I would not pick a felon's name as a nom de plume.
- Why are you providing a link to such a erroneous website? Even the title of the website's thread, "Pietism's Saxon Migration Began with Kidnapping Three People, Violating the Confessional, Leading a Riot, And Robbery" is inaccurate. Only two people were kidnapped and not as the thread describes; there was no violating of the confessional, primarily because the pastor was not really a pastor; there was no riot; and any robbery was primarily done by Martin Stephan. The website thread bases its history on a equally, if not more, inaccurate book written by Philip Stephan, a descendent of deposed Missouri Saxon Bishop Martin Stephan.
A key document often referenced throughout Philip Stephan’s book, especially on controversial claims with no other substantiating historical documentation is Frederick William (Wilhelm Friedrich) Koepchen’s unpublished manuscript, “Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838.” Rev. Koepchen was a pastor at St. Luke’s Church in New York City in the early 20th century, when he began preparing a manuscript for the centennial anniversary of the 1838 Saxon Emigration.
When Rev. Koepchen died, either in 1935 (per Stephan, p. 5) or in 1936 (per Concordia Historical Institute), his collaborator and editor who ended up completing the manuscript was none other than... Rev. Theodore M. Stephan, the grandson of the deposed Martin Stephan. Rev. Theodore Stephan also wrote in 1929 another unpublished manuscript used repeatedly as a reference in Philip Stephan’s book. Thus Philip Stephan’s book of revisionist history is critically dependent on claims made in unpublished manuscripts, which were finally edited and completed by Theodore Stephan, the grandson of Martin Stephan, based in part on documents contributed by a number of Stephan ancestors.
The most reliable historical book on the events of the Missouri Saxon Emigration is Walter O. Forster's Zion on the Mississippi (Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, 1953), along with voluminous references to original sources. Forster's book is a revised and expanded version of his Ph.D. Thesis in History at Washington University-St. Louis.
Finally, in what may be "only for the brave" some additional discussion regarding the kidnapping of Walther's niece and nephew, Maria and Theodor Schubert, can be read in the Review, Part III of August R. Suelflow's Servant of the Word: The Life and Ministry of C.F.W. Walther (CPH, St. Louis, 2000). Some additional information about the Schubert children was obtained a number of years ago. According to the records of Concordia Lutheran Church in Frohna, Missouri, Maria Schubert was born on May 10, 1823, and died on July 19, 1840, at the age of 17, a year and a half after the Olbers arrived at New Orleans. The cause of death was listed as "gallstone fever". Theodor Schubert was one of the first eleven students in the Dresden, Missouri, school started on December 9, 1839, by Carl Walther, Johann Burnger, Ottomar Fuerbringer, and Theodor Brohm. According to Carl S. Meyer (Log Cabin to Luther Tower, CPH, St. Louis, 1965, p. 6) Theodor Schubert had died prior to September 12, 1841, when the remaining students signed a birthday poem for Brohm. No information on Theodor Schubert's death is in church records of Concordia or Trinity (Altenburg), but it is known that some deaths during that difficult time were not recorded. - LPC said...
- I link for the intetest of balanced reporting and let the reader decide. I find your reaction funny. For you erroneous reporting is more evil than kidnapping 2 children which you admit Walther did.
- Brett Meyer said...
- Including the kidnapping and subsequent robbery and abandonment of Stephan I count three (3). Heinous!
- Carl Vehse said...
- "For you, erroneous reporting is more evil than kidnapping 2 children which you admit Walther did." I pointed out erroneous reporting. I said nothing that would suggest I consider such faulty reporting more evil than kidnapping. What evidence do you have to support your accusation?
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GJ - The attorney Carl Vehse was responsible for hiding the children Walther kidnapped from his own father's parsonage, with the help of his brother, who was also a pastor and a Stephan follower.
The attorney Marbach also helped in this felony, so both attorneys were felons for obstructing justice.
The writer has offered the additional material that both children died young in America, which would have been heart-breaking for the family back in Europe.
Zion on the Mississippi is a good book. All the historical documents have to be weighed. The eye-witness accounts are valuable, even when they are not entirely accurate or they engage in outright distortions. People try their best and still get facts wrong. The official archives of the LCA had A. D. Mattson dying in the wrong city and state. How could the official archives be wrong?
Those things happen all the time. History is quite messy and much of it lies buried forever.
Stephan was a known adulterer in his old parish, who should have been removed, following the Scriptures, in Europe, but that would have been difficult, with the Walther brothers fleeing the police and the attorneys lying and hiding the children.
One can remove a pastor or bishop without threatening his life, robbing him of all his goods & all his gold coins, and kidnapping him. Many people realize that the Missouri Synod (St. Louis and Perry County) began with a series of crimes. Lying about the past does not solve any problems in the present.
If UOJ is true because Walther taught it, then people should re-evaluate whether they want to follow a pastor who committed multiple felonies, which gave him:
- His niece and nephew in America, contrary to the court, where they died;
- Control of the sect;
- Acres of free land (which Stephan bought with his own money), plus 40 acres they took back from him;
- Two valuable chalices;
- Many personal effects;
- And a big pile of gold.
