructed a vocabulary of several thousand words.
Besides numerous religious tracts he published in 1834 a Catechism on Geography and Astronomy. This catechism was the beginning of that mode of approach for Christianity which undertook to remove mental obstacles by disclosing facts concerning nature previously unknown to the Siamese.
He died at Bangkok.
John Taylor Jones was very influencial American missionary, who introduced to Siam the modern world map. His most notable literary work was The New Testament Translated from the Greek into Siamese. It was famous due to fact, that Jones combined his knowledge of the Greek with his familiarity with the colloquial Siamese and he could produce a translation, which for the most part faithfully reproduced the thought of the original.
John Taylor had the traits of self-reliance, patient endurance, clear-sightedness, capacity to labor in solitude, and an aptitude for languages.
Quotes from others about the person
According to Missionary Magazine, "He was first, of American missionaries, to obtain a radical knowledge of the Siamese tongue. It rested on him in great measure to fix the Siamese usage of theological terms. Portions of the Scriptures were also translated by Dr. Jones; and of some of them it may be stated, such is their accuracy and delicacy of finish, that not unfrequently they are recurred to by the most intelligent of nobles as among the choicest specimens of the Siamese literature".
Jones was married to Eliza Coltman Grew of Hartford, Connecticut, on July 14, 1830. His first wife died of cholera in 1838, and during a visit to America in 1840 he married Judith Leavitt of Meredith, New Hampshire, who died on a voyage homeward in 1846. He was married, a third time, to Sarah Sleeper of New Hampton, New Hampshire, in 1847.
