Johann Christoph Kunze

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Johann Christoph Kunze

Johann Christoph Kunze (born May 6, 1744 in Artern , † July 24, 1807 in New York City ; also Kuntze , English John Christopher Kunze ) was a German pietist and Protestant missionary .

Life

Kunze was born on August 5, 1744 as the son of an innkeeper in Artern and later moved to Roßleben , where he received his first lessons. After attending school in Halle, Merseburg Roßleben and he studied for three years theology in Leipzig and was for a further three years at the convent school of the monastery mountains appointed. He then worked as an orphanage inspector in Greiz .

On May 6, 1770 Kunze was ordained a missionary in the court chapel of Wernigerode Castle and sent to Pennsylvania , where he set off on July 29 of the same year with the brothers Heinrich Ernst and Frederick Muhlenberg . They reached New York City on September 23, 1770 and traveled on to Philadelphia , where Kunze says he was received as a biological son by the father of the two Mühlenbergs . On October 8th, he began his work as a pastor, before he married Mühlenberg's 19-year-old daughter, Margaretta Henrietta, the following summer, moved out of Mühlenberg's house and started his own household. He had to give up his "seminarium" established in 1773 during the British siege of Philadelphia in 1777, which was followed by a period of uncertainty and chaos. After the situation had stabilized Kunze, he was appointed professor of philology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1780 , where he received the honorary degree Magister Artium in the same year and was promoted to Divinitatis Doctor in 1783. In 1784 he was offered a call to New York, where he worked for the United Christ and Trinity Churches. The following year, Kunze was appointed Professor of Oriental Languages ​​and Literature at Columbia College . He kept the post up to the period from 1787–1792 to 1799. Together with Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben and other influential citizens of German descent, he founded the German Society of the City of New York in 1784 . In 1785 he worked as an official translator in Congress . Kunze died on July 24, 1807 at the age of 63, leaving behind his wife Margaretta Henrietta (1751-1831) and four daughters.

family

Johann Christoph Kunze married Margaretta Henrietta on July 23, 1771, the daughter of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg and his wife Anna Maria, born on September 17, 1751. Wise. The couple had nine children.

  • Maria, born August 17, 1773
  • Marie Catherine, born October 22, 1774
  • Catherine Eliza, born October 4, 1776, † January 29, 1863 ⚭ May 21, 1801 Casper Meier
  • Anna Maria, born August 20, 1778
  • Hannah Christina, born August 20, 1779
  • Charles Henry, born June 24, 1781, † 1808
  • Maria Magdalena, * October 8, 1785, † July 11, 1838
  • Catherina Frederica, born March 26, 1789, † March 22, 1809, ⚭ Daniel Oakley
  • Anna Margaretta, * August 14, 1791, † September 21, 1836, ⚭ Jacob Lorillard, son of the founder of today's Lorillard Tobacco Company

After her death on October 23, 1831, Margaretta Henrietta was buried in her husband's grave.

Works

  • Some Poems and Songs , Philadelphia, 1778.
  • A Hymn and Prayer Book: For the use of such Lutheran churches as use the English language , New York, 1795.
  • A Table of a new construction for calculating the great eclipse, expected to happen on the 16th of June , 1806, New York, 1806.

literature

  • Markus Berger: "To maintain the bond of unity". Johann Christoph Kunze and the second generation of pastors from Halle in North America, 1770–1807. Hall 2019.
  • Carl Frederick Haussmann: Kunze's Seminarium and the Society for the propagation of Christianity and useful knowledge among the Germans in America. Philadelphia 1917.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ abacci.com. In: abacci.com. Retrieved January 3, 2015 .
  2. ^ Henry Melchior Muhlenberg: The correspondence of Heinrich Melchior Mühlenberg: 1777-1787. Walter de Gruyter, 2002, ISBN 978-3-110-16073-4 , p. PR5. limited preview in Google Book search
  3. ↑ pgs.129-135; Southern New York, 1906 ( Memento of December 24, 2003 in the Internet Archive ) In: usgennet.org

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kunze, Johann Christoph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kunze, John Christopher; Kuntze, Johann Christoph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Pietist and Protestant missionary
DATE OF BIRTH May 6, 1744
PLACE OF BIRTH Artern near Mansfeld
DATE OF DEATH July 24, 1807
Place of death New York , NY , USA