John Henry Goetschius was a Reformed Dutch clergyman. His truculent personality left its mark on the Church of his generation.
Background
John Henry Goetschius was born on March 8, 1718, in Switzerland at Berneck (Bernegg) in the Canton of St. Gall, the third of the eight children of Maurice and Esther (Werndli) Goetschy.
Members of his family had been citizens of Zurich for several centuries. His father, an able but eccentric Reformed clergyman, was deposed at Saletz in 1733 because of some immorality but continued to wield considerable influence. On October 4, 1734, he left Zurich as the leader of several hundred emigrants, whose vague intention was to find a new home in the Carolinas.
After suffering many privations and vicissitudes the company reached Rotterdam, where Goetschy managed to secure a commission as a missionary in Pennsylvania. On May 29, 1735, with his family and followers, he arrived, ill and weary, at Philadelphia, and the next day he died.
Education
After elementary schooling and tutoring in arts and ancient languages by his father (an excellent scholar), Goetschius entered the Latin school in Zürich at the age of sixteen, completing one-half year. His parents removed him from the school to emigrate to the New World.
Career
John Henry, thrown on his own resources, took to preaching to the German Reformed settlers in Philadelphia and the backcountry, and for the next five years, he was a thorn in the side of John Philip Boehm, whose congregations he invaded with scant regard for church order or even for common decency.
The Presbytery of Philadelphia refused his application for ordination, but Goetschy continued not only to preach and catechize but to perform ministerial acts. By ignorantly taking sides with Boehm’s antagonists he succeeded in doing a great deal of unintentional mischief.
His activities embraced Skippack, Old and New Goshenhoppen, Great Swamp, Egypt, Saucon, Maxa- tawny, Moselem, Oley, Berne, and Tulpehocken congregations.
In 1739, the Synods of Holland forbade the Pennsylvania churches to countenance unordained ministers on pain of losing the support of the Synods. Goetschy then resorted to the Rev. John Philip Dorsius of Neshaminy, under whom he read theology for one year.
On April 7, 1741, Dorsius, Theodoras Jacobus Frelinghuysen, and Gilbert Tennent, acting on their own initiative, ordained him; and Bernardus Freeman installed him as pastor of the Dutch churches at Jamaica, Newtown, Success, and Oyster Bay on Long Island.
As the names of his supporters indicate, Goetschius had joined the Coetus party, who, combining personal ambition with real insight into the needs of the Church, were struggling to wrest the control of the Dutch churches in America from the Classis of Amsterdam.
Their opponents, who were strong on Long Island, were known as the Conferentie party, and the controversy between them was long and bitter. The opposition frequently locked Goetschius out of his churches, compelling him to hold his services in barns or under large trees.
At one time, to prevent his preaching, the chorister gave out the 119th Psalm to be chanted by the congregation - a proceeding that would have lasted nearly a whole day, but Goetschius mounted the pulpit and, with his stentorian voice, preached the singers down.
The Conferentie party disputed the validity of his ordination and finally made him submit in 1748 to reexamination and reordination. In that year he moved to New Jersey as colleague pastor at Hackensack and Schraalenburgh, where, with a diminishing need for belligerence, he lived till the end of his life.
From time to time, he preached at New Paltz, New York.
Achievements
Goetschius was one of the first trustees of Queen’s College. His influence on the Reformed Dutch Church was strong and generally beneficial.
Personality
Goetschius was a stocky little man, ready of wit and not averse to a good fight.
Goetschius had the reputation of a man of learning; he trained several candidates for the ministry.
Connections
On August 26, 1750, Goetschius married Rachel Zabrowisky of Bergen County; their descendants are still numerous in that vicinity.
