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Born Justus Heinrich Christian Helmuth in Brunswick, Germany, Helmuth was educated in Halle. There he received his early education at the orphanage, attended the Latin school at Halle's pietist center, and prepared for the ministry. He then accepted a call to Trinity Lutheran Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Two years after emigrating to America in 1768, he married Maria Barbara Keppele, the daughter of Johann Henrich Keppele, an important Pennsylvania German merchant-trader. From 1779 until his retirement in 1820, Rev. Helmuth served as the pastor of Philadelphia's St. Michael's and Zion parish, the largest Lutheran Parish in the United States. As the senior minister of the Lutheran Church in Philadelphia, Helmuth followed John Christopher Kunze to serve as an ex officio trustee of the University of the State of Pennsylvania (now the University of Pennsylvania) from 1780 to 1784. During the early 1780's Helmuth and Kunze worked together worked to create a German-Latin school to prepare German Lutheran children for admission to a college within the new University of Pennsylvania; however, their ambitious plans fora Lutheran College within the University, receiving students from feeder schools, did not materialize. Kunze left the University, to be replaced as Professor of German by Helmuth. Helmuth, like Kunze before him, relinquished his seat on the Board when he was appointed Professor of German in 1784. In 1784 he was elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society. |
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REFERENCES |
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Penn in the Age of Franklin | University of Pennsylvania | Archives | Library |
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