On location in Whitewater, Wisconsin, we found the tomb of James Delaney, the Irishman saved in Burma who became a missionary to Wisconsin WATCH THE FULL VIDEO HERE
Transcript: We’re here in Whitewater, Wisconsin, exploring America’s Christian heritage. Today, we’re focusing on the remarkable story of James Delaney, a pioneering Baptist missionary and church planter whose life was transformed through a chain of divine encounters involving some of the 19th century’s most famous missionaries.
A former skeptic from Plymouth, Massachusetts—Eugenio Kincaid—went as a missionary to Burma (now Myanmar). There, in the British East India Company’s territory, he met and mentored an Irish soldier named James Delaney. Kincaid sent him to Bible college, and Delaney went on to become a key figure in planting churches across what was then the Wisconsin Territory.
Over a century ago, the Wisconsin Historical Society recorded Delaney’s passing with a brief biography, but it omitted his profound connection to one of the era’s most renowned missionaries: Adoniram Judson.
James Delaney was born in Ireland on February 1, 1804. Newspapers of the time noted that his parents had designated him to become a Catholic priest. But the early death of his parents left him in poverty, ignorance, and superstition. At age 22, following a financial panic in London that cost him his job, he enlisted in the British East India Company. In 1826, he sailed from Ireland with 224 other raw recruits bound for Madras, India, enduring a six-month voyage.
Upon arrival, his natural leadership and superior intelligence quickly made him a standout among his comrades. He was promoted from private to artilleryman. After four years in India, he was transferred to Moulmein, the capital of British Burma (captured by the British in the First Anglo-Burmese War). The soldiers were needed to maintain order in the newly occupied provinces.
Around this time, Delaney’s life began to change dramatically. He had a wild and reckless disposition; once, for resenting a petty insult from a superior officer, he was court-martialed, demoted, and sentenced to 200 lashes—though the flogging was later remitted. It was a rough season.
Meanwhile, Eugenio Kincaid—a doctor’s son from Connecticut—had arrived in Burma. While in college, Kincaid heard a sermon by Luther Rice that burdened him for missions. Initially rejected by the mission board, he preached in the States for eight years before being appointed to Burma. Kincaid settled in Moulmein, while Adoniram Judson (one of America’s first Protestant missionaries overseas) was across the gulf in Rangoon, translating the Old Testament into Burmese.
Kincaid, still learning the difficult Burmese language, preached in English to British soldiers in Moulmein. Not all his ministry happened in churches. In one dramatic instance, a soldier insulted an officer and shot him, wounding the man. The soldier was sentenced to hang. Before the execution, Kincaid preached, prayed, and led the singing of Isaac Watts’s hymn “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” The message of the cross touched the hardened 27-year-old soldier James Delaney.
Delaney had been avoiding the American missionary but began attending Kincaid’s services. He read the Bible and Pilgrim’s Progress, and prayed at night in the jungle. That year, about 100 soldiers were converted, and on March 23, 1831, Delaney was baptized in the Sittang River of Burma. His comrades initially thought his conversion was a joke, but when they saw it was genuine, they attacked and threatened him. Yet, as Proverbs 16:7 says, “When a man’s ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.”
Kincaid later moved to Rangoon to oversee mission schools, while Judson relocated to Moulmein. Judson spent time mentoring Delaney, encouraging his studies and helping build his theological library. In 1834, the Judsons raised $350 to purchase Delaney’s discharge from the East India Company. That November, they sent him to the London Missionary Society and then to America, to Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution (where Kincaid had studied).
Delaney arrived in New York in 1835 and trained for the ministry. To help with tuition, Sarah Judson (Adoniram’s wife) sent $25 from her own purse. He preached revival meetings across New York, including one on Lake Champlain with Baptist minister William Arthur (father of future U.S. President Chester A. Arthur). In 1838, Delaney held his first baptism service in New York—immersing 14 converts, even though the temperature was 15 degrees below zero!
Before leaving New York, he married Tirzah O. Platt in 1839. Soon after, he arrived in Wisconsin Territory—when there were only a handful of Baptist churches in the entire region. He immediately began organizing new ones in places like Madison and Janesville. He earned the title “exploring agent” and “general missionary” for the territory.
Looking back, contemporaries described him as filled with earnest piety and missionary zeal, a robust constitution, untiring energy, and unfailing moral heroism. His journeys along the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers were full of wild adventure, thrilling incidents, and heroic endurance—comparable to those of his mentor Kincaid along Burma’s Irrawaddy and Salween rivers.
In 1840, Wisconsin Territory had only about 30,945 people—smaller than modern Menomonee Falls or West Bend. Delaney’s family settled in the western part (Iowa and Lafayette Counties) at the time of the census. His son Arthur (born 1841, likely named after William Arthur) grew up to serve as a Wisconsin assemblyman, senator, and U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. He later joined the Klondike Gold Rush and became the first mayor of Juneau, Alaska.
In 1845—the year Sarah Judson died—Delaney wrote a missionary report on Wisconsin for the American Baptist Convention from East Troy, noting that while Easterners viewed Westerners as ignorant, Wisconsinites were discerning judges of preaching and demanded well-qualified ministers. Error and opposition were bold, so capable gospel preachers were needed more than ever.
In 1846, he helped form the Wisconsin Baptist State Convention on a purely evangelical basis, dedicated to evangelizing the territory through preaching and church planting.
By 1849, he was pastoring in Grafton. In 1850, his mentor Adoniram Judson died and was buried at sea. Delaney pastored for a time in Waukesha, with stints in New York and Vermont. Later, he served in Port Washington (Ozaukee County). By then, Kincaid had become a special envoy from the King of Burma to President James Buchanan, delivering a royal letter in an ivory box and returning with American gifts.
In 1860, Delaney lived in Hubbard (Dodge County) with wife Tirzah and children Arthur, Mary, and Frederick. The Civil War soon began, and he served as chaplain in the 18th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment.
In 1868, he moved to Whitewater, where he spent his remaining years. Census records show him here with Tirzah and daughter Mary. By 1872, his church had 72 members; he labored patiently and piously, enduring all for the elect’s sake. In 1875, he took over the church in East Troy (22 members, but 53 in Sunday school). By 1880, widowed, he lived in Whitewater with daughter Mary and son Alfred. He retired but preached occasionally.
In 1886, with Whitewater’s population just over 3,000, a new church building was constructed a few blocks from downtown (later sold to the Norwegian Lutheran Church).
Delaney died in Whitewater on December 18, 1896, at age 92 (some records say 93). At his funeral, Dr. Hage (then pastor of the Janesville church Delaney had started) closed his eulogy with these words: “Servant of God, well done. Rest from thy loved employ. The battle fought, the victory won. Enter thy Master’s joy.”