Christian Bernard Thummel (1802 - 1881)

Born 5 Apr 1802 in Jever, Oldenburg, Germany

Ancestors

Husband of Elizabeth Maria (Cox) Thummel — married 21 Apr 1831 in Otsego,New York

Husband of Catherine Davison (Lattin) Thummel — married 17 May 1837 in New York

Descendants

Died 24 May 1881 at age 79 in Prairieville, Palmyra Township, Lee, Illinois, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Lorraine Keith [send private message]

Biography

Rev. Christian B. Thummel, D.D., on his half century jubilee of the Ev. Lutheran Church, gave the following speech on August 16, 1877, at Prairieville, Lee County, Illinois. The original manuscript was in possession of his son Warren F. Thummel, Mt. Vernon, New York. It is combined with a memorandum written by Christian Bernard Thummel August 19, 1879 in Prairieville, Illinois.^[1]

Neighbors and friends, ladies and gentlemen, in what fitting words shall I address you on this occasion and thank you all for the kind interest you have taken and the great honor you are conferring on me, an old man, in this gathering here to commemorate my half century's jubilee as an humble worker in the vineyard of my Master.

It seems to me almost as if I were a relic of a past age when I remember the days of old and recall the scenes and events of my younger years, which to myself and most of you must now appear new and strange.

I, C. B. Thummel, being the third child and the second son of my parents, was born in...Jever, a small city on the German ocean, [on] April 5, 1802, rather sickly and of puny stature, so much so that I took but little delight in out door exercise and the rough sports of boyhood. Hence I was early sent to a school in our neighborhood where, if I did not learn much, I was well taken care of by the good old dames that kept the school. After having attended the district school, at seven years of age, though still small and feeble, I was entered in the fourth class of the gymnasium in my native city, then more modestly styled Latin School.

...at 7 years old I learned to decline "Hic, haee, hoe" and to conjugate Tu TT Tw, and thus with a dear friend of my boyhood continued going to school, studying the classics and advancing in literature and science.

How I passed with credit through all the classes, not often interrupted by sickness, but still feeble and averse to much bodily exertion, occasionally helping my father in a little planting or weeding in the garden, or running of errands for him and my mother, but never doing a days work out of school or performing hard labor.

Hence I was always a small eater, easily satisfied with bread and butter and a little meat of some kind. For most vegetables I cared for but little, and some of them I could not eat, as was also the case with all kinds of fruit, on account of the vegetable acid contained in them, which went so much against my taste, that the strong smell of freshly cooked apples repeatedly drove me from the table. My father, being of the old school and of the opinion that children must eat everything set before them, tried long and hard to force me to eat the portion allotted to me of whatever was placed on the table so that my mother and oldest brother often emptied my plate when my father's head was turned away, and that saved me many a scolding or punishment. This lasted for several years, till at last my father gave up compelling me as a bad job.

When I was fifteen years old I was promoted into the first class of our gymnasium to attend there the usual three years and then to visit a university to prepare for the ministry in accordance with my own and my father's wishes. Accordingly at Easter 1820 I bid adieu to the gymnasium, having delivered my farewell speech in the Latin language as it was customary there. My friend, Ibo Frederic Muller, who left the gymnasium at the same time and who likewise had chosen theology as a profession, with me had concluded to attend the university at Halle on the Sade in Prussian Saxony, and accordingly we repaired there at the beginning of the half years course of lectures in 1820.

There in Halle we found an old friend, Francis Jacob Müller of East Friesland, who had visited the first class in our gymnasium in Jever and had been already one year in Halle. In him we found a faithful friend and judicious counsellor, who had advised us in regard to our studies and other affairs, as we were both altogether unacquainted with our new life, its duties and surroundings.

In Halle, I spent two years at the university, studying the different branches of theology and philosophy, and likewise attending to philology, and passed the time very agreeably and profitably, making likewise during one of the vacations with my friend I. B. Müller and some others a journey on foot to Leipzig, Dresden and the mountains and very romantic parts of Saxonly up toward Bohemia called Saxon Switzerland, visited Gothenburg and with father's relations.

