M HLENBERG, The Correspondence of Heinrich Melchior Vol. 1: 1740-1747
(400 pp. Index of Names and Places, Scriptural index. 1993...)
400 pp. Index of Names and Places, Scriptural index. 1993. #1340 $49.50 This extremely important work, never before translated from the original 18th century German, makes available to researchers, both genealogical and academic, the voluminous correspondence of this "Father of American Lutheranism."
Mühlenberg came to Pennsylvania as a young missionary in 1742, intending to spend three years establishing Lutheran churches for the many German immigrants. Instead he spent the rest of his life in Pennsylvania; preaching, teaching, baptizing, marrying, and burying. The many controversies and scandals in which he became enmeshed make for fascinating reading for everyone interested in the 18th century. A time of great religious turbulence, the churches' active struggle for members in a sparsely populated New World led to frequent transfers of church membership. Much more than just dry data, this book gives the serious genealogical researcher the historical background and ancillary information needed for churches whose members (and their movements) you are researching.
When combined with The Journals of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, listed below, you will be able to see both faces of this remarkable man: his public face here in his Correspondence, when he was writing both for an audience and for posterity, and the private man in his personal Journals, where he expressed his private thoughts and opinions. What a rich source these two titles make for the historian and genealogist!
This book is an important element in Picton Press' major effort to offer researchers a wide variety of the most valuable 18th century Germanic resource documents.
Henry Melchior Mühlenberg, a German immigrant pastor, established Lutheran congregations and schools indefatigably, especially in Pennsylvania.
Background
Henry M. Mühlenberg was born on September 6, 1711, at Einbeck, Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg in the Holy Roman Empire (now Lower Saxony, Germany), the seventh of the nine children of Nicolaus Melchior Mühlenberg and Anna Maria Kleinschmid. His father was an hereditary member of the Brewers' Company, a master-shoemaker by trade, and an officer of St. Mary's Church. His mother was the daughter of a retired army officer.
The father's death in 1723 left the family in narrow circumstances, so that for three years Mühlenberg had to forgo his studies and work for an elder brother.
Education
Mühlenberg learned meanwhile to play the organ and completed his preliminary education later in classical schools at Einbeck and Zellersfeld.
The close connection between the University of Göttingen and American cultural life begins with Mühlenberg, who was one of its first matriculants in March 1735.
While a student at the University he lived in the household of a Dr. Oporin, a member of the theological faculty, opened a school, which still exists, for the elementary instruction of poor children, and gained the friendship of several men of influence, among them Count Reuss of Koestritz and Count Henkel of Poeltzig.
In 1784 the University of Pennsylvania made him a doctor of divinity.
Career
Having completed the theological course in 1738, Mühlenberg made a short visit to the University of Jena and then was appointed teacher in the famous Waisenhaus at Halle.
The year under G. A. Francke at Halle was decisive. He thought of going to the East Indies as a missionary, but since no opening occurred, he became in 1739 co-pastor and inspector of an orphanage at Grosshennersdorf in Upper Lusatia, where the Baroness von Gersdorf, an aunt of Count von Zinzendorf, was his patroness. His ordination took place at Leipzig on August 24, 1739.
While Mühlenberg was visiting in Halle on his birthday, September 6, 1741, Francke, acting for himself and for F. M. Ziegenhagen, German court-preacher in London, laid before him a call to the United Congregations (Philadelphia, New Providence, New Hanover), in Pennsylvania. This call had been unfinished business with him and Ziegenhagen for eight years, but rumors of Zinzendorf's efforts at church union among the Germans of the colony had at last galvanized them into action. Mühlenberg took six weeks to consider the proposal and on October 18 accepted by letter.
After a pleasant farewell journey through Saxony and Hanover he reached London April 17, 1742, and spent nine weeks with Ziegenhagen, familiarizing himself with conditions in America and practising his English, the rudiments of which he had acquired in his student days at Göttingen. A harrowing voyage of twelve weeks brought him to Charleston, South Carolina, whence he proceeded to Ebenezer, Georgia, for a week's conference with Johann Martin Boltzius.
On November 25, 1742, after a two weeks' sail from Charleston, he landed at Philadelphia. Since no one expected him, no one welcomed him. The Philadelphia congregation was split between Zinzendorf and a clerical vagabond, Valentine Kraft. His rural congregations were known in the vernacular by the sinister names of "Die Trappe" and "Der Schwamm. " When he found out where they were and reached them, over miles of wretched road and through unbridged streams, he was received with skepticism. He soon made a friend, however, in the Swedish pastor, Peter Tranberg, the more intelligent members of the congregations came to his support, and he was duly installed. The conflict with Zinzendorf, deplorable but inevitable, was fortunately brief; a month later the Count abandoned his great dream and departed for Europe. Dismal as was Mühlenberg's reception in Pennsylvania, it began an epoch in the history of his denomination. He saw his task, almost from the beginning, not as the serving of three isolated congregations but as the planting of a Church, and to that great enterprise he brought talents of the highest order.
