Rev. John Waldschmid
1724-1789
From fathers of the reformed church, Volume 11, pps. 88-92, Rev. Henry Harbaugh, D. D., Lancaster, 1857.
John Waldschmid was a native of the province of Nassau, in Western Germany. He was born August 6th, 1724, and educated for the ministry, in his native land. When, in 1751-2, Mr. Schlatter visited that country, with a view of securing ministers for the destitute American vineyard, he was one of the six young men who volunteered to accompany him to the New World. With the rest, he was examined and ordained, at the Hague; soon after which solemn occasion, they sailed for America, arriving at New York in the night preceding July 28th, 1752; and thence went to Pennsylvania.
Soon after their arrival in Pennsylvania, Mr. Schlatter accompanied him to Lancaster county, and installed him as pastor over the congregations of Cocalico (since called Swamp), Weiseichenland, (then called Sebastian Reicher’s church), Modecreek, and Zeltenreich. From a notice in the Record-Book of the Cocalico church, we learn that he was installed in his charge October 22d, 1752. He administered the Holy Supper in that congregation, for the first time, November 19th, 1752, to seventy-two communicants’ “after having on the previous day, preached a preparatory sermon, and inquired in regard to evidence of their fitness for the reception of that ordinance.” On the 26th of the same month, he administered the Holy Supper to sixty communicants in the congregation fo Weiseichenland; and, January 28th, 1753, at Mode-creek.
On the 14th of May, 1754, he was married by the Rev. William Otterbein, to Mary Elizabeth, daughter of Christian Grub.
After Dr. Stoy ceased preaching at Tulpehocken, Mr. Waldschmid supplied that congregation two years, in connection with his charge, from 1756 to 1758. Some years later, he also preached, for a time, in the congregation of Heidelberg. His ministry in that church ceased in 1770, when they complained to Cotus that he was “a little inactive, and neglectful of them;” after which, that congregation was joined with Reading. Whether there was just ground for this complaint, it is not easy to decide; we are inclined to think, that the distance he lived from the congregation, and their desire to be more conveniently connected to Reading, may explain it, at least in part. If this be so, it was neither the first nor the last time when persons saw faults in a minister, on which to build a justification of their own schemes. The long time during which this man of God labored successfully in the same charge, it seems to us, presents an argument, in favor of his efficiency, that far outweighs this incidental complaint.
Still, there was, at one time, also some dissatisfaction expressed by some of his own charge. In the Cotal proceedings of the year 1760, it is said: “In regard to the Rev. Mr. Waldschmid, it appears that his congregations are satisfied with his preaching; only they desire that he might be more diligent in family visitations, and more prudent in his general conduct.” Tradition remembers him as a remarkably good-natured, mild, and easy man. With all his goodness, and devotion to the Church-of which there is no doubt-he may have needed, at times, the impulse of a special stimulus, to keep him moving with freshness, ministerial dignity, and pastoral earnestness.
As already intimated, he continued in the same charge to the end of his life. In the Record-Book, already referred to, we find the following touching entry, made by the hand of filial affection, “God, the Almighty, took our dear father out of the world to Himself, into a blissful eternity, on the 14th of September,1786, between nine and ten o'clock in the forenoon. On the 15th, in the afternoon, at two o'clock, we committed his remains to the grave. The Rev. Mr. Boos preached his funeral sermon, from Psalm xxiii, 23, 24. God grant that we may all come to where he is! Amen. The tombstone was erected October 6th, 1787; costs £7 and 2 shillings.”
A circumstance, in connection with his tombstone, happened, about 6 years later, which was thought very singular; and which is not only traditionally remembered in the neighborhood, but we find a record of it in the Church-Book. On a Sunday, June 2d, 1793, while a large congregation was assembled in the church, listening to the Word of God, and when the winds were quiet, the tombstone of Rev. Mr. Waldschmid suddenly broke off at the top of the ground and fell flat upon the tomb. “Many saw it”, says the Record, “and all heard it fall.” The wonder, in connection with this event, was vastly increased, in the minds of the people, by the fact that Mrs. Waldschmid, who was demented, long before, and had not spoken a word for years, began to speak again with others, on the same day!
Mr. Waldschmid is buried in the graveyard connected with the church now called Swamp (in early times Cocalico), in Lancaster county, Pa. His widow survived him many years, and died July 12th, 1803. Besides daughters, he had two sons to perpetuate his name: one of them moved to the west; another, whose name was John, lived and died in the Swamp, on the farm where his father had resided, several miles north-east of the church. One of Mr. Waldschmid’s daughters was the mother of the two Revds. Gring, who are still laboring in the ministry, in the German Reformed Church. On his tombstone is written:
“Hier ruhet in Gott
der
ehrw. Johannes Waldschmidt,
Geb den 6 August, 1724
Ins Predigtamt verordnet 1752.
Starb den 14 September, 1786,
Alt 62 Jahre, 5 wochen, 4 Tage.”
~ Baptismal and Marriage Records of Rev. John Waldschmidt, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 1752-1786, Pages 5, 6 & 7
You can visit the memorial page for Rev. Johannes Jacobus Waldschmidt.
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