Biography of Rev. John Baer Stoudt

REV. JOHN BAER, STOUDT, D. D.

Source: Pennsylvania, A History, George P. Donehoo, (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1926), p. 171

Surnames: Stpidt. Oswald, Reppert, Baer, Carl, Lease, Kline, Herring, DeLong, Yoder

As a preacher and pastor, Rev. John Baer Stoudt, D. D., has won an
enviable and popular regard in the field of ministerial service in the
Reformed Church of Pennsylvania, and particularly in the Borough of
Northampton, where he has had an important charge for thirteen years,
but he is known to the public-at-large as an antiquarian and historian
of wide learning, and his contributions to the history of this State
are many and varied. His most recent public service of marked
importance was as director of the Huguenot-Walloon Tercentenary in
commemoration of the three hundredth anniversary of the Settlement of
New Netherland, he having been given charge of the celebrations both in
the United States and Europe. For this latter work and that of
historian he has attained wide recognitions of high honor in this
country and abroad.

Stoudt is one of the early Palatinate names, other spellings being
Staudt and Stout. Members of this family figured prominently in some
of the Crusades. In Holland, into which country the family spread,
several of its members were raised to the nobility. When the
persecutions of the Bloody Alba were at their height, members of the
family found refuge in England, where Richard Stoudt enlisted in the
English Navy. This Richard was wont to make visits to New Amsterdam,
and upon one of them he was presented to Penelope Van Princis, whom he
later married, and they settled in Middletown, New Jersey, prior to
1688, thus becoming the progenitors of this large and worthy family.
The Stoudts, or Staudts, of Pennsylvania emigrated directly from the
Palatinate, and there are evidences that they divided into two groups,
that of Berks County and that of Bucks County. There arrived in
Philadelphia, September 18, 1733, John Michael Staudt from whom Dr.
Stoudt traces descent, and on August 30, 1737, John Jacob, Johannes and
Hans Adam Staudt, and, on September 24 of the same year, Peter Staudt.
It is believed that these four were brothers. Peter and Daniel came in
1738, and another Peter in 1741, these being joined in 1744 by George
Wilhelm, all of them relatives, as the recently issued genealogy of the
family shows. They were the sturdy forbears of the present generation
of the Stoudt family. They built into the early Colonial structure of
America their proportion of its stability and progressiveness, and in
the early history of the United States they were identified with the
great national movement which gave so firm a foundation to the new
American Republic. John Michael Staudt settled at Stoudts Ferry on the
Schuylkill River north of Reading, Pennsylvania. He became the
progenitor of a large family.

Henry Stoudt, grandfather of Rev. John Baer Stoudt, D. D., and a
great-grandson of the emigrant mentioned above, was born March 27,
1827, and died September 23, 1859, the son of Reuben Stoudt. He
married Otilla Reppert, daughter of Peter and Elizabeth (Oswald)
Reppert. She was born December 12, 1827, and died August 3, 1877. She
and her husband are buried at De Long Reformed Church, of which they
were members. They resided at Topton. To them were born six children:
John R., of whom further; Hannah; Francis; Oliver; Daniel; Lucius.

John R. Stoudt was born February 10, 1848, son of Henry and Otilla
(Reppert) Stoudt. He was brought up on the home farm, and having
obtained a common school education, he learned the trade of miller. In
1877 he began to engage in farming, and followed that occupation until
his death, February 3, 1907. He and his wife were members of the
Reformed Church and were confirmed in De Long’s Church, Bowers, Berks
County. He married, June 10, 1876, Anna Amanda Carl Baer, daughter of
Charles and Anna (Carl) Baer, who were descended from Huguenots.
Following the death of her husband, Mrs. Stoudt took up her residence
in Fleetwood, where she reared her family of six children: 1. Charles
Henry, for many years a member of the police force of Reading, was shot
by a bandit, July 1, 1924; married Minnie Lease, and left two children,
Mabel and Charles. 2. John Baer, of whom further. 3. George B., a
machinist, lives in San Bernardino, California; married, and has sons,
Calvin, Francis, Paul, Kenneth and Norman. 4. Jacob, a moulder; lives
at Fleetwood; married Katie Kline; has two daughters, Anna and Esther.
5. Annie L., married John Herring, a contractor at Fleetwood, and they
had one son, Harold Robert; she died in May, 1916. 6. Lieutenant
Frederick M., who served one and one-half years as a lieutenant in the
Motor Transport Corps with the American Expeditionary Forces in France;
married Grace M. Merkel.

