Schlatter, Michael

Schlatter, Michael a Swiss missionary, was born at St. Gall, July 14, 1716. Educated at St. Gall, he became a clergyman, and in 1746 offered himself to the synods of North and South Holland as a missionary to the German Reformed emigrants in Pennsylvania. He was pastor of the Reformed churches of Philadelphia and Germantown from 1746 to 1751, and organized churches in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia. He effected the organization of the Synod of the German Reformed Church in America in Sept. 1747. He revisited Europe in 1751, and secured six other ministers for the United States. In 1757 he acted as chaplain to an expedition to Nova Scotia against the French, and, espousing the cause of the colonists when the Revolution broke out, was imprisoned in 1777. He died near Philadelphia in October, 1790.