In the spring of 1822 friend Müller and myself, with the consent of our parents, left Halle and entered the University in Tübingen in Wurttemburg, where we spent one and one half years, and meanwhile, travelled, during vacation, through Switzerland and the northern part of Italy, returning by way of the Tyrolese mountains and Bavaria, visiting the cities of Munich, Augsburg and Nuremberg in Bavaria, Milan and Verona in Italy, Bern, Zurich and Luzerne in Switzerland and Iams breach in Tyrol, being fully eight weeks on the journey.

Late in the fall of 1823 friend Muller and I left Tübingen and university life and surroundings and travelled to our paternal homes, leisurely on foot, accompanied by our two poodle dogs. On this trip, we stopped at Heidelberg for several days, visited Strasburg on the Rhine, and journeyed down the Rhine, now floating on the water and again travelling on foot on the right and left banks of it, stopping at all of the places of interest or note on either shore, Coblenz and the strong fortress Ehrenbreitstein, Worms, and down the Rhine to the ancient city of Cologne with its celebrated dome and cathedral, visiting the university at Bonn, then entering the duchy of Berg belonging to Prussia. We stopped at Elberfeld, that famous city of manufactories of all kinds, and the famous Wuppertal or valley of the Wupper, where one manufacturing village joins the other, that for miles and miles appear like one city as you travel constantly between houses and factories of various kind, especially of iron and steel.

Thus progressing we entered Westphalia where we stopped several days in various cities and villages, visiting former university friends who had left Halle and Tübingen and were residing there. Bidefeld famous for its linen factories, was the last place in Westphalia we thus visited.

Then we passed through Prussian Minden which is a strongly fortified city, and so reaching Bremen, that large commercial city, not very far from home where we tarried one day, and then by way of Oldenburg reached our native city of Jever late one evening in the month of December 1823 a couple of weeks before Christmas. Found all my parents and brothers and sisters and friends well and was really glad to be home again after an absence of nearly four years.

Early in the spring of 1824 we underwent our examination as candidates for the ministry before the superintendent of our diocese of Jever, Rev. Mr. Buhage, and were admitted as such candidates and preached both on Easter and Whitsunday in the large Lutheran church in Jever.

But a day after Whitsunday an unexpected war broke over our devoted heads. We had but just passed our examination when the dreams and plans of our youth were rudely dispelled, and all hope of employment in school or church in our native land perhaps forever destroyed. I had just filled the pulpit in my native city on Whitsunday of the year 1824, when on the following day we were arrested as prisoners of state, charged with being members of a secret society at the University [of Tübingen], to which political and revolutionary ideas and principles were ascribed, and which the then King of Prussia, before all other monarchs, most vigorously persecuted.

By order of the court at Main were put into confinement for two days at our homes and interrogated about it by a member of one of the supreme courts, who came expressly from Oldenburg for that purpose. Though we confessed to nothing particularly, our papers were looked into and some of them taken away, especially our albums and in a few days orders were sent from Oldenburg, that, to avoid imprisonment, our fathers had to give bail for us, each in the amount of 2000 thalers that we would not leave our province of four German square miles and would present ourselves for investigation whenever required.

The bail was given and we were thus outwardly free within certain very circumscribed limits but could not now expect a place in the ministry till this affair was cleared up.

My gracious sovereign, the Duke of Oldenburg, though not sharing the views of Prussia, had to comply and to yield to the stronger arm of Prussia's King. We were, however, not imprisoned but released on heavy bail, and confined to the limits of our small territory.

Thus we waited and hoped for two years, during which we had to appear about five or six times in Oldenburg before a committee of inquiry; but though we supplicated the Grand Duke of Oldenburg probably every six months to make an end of the affair, nothing came of it, as the Grand Duke being ruler of a small Duchy, though favorable to us, did not dare to act according to his wishes and contrary to the will of Fred William III, then King of Prussia.

The trial continued for two years; no decision could be obtained and, of course, no public employment to be thought of.

Finally some lawyers at home interested in our case, advised that our fathers should send a supplication to the Grand duke representing to him our lot and that the best years of our lives were thus spent in comparative idleness without being of use to the state or the church.

This advise was followed and soon the answer came back that as our affairs thus far had been in the hands of a special committee who could not lawfully pass judgement upon us it was soon to be tried by our provisional court in Jever, as a criminal offense, but at the same time the Grand Duke sent one of his counsellors to Jever to advise us secretly, that we should leave the state, as the Grand duke did not wish to be troubled with the business.

