Henry Melchoir Muhlenberg

Henry Melchoir Muhlenberg

Back in January at the beginning this series on 18th century German settlers in Pennsylvania, I covered Conrad Weiser, one of the most remarkable and influential figures in colonial history. Today we’re going to take a look at another remarkable man who had considerable impact on the history of both Pennsylvania and this country, his daughter Anna Maria’s husband, Heinrich Melchior Mühlenberg. Known today by his anglicized name, Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, he’s considered to be the patriarch of the Lutheran Church in the United States.

Muhlenberg was born on September 6, 1711, into the devout Lutheran family of shoemaker Nicolaus Melchior Mühlenberg and Anna Maria Kleinschmid. He grew up in the German Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg, also known as Hanover, and attended a classical school, at which he was taught Latin. After his father’s death, a local minister taught him to play the organ, developing in him a lasting love of music.

Church in Trappe, PA, where Muhlenberg served.
Founded after 1742, not in 1712 as labeled.

Family friends soon recognized Muhlenberg’s talents and abilities and used their connections to gain his entrance to the University of Göttingen. He studied theology and with two other men founded a charity school that eventually developed into an orphanage. From there he went to the Halle Institutions, the center of the pietistic movement in what is now Germany, to complete his studies in languages and music. After ordination in the Lutheran Church in 1739, Muhlenberg taught at an orphanage and also served as assistant minister at a church near the estate of Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf, a Lutheran minister and a leader in the pietistic movement who held certain Moravian beliefs.

At that time most of the Lutheran churches in Pennsylvania had been founded by lay ministers. Three congregations that had no church building or pastor appealed to officials at Halle to send them pastors who had a formal education. One of Muhlenberg’s former instructors, the son Halle’s founder, persuaded him to answer this call, and in 1742 he sailed for America.

The Muhlenberg's home in Trappe

His voyage was a stormy one, and when he arrived he was quickly drawn into upheavals of a different kind. He discovered that the Philadelphia congregation that he was to lead had split. Some members followed Zinzendorf, who had recently arrived in America and was winning many converts to the Moravian Church. Some members had joined Muhlenberg’s other congregation at Providence, now led by Valentine Kraft, a minister who had been relieved of his church offices in Germany. Meanwhile, Muhlenberg’s third congregation had fallen under the leadership of a man known simply as Schmed, who turned out to be an alcoholic and an imposter.

Muhlenberg held impeccable credentials, however. He had been licensed as the official Lutheran missionary to America not only by Halle, but also by the King of England, who ruled Hanover. After presenting his credentials to the two congregations under Kraft and Schmed, he ousted them and took over leadership. Zinzendorf, however, presented a greater obstacle since he was not only an ordained Lutheran minister, but also a highly respected man of standing in society and the church. Muhlenberg adamantly opposed Zinzendorf’s goal of uniting all Christian denominations under the Moravian standard. And ultimately Zinzendorf was also forced to defer to Muhlenberg’s authority.

Peter Muhlenberg

Muhlenberg was married in 1745 to Anna Maria Weiser, the daughter of colonial leader Conrad Weiser, the commissioner of Indians affairs for Pennsylvania. In 1748 he convened the Lutheran Ministerium of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, composed of six Swedish and German pastors and twenty-four lay delegates. Under his guidance they organized a synod and prepared a book of common prayer that was used into the nineteenth century. He also worked on a hymnal published in 1786.

Muhlenberg’s motto was Ecclesia Plantanda (let the church be planted). During his 45-year ministry he traveled from New York to Georgia, almost single-handedly establishing new churches and bringing together existing ones to build an American Lutheran church that served the German immigrants flooding into America in the second half of the eighteenth century. He brought in and trained new ministers from the colonies as well as recruiting ministers from Europe. He settled disputes with enormous tact, firmness, and spiritual power. He ministered not only to the German settlers he was assigned to, but also to colonists from the Netherlands and Britain, preaching in German, English, Dutch, and Latin as needed and adapting his preaching to appeal to his audiences.

Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Muhlenberg

Poor health eventually forced Muhlenberg to retire. He died at his home in Trappe, Pennsylvania on October 7, 1787. That same year the Lutheran and German Reformed Churches together founded Franklin College, with his son Henry Ernest as president. Muhlenberg was buried behind Augustus Lutheran Church in Trappe, Pennsylvania, where he served for many years, and where Anna Maria and their son Peter were later interred next to him.

Muhlenberg’s influence extended into the following generations. His and Anna Maria’s eleven children all lived to adulthood and many held important military, political, academic, and church positions. Their oldest son Peter, became a pastor, a major general in the Continental Army during the American Revolution, and a U.S. Congressman. His bio will be the subject of my November post. Another son, Frederick, was also elected to Congress and served as the first Speaker of the House. Henry, Jr. pastored the Zion Lutheran Church at Oldwick, New Jersey. Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst, a scientist, became the first president of Franklin College, now Franklin and Marshall. The Muhlenbergs’ daughter Elisabeth married a future general in the army, Francis Swaine. Maria Salome married Matthias Richards, who was later elected to Congress. Eve married Emmanuel Shulze, and their son John Andrew became the governor of Pennsylvania.

Although I greatly admire major historical figures like Muhlenberg, it occurs to me that these men were very often absent from the home while pursuing important responsibilities. Do you ever wonder about the influence their mothers and wives had on their children—and on them—influence that historians generally neglect to mention? I do, and I’m wondering what you think about this subject. John and Charles Wesley acknowledged the great influence their mother, Susannah, had on their lives and faith. Are there other mothers and wives of famous men or women, whether mentioned in the history books or not, that you think must have exercised great influence in the lives of their husbands and children? Please share your thoughts!

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J. M. Hochstetler is the daughter of Mennonite farmers and a lifelong student of history. She is also an author, editor, and publisher. Her American Patriot Series is the only comprehensive historical fiction series on the American Revolution. Northkill, Book 1 of the Northkill Amish Series coauthored with Bob Hostetler, won Foreword Magazine’s 2014 INDYFAB Book of the Year Bronze Award for historical fiction. Book 2, The Return, releases April 1, 2017. One Holy Night, a contemporary retelling of the Christmas story, was the Christian Small Publishers 2009 Book of the Year.

Conrad Weiser

Conrad Weiser Statue

Conrad Weiser is one of the most remarkable and influential figures in colonial Pennsylvania history. Beginning at the age of 17, he served variously as a diplomat and interpreter for his fellow Germans and the Indians, Pennsylvania’s Indian agent, and colonel of the militia. A close friend of powerful Indian and colonial leaders, he was also a faithful husband and father of 14 children, a farmer, a tanner, a founder of the town of Reading, a monk at the Ephrata Cloister, a leader in the Lutheran Church, a promoter of Moravian missions, a hymn-writer, and a woodsman. He appears several times in Northkill and the forthcoming The Return, Books 1 and 2 of the Northkill Amish Series, coauthored by me and Bob Hostetler. I’ve been fascinated by Weiser since I first discovered him while researching the series.

Conrad Weiser was born November 2, 1696, in the German principality of Wurttemberg. After his mother’s death, his father, Johann Conrad Weiser, migrated to America in 1710 with his children and settled on the New York frontier. At the age of 15, Conrad went to live with their Mohawk neighbors at the Indian Castle at the mouth of the Schoharie River in order to learn the language of the Iroquois so he could serve as a go-between for the German community. Under the guidance of the Mohawk chief, Quagnant, Weiser acquired a keen knowledge of the Iroquois language, religion, and social customs and was soon in almost constant demand as an interpreter and negotiator.

Weiser married Anna Eva Fegg on November 22, 1720 and in 1729 moved his family to the Tulpehocken Valley in present-day Berks and Lebanon counties in Pennsylvania, where many Germans from New York were migrating. After they settled on 200 acres near Womelsdorf, Weiser soon became a close friend of Shikellamy, a powerful chief of the Oneidas who had been sent to the area by the Iroquois to rule over the Delaware and Shawnee nations. Shikellamy became a frequent guest at the Weiser home and insisted he serve as interpreter for all negotiations with the provincial officials.

