History of Mendota, (La Salle County) Illinois United States of America

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Gottfried Wilhelm Leonhard Fritschel, clergyman, was born in Nuremberg, Bavaria, Dec. 19, 1836; son of Martin Heinrich Fritschel. He was graduated from the University of Erlangen, Bavaria, in 1856, and the following year emigrated to the United States where he was ordained to the ministry and became a professor in the Wartburg seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran synod of Iowa and adjacent states, Dubuque, Iowa. In 1858 the seminary was removed to St. Sebald, Iowa, and again in 1874 to Mendota, Ill. Throughout those years and at those places Dr. Fritschel performed the labors oprofessor of church history, exegesis and dogmatics and became known as one of the most prominent theologians of the Lutheran church in the United States. He was associated with his brother Conrad Sigmund in editing Kirchliche Zeitschrift, a bi-monthly journal, published at Mendota, and he also edited other publications of the Iowa synod of which he was secretary for several years. He was married at St. Sebald, Iowa, Aug. 29, 1858, to Elisabeth Koeberle, daughter of a Bavarian minister. The degree of D.D. was conferred upon him by Muhlenberg college, Allentown, Pa., in 1879. He is the author of Meditations on the Passion of Christ (1868); Taking Interest in the Light of the Scriptures (1869); History of Protestant Missionary Operations among the North American Indians in the 17th and 18th Centuries (1870); The Teaching of the Missouri Synod on the Doctrine of Predestination (1883); Theophilus (1889). He died at Mendota, Ill., July 13, 1889.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

History of Mendota, (La Salle County) Illinois

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