Hi, The RIEHM genealogy gives an excellent biography of the Rev. John Waldschmidt: 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 1751-52, 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), Modecreed, and Zeltenreich. From a notice in the record-book of the Cocalico church, we learn that he was installed in this charge October 22nd, 1752. He administered the Holy Supper to 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 of Weiseichenland; and, January 28th, 1753, at Mode-creed. 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. Waldschmidt supplied that congregation two years, in connection with his charge, from 1756 to 1758. Some years later, he also preached, for a time, to 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 with 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 dissatisfaction expressed by some in his own charge. In the Cotal proceedings of the year 1760, it is said: "In regard to the Rev. Mr. Waldschmid, it appears that the congregations are satisfied with his preaching; only the desire that he might be more diligent in his 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. In the Record-Book of the Cocalico Church, 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 lxxiii, 23, 24. God grant that we may all come to where he is! Amen. The tombstone was erected October 6th, 1787; costs L7 and 2 shillings." CONTINUED IN NEXT E-MAIL