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A Former Freedom Minister

A Former Freedom Minister image
Parent Issue
Day
28
Month
May
Year
1895
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

A recent News-Tribune contains a ent with au interesting article on Rev. John Hildner, pastor of Saint Paul's Germán Evangdlical church in Detroit. Mr. Hildner is the son-in-lav of Jonahan Josenhans, of York township, and a brother-in-law of Gerhard Josenhans, of Ann Arbor. He was stationed at one time in Freedom. His many friends in Washtenaw county will be interesed in the following extract : "John Gothold Hildner, the pastor, was born of Germán parents at Syra, Greece, the center island of the Cyclades, a group of islands in the Aegean sea or Grecian Archielago, on Feb. 6, 1837. His father was then a missionary of the Church of England, being sent out by the Church Missionary Society in Islington, England. At the age of fourteen John was sent to Malta, an island aixty miles south of Sicily, Italy, in the Mediterranean, the site of the shipwreck of the vessel which was conveying St. Paul as a prisoner to Rome. He studied here at the Protestant college till 1854. He then at the age of seventeen became a sudent in the missionary seuiinarv at Basel, Switzlerland.where he graduated in 1859 af ter a course of five years study. In the same year that he graduated he was ordained as a niiniser of the Germán Evangelical church in the city of Mannheim, in Ban, Germany. Sooj after, on the 25h of August he set sail for America, landing in New York city in just seven weeks, and carne direoi; to Freedom in Washteuaw county, igan, where he received a cali from the Germán Eangelical ehurch in that township. After thirteen years' continuous service, he received a oall from St. Paul's Germán Evangelical chnrch in Detroit, just erected and numbering about thirty members, whioh he accepted, becoming its pastor Feb. 16, 1873, on the day it was dedicated. Here he bas remained until the present. He seems to be a pastor of good staying qualities, and judging from the esteem in which he is held by his people, the alertness of his step, his vigorons inien and buoyant spirit, it looks much as if his twenty two years of service in St. Paul may, God willing, be yet duplicated just as likely as not. Like Father Haas of the St. John 's churoh, who likewise emigrated when a yonng man to this country, he has entitled himself to a generous welcome from his adopted country, not alone becauf-o of his .sterling worth as a citizen, bnt also by his contribution of a stal - wart family of boys and girls, of whom six are living. The daughters and son Cornelias are still living under the paternal roof, the second son, Jonathan, is á gradúate of Wie university at Ann Arbor, and now a teacher of Germán in that institution. He proposes going to Leipsic, Germany, this summer, for further study. Another one, Leonard, an 1893 gradúate of the university, bas a posición as draughtsman at the Detroit Bridge & Iron Works ; and the otlier, Gotthold, born in 1873, is uow studying for the ministry in Union College, Schenectady, N. Y. If all our immigrants were of the ilk of Fathers Hildner and Haas, we would want no cougessional enactments to repress immigration.

Article

Subjects
Ann Arbor Argus
Old News