Henry Newan Pohlman
Henry Newan Pohlman [1]
a Lutheran minister. was born at.Albany, N.Y., March 8, 1800. In August 1820, he graduated from Hartwick Seminary the first student in the first Lutheran theological seminary in the United States. In March following he received license to preach in Rhinebeck, and in May was ordained in New York city. After serving a few months in two small churches at Saddle River and Ramapo, N.J., he took charge of the Lutheran churches in Hunterdon County, which at that time numbered three, many miles apart. For twenty-one years he continued in this work, until each of these congregations was able to support. its own pastor. The great event of his ministerial life was a remarkable revival of religion at New Germantown during the winter of 1839-40. In 1843 he became pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Ebenezer Church in Albany, N.Y., and remained in this pastorate about three years. Of the General Synod he was three times elected president, and was a delegate from 1836 to every meeting of that body. At the time of his admission to the ministry the General Synod had just been. formed, and the New York Ministerium, a party to the original convention, had already withdrawn. This led to the creation of two parties in the ministerium, resulting in 1830 in the formation of the Hartwick Synod. Dr. Pohlman, with a few other friends of the General Synod, decided to remain with the ministerium; and in 1836 the ministerium renewed its connection with the General Synod. He took an active part in the work of organizing churches. On September 3,1867, after the New York Ministerium had decided to withdraw from the General Synod, a new synod was organized, and Dr. Pohlman was elected its first president, and held this position until his death in Albany, January 20, 1874. For many years he was a trustee of the State Idiot Asylum at Syracuse. During thirty years he was a trustee of Hartwick Seminary. For three years he assumed the duties of corresponding secretary of the Lutheran Mission Board in New York, and for some time afterwards was an active member of the executive committee. See Quar. Rev. of Evang. Luth. Church, 4:359.
