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Archiver > Dutch-Colonies > 2004-12 > 1103255217


From: "Michael D. Bathrick" <>
Subject: RE: [D-Col] Questions about churches or meeting house
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 22:47:04 -0500


Not to mention Hans and Christian Herr, Mennonite bishops who held
meetings at their 1719 home which is still standing in Willow
Street. Recently restored, it is a great place to visit.
http://www.hansherr.org/

Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: [mailto:]
Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2004 9:02 AM
To:
Subject: Re: [D-Col] Questions about churches or meeting house

Good Morning!

The short answer is there were no Reformed churches in Lancaster or
Chester that early.

In 1710 a Swiss Reformed pastor named Samuel Guldin (1664-1745)
arrived in Pennsylvania in company with a number of Swiss
Mennonites. Although he spent the remaining 35 years of his life
here, Guldin preached only occasionally and never made any effort to
organize a congregation. The Swiss authorities had put him out of
the ministry as a pietist. His journal of his voyage to America has
been translated and published.

Also in 1710 a Dutch Reformed pastor named Paul or Paulus Van Vlecq
became pastor of two newly formed Dutch Reformed congregations north
of Philadelphia [in Montgomery and Bucks counties]. In the same
year he was admitted to the Presbytery of Philadelphia [Presbyterian
Church]. He married the daughter of one of his elders in 1711 and
left Pennsylvania two years later, after it was learned his first
wife was still alive in Holland. Several of his parishioners were
among the founding members of two of the first three German Reformed
congregations in 1725. Others became members of two Dutch Reformed
congregations which were affiliated with the German Reformed.

John Philip Boehm (1683-1749), a schoolmaster from the Palatinate in
Germany, who settled in Montgomery County, began the first
organization of Reformed people in his neighborhood about 1720.
They went to Philadelphia, to the Presbyterian Church, for baptisms,
marriages, and the Lord's Supper. Three groups of Reformed people
persuaded Boehm to act as their pastor, although he was not a
minister, and the three German Reformed congregations at Falkner
Swamp, Skippack, and Whitemarsh formally organized in 1725.

In October 1727 Boehm was invited to preach at Conestoga [Lancaster
County] where he organized the first congregation and administered
the Lord's Supper to
59 persons.

The above is summarized from Charles H. Glatfelter, Pastors and
People:
German Lutheran and Reformed Churches in the Pennsylvania Field
1717-1793 (Breinigsville PA: Pennsylvania German Society, 1981)

All the best,
Richard


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