Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Herman, John Gottlieb

HERMAN, John Gottlieb, Moravian bishop, b. in Niesky, Prussia, 18 Nov., 1789; d. in Missouri, 20 July, 1854. He was educated at the college and the theological seminary of the Moravian church in Germany. He came to the United States in 1817, and labored for twenty-seven years in various capacities, among others as principal of the Brown boarding-school for boys at Nazareth, Pa. Having been elected to the supreme executive board of the Moravian church in 1844, he returned to Europe, where he was consecrated to the episcopacy, 27 Sept., 1846. In that same year he went out on a protracted official visit to the missions in the West Indies. Two years later, in 1848, the general synod of the entire Moravian church, a body composed of bishops, other clergy, and lay delegates from many parts of the world, met at Herrnhut, in Saxony. Of this synod Bishop Herman was chosen president. But the longer he remained in Germany the more he was dissatisfied. He longed for his adopted country, and in the following year returned to the United States as the presiding bishop of the southern district. In 1854 he undertook an official visit to the mission in the Cherokee country. There being comparatively few railroads in the south at that time, he travelled all the way in a private carriage. The hardships of this journey were too great for his waning strength. On the way back he died in a log-cabin in the wilderness of southwestern Missouri. Bishop Herman was noted for his earnest eloquence and for his genial social qualities.