Oggel, Pieter John

Oggel, Pieter John a Reformed (Dutch) minister of considerable distinction, was born and educated at one of the universities in Holland. After a brief pastorate in his native land, he emigrated to this country in 1856, and settled immediately in the colony of Hollanders located in Michigan as pastor of the Reformed Church at Grand Haven (1856). Thence he removed in 1860 to another flourishing colony of his countrvmen at Pella, Iowa, when, after three years of successful service, he was elected to the professorship of sacred literature in Hope College, at Holland, Michigan. He also gave instruction in the theological school in the harmony of the Gospels, the introduction to the Scriptures, and in pastoral theology. He threw his whole force into his academic duties, and also secured much money from the self-denying Hollanders for the endowment of the institution. He likewise edited a periodical, published in the Dutch language, called De Hope. He was a cultivated, able, and devoted man, a superior preacher, a thorough and beloved professor, and a conspicuous leader of the ecclesiastical and educational movements of the important colony which was founded by the Rev. Dr. Albertus C. Van Raalte. His early death in November, 1869, was a public calamity. His personal character was. amiable and- attractive, his piety shone clearly through his daily life, and his memory will long be cherished among the founders and builders of the State and the Church in the West. (W. J. R. T.)