Rev. Benjamin Kurtz Papers

Benjamin Kurtz was born February 28, 1795, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. His family came from a line of German Lutheran ministers and religious affiliates.His uncle, Dr. John Daniel Kurtz, was one of the founders of the Evangelical Lutheran General Synod of the United States of America, and had studied under Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Muhlenberg, founder of Muhlenberg College, and served as a minister in York, Pennsylvania and Baltimore, Maryland. His grandfather, Dr. John Nicholas Kurtz, a clergyman from Lutzelinden, Nassau-Weilburg, Germany and a graduate from the University of Halle, arrived in Pennsylvania on January 15, 1745 and served as a minister in Tulpehocken and York, Pennsylvania.

In 1815 Kurtz became a pastor at Hagerstown, Maryland, where he remained for sixteen years. In 1831, he moved to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, to lead a ministry, where he would remain for another three years. In 1833, Kurtz retired from active ministry duties and took charge of the Lutheran Observer, a post which he held for nearly thirty years.

In 1826 Kurtz was commissioned by the Board of Gettysburg Seminary to go to Germany to solicit donations of money and books for the theological seminary. He remained absent nearly two years, and brought home about $10000 and a large number of books. He was offered professrship of Hitstory and German Literature at Pennsylvania College, but turned the post down to continue work with the Lutheran Observer.

In 1838, he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Washington College in Washington, Pennsylvania, and in 1858, that of LL. D. from Wittenberg College in Springfield, Ohio. Kurtz died in Baltimore on December 29, 1865.