Pomp, Nicholas

Pomp, Nicholas one of the earliest and most prominent ministers of the German Reformed Church in this country, was a native of Germany, where he was born Jan. 20, 1734. He prosecuted his studies, classical and theological, in the University of Halle; came to America under the auspices of the Church of Holland in 1760, and took charge of the German Reformed Church in Faulkner Swamp, Montgomery County, Pa., where he labored with much success. In 1783 he received a call to Baltimore, Md., where he exercised his ministry for six years, when he returned again, in 1789, to the scene of his first labors; but in the following year he removed to Indianfield, in Bucks County, Pa., where he continued in the faithful discharge of his pastoral duties up to the close of the last century, when failing health compelled him to retire from the active duties of his office. From that time onwards he resided with his son, the Rev. Thomas Pomp, pastor of the German Reformed Church in Easton, Pa., where he died, Sept. 1, 1819. In the early part of his ministry he published an able little work in reply to a "mischievous book on Universalism" which was circulated among the Germans, entitled The Everlasting Gospel. Father Pomp occupied a prominent position in the Reformed Church of this country. See Harbaugh, Fathers of the Ref. Church, 2, 131-138. (D. Y. H.)