As the first article in the criminal code demanded the incarceration of all criminal offenders, we did not hesitate long, hardly one or two days, and to make the most necessary arrangements for leaving.

On a Sunday early in May 1826 a friend communicated this news to me, and on Monday evening following I was on my way to Amsterdam to sail for the United States of America. My friend Muller had concluded to go to England by way of Amsterdam and so we met unexpectedly at Delph in Holland and from there travelled together by coach and land to Amsterdam.

Here Muller left me the next day for England, but I had to wait nearly a week before a vessel sailed for the United States. "I preferring to seek a home in these United States, the land of freedom, the asylum for those oppressed in other lands." Finally the ship Columbus belonging to Philadelphia, received me on board for Philadelphia...

Let me here add that four years later we both received permission to return home, to which soon after the official declaration was added by the court that nothing had been found to criminate or to legally indict us. Thus for want of the act of habeas corpus, as it exists in this country and in England, but not on the continent of Europe, we were subjected to all the hardships and vexations of a political trial of six years, and the upshot of it all was that we were declared not guilty at last. My friend availed himself of the privilege to return, obtained a good situation as second professor in the Gymnasium, but died a few years after. I preferred to remain in this free country, where meanwhile I had found many warm friends and began to feel at home and contented. Thus man proposes, but God disposes.

after a long but rather pleasant voyage of seventy days, on the nineteenth of August 1826, I landed in Philadelphia and proceeded to the city of New York. with a number of letters of introduction; credentials I had not, as the Court had taken them away and would not restore them.

In this strange county but partially versed in the English language, without a friend or acquaintance in the whole land, I, a young man of twenty-four years had arrived to earn my bread and to seek my fortune.

My prospects were indeed not very flattering, but I was young and full of hope; the bustle and activity of New York encouraged me and a good friend in Jever, a Dr. Triarks, who interested himself much in friend Muller and myself. [He] was well known in and acquainted with the United States and Canada, having been the English Commissioner to settle the boundary between the British possessions in American and the United States and as such had repeatedly visited America, spending many months there at a time, had given me letters of introduction and recommendation to some of his friends, Lutheran clergymen and others in New York.

From Philadelphia I went to New York, and on delivering one of these letters to a Mr. John J. Rickers, from East Friesland, who kept a music store and piano factory in New York who received me very kindly.

I was very agreeably surprised to find in Mr. Ricker's store a former university acquaintance, a Mr. Charles Kohl of Dormstad, Germany, who had a book store in New York adjoining Mr. Ricker's store in Broadway.

Mr. Kahl was very glad to see me and told me of two other university friends in Jamaica on Long Island. these I soon visited and found them very busily engaged in learning the English language and trying to pronounce correctly and trying it so hard that I laughed at them and declared that if that were the way to learn English I would never accomplish it and that I was going to try the way of talking English to the people I met and thus learn to speak it correctly.

This I did and succeeded so well that in one year from that time I could use the English language with considerable facility, and even preach in it after a fashion. My previous knowledge of the German, French, Latin and Greek languages assisted me materially in this, since the English is more or less a compound of all these.

Most unexpectedly I met in the City of New York two fellow students of Tubingen, Prussians by birth, who had fared much harder than we, and escaped by swimming the deep moat of the fortress in which they had been sentenced to be confined for 11 years." Messrs. Esnespatick and Lehman from Westphalia, who as Prussians had been under the same suspicion of having belonged to a secret political league at the University and had been imprisoned in the castle of Kespenick near Berlin, and had finally been condemned to ten or eleven years confinement in the fortress of Leulick on the Rhine.

With great peril to their lives" they had escaped by flight on a dark rainy night and being near the border of Holland had successfully made their way to England, and thence to America, being secretly favored by the military authorities at Jeulick and furnished with recommendations from Dr. Triarks whom they met in London where friend Muller lived as a tutor in a German family and introduced them to Dr. Triarks.

Our prospects began to brighten at all events the sense of loneliness in a strange land gradually disappeared, and that likewise because our acquaintance with German men and families gradually increased. Ernespatock and I board at Mr. Ricken's with Lehhman in a boarding house kept by an old soldier of Napoleon's, a general, Count Ducondray Holstein.

