USA > Pennsylvania > Ancient and historic landmarks in the Lebanon Valley > Part 7
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The parsonage is a fine stone structure, commodious and kept in good repair. The wide hall-way and the cheerful rooms on either side bespeak welcome and confort. They have done so to many thousand visi- tors during the more than a century of the manse's ex- istence. Perhaps the most distinguished guest it ever
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THE TULPEHOCKEN REFORMED CHURCH.
sheltered was the late Dr. Philip Schaff, a native of Switzerland. His great learning early gave him a trans- continental reputation, and in 1844 he was called by the German Reformed church, of America, to fill a professor- ship in the institutions at Mercersburg, Pa. He landed in New York in July of that year, and taking up a leisurely journey towards the place of destination, he passed through Eastern Pennsylvania, stopping at Kutztown, Reading, and at Tulpehocken with Dr. Thomas H. Leinbach, the pastor. He probably spent a few days at this hospitable Reformed manse. He said of it a year before his death, at a meeting of the Reformed Synod in Reading, October, 1892, which he attended, that " the manners and customs of the people and the Penn- sylvania-German dialect were exceedingly interesting " to him. This visit occurred the first day of August, 1844, nearly fifty years ago, and he arrived at Mercers- burg August 12tl, after stopping with Judge Bucher at Harrisburg, where, at a convention of Dutch and German Reformed delegates, he first met Dr. J. W. Nevin, with whom he was thenceforward to be so inti- mately connected as a colleague. It must be a source of just pride to every member of this flock that loves and knows how to appreciate the intellectually great, and especially for the pastor, to remember that this their pastoral abode once sheltered suclı a prince of theologians and church historians.
In the parsonage are found minute and extensive records of the labors of its pastors and the transactions
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of this congregation. They cover three or four large volumes, but the oldest and most valuable of all has been lost. Still quite a full history of the church life here can be constructed from the records at hand.
There have been three churches since the beginning in 1744. The first one was a log building, and stood in the southeast corner of the old cemetery. The second church was built of stone, and stood opposite the road from the present site, at the northwest corner of the or-
chard, between the pike and the parsonage. The present edifice is a large two-story massive structure, built of nicely dressed limestone. It bears in its front elevation a marble slab containing the following en- graving :
REBUILT A. D. IS53.
". THIS IS NONE OTHER THAN THE HOUSE OF GOD." THOMAS H. LEINBACH, MINISTER. BOARD OF TRUSTEES : Thomas Bassler, President.
J. Steward, D. Mosser, Wm. Tice, J. Tice, H. Haack and M. Haack. BUILDING COMMITTEE : George Diehl, Jonathan Klopp and Eli Klopp. S. McAlister, Master Carpenter.
Although the building is not antiquated in its exterior or interior arrangements, yet the congregation has
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THE TULPEHOCKEN REFORMED CHURCH.
already decided to spend about $5,000 in its remodeling in the near future. (This was executed in 1894.)
The following pastors have served this church : Prior to 1747, it was served for some little time by certain itinerant or missionary pastors, with an occasional ser- mon by Revs. Rieger, Boehm and George Michael Weiss, at intervals of six and twelve weeks. After 1747, the church had settled pastors, as follows:
Rev. D. Bartholmaeus, 1747-1750 ; Rev. H. W. Stoy, 1752-1755; Rev. Waldschmidt, 1757-1758; Rev. Otter- bein, 1758-1764; Rev. John J. Zufall, 1765-1769; Rev. J. William Hendel, Sr., 1769-1782; Rev. Andrew Loretz, 1785-1786; Rev. D. Wagner, 1787-1793; Rev. William Hendel, D. D., 1793-1823; Rev. Thomas H. Leinbach, 1826-1864; Rev. Charles H. Leinbach, D. D., 1864-1883; Rev. Henry J. Welker, 1884 --.
Of these pastors, as far as we could learn, but two are buried here, viz., the Leinbach brothers, a visit to whose graves we will mention in the next chapter. There are a few graves among the many hundreds of our German folk, who sleep in the two large and well-kept graveyards here, that claim our attention to-day. In the old cemetery, south of the pike, close by where the first church stood, are buried the Spychers, who were histori- cal characters in the first half and middle of the last century. Benjamin, at whose house Col. Conrad Weiser gathered his regiment of 300 German farmers to repel the invading savages, already alluded to, was the illus- trious ancestor of the Decherts and Neads of this valley
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LANDMARKS OF THE LEBANON VALLEY.
and that of the Cumberland. He was the son of John Peter Spycher, and emigrated to America from the Palatinate in 1738, settling in this neighborhood. I11 1744 he was licensed as an Indian trader. He served as an officer in the Provincial army during the French and Indian war, and at the beginning of the Revolution assisted in organizing the Berks county militia. He was a member of the Provincial Conference of June 8, 1776, and of the Constitutional Convention of July 15, 1776. His grave is supposed to be among the Spycher tombs found here, but the epitaph time has obliterated.
