My Genealogy Hound

REV. JOSEPH H. HENDRICKS, an earnest and eminent expounder of the gospel, who enjoys the distinction of having served the same charge-Trinity Reformed church, Collegeville, Pennsylvania-longer than any other living pastor in Montgomery county, is a son of the late Abraham H. and Mary (Hunsicker) Hendricks, and his birth occurred in Upper Providence township, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, December 21, 1834. The family name was originally Hendricksen, and the first settlers in this country of this name came from Holland, and are characterized in the often-recited history of the settlement of Germantown, Pennsylvania, as a liberty-loving people. The name is also quite conspicuous in the extended German histories of the countless martyrdoms of the non-resident Christians on the continent of Europe. There are a large number of persons in the United States who bear the name of Hendricks, and possibly the most prominent among them was the late Hon. Thomas A. Hendricks, who served in the capacity of United States senator, governor of Indiana, and vice-president of the United States with Grover Cleveland, dying shortly after his inauguration in the last named office.

Henry Hendricks (grandfather) was a prominent leader of the Mennonite denomination. He married and the following named children were the issue of the union: John, Benjamin, Abraham H., Elizabeth and Nancy Hendricks.

Abraham H. Hendricks (father) was a farmer by occupation, residing in Upper Providence township, Montgomery county. In religious faith he was a Mennonite. He was united in marriage to Mary Hunsicker, daughter of the Rev. John Hunsicker, and granddaughter of the Rev. Henry (Heinrich) Hunsicker, both very prominent and influential Mennonite bishops in their day and generation in eastern Pennsylvania. The Hunsicker families are descended from Valentine Hunsicker, who came from Switzerland and settled in Skippack township in 1717. Mr. and Mrs. Hendricks were the parents of the following named children: John; Elizabeth, wife of David Reiner; Roger; Joseph H.; Mary, wife of R. R. Casselberry; and Sarah, wife of Joseph Cassel-Berry.

Joseph H. Hendricks was reared on his father’s farm and his preliminary education was obtained in the neighboring schools. In the spring of 1851 he entered Freeland Seminary, now Ursinus College, and in the fall of 1852 he took charge of a public school at Milford Square, Bucks county, Pennsylvania. During the four consecutive winters he figured in the role of public school teacher, attending boarding school in the summer months. In February, 1856, he became assistant teacher in Freeland Seminary, then a very popular boarding-school at which there were many young men in attendance qualifying themselves to become public school teachers and to follow other lines of professional work, there being but one normal school in the state at that time. From the position of assistant teacher in the common English branches, in two years he was promoted to teach the higher mathematics and was also appointed vice-principal of the institution. While he was serving in this double capacity he was, according to the usages of the Mennonite church, at a meeting of the Christian Society, at Freeland, now Collegeville, held in 1860, elected on trial to the office of the gospel minister. As was expected, he at once began to attend to some of the duties of the gospel ministry as best he could along with his school work, although under very serious disadvantages, but having succeeded fairly well, by the direction of the said Christian Society, he was on June 25, 1861, ordained to the office of a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ, invested with all the powers usually belonging to that office, by the laying on of hands, the Revs. Abraham Hunsicker, Israel Beidler, Abraham Grater and Henry A. Hunsicker, officiating.

The Christian Society materialized and was incorporated in the spring of 1855, and was com posed of the above named ministers and about forty adherents who had been disowned and dis-fellowshipped by a branch of the Mennonite church of which they had all been members, because of their so charged too liberal views of Christian doctrine, church fellowship, education, and kindred subjects. During the years 1854-55 the society built for itself in Freeland, now Collegeville, what is styled the “Christian Meeting House,” which was opened for public worship the following spring. The Christian Society, through the stated preachings of the gospel, during the first half dozen years of its existence, made substantial progress in the peculiar work designed for it, and it was, therefore, wisely determined to arrange for a more perfect church organization, by the preparation of a discipline, election of a church council, pastor, etc. In February, 1862, Mr. Hendricks was elected pastor of the Christian Society, and on the first Sunday in April, 1862, was installed as such, the Rev. Israel Beidler preaching the sermon and delivering the charge to the congregation, and the Rev. Henry A. Hunsicker delivering the charge to the pastor. Prior to 1862 the brethren who had so faithfully preached in the “Christian Meeting House” received no pecuniary compensation for their services. The original Christian Society, subsequently Trinity Christian church, remained independent of ecclesiastical connection with other churches until 1888, when, after all necessary and proper steps in the premises had been taken, it became connected with the Reformed (German) church of the United States. In 1892 the Skippackville church was also formally made a part of the same denomination. The Collegeville charge, as it is now, is made up of Trinity church, Collegeville; Trinity church, Skippackville; and Ironbridge Chapel, Rahn’s Station; and with its three Christian Endeavor societies, its three Sunday-schools, and its other auxiliary church societies, is a very influential charge, and has grown to its present proportions and prominence under the efficient pastorate of Rev. Hendricks.

