Background
Peter Helbron was born in 1739, in Hilbringen, Germany. He was the son of Joannes Matthias and Maria Magdalene (Gottlieb) Helbron, and was baptized on July 9, 1739.
(Book by Helbron, Peter, Helbron, Father Peter)
Book by Helbron, Peter, Helbron, Father Peter
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Peter Helbron was born in 1739, in Hilbringen, Germany. He was the son of Joannes Matthias and Maria Magdalene (Gottlieb) Helbron, and was baptized on July 9, 1739.
Little is known of Peter Helbron's career in Germany save that he served in the Prussian cavalry and later was ordained a priest in the Capuchin order, which was conversant with American conditions since several of its members were chaplains in the French service during the American Revolution.
Influenced by the knowledge they had disseminated and by the letter of Revolutioner Janies Pettentz (one of the few German priests of America) in the Maimer Monatschrift Geistlichen Sachen (1785) urging German priests for their brethren in America, Helbron decided to enter the American mission field despite the lack of an official invitation. Sailing from Rotterdam with his brother, John Charles Baptist Helbron (1746 - 1793), he arrived at Philadelphia on October 14, 1787, and the following month was assigned to the important German center of Goshenhoppen, Pennsylvania, from which he attended distant missions. Hence he so won the favor of his people that the trustees of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Philadelphia, invited him to succeed his brother who went to Spain in 1791 on a collection tour for the new church, and later, although a constitutional priest, was guillotined at Bayonne, France, for his refusal to close his church. In Philadelphia Helbron, whose military training made him an invaluable nurse during the cholera epidemic of 1793, succeeded despite troublesome trustees and the fears of Bishop John Carroll, that the presence of a Capuchin in a German parish would tend to incite racial schism. At length, however, Father John Nepomucene Goetz intrigued with the trustees until they expelled Helbron and established himself as pastor.
Followed by the less contentious portion of the flock, Helbron went to St. Joseph's Church as a curate (November 16, 1796). Three years later, he was assigned to Sportsman’s Hall, where Revolutioner Theodore Brouwers, a Hollander, had organized a considerable German and Irish congregation. Here he built a chapel and log house, tilled his own farm for a lovehood, settled racial difficulties which confront his friend, Demetrius Gallitzin, made astonishing missionary excursions on horseback over all western Pennsylvania and as far as Buffalo, built a chapel at Greensburg.
His activities drew the attention of the reformed trustees of Holy Trinity and in 1804 they urged his return to their pulpit, but he had become too much attached to the Pennsylvania frontier. With advancing age, he was troubled with an incurable tumor. Returning from Philadelphia where he had consulted a specialist, he was forced to halt at Carlisle and there he died, leaving his pittance of an estate to the local church, in which his remains were buried.
(Book by Helbron, Peter, Helbron, Father Peter)
A man of refinement, Helbron was precise in his attire and in attention to duties and a good preacher in his native tongue.