The grave of Peter Spycher, doubtless a brother of Benjamin, is marked by a granite slab that is evidently more recent than his death and, therefore, still quite legible. He was among the men who figured promi- nently in arousing the Provincial Government to make efforts of defense against the depredations of the Indians in his day. A letter is still extant which he wrote November 16, 1755, to Col. Conrad Weiser, then in Philadelphia on public business, in which he describes the recent depredations and butcheries among their brethren by the Indians, including the slaughter of the watch and many others, at Diedrich Six's (back of Mil- lersburg). The letter closes as follows :
"I have this account from those above named, and from Peter An- spach, John Caderman, Christopher Noacre, Leonard Walborn, George Dollinger and Adam Dieffenbach.
" We are, at present, in imminent danger to lose our lives or estates. Pray, therefore, for help, or else whole Tulpehocken will be laid waste, by the Indians, in a very short time,-all the buildings will be
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THE TULPEHOCKEN REFORMED CHURCH.
burned, the people scalped. Do, therefore, lose no time to get us as- sistance. The Assembly may learn from this work, what kind and fine friends the Indians are ! We hope members of the Assembly will get their eyes opened and manifest tender hearts towards us; and the Governor the same. They are, it is hoped, true subjects to our King George II, of Great Britain, or are they willing to deliver us into the hands of these cruel and merciless creatures?
"I am your friend, PETER SPYCHER."
From a German paper, printed by C. Sauer, of Ger- mantown, July, 1757, this Peter Spycher is mentioned as one of the three persons to whom any free-will con- tributions might be sent to aid in the better defense of the Tulpehocken and Bethel inhabitants against the savages, for which this paper then sent out a strong ap- peal to the German brethren, scattered all over the older portion of the province.
This Peter Spycher lived near Stouchsburg, and is buried in this old Reformed burial ground. His tomb- stone has the following inscription :
Zum Gedachtnifs von PETER SPUCKER Esq! Gebohren Den 27 October 1711. Gestorben Den 13 Juli 1789 Ift alt worden 77 Jahr 8 Mo. v ein halben
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Among the oldest legible tombstone inscriptions we found the following, showing that the dead were buried here already in 1745 :
HIR BEGRABEN
IOHANNES KIDZ MILLER IST GE BOHREN 1692 DEN 2 FEBRV AR II GEST ORBEN 1745
Here are also buried the founders of Myerstown and other leaders of long ago, of whom we will speak later.
CHAPTER XV.
AN HOUR WITH REFORMED PASTORS.
HAVING taken a general survey of the grounds and buildings and the past history of the Tulpehocken Re- formed church, let us take our seat on the front portico of the historic parsonage, and in company with the hos- pitable dominie in charge, call up the long line of the sainted pastors who labored here in the past century and a half, and look them one by one into the face. The spring sun is genial, the zephyrs breathe gently through the boughs of the apple orchard, fast budding into leaf and blossom about us, and the crocuses and daffodils are near by to illustrate our faith in the first resurrection of the pious dead, while robins and song-sparrows help to lure us into an hour of memorial reverie and review. By the aid of some magic wand let us then call up the slumbering prophets, and while they may look in upon our latter life of modern improvements, we will catch, we trust, a sense of tlieir piety and self-denial, while we gaze for an hour into their once familiar countenances:
The first that must be called up are those earliest supply-pastors, or missionaries, who preached the Gos- pel here before the first synodical organization of this denomination was effected in this country. These were
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the Revs. Rieger, Boehm and Weiss, names that stand high in the earliest annals of the Reformed church in America. They were the very earliest pastors of this church, and did much pioneer work for this denomina- tion in Pennsylvania. Boehm began to preach in 1726, before he was formally licensed. He took up his home
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THE TUI,PEHOCKEN REFORMED PARSONAGE.