We remained in New York until the month of December 1826, but boarding and lodging there being too expensive for our slender means, at the advice of Dr. F. S. Schaeffer, pastor of the English Lutheran Church in New York, we journeyed to Harwich Seminary, Otsego County, New York, where a German was principal and professor of the Lutheran Seminary.

By him and his excellent lady (they had no children) we were received and welcomed in the most friendly manner and soon established ourselves in the boarding house there for the winter at $1.75 per week. The winter proved to be a cold one with much snow, and upon waking up in the morning we often found our pillows partially covered with snow, having been blown in through the poorly secured windows.

Hearing while there nothing but English spoken, for the German professor, Rev. E. L. Hazelius, a very good friend of mine until his death, most judiciously told us the day after our arrival there, that since we had come there to study the English language and must learn it, he could not and would not converse with us except in English and he kept faithfully to his word and so helped us a great deal.

Thus we continued until the spring of 1827 when Ernepatock, being German Reformed went to Pennsylvania to join said denomination. Lehman and myself went to near Rhinebeck on the Hudson River to visit Rev. Dr. Wackerhagen, a German from Hanover, Germany, who was pastor there and president of the Lutheran Ministerium in New York and adjacent states.

By him, 'in the summer of 1827,' we were examined in most of the branches of theology and admitted as candidates of the Ev. Lutheran Ministerium of the State of New York "and commissioned as home missionary to serve vacant congregations in that state." Lehman remained till fall at Rhinebeck to assist the Rev. _____ a very aged Lutheran clergyman there, and I returned to Hartwick Seminary, and was soon after in Dr. Hazelius' conveyance carried some 25 miles to O______, a German settlement on the Mohawk River and by him introduced to them as a missionary to preach to them in German and English. The missionary society of the New York Ministerium allowed me $30 a month for my services and the Germans made up the balance.

I remained with them till fall but not being able to converse with them in their Pennsylvania or Mohawk Dutch, and the people not understanding fully my preaching to them in the pure German, we thought it best for me to leave, they paying me some $50 for my services. Meanwhile I had become acquainted with and visited several Lutheran ministers in that region of country and preached for them, and on the whole my time was occupied and spent agreeable.

I was professor in Hartwick Seminary when I married Miss Elizabeth M. Cox [on] April 21, 1831. "I had formed a home of my own and lived happy and contented in the midst of my family, attending to my often arduous duties.

Afterwards resigned this position and went to Clinton, New York, as principal of Clinton Liberal Institute. There my wife died Dec. 15, 1835, a lady of refinement and great mental culture, and with two small children I was left to mourn this sad bereavement.

In 1837, May 17, [while] still principal, I married Catherine (Davisson) Lattin, "my present wife, whom you all know, and who, as my cherished companion, still blesses my home by her unwearied activity and loving spirit.

In the year 1838, I accepted a call to South Carolina to open a private school on the Waccaman River for planters' children. ...was there two years, then went to Lexington, South Carolina, as 2nd professor in the Lutheran Seminary at Lexington, South Carolina, officiating meanwhile also as Pastor of a Lutheran congregation in the neighborhood. (Dr. Hazelius lived there.) For several years [five years], I resided in the South with my family and there I buried a dear daughter of three summers.

But our situation and surroundings were not altogether congenial; we longed for the free air, the pleasant hills and the green fields of the North, and after much deliberation journeyed again northward by water to Philadelphia, and then towards the west by canal and railroad. After sojourning awhile in the State of Ohio (New Philadelphia, Ohio, where we remained one year), we moved in the fall of 1845 to Illinois where my brother had settled some 10 years before. "[We] bought the farm where we lived until the spring of 1869, when we moved to Prairieville.

It was my intention to seek needed rest after nearly 20 years uninterrupted labor in my profession, therefore, I bought a small farm with the little means I possessed, and sought to live in retirement, quiet and contented. But the want of preachers I found to be great and pressing, missionary labor needed everywhere and schools and churches few and far between, especially among my German brethren, many of whom were my old neighbors and acquaintances from the Fatherland.

For them I soon began to officiate as pastor and minister of the Gospel, and taught school in winter for the benefit of my own children and others in the neighborhood. My American friends of other churches soon also demanded my services, and for four years I supplied the pulpit for our congregational brethren in the Gap; and after that commenced preaching in the schoolhouse in Prairieville.