Nominally, he remained pastor of the United Congregations till almost the close of his life, but he soon made them the nucleus of an organization that spread rapidly wherever German Lutherans had settled in the middle colonies.
In January 1745 his first helpers - Peter Brunnholtz, John Nicolas Kurtz, John Helfrich Schaum - arrived from Halle.
As new congregations were formed or old ones allied themselves with Mühlenberg, the need of closer organization became apparent, and on August 26, 1748, the first convention of the Evangelical Lutheran Ministerium of Pennsylvania was held at Philadelphia. By that date he had already made trips to the Raritan Valley in New Jersey, to Frederick, Maryland, and to various points in eastern Pennsylvania. Until the outbreak of the Revolution he continued to visit Lutheran congregations scattered all the way from the Hudson River to the Potomac.
During parts of 1751 and 1752 he resided in New York, ministering temporarily to the churches there and at Hackensack; in 1758 and 1759 he made similar stays in the Raritan Valley.
In 1774 - 1775 Mühlenberg made a notable journey to the Salzburgers at Ebenezer, Georgia. Until 1761 his home was at New Providence; from 1761 to 1776 he lived in Philadelphia; but with the oncoming of the Revolution he found it safest to return to his rural retreat at New Providence. With the addition to his forces of such men as J. H. C. Helmuth, John Christopher Kunze, and Christian Emanuel Schulze - he was the leader of a highly intelligent, constantly expanding society. Mühlenberg remained its revered leader even after the infirmities of age compelled him to restrict his activities.
In 1779 he formally resigned as rector of St. Michael's and Zion's in Philadelphia; two years later he made his last appearance at a meeting of the Ministerium. Mühlenberg did most of the editorial work on the Gesangbuch published by the Ministerium in 1786. Though his mind was still clear and active, he was confined more and more to New Providence and finally to his own house, where Henry Muhlenberg died on October 7, 1787, of a complication of diseases. He was buried beside the Augustus Church at New Providence (Trappe).
Achievements
Henry Melchior Mühlenberg was a Lutheran pastor sent to North America as a missionary, requested by Pennsylvania colonists.
Though of but medium stature and hardly an athlete, Henry Mühlenberg grew strong and active of body, capable of enduring long days in the saddle, exposure to every inclemency, and an unending round of duties.
His intellect was clear, vigorous, alert, not original, but able to assimilate whatever nutriment it required.
In addition, Mühlenberg was dignified in manner, urbane and affable, and wholly devoid of any desire for self-aggrandizement.
Connections
On April 22, 1745, Henry Mühlenberg married Anna Maria, daughter of the younger John Conrad Weiser, who bore him six sons and five daughters.
Father:
Nicolaus Melchior Mühlenberg
Mother:
Anna Maria Mühlenberg (Kleinschmid)
Wife:
Anna Maria Mühlenberg (Weiser)
Daughter:
Maria Salome Richards (Mühlenberg)
Daughter:
Margaretta Henrietta Kunze (Mühlenberg)
Daughter:
Eva Elisabeth Schultz (Mühlenberg)
Daughter:
Catharine Salome Mühlenberg
Catharine Salome Mühlenberg died in infancy.
Daughter:
Mary Catherine Mühlenberg
Son:
John Enoch Samuel Mühlenberg
John Enoch Samuel Mühlenberg died in infancy.
Son:
Frederick Augustus Conrad Mühlenberg
Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg was an American minister and politician, who was the first Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
Son:
Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Mühlenberg
Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Mühlenberg was an American pastor, who became an expert in American botany after his retirement from the clergy, and published a number of seminal botanical works.
Son:
John Charles Mühlenberg
John Charles Mühlenberg died in infancy.
Son:
Frederick Augustus Hall Mühlenberg
Son:
Emanuel Samuel Mühlenberg
Emanuel Samuel Mühlenberg died in infancy.
Son:
John Peter Gabriel Mühlenberg
John Peter Gabriel Mühlenberg was an American Lutheran minister and a brigadier general in the Continental (American revolutionary) Army. He also commanded the infantry at the battle of Yorktown and was a congressman for several terms.
Friend:
Henry IX Reuss, Count of Köstritz
Henry IX Reuss, Count of Köstritz was the founder of the middle branch Köstritz Reuss.