in Whitpain township, then Philadelphia county, about sixteen miles north of that city, from whence he sup- plied surrounding places, even Philadelphia. At this place (Whitpain) he built up a flourishing church that still bears his name. Weiss located at Skippach, Mont-
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AN HOUR WITH REFORMED PASTORS.
gomery county, after arriving in this country with fifty families of native Palatines, September 21, 1727, hav- ing been sent hither as the first ordained pastor of the Reformed church in Pennsylvania, by "the upper con- sistory, or classis, of the Palatinate." He served all the older congregations of the upper end of Montgomery county, such as Old and New Goschenhoppen, Gross- Schwam, etc. He also visited the Fatherland, with one Reif, in the interests of the struggling Reformed congre- gations of Pennsylvania, and for a brief period preached at Rhinebeck, N. Y. Reiger arrived in this country in September, 1731. He settled at Lancaster, and supplied the surrounding congregations with preaching, namely, Conestoga, Schaefferstown, etc. These three men have a number of things in common, viz., I, they united in September 29, 1747, with the Rev. Mr. Schlatter in the establishment, in Philadelphia, of the first ecclesiastical organization, known then by the name of Cœtus, now as Synod; 2, they founded the first churches in the localities where they settled; 3, they all accumulated considerable wealth; 4, they all lie buried in the churches which they respectively founded; and 5, they were all among the first supplies of the Tulpehocken congrega- tion. Would we visit their respective graves, we should find Weiss buried at the south-east corner of the New Goschenhoppen church, the grave marked by a wooden slab on which is painted the barest fact of his resting there. While he died childless, he owned about twenty slaves, all of whom and their offspring he baptized,
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somne of whose descendants still linger about Goschen- hoppen. The grave of Boehmn is likewise in the south- east corner of the church he built at Whitpain, having died suddenly, May 1, 1749, after a trip to Egypt, Lehigh county, where on the previous day he had ad- ministered the communion to that flock. He left a number of children, among whom was long preserved, as a relic, an iron chest filled with this pioneer's most important church papers and correspondence with the church judicatories of Holland and Germany, but which valuable historic treasures were, after oft handling, finally but most unfortunately given to the flames. Reiger lies buried in the First Reformed church of Lancaster, a horizontal stone, with an elaborate epitaph, marking the spot, and noting his death as occurring in 1769, March the IIth.
When the Rev. Michael Schlatter, the great leader and organizer of the German Reformed church of America (sent by the Reformed Classes of Holland, and commissioned to consolidate the scattered Reformed congregations upon the basis of their denominational order, doctrines and worship) arrived in this country, these three named pastors at one time accompanied him to this congregation at the Tulpehocken. The illustrious patriarch visited here on several other occasions, but perhaps the most memorable visit of all is that occasioned by the introduction and installation of the first regular pastor, in the person of the Rev. Dominicus Bartholomeus, whom, with Rev. Hoch-
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AN HOUR WITH REFORMED PASTORS.
reutner, he was instrumental in inducing to come to America from Switzerland for the important fields at Tulpehocken and Lancaster, respectively.
Rev. Bartholomaeus took charge at Tulpehocken, September, 1748, but was not permitted to labor for any length of time. Almost from the very beginning of his ministry his health was precarious, causing him to cease from its active labors here in 1752, and being relieved of his bodily infirmities by death in 1759. The writer does not know his place of burial. Rev. Dr. William Stoy, who succeeded this first pastor at Tul- pehocken, was born in Herborn, Germany, March 14, 1726, where he was educated for the ministry, and accompanied Rev. Mr. Schlatter to America, one of six pastors, whom this leader induced, in a visit to the Fatherland in 1752, to accompany him to America to serve the church here. He was appointed as successor to Mr. Bartholomaeus, when failing health debilitated the latter. He remained but three years, when the severity of the climate induced him to resign. After health improved he accepted a call to Lancaster, and from thence came back to the Lebanon Valley, settling in Lebanon and operating up and down this valley as a physician and minister. He preached here and at Host church in Berks county for some time longer, at which latter place he was buried, according to his own ante- mortem request. A memorial stone with suitable in- scription marks his resting place. He died in Lebanon, September 14, 1801. Whatever may have been the
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influence of his gospel teachings, his medical skill was admitted, and from his saddle-bags he oft took cures for the body. We know not the result of his offers of the water of eternal life. Among his remedies was a popu- lar preparation known as "Stoy's Drops" and an effect- ual cure for hydrophobia.
