Charles Gotthold Reichel was born on July 14, 1751 at Hermsdorff, Silesia, the son of Carl Rudolph and Eleonore Sophia (Müller) Reichel. His father was a Lutheran clergyman and on both sides of his family he was descended from a line of Lutheran churchmen that went back to the Thirty Years' War.
He was educated in the Moravian schools at Gross-Hennersdorf and Niesky, because of his father's friendship for Zinzendorf and some of his co-workers. Later, with other members of the Reichel family, he joined the Moravian Church and received his theological degree at Barby, Saxony.
He was a teacher at Niesky in 1774 and from 1778 to 1780, the years 1775-77 being spent in educational work at Barby.
From 1780 to 1784 he was secretary to the governing board of the Church. In the latter year he was sent to America to be the first principal, or inspector, of the academy at Nazareth, Pennsylvania, and October 3, 1785, in cooperation with George Mueller and Louis Huebner, he became the teacher of eleven boys, who constituted the first class in that institution. The rather imposing building of the Silesian type in which this work started had been erected some years before as a manor house for Count Zinzendorf when he should visit the American world. Zinzendorf never returned to America after his first visit, and there had been sporadic attempts to start a school in the building ever since 1750, all of them failing by reason of lack of skilled leadership.
The school begun by Reichel in 1785 was looked upon as a final attempt, and his experience and talent enabled him to carry through the enterprise successfully. One of the early students was John Konkaput, a Housatonic Indian from Stockbridge, Massachussets, who was placed there by Congress. In a few years the institution became popular, not only with families in Pennsylvania and the neighboring states, but also with those of the West Indies and the Southern states.
In 1791 there were forty pupils, and by 1795 the number had in creased to 163. Special attention was paid to the acquisition of English, German, and French, and the pupils were required on certain days to use one of these languages exclusively. Reichel himself was the author of the geography textbook used in the institution, Geographie zum Gebrauch der Schulen in den evangelischen Brüdergemeinen, a book that was later adopted in schools throughout the country, and he edited for American use Lesebuch für Deutsche Schulkinder (1795), by G. G. Otterbein.
On December 6, 1801, he was consecrated bishop at Bethlehem and undertook, at Salem, North Carolina, supervision of the southern province, since this extension of Moravian work in America, begun in 1763, seemed in need of a far-seeing administrator.
In the nine years Reichel reorganized the activities of the province, opening new centers of effort in the state and creating a social mechanism that has operated to the present day (1934). In 1811 he removed to Bethlehem and became head of the northern province. He was sent to the General Synod at Herrnhut, Saxony, in 1818, and after the adjournment of the synod, his health being uncertain, he went to Niesky, where he died.
He was genial in habit, searching of mind, mild in speech, but apt to be tempestuous of disposition if aroused.
He was married at Gnadenfrei, October 2, 1780, to Anna Dorothea Maass, who died at Salem, North Carolina, on August 15, 1806. They had six sons and a daughter. On July 31, 1809, at Lititz, Pennsylvania, he married Catharina Fetter of Lancaster, who died in Silesia May 20, 1820. By her he had three sons.
