A History of the Goshenhoppen Reformed Charge, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania (1727-1819)

581 Pages·1920·30.025 MB·English

by  William John Hinke

Pennsylvania:
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE
SETTLEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT
IN ITS
H
narrative ants Critical UMstorB
PREPARED BY AUTHORITY OF
THE PENNSYLVANIA-GERMAN SOCIETY
PART XXIX
A HISTORY OF THE
GOSHENHOPPEN REFORMED CHARGE
\
PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY
I

Publication Committee.
JULIUS F. SACHSE,Litt.D.
DANIEL W. NEAD, M.D.
J. E. B. BUCK.ENHAM, M.D,

H
Misters
oftbe
(Bosbenboppen IReformeb Charge
noontgomers Count?, Pennsylvania
(1727*1819)
Part XXIX of a Narrative and Critical History
PREPARED AT THE REQUEST OF
The Pennsylvania-German Society
By REV. WILLIAM JOHN HINKE, Ph.D., D.D.
Professor of Semitic Languages and Religions in Auburn Theological Seminary,
Auburn, New York
LANCASTER
1920

Copyrighted 1920
BY THE
pennsslvaniasOerman Society.
PRESSOF
THENEWERAPRINTINGCOMPANY
LANCASTER,PA.

PREFACE.
Reformed Church History in this country has long been
a subject of study. It is interesting to note that the first
printed history of the Reformed Church in the United
States was published not in America but in Germany. In
the year 1846, the Rev. Dr. J. G. Buettner, the first pro-
fessor of the first Theological Seminary in the State of
Ohio, published " Die Hochdeutsche Reformirte Kirche in
den Vereinigten Staaten von Nord-Amerika," in Schleiz,
Germany. But even before that time, the Rev. Dr. Lewis
Mayer, the first professor of the Reformed Theological
Seminary at York, Pa., had been busy gathering materials
for the history of the Reformed Church. Unfortunately
he died at York, in 1849, before he had fully utilized the
documents he had so carefully collected and copied. Only
a brief sketch from his pen appeared in I. Daniel Rupp's
" History of the Religious Denominations in the United
A
States," Philadelphia, 1844. few years afterwards the
Rev. Dr. John W. Nevin included a sketch of the German
Reformed Church in America in his " History and Genius
of the Heidelberg Catechism," Chambersburg, 1847. ^n
it he lamented that the Journal of Michael Schlatter was
" the only record we have on the general state of the
American German Reformed Church in the middle of the
last century."
In 1849, tne Rev Dr. Philip Schaff published in his
-
" Kirchenfreund," Vol. II, a series of three articles on the
" History of the German Church in x\merica," in which he
traced the origin and growth of the Reformed and Lu-
theran churches through three successive periods.