Rev. Jolın Waldschmidt, who served Tulpehocken from 1757 to 1758, was also a native of Germany, and one of the six pastors whom Mr. Schlatter induced to labor in the American field. He was first stationed in Lancaster county, and from thence supplied this church for nearly two years. He died in September, 1786, and lies buried in the Swamp (Lancaster county) church yard, a stone fittingly inscribed marking the spot.
Rev. Wm. Otterbein, another German, succeeded Mr. Waldschmidt in this charge in 1758. He likewise was one of Rev. Mr. Schlatter's six apostles, induced by lis appeal to leave home and native land in the interests of the Reformed Zion in America. He, with the other five, was ordained to the gospel ministry at the Hague and accompanied their earnest leader across the mighty deep in 1752. He was a youth of 26 when he arrived, and at once entered into an agreement with the Lan- caster congregation to serve them for five years. He established order and discipline in the church, intro- ducing the time-honored custom of each communicant's personal interview with the pastor (Anmeldung) a day or two prior to the communion. The original paper, drawn up by him and signed by 80 members of his
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flock, is preserved in the archives of the Lancaster church. He was successful in giving strength and sta- bility to this congregation-inducing thiem to erect during his ministry a massive stone church edifice, which stood almost a century before it was displaced by the present brick structure. He resigned in 1758 and assumed charge at Tulpeliocken, only as temporary supply at first, which continued, however, for several years. From Tulpehocken Mr. Otterbein went to Frederick, Md., and from thence to Baltimore. Here he labored for almost 40 years, until his death, being, however, meanwhile instrumental in giving form and shape to a new sect or denomination, the United Bretlı- ren in Christ. Later he seems to have come back to his first love, taking a deep interest in the Reformed church and dying within her fold, one of the inost highly gifted preachers and intensely ardent workers ot this denomination. He died October 17, 1813, in Bal- timore, where the venerable Dr. Kurtz, of the Lutheran church, ministered to him in his dying hours and preached his German funeral sermon. He lies buried near the then Reformed church, now United Breth- ren, in Conway street of that city. Bishop Asbury, first bishop of the M. E. church, whom the former assisted to consecrate to the bishopric, and whose inti- mate friendship he enjoyed, spoke a special eulogium to his memory in the Conway street church from Rev. iii. IO-II. Mr. Otterbein's tomb is well preserved and marked by a marble entablature, bearing the data of a brief memorial.
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LANDMARKS IN THE LEBANON VALLEY.
Rev. John J. Zufall succeeded Mr. Otterbein at Tulpehocken, and served this charge from 1765 to 1769. There is not much recorded concerning this pastor's work or carcer from which the writer could trace a life sketch.
Rev. William Hendel, Sr., served Tulpehocken from 1769 to 1782. He arrived in this country from his native Palatinate in 1764, and assumed charge at Lan- caster. From thence he came to Tulpehocken, labor- ing here during the Revolutionary war period. After an efficient ministry of thirteen years, he returned to Lancaster. In 1794, he accepted a call to Philadelphia, laboring there during that period of trial occasioned by the pestilence, which plague finally made him its victim, ending in death September 28, 1798. He is buried by the side of many of his ministerial brethren, in Franklin Square, Philadelphia. Dr. Helmuth, of the Lutheran church, his warm and faithful friend, preached at his obsequies, from the text 2 Samuel i. 26. Dr. Harbaugh called Hendel "the St. John of the Reformed Church." A friend composed a special hymn on his death, which, however, we have not space to quote.
Rev. Andrew Loretz, the next pastor, was a sort of unaccountable personage in the annals of the Reformed Church-a mysterious, Melchizedek kind of prophet, whose parentage and general history is hidden. A native of Switzerland, he came to America in 1784, and the next year settled at Tulpehocken, where he served
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AN HOUR WITH REFORMED PASTORS.
this church and those at Swatara, Heidelbergtown, Lebanon and Hill. His Swiss dialect is said to have interfered with his usefulness here, and he, therefore, soon returned to Europe, leaving this charge again vacant in 1786.
Rev. Daniel Wagner succeeded him in 1787. He was born in the duchy of Nassau, Germany, but came with his parents to this country when two years of age, settling temporarily in Chester county, but after a few years taking up their permanent abode in Bern town- ship, Berks county, Pa. He labored in the ministry in York county for fifteen years before assuming charge at Tulpehocken, where he remained four years, when he again returned to York, remaining nine years longer, when he settled at Frederick, Md. After a few more years' labor here he became disabled, removing back to York in 1810, only to die and be buried there, which occurred in December of the same year. There many of his descendants still reside.