During the first two years of Mr. Hendrick’s pastorate he continued his relations with Freeland Seminary as teacher and vice-principal, but in entering upon the third year, he wholly severed his relations with it, A. H. Fetterolf, Ph. D., LL.D., now president of Girard College, becoming his successor. During the following three years of the pastorate, in addition to his ministerial duties, he cultivated his father-in-law’s farm adjoining the church property, the congregation in the meantime being educated in the way of contributing with commendable generosity towards the support of the gospel. In February, 1867, he purchased his father’s property which was located near the church and at once moved thereon, residing there to the present time. The life-work of Mr. Hendricks has been closely and indissolubly intertwined with what is now Trinity Reformed church, he having been connected with the Sunday-school since the spring of 1856, serving twenty-eight consecutive years as superintendent, and also taught and led the singing, in all the past history of the Sunday-school and still continues to do it. The church building has been materially enlarged, improved and beautified, and the church-yard and cemetery grounds have been extended to twice their original size. He has never missed officiating at a funeral on account of sickness, has only missed in a third of a century three church services on account of bodily sickness, and in all these years has had but on brief “pastor’s vacation.” The late Moses Auge wrote of Mr. Hendricks some years ago, that he is “greatly beloved by his own congregation, and is much in demand outside of his own churches, especially to officiate at funerals. He is a fluent and forcible preacher, speaking entirely ex tempore, in a rapid, earnest and convincing manner, impressing every one with the absolute conviction of the truth of what he is saying.” He has delivered numerous addresses at Sunday-school picnics, public school commencements, national Thanksgiving and Decoration days, and to the Grand Army of the Republic Posts, for which he has received words and testimonials of high appreciation.

Although Mr. Hendricks did not go through the curriculum of a college course, yet, June 22, 1881, the board of directors of Ursinus College, upon the recommendation of its faculty, conferred on him “the honorary degree of Master of Arts, for his personal worth and merits as a scholar.” Ursinus College is located right in the heart of the parish of the Collegeville church, and its professors and a large number of its students are regular attendants at public worship, and a number of members of the church are either directors or graduates of the college. Mr. Hendricks has always been a liberal supporter and patron of the institution, being for many years one of its directors and a member of three of its leading committees, and his personal interest is further shown by the fact of his having three children and two sons-in-law as graduates of the institution. He is a popular and eloquent preacher, and is greatly beloved by his three congregations. Few men in Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, either professional or otherwise, are so well known or so highly respected as he, and few more worthy of emulation.

In the fall of 1858 the Rev. Mr. Hendricks married Kate Hunsicker, youngest daughter of the late Rev. Abraham Hunsicker, the founder of Freeland Seminary, and a sister of the Rev. Henry A. Hunsicker, the proprietor and principal of the institution. Their children are: Ella M., wife of F. G. Hobson, of Collegeville, attorney-at-law, and treasurer and trust officer of the Norristown Title, Trust & Safe Deposit Company; Bertha, wife of the Rev. Charles E. Wehler, pastor of St. Paul’s Reformed church, Manheim, Lancaster county; Abraham H., of Pottstown, the popular lawyer, who has served two terms as district attorney of Montgomery county, and whose wife is the daughter of Addison T. Miller, of Limerick; and Sara C., wife of Professor J. T. Ebert, who is the present principal of the Schissler Business College of Norristown, Pennsylvania.