Rev. John Baer Stoudt, D. D., second child of John R. and Anna
Amanda Carl (Baer) Stoudt, was born in Maxatawny Township, Berks
County, Pennsylvania, October 7, 1878, and with his parents removed at
an early age to Richmond Township, near Fleetwood. His youth was
passed on the parental farmstead, and he studied at the local public
schools, later graduating from the Fleetwood High School. In 1896 he
was granted a license to teach in the public schools, and for three
years he followed that profession. Entering the Keystone State Normal
School, he was graduated in 1900, and pursuing his studies still
further at Franklin and Marshall College, he was graduated from that
institution in the class of 1905. He participated prominently in
literary and oratorical work, both at the normal school and in college,
and was the winner of a number of collegiate and inter-collegiate
prizes. Having elected the ministerial profession for his life-work,
he next entered the Eastern Theological Seminary of the Reformed
Church, whence he was graduated with honors in the class of 1908. In
the summer of 1906 he was a theological student at the University of
Chicago. He took his examination for the ministry, June 3, 1908, and
received his license to preach from Lehigh Classis, Jacksonville,
Lehigh County. His first call to a pastorate came on September 1,
1908, from the Salisbury charge, Emaus, Pennsylvania, consisting of the
congregations of New Jersualem in Western Salisbury, St. John’s in
Emaus and St. Mark’s in South Allentown. He was installed as pastor,
September 27, 1908, at St. Mark’s Church, South Allentown. For
approximately two and one-half years he labored with diligence in this
field and his ministry was blessed with spiritual conquests and
material benefits. He exhibited during that period those qualities of
pastor and preacher that since have been developed to such a high
degree of effectiveness. They were recognized by Grace Reformed Church
at Northampton, Pennsylvania, which extended him a unanimous call to
become its pastor. He accepted, and on February 9, 1911, removed from
Emaus to Northampton, where his service is highly esteemed by the
congregation and the community. His literary successes also have
brought him into more than local prominence, since his name is known in
that respect on both sides the Atlantic.

Dr. Stoudt, being a descendant of Huguenots, and having pursued deep
researches in Huguenot relations in connection with his history work
and the gathering of antiquities, was eminently qualified for the
appointment as the director of the Huguenot-Walloon Tercentenary, which
he received in 1922, the celebration to take place in 1924, three
hundred years after the settlement of New Netherland in 1624, which
event it commemorated. His duties in that position called upon him to
assume charge of the observance of the anniversary in this country and
in Europe, and to his unusual ability in that line was due in a large
measure the very successful conduct and beneficial results of the
celebration. To his initiative and ideas must the credit be given for
the designs of both the Huguenot commemorative stamps and the Huguenot
memorial half-dollar. Dr. Stoudt’s highly valued contributions to
American history, and especially of that dealing with the Huguenot
settlements in America, have been recognized by the University of
Geneva with the Swiss-American medal, as “the creator of friendly
feeling among the descendants of the Huguenots throughout the world;”
by Belgium with Knighthood of the Order of the Crown and by France with
Knighthood of the Legion of Honor, the latter decoration having been
conferred upon him by President Doumergue, of France, in person. He
also was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity by the
University of Montpelier in France.

During the World War, Dr. Stoudt gave patriotic service on many
committees in his borough of Northampton, and he is a member of the
Committee for Christian Service in France and Belgium of the Federal
Council of Churches. He was made an honorary chaplain of the Belgian
Army.

As would be expected of one of Dr. Stoudts’s standing and interests,
he is actively associated with educational movements. In December,
1924, he was elected associate president of Cedar Crest College at
Allentown, Pennsylvania. He was the organizer and first president of
the Huguenot Society of Pennsylvania, and now is chairman of its
executive committee. He is historian of the Huguenot League of
America; honorary member of the John Calvin Society, Geneva,
Switzerland, of the Waldensian Society of Italy and of the Societe
L’Histoire du Protestantisme Francais of Paris; member of the executive
committee of the Pennsylvania German Society; member of the council of
the Historical Society of the Reformed Church in the United States;
member of the Lehigh, Lancaster and Berks Counties Historical
societies; and archivist of the borough of Northampton. Among his
numerous literary productions, the following as of the more important
works are mentioned: “The Huguenot Cross,” “The History of the West
Salisbury Reformed Congregations,” “The History of the Grace Reformed
Church, Northampton, Pennsylvania,” “Michael Schlatter in the Valley of
the Lehigh,” “Rev. Philip Jacob Michael, A Revolutionary Chaplain,”
“The Moravians in the Oley Valley,” “The Life and Services of Colonel
John Siegfried,” “The Dispersion of the Kocherthal Colony,” “The
Borough of Northampton in the World War,” “The Pottery Inscriptions of
the Pennsylvania Germans,” “The Folklore of the Pennsylvania Germans,”
“The Stoudt Genealogy,” and was joint author of the “Centennial History
of Lehigh County” (3 vols.). He is affiliated with the Free and
Accepted Masons, and is a member of the Knights Templar of that order.

Rev. Dr. John Baer Stoudt married, October 15, 1908, at the DeLong
homestead, Maxatawny Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania, Elizabeth A.
DeLong, a daughter of Joseph S. and Mary (Yoder) DeLong. They are the
parents of one son, John Joseph Stoudt, born March 11, 1911. Mrs.
Stoudt is a member of Liberty Bell Chapter, Daughters of the American
Revolution. During the World War she served on many local committees
of the American Red Cross, Liberty Loan campaigns and other welfare
enterprises. Dr. Stoudt has his residence at No. 1054 Tilghman Street,
Allentown, Pennsylvania.