Rev. Dr. Wmn. Hendel, Jr., eldest son of the senior Hendel, succeeded Rev. Wagner. In youth he was un- der the tutelage of the celebrated Lutheran divines, Drs. Kunze and Helmuth, graduating later from Columbia college, N. Y., and from the New Brunswick Theolog- ical Seminary. He was ordained in 1793, and at once assumed charge at Tulpehocken, remaining thirty years. He was a progressive man, much in advance of his brethren of that day in point of liberal thought. For his advocacy of missions and the establishment of a
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Theological Seminary of his church he was violently persecuted. It was by his casting vote, as President of Synod, that the first Theological Seminary of the Re- formed church was established. In 1823 he resigned several of his churches and removed to Womelsdorf, where he continued to preach six years longer, when he retired from the sacred office, only preaching occa- sionally after that date as supply for his brethren. He died at Womelsdorf on July 11, 1846, and there was buried. (See chapter on Womelsdorf.)
At his funeral the Rev. John C. Bucher, of Reading, who was one of the officiating clergymen, made the startling statement at the request of deceased, that he (the deceased) had lived and preached all his years with a mere theoretical knowledge of the religion and the grace of God, and that he had never enjoyed the favor and pardon of God in its fullest and experimental sense before impending death opened his eyes to his dreadful situation. He then called on God and found peace. By request, this statement was to be made at his funeral, to warn other pastors against a false trust or hope, and to urge his own members to seek the Lord's pardon and experimental grace while it was yet day. The "Evan- gelical Association," or some members of it, made stock of this confession, and gave it publicity by means of a printed tract which they circulated.
The Leinbach brethren, Thomas and Charles, in turn succeeded Dr. Hendel at Tulpehocken, and served the charge for more than fifty years. They were both well
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AN HOUR WITH REFORMED PASTORS.
adapted for this field, and under the ministry of the former somne of the greatest improvements of the church were made-such as the building of the present church edifice, and the celebration of the centennial of the church in 1847, all of which helped to strengthen the cause of the congregation. He also succeeded in divid- ing the large membership into two congregations, and thus establishing the Reformed congregation at Myers- town, and building that edifice. He died at Millers- burg, Berks county, on Thursday, March 31, 1864, having there been seized with violent sickness, while officiating on the preceding Sunday. His funeral was a solemn occasion, attended by a large concourse of people, when several sermons were preached, the prin- cipal one by Dr. J. S. Dubbs, of Allentown, who was a classmate of his, and a mutual friend throughout life -- each having officiated at the marriage of the other. Mr. Leinbach was the first person buried in the new cemetery at Tulpehocken, and a marble monument marks the site of his resting place, close to its entrance near the church. The following inscription is engraved thereon :
In Memory of REV. THOMAS H. LEINBACH, Pastor of this Con- gregation for 38 years. Commenced in March, 1826, Ended in March, 1864. "I am the Resurrection and the Life, &c."
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His brother Charles succeeded him, and served the church for 20 years. He lies buried near his brother, and a granite shaft tells this story:
REV. CHARLES H. LEINBACH, D. D., Born
Nov. 7, 1815, Died
July 15, 1883. "He Giveth His Beloved Sleep." Pastor Tulpehocken Charge, May 1, 1863, to July, 1883.
Since 1884 Pastor Welker has done good work here, and continues his successful labors. But we cannot tarry any longer. Therefore, dismissing this distin- guished array of divines, and breaking up our happy conference with the living and dead abruptly, let us be off after the many landmarks that still abide in this his- torically rich valley. To the departed, "Requiescant in pace!" To the only living pastoral toiler and his helpers, "Dominus Vobiscum !"
CHAPTER XVI.
A STROLL ALONG THE TULPEHOCKEN.
THE genial spring sun has made angling seasonable. The very allusion to this boyhood sport, combines with the climate to awaken fondest memories. A flood of delightful recollections, like unto the brooks at spring- time, all whose fountain-heads have been let loose and whose banks run full to overflowing, is started and flows through the channels of our soul at the very sight of a stream of water in spring time. Being on the banks of a gamey stream, how would it be if we'd spend a day in fishing up the historic Tulpehocken ? All my readers being agreed, this will we do to-day. Only we shall not angle for the finny tribe, but will endeavor to land a few big fish in the line of facts of antique inter- est, that sport unknown or almost forgotten in the stream of historic events that courses along the banks of this familiar creek.
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