Our History

In 1870, Miss Hannah Maria Norris of Canso, Nova Scotia, applied to the Maritime Baptist Foreign Mission Board as a candidate for appointment to Burma. This board did not have the funds available for her passage and support. She purchased a ticket to sail to Boston, intending to apply to the American Baptist Foreign Mission Board. Before she sailed, Maria was advised to appeal to the women of the Baptist churches. On June 18, 1870, Maria began to engage the women by asking for their support. “Will you row with me?” was her request. 

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During the summer of 1870, she organized a Woman’s Missionary Society in her home church, and soon had organized twenty-two societies in Nova Scotia and eleven in New Brunswick—the first of their kind in the world. The women rallied behind the cause!  Maria’s mission became their mission.  Many supported her with the financial resources they received from selling the eggs and butter from their farms. Maria sailed for Burma on September 21, 1870, with enough money to pay for her travel and one year’s living expenses! This was the beginning of the United Baptist Woman’s Missionary Union (incorporated 1907) and continues today as Atlantic Baptist Women (registered 2017).