Boehm, John Philip

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BOEHM, JOHN PHILIP

German Reformed mininster; b. Höchstädt, Germany, 1683; d. Whitpain, Pennsylvania, April 29, 1749. Boehm was the son of a Reformed minister and became a schoolmaster at Worms, Germany, before coming to the United States in 1720. After serving Reformed congregations in Montgomery Co., Pennsylvania as a lay reader (172529), he was ordained at the Dutch Reformed Church in New York City in 1729. In 1730 he became pastor of churches in Philadelphia and Germantown, Pennsylvania. He resisted the efforts of Count Nicholas Zinzendorf to unite the Reformed congregations with the Moravians from 1741 to 1743. With Rev. Michael Schlatter, Boehm formed the Synod of the Reformed Church in Pennsylvania, the first synod of this church in America, in 1747.

Bibliography: j. p. boehm, Life and Letters, ed. w. j. hinke (Philadelphia 1916). h. dotterer, Rev. John Philip Boehm (Philadelphia 1890).

[r. k. macmaster]