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Archiver > PANORTHA > 2003-04 > 1050240903


From: (geri brennan)
Subject: Re: [PANORTHA-L] RE: Custard
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2003 09:35:06 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: "Wendy Hiefield" <highfiel1@cox.net>'s message of Sat, 12 Apr 2003 09:57:51 -0700


Wissahickon Hermits
One day, June 1694, there arrived in Germantown a group of men who
constituted an interesting and picturesque accession. They were the band
of Pietists best know as "the hermits of Wissahickon". On their arrival
they spent 2 months in Germantown and then located on the heights
bording Wissahickon Creek, on the upper side of the stream, northeast of
Ridege road. Though the site was beyond the line of Germantown
Township, in the adjoining township of Roxborough, these German mystics
maintained close relationship with the settlers of Germantown.


Immediatley after their arrival one of the leaders of the mystics,
Henrich Bernhard Koster, began holding services in Germantown, in the
home of Jacob Issac van Bebber, on the west side of the main street, at
Market Square. Though akin to the Quakers and the Mennonites in some of
their beliefs and enthusiansm, the Pietists nominally adhered to the
Lutheran faith, it being their desire to infuse new vitality into a
religion which they believed to fundamentally correct but in danger of
becoming atrophied through stress upon intellectual beief and dogmatic
formula. It has been related how Pastorius fell under the influnce of
Pietists in Frankfort-on-the- Main, from which circle came most of those
who formed the Frankfort Company.

For a time Koster had service in Germantown three times a week, besides
weekly service in Phila. As Koster never renounced his Lutheran Faith,
it is assumed that these services were those of the Lutheran church, and
as Koster preached both in German and English, the inference is
justified that they were the first Lutheran services held in America in
the English language.

The house of Jacob Isaac van Bebber, where Koster held his service, was
the place where the first Mennonite worship had also been held some
years earlier. There is a suggestion that van Bebber, though originally
a Mennotie, did not maintain strict allegiance to that faith and hence
welcomed Koster to his home.

Koster's meeting in Germantown attracted English speaking residents of
Phila. to whom the Friends' meetings in that city did not appeal and who
did not understand the language used in the Swedish Lutheran Church,
below the city.
So large was the proportion of attendants from the city that finally
Koster was led to hold all his service from Phila. Following the Keithan
schism among the Quakers numberous adherents of Keith attached
themselves to Koster's congregation. Out of this movement finally grew a
congregation of the Church of England-Christ Church, on 2nd Street,
Phila.

Koster did not follow his brethren of the mystical community in their
extremes of faith and practice. Finally there was a disagreement which
culminated in Koster;s leaving the community, whereupon Johannes Kelpius
a native of Transylvania and a youthful extremist in Pietistic ideas,,
became the leader of the group. Koster sought to found another community
in Plymouth township, now Montgomery County, a dozen miles northwest of
the 1st colony on the Wissahickon. He adopted the name of True Love
Church of Phila
or Brotherly Love, and built a house which he named Irenia. But not more
than 4 or 5 followers joined him, and the venture was soon abandoned,
Koster going to VA in 1699, and to London the following year. He later
life was spent in Germany, where he lived to be 98.


Settlememt of Germantown-Mennonites
These were the people who, some as Mennonites, and others, p;erhaps as
recently converted Quakers, after being unresistingly driven up and down
the Rhine for a century and a haf, were ready to come to the wilds of
America. Of the six original purchasers Jacob Telner and Jacob Isaacs
van Bebber are known to have been members of the Mennonite Church;
Govert Remke, Jan 14, 1686, sold his land to Dirck Sipman, and had
little to do with the emigration; Sipman selected as his attorney here
at various times Herman Op den Graeff, Henrick Sellen, and Van Bebber,
all of whom where Mennonites; and Jan Streypers was represented also by
Sellen, was a cousin to the Op den Graeff, and was the uncle of
Hermannaus and Arnold Kuster, two of the most active of the early PA.,
members of the sect.

Best Wishes, Geri

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