Oldendorp, Christian George Andreas

Oldendorp, Christian George Andreas a German Moravian missionary, was born March 8, 1721, at Hildesheim, in Hanover, and was a graduate of the University of Jena. In 1743 he entered the service of the Moravian Church as a teacher, and was subsequently ordained to the ministry, having charge of various parishes both in Germany and Holland. In 1767 he visited the islands of Santa Cruz, St. Thomas, and St. John. In 1768 he went through several cities of North America Where the Moravians had settlements. Returning to Europe in 1769, he became successively minister at Marienborn, Neuwied, and Ebersdorf, where he died March 9, 1787. He is distinguished as the author of a voluminous and important work on the Moravian Mission in the Danish West Indies, including a complete account of the geography and of the natural and political history of those islands as they were known about the middle of the last century. It bears the following title: C. G. A. Oldendorp's Geschichte der Mission der Evangelischen Bruder auf den Caraibischenz Inseln, S. Thomas, S. Croix, u. S. Juan (Barby, 1777,2 vols. 8vo). It was so highly esteemed that it was translated into the Swedish (1786-88, 8vo). (E. de S.)