Beecher, Jacob

Beecher, Jacob a minister of the German Reformed Church, was born near Petersburg, Adams Co., Penn., May 2d, 1799, and studied first at an academy in Hagerstown, Md., and afterward in Jefferson College, Cannonsburg, Penn.; pursued his theological studies first at Princeton Seminary, and afterward continued them, in connection with the German language, in the newly- established Theological Seminary of the German Reformed Church, then located at Carlisle, Penn, He was licensed and ordained in 1826. He immediately took charge of the German Reformed Church of Shepherdstown, Va., together with several affiliated congregations. His health was always feeble. With the hope of improving it, he spent the winter of 1830-31 in the South, in the service of the American Sunday School Union. He died July 15th, 1831. Though his life and the period of his labors were brief, such were his piety and zeal that few ministers are more sacredly remembered in the German Reformed Church. He preached both in the German and English languages.