Joachim Gottwalt Abel

Joachim Gottwalt Abel (born November 20, 1723 in Westdorf , † April 1, 1806 in Möckern ) was a German historian, preacher and inspector. He earned special merit through his description of Möckern near Magdeburg , researching the later destroyed megalithic graves near Vehlitz, and his vehement commitment to the social care of preacher widows and orphans.

Life

Abel was born as the youngest son of the important historian and Low German poet Caspar Abel in Westdorf near Aschersleben , where his father was a Protestant pastor. It is reported from his childhood that after having been taught for some time by a private teacher and at a school in Aschersleben, he had to spend many hours left to himself locked in his father's library, as he wrote a large part of his time and had little interest in following the individual lessons he had given his two older sons. However, the young Abel showed himself to be hardworking and independently achieved a good reading in his father's books and even tried, in the absence of biographies of older writers, to write down his own portrayals of life with the greatest accuracy.

From 1742 he studied theology and literature at the Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg , a. a. with Georg Friedrich Meier and Johann Ehrenfried Zschackwitz , but interrupted this after a two-year stay in favor of several months of self-study. In September 1744 he enrolled at the University of Helmstedt , which he left again in 1746 with excellent certificates. He spent the following time again in Westdorf doing self-studies, interrupted by extensive study trips to Wittenberg , Göttingen and Leipzig .

On recommendation, he took up his first pastor at Hedeper near Braunschweig in 1751 , but soon came into conflict with the local community, which was not prepared to provide for the livelihood of the younger two pastor widows who, according to the Braunschweig state laws, were without until the death of the older one Parish widowhood and thus destitute. Only the intervention of the chief magistrate was able to persuade the wealthy farmers to enable the younger widow to make a living. This event had a lasting impact on Abel and established his later commitment to parish widows and orphans. Although his cousin, the councilor and chancellery director Heinrich Andreas Koch, tried to persuade him to remain in Brunswick by appointing him as a universal heir, Abel endeavored to leave his unpopular pastoral position in Hedeper and turned down the offer. In 1755 he was appointed as a preacher in Möckern near Magdeburg, where, in addition to his church activities, he studied the history of the city and the area at great expense and wrote the three-volume manuscript History of the Möckern Rule . In 1778 he was promoted to inspector of two dioceses , and wherever possible he set up parish widowhoods in his districts. After fifty years of activity in Möckern, he was promoted to the Royal Spiritual Council on August 1, 1805 . He died on April 1, 1806 in Möckern after setting up a scholarship institution for orphaned preacher's sons who were studying.

Abel was married to Augusta Sophia Dingelstedt (1731-1814) since October 12, 1751, daughter of the War and Domain Council of Halberstadt and Canonic of Walbeck Carl Friedrich Dingelstedt and niece of the poet Drymantes . Six of his 12 children survived childhood. His daughter Christina Charlotte Abel was the wife of the writer and local researcher Stephan Kunze (1772-1851). His son August Theodor Abel was his assistant in the inspectorate from 1800 and later his successor in Möckern.

literature

• Nekrolog der Teutschen for the Nineteenth Century, Volume Five, pages 311–338, Gotha 1806

Web links

• University of Magdeburg: Knust, Walter
• Digital portrait index: Portrait of Joachim Gottw. Abel