Hallesche Pastoren in Pennsylvania, 1743–1825

Hallesche Pastoren in Pennsylvania, 1743–1825. Eine kritische Quellenedition zu ihrer Amtstätigkeit in Nordamerika. Ed. by Mark Häberlein, Thomas Müller-Bahlke and Hermann Wellenreuther.
Part 1: Lebensläufe und Diarien der Pastoren Peter Brunnholtz (1716–1757) und Johann Friedrich Handschuch (1714–1764). Ed. by Wolfgang Splitter, Markus Berger and Jan-Hendrik Evers in collaboration with Katharina Prager and Nikolas K. Schröder

At the center of this eight-volume edition are 13 Lutheran clergymen who were sent to Pennsylvania between 1744 and 1786 by the Glaucha Institutions (today's Francke Foundations in Halle) to provide pastoral care to German Lutherans. There, and soon also in neighboring regions of British North America, they served as parish pastors from 1745 to 1825. They were preceded by Heinrich Melchior Mühlenberg (1711–1787), whom the director of this institution, Gotthilf August Francke (1696–1769), had offered an overseas assignment in early September 1741. With Mühlenberg's arrival in Philadelphia at the end of November 1742, the institutions, a royal Prussian privileged association of educational, charitable, missionary, and commercial enterprises, assumed a mission that would not end until shortly after the First World War.
The first volume of this edition contains the biographies, official and travel diaries of the two pastors sent from Halle, Peter Brunnholz and Johann Friedrich Handschuch, who, along with Heinrich Melchior Mühlenberg, belonged to the first generation of Lutheran clergy in the Pennsylvania colony. The sources edited here document the Atlantic crossings and the ministry of these two pastors in their Pennsylvania congregations. Thus, sources are presented in a critical edition that provides significant new insights into the work of the pastors sent from Halle to North America.