Background
John Hendel was born on November 20, 1740, in Dürkheim, Palatinate, Germany. He was the eldest of the three sons of Johann Jacob Hendel, a master baker, by his wife, Anna Sybilla Otten.
John Hendel was born on November 20, 1740, in Dürkheim, Palatinate, Germany. He was the eldest of the three sons of Johann Jacob Hendel, a master baker, by his wife, Anna Sybilla Otten.
John matriculated, May 10, 1759, at the University of Heidelberg and was still there on February 10, 1762, when, for their part in some obscure disorder, he and ten other students were sentenced to three days in the Career on bread and water. He was examined at The Hague, June 27, 1764, by me deputies of the Synods of Holland and was sent to Pennsylvania with a warm letter of recommendation. John Daniel Gros accompanied him and, on Hendel’s testimony to his character and education, was ordained by the Coetus. This incident was of more than passing moment, since it forshadowed the complete separation of the Coetus of Pennsylvania from the Dutch synods.
John Hendel was pastor at Lancaster, 1765-1769, Tulpehocken, 1769-1782, Lancaster again, 1782-1794, and Philadelphia, 1794-1798. While at Lancaster, Hendel made several missionary journeys to isolated groups of German settlers in Maryland and Virginia, especially in the Shenandoah Valley. In 1773, when John Christian Stahlschmidt visited him at Tulpehocken, he was ministering to nine congregations. During the Revolution he frequently preached in Lykens Valley, a guard escorting him to the church and standing in the doorways during the service to forestall attacks by Indians.
Hendel trained a number of candidates for the ministry and was noted for the eloquence of his sermons and for his integrity of character. He died in Philadelphia of yellow fever, one of the last victims of the epidemic of 1798, and was buried in what is now Franklin Square.
In 1766 John Hendel married Elizabeth Le Roy, a sister-inlaw of Philip William Otterbein. His only son, William Hendel Junior, also became a prominent Reformed clergyman.