Born: Cir­ca 1673, Tran­syl­van­ia (now Ro­man­ia), prob­ab­ly in the town of Hal­we­gen.

Died: 1708, Penn­syl­van­ia.

Buried: In an un­marked grave in the gar­den of his com­mun­al grounds in the Wiss­a­hick­on Val­ley, near Phil­a­del­phia, Penn­syl­van­ia.

Kelpius grad­u­at­ed from the Un­i­ver­si­ty of Alt­dorf (near Nürn­berg) in 1689. Of mys­tic­al bent, he was at­tract­ed to sects such as the Pi­e­tists, un­der Philip Jacob Spener, and the Phil­a­del­phists, un­der Jane Leads. Seek­ing great­er free­dom for his un­or­tho­dox views, he em­i­grat­ed to Amer­i­ca in 1694, set­tling with 40 fol­low­ers near Ger­man­town. Known as the Her­mits of Wiss­a­hick­on, they main­tained a large­ly self sus­tain­ing com­mun­i­ty. Kel­pi­us was one of the first in Amer­i­ca to use an or­gan in re­li­gious serv­ic­es.

Sources

Lyrics

  1. Ich liebe Jesus noch allein