Weiser's signature

Recognizing Weiser’s value, in 1731 the governor placed him in charge of all Indian affairs for the colony. Weiser worked closely with Shikellamy to keep the frontier peaceful and was deeply involved in the implementation of Pennsylvania’s Indian policy, which recognized the dominance of the Iroquois over all other Indian nations in the colony. Weiser was predominantly responsible for negotiating every major treaty between the colonial settlers in Pennsylvania and the Iroquois Nations from 1731 until 1758. He convinced the Six Nations to take no part in the quarrels between the French and the English. This long-standing friendship eventually resulted in the other Indian nations withdrawing their allegiance from the French as well, which contributed greatly to France’s eventual defeat. Weiser’s courage and good will impressed the Iroquois so much that they named him Tarachiawagon, Holder of the Heavens.

When war first broke out along the frontier, Weiser was chosen to be the commander of the local militia. Pennsylvania soon formed a provincial militia and built a line of outposts, and in 1756 Weiser was commissioned as lieutenant colonel in command of the 1st Battalion, Pennsylvania Regiment, which was responsible for manning the line between the Delaware and Susquehanna Rivers. He held this post until he retired 1758. That same year General John Forbes’s expedition to Fort Du Quesne forced the French to abandon and burn this great stronghold. Weiser was instrumental in negotiating the 1758 Treaty of Easton, which ended the great majority of Indian raids in eastern Pennsylvania.

Ephrata Cloister

Anna Eva bore Weiser 14 children, seven of whom lived to adulthood. Although a Lutheran, Weiser joined the monastic community of Ephrata Cloister between 1735 and 1741, intermittently withdrawing from family and political life to live there. He eventually became disillusioned with the Cloister’s leader, however, and returned to the Lutheran Church. He helped found Trinity Church in Reading, and his daughter Maria married Henry Melchoir Muhlenberg, a leading minister of the Lutheran Church in Pennsylvania. Weiser also actively promoted the missions the Moravian Church established to the Indians in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Conrad Weiser Homestead

A major landholder, farmer, tanner, and businessman, Weiser remained active in local affairs until the end of his life. He served as a magistrate for Lancaster County and helped to found the town of Reading in 1748 and Berks County in 1752, which he served as its first justice of the peace. He established a general mercantile in Reading, the first in the community, and built a home there in 1758 after turning the management of his farm over to 2 of his sons. He died at his farm on July 13, 1760, at the age of 63.

Weiser’s influence was so great that after his death relations between the colonists and the Indians rapidly began to decline. The most fitting tribute to this remarkable man was given by an Iroquois leader speaking to a group of colonists: “We are at a great loss and sit in darkness … as since his death we cannot so well understand one another.” How different might the relations between the new United States and the Native Americans have been if he had lived long enough to serve through the Revolution!

Unfortunately, no known portaits of Weiser survive. However, you can visit the Conrad Weiser Homestead at Womelsdorf, managed by the Pennsylvania Historical Museum Commission, which interprets his life and preserves the restored structures and graveyard. The park contains statues of Weiser and Shikellamy as a memorial to Weiser’s great friendship with the Indians.

What is your favorite era in history to read about, and who is your favorite real-life hero of that era?

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J. M. Hochstetler is the daughter of Mennonite farmers and a lifelong student of history. She is also an author, editor, and publisher. Northkill, Book 1 of the Northkill Amish Series coauthored with Bob Hostetler, won Foreword Magazine’s 2014 INDYFAB Book of the Year Bronze Award for historical fiction. Book 2, The Return, releases in Spring 2017. Her American Patriot Series is the only comprehensive historical fiction series on the American Revolution. One Holy Night, a contemporary retelling of the Christmas story, was the Christian Small Publishers 2009 Book of the Year.