Rev. Hoffmeier married Jacob Shire and Catherine Boyer.
Condensed from "The Fathers of The Reformed Church" - Harbough:
In gratitude to God for his recovery from a very severe illness, with which he was afflicted in the fourteenth year of his life, and which had already carried away all his brothers and sisters, John Henry Hoffmeier forthwith dedicated himself to the Holy Ministry. Shortly after his recovery he was orphaned by the death of both his parents. Compelled by this circumstance to leave Anhalt-Coethen, Germany, where he was born March 17, 1760, a refuge was found for him in the Orphans' Assylum at Halle, which was founded by the great pietist, Franke. Here his industry and diligence gained for him the approval of his superiors; he was encouraged in his aspirations to the ministry and in 1779 transferred to the Fredricks College at Halle, where at the end of three years he received his theological diploma. His thoughts soon began to center upon the new world as the scene of his future labours. In the midst of these thoughts and yearnings "he was visited by a dream, the vividness of which seemed to characterize it almost as a vision. In this dream he thought he had made a voyage to America, and, after a short journey inland, saw a house of certain dimensions, structure, and surroundings, in which he took up his abode.
A few days later a friend showed him a letter from America describing the "lamentable spiritual destitution" of the people and asked him if he would go. "Yes," he replied, "I will go. I regard that letter as addressed to myself." And on the 9th of May, 1793, Hoffmeier and his bride, to whom he had just been united in marriage on the preceding day, sailed for America.
"Soon after his arrival in America, his attention was directed by some ministers of the Reformed Church to a vacant field of labor in Northampton County, Pa., to which they also gave him recommendations. He immediately set out with his companion for this field, locating in Hellertown, in the southwest section of the county. A circumstance connected with their arrival in Hellertown strangely conspired to confirm Mr. Hoffmeier's belief in the prophetic significance of his earlier dream. They had hardly entered the village when his wife's attention was attracted by the comfortable appearance of a two-story stone building on the right of the way. Immediately opposite to this stood a two-story house of frame work, very comfortable in its appearance, though of humbler pretensions. 'There,' said the young wife, 'I would be content to live.' This remark led her husband to lok at it, when he immediately exclaimed, 'That is the house I saw in my dream.' The house was afterward purchased by the neighboring congregations as a parsonage, and occupied by Mr. Hoffmeier during the entire period of his residence in Saucon."
Mr. Hoffmeier was ordained May 21, 1794, and thereupon took charge of the congregations of Upper Saucon, Lower Saucon, Springfield and Hamilton, "which was upwards of twenty miles distant and beyond the Blue Mountains."
In the spring of 1806, Rev. Hoffmeier accepted a call to become the pastor of the Lancaster Congregation, "although it was with great reluctance that he consented to break the strong tie which bound him during so many pleasant years to the people of the Saucon Charge. For the people also, who fully reciprocated his attachment, the prospective separation was exceedingly painful. But a sense of duty prevailed, and they yielded to the decision with the kindest spirit. On the eve of the departure of their beloved pastor, a public dinner was given to him by the congregation, and on the day on which he started for his new home, a large escort accompanied him several miles on his way. For thirty days afterward many of his brethren there wore crepe on their arms as an expression of the sense of the loss they had sustained."
At Lancaster he had a fruitful and acceptable ministry for twenty-five years. The zeal and earnestness of his preaching won for him an honorable place in the community. But at last he got into trouble with his congregation because he refused to consent to the introduction of the English language into the services of the Sanctuary. Hence he retired form the active ministry in 1831. Such, however, was the love his people had for their former pastor, that when he died, March 18, 1838, they buried him in the church, directly under the pulpit where for a quarter of a century he had expounded for them the word of God. Since his death, his descendants have never permitted the name Hoffmeier to disappear from the Reformed Ministry, where he had so honorabley established it.
Extracted from:
History of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
with Biographical Sketches of many of its
Pioneers and Prominent Men.
By Franklin Ellis and Samuel Evans
1883
page 456
The successor of Dr. Becker was the Rev. John Henry Hoffmeier. He entered upon his duties as pastor in October, 1806, and continued longer than any of his predecessors, his pastorate closing in 1832. This good man was born at Anhalt-Koethen, in Germany, March 17, 1760. He was educated at the Univerity of Halle. Afterwards he spent some time as private teacher in Hamburg, and subsequently at Bremen, where he preached as candidate. In 1793 he came to America. In May, 1794, he was examined and approved by the Synod convened at Reading; he was immediately ordained and placed over a charge in Northhampton County, where he labored with the divine blessing and with favor among his people until 1806. On the 10th of August of this year he received a call from the church in Lancaster, which he accepted, and entered upon his new field of labor in the following October. During the greater part of Mr. Hoffmeier's term of service the congregation kept the even tenor of its prosperous way.
In 1812 considerable improvements were made in the church building in the way of painting and trimming, the cost of which amounted to two hundred and fifty-one dollars and thirty-nine cents. In 1820 two lots on the east side of Duke Street were bought for two hundred and twenty dollars, and in 1821 another lot near the church for eight hundred and five dollars. In 1822 the church building was improved, perhaps we should more properly say remodeled, at an expense of fourteen hundred and seventy-two dollars and forty-four cents. Previous to this time the aisles in the church were laid with brick; the gallery did not extend the whole way along the sides; the pulpit was of the ancient kind, only large enough for one man to stand in, with a narrow stairway winding up into it, and ending below in a small closet of lattice-work, intended as a privacy for the minister previous to ascending the pulpit, no doubt originally intended as a place for putting on the gown. The altar place was a perfect circle, some ten or twelve feet in diameter, inclosed with banisters, so that the communicants could entirely surround it. There were, up to this time, no stoves, nor any other means of warming the church in winter. Perhaps there was more warmth in the hearts of the worshipers than there is now, which may explain the reason why an inconvenience could be endured the very thought of which to our effeminate age seems worse than to be without religion entirely. In the repairs which were made at this time many of these things were changed and more modern improvements introduced.
The latter part of Rev. Hoffmeier's term was emphatically the most trying period in the whole history of the congregation since its organization up to this time. Hitherto the public worship had been conducted entirely in the German language, and now began the transition from German to English. Whoever is in the least acquanted with the difficulties that have attended this crisis in other congregations will wonder that the matter here was piloted as well as it was. It is a time when the greatest wisdon, firmness, faith, love, and self-denial are required. Few would have acquitted themselves so well; hundreds, perhaps, in the circumstances would have done worse. Towards the close of Mr. Hoffmeier's time several efforts were made to procure the services of a co-pastor in English, so far as the nature of the circumstances seemed to require, but without success. At length the idea was abandoned, and after the withdrawal of Father Hoffmeier, in 1831, the congregation concluded to procure the services of a pastor who could officiate in both languages.
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