Johann Christoph Hartwig

Background

Johann Christoph Hartwig was born on January 6, 1714, in Thüringen, Germany.

Education

Johann was educated for the ministry.

Career

Through Philip D. Kräuter, pastor of the German Trinity church in London, and Friedrich Wagner, pastor of St. Michael’s in Hamburg, Johann Hartwig was called to the congregations at Camp and Rhinebeck in the Hudson Valley. He was ordained in London, November 24, 1745, and reached his charges the next spring. His virtues, however, gained him the friendship of the Livingstons, the Van Rensselaers, and the Mohawk Indians, and he figures conspicuously in the annals of his denomination. Detesting Hartwig’s Pietism and bad manners, Wilhelm Christoph Berkenmeyer, then at Loonenburg, published four pamphlets attacking him as, among other things, a “crypto-Hermhuter, ” stirred up trouble among his parishioners, and drove him temporarily from the province.

Meanwhile, in Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, whom Hartwig first visited at New Providence, Pennsylvania, in July 1747, he found a friend and counselor who was patient and helpful even when Hartwig himself was obtuse and ungrateful. Servants in the Muhlenberg household dreaded Hartwig’s visits because of his inordinately long prayers at family worship. From 1748 until the end of the Revolution his life was congenially nomadic. Traces of him have been found in almost twenty congregations from Waldoboro, Maine, to Winchester, Virginia, including Goshenhoppen, Pennsylvania (1750 - 1751), Reading (1757 - 1758), New York (1761, 1782), Frederick, Maryland (1762, 1768 - 1769), Winchester, Virginia (1762, 1769, 1781), and Boston (1784); but his journeyings cannot be charted completely. He aided Muhlenberg at various times and returned occasionally to the Hudson Valley, where he spent his old age.

Out of his private means Hartwig bought from the Mohawks a tract of 21, 500 acres in Otsego County, but legal troubles and the prestidigitations of his agent, William Cooper, reduced his holdings to a third of their original extent. He died somewhat unexpectedly in the Livingston mansion at Clermont, while on his way to Albany from New York. He was buried ultimately in Ebenezer church in Albany.

Achievements

• Johann Hartwig is famous for his will, which provided for the establishment of an institution for Indians and theological students. The institution was established as Hartwick Seminary (later Hartwick College) on the estate in Otsego County and began operations on December 15, 1815 with Ernst Lewis Hazelius as its director and John Anthony Quitman as his assistant.

Personality

Though a good, conscientious man, Hartwig was restless, desultory, eccentric, and uncouth. He preached in his blanket coat, changed his linen infrequently, and was so fanatical a misogynist that he would cross the road or leap a fence to avoid meeting a woman. Among his English-speaking friends Hartwig was known as Hardwick or Hartwick.

Connections

Friend:

Henry Melchior Muhlenberg

References

• Memorial Volume To Commemorate The Semi-centennial Anniversary Of The Hartwick Lutheran Synod: Of The State Of New York. Containing The Historical ... Ministers Who Have Belonged To The Synod,...