Thus I have continued, with one or two brief interruptions, for 30 years or more, officiating as pastor both in German and English languages, and with the blessing of the Lord our God and Savior endeavoring to do my part towards the welfare and prosperity of this town and section of country. and serving my day and generation as best I could.

You all know what my labor and services have been among you, how I have succeeded in my work, and labored not so much to build up my own denomination as the church of God and the Kingdom of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is not for me to say, conscious as I am of my many imperfections and failing. You know me and my life in your midst; and I hope and pray that you will cover my many weaknesses and failing with the mantle of Christian charity, give me credit at least for my good intentions, and with me render to God all the praise and glory. Not unto me but unto thy name, O Lord, be all the praise.

I have officiated as minister of the Gospel for many years in both languages in the Gap, in Prairieville, in Como and in the town of Jordan, besides preaching occasionally in Dixon and Sterling, and other neighboring cities and villages. Many of your children I have baptized and received into the Church; I have been with you in joy as well as in sorrow; attended your pleasant home gatherings; shared in your Sunday school exercises and public rejoicings; and we have held sweet communion together at the Lord's table. Many of you I have joined in wedlock, and when the angel of death has entered your homes and removed one or the other loved one to our eternal home in Heaven, I have been with you in your bereavement and consigned their bodies to their last resting place in God's acre over yonder on that pleasant hillside, where soon perhaps you may be called upon to commit to his final rest the remains of him that now addresses you.

Wealth and riches I have never sought after nor obtained; food and raiment, convenient for me, has the Lord ever graciously granted unto me and mine, with health and contentment. I have ever sought to preserve a conscience void of offence both towards God and man, and thus far the Lord has led me on and blessed me and mine abundantly all the days of my life, praise and thanksgiving be unto his great and glorious name.

With my clerical brethren I have always tried to live in harmony and peace. The brethren of my own denomination have manifested for me their warmest regards, and bestowed upon me repeatedly offices of honor and trust.

For the several offices of trust with which this community has favored me, I express my sincere thanks; in them I have tried to serve out to the best of my powers, not so much for the sake of gain as to promote the good of all. Now that the days of old age have come to me, and the infirmities of my advancing years begin more and more to appear, I trust you all will look upon my hoary head and decreasing strength with neighborly kindness and respect; continue to me in the future as in the past your friendship and regard; accept my heartfelt thanks for the many and substantial tokens of esteem and attachment which I and mine have received at your hands; and rest assured that the honor, which your show me this day, and the pleasant gathering here in celebrating my fifty years jubilee, will live in my grateful remembrance to the end of my days. May our Heavenly Father reward and bless you and yours ever and ever.

Now is conclusion, I would lift up my heart and hands in humble gratitude and praise to Him, my Father and my God, who has graciously led and protected and blessed me thus far all my journey through. To Him and to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, I would devote the remnant of my days, and trusting in his love and mercy, implore the continued protection and blessing and grace and help of our Lord God and Heavenly Father, upon me and mine, yea upon all that now hear me, and upon all the children of men, and not for this life only but for that which is to come. Yea, Lord our God, do thou bless us all through Jesus Christ thy Son, our Savior; let thy kingdom come and thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven, and thy great name be glorified and adored, world without end. Amen.

Wurtemburg College in Ohio conferred on Christian Bernard Thummel, the degree of D.D.

Union University, Schenectady, New York, granted an honorary A. M. Degree in 1831. (Union University Centennial Catalog, 1795-1895, of the Officers and Alumni of Union Colege in the City of Schenectady, N. Y., published at Troy, NY: Troy Times Printing House, 1895.)

Commencement at Union College (News Article) Date: 1831-08-05; Paper: Rhode-Island American Rev, Christian B. Thummell , Adjunct professor at Hartwick Seminary, was granted honorary degree of Artium Magister. (Latin for master of arts degree.)

Sources

1. ↑ Rev. Christian B. Thummel, D.D., on his half century jubilee of the Ev. Lutheran Church, gave the following speech on August 16, 1877, at Prairieville, Lee County, Illinois. The original manuscript was in possession of his son Warren F. Thummel, Mt. Vernon, New York. It is combined with a memorandum written by Christian Bernard Thummel August 19, 1879 in Prairieville, Illinois. Lorraine Hall Keith has copies of the speech and the memorandum.

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