Ministers of the German Reformed congregations in Pennsylvania and other colonies in the eighteenth century
By: by William J. Hinke ; edited by George W. Richards
Publisher: Published by the Historical Commission of the Evangelical and Reformed church
Published: 1951
Place of publication: Lancaster, PA
Language: eng
Number of pages: 423
Subjects: Reformed Church in the United States; Clergy; History
Description: "...The pioneers of this Church came at a comparatively late period into Penn's Colony. The first three congregations were organized in the Perkiomen Valley, Montgomery County, by John Philip Boehm, in 1725. They were members of the Reformed Church in Europe, in distinction from the Lutheran Church and dissenting sects in Germany and Switzerland; a small but influential minority came from Holland"--Pref.

"The congregations increased with the constantly enlarging number of annual migrants of the same faith and order. They grew in number, not only in Pennsylvania, but in New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and Ohio. The ministers came from Germany Switzerland, most of them trained in universities, and were commissioned by the Synods of North and South Holland, which, from 1728 to 1792, had supervision of the affairs of the Pennsylvania Churches, granting them subsidies and sending them ministers and school-masters"--Pref.

"The lineal descendents of the colonial pioneers were members of the Reformed Church in the United States, which united with the Evangelical Synod of North America, whose founders also came from Germany in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. The two bodies formally united in a joint meeting of the supreme judicatories in Cleveland, June, 1934, under the name of 'The Evangelical and Reformed Church'"--Pref.

The volume contains the biographies of sixty-six ministers who were members of the Coetus (somewhat akin to a Synod); fifty ministers who served German Reformed congregations but were independent of the Coetus; fourteen brief Memorials, containing data relative to ministers, but not enough for a biography. The volume contains four hundred and thirty-two pages"--Pref.