Josua Harrsch
Josua Harrsch, also known as Joshua Kocherthal, (1669[1] – December 27, 1719[2]) was a German Lutheran minister who led German emigrants to New York.
Biography
The Electorate of the Palatinate in Germany was ravaged by the Thirty Years' War. Refugees from the war, the French occupation of the Palatinate, and the unpopular policies of Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine sought a new life elsewhere. Harrsch, a pastor in Bavaria, became the leader of a group of these Palatines and traveled to London to secure permission for them to settle under the British crown.[3]
The first group, which arrived in 1708, consisted of 53 persons. Harrsch sailed back to return with a second group, which arrived in June 1710. Although he left with 3,000 persons, 800 of them died on the way or shortly afterward while in quarantine.[4]
Unjustly deprived of food, a portion of his congregation settled for a time in the Mohawk Valley, where they became the first Europeans to live with a native people in a state of peace.[2]
As pastor, he was succeeded by Justus Falckner.[5]
References
- ^ Excerpts from "The History of Montgomery Classis, R. C. A., 1916", by W. N. P. Dailey
- ^ a b Bente, F. American Lutheranism, Volume I St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House. 1919, p. 31.
- ^ Bente, F. American Lutheranism, Volume I St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House. 1919, p. 29.
- ^ Bente, F. American Lutheranism, Volume I St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House. 1919, p. 30.
- ^ Bente, F. American Lutheranism, Volume I St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House. 1919, p. 32.