Jonas Michaëlius (1577 - after 1638) was the first clergyman to lead a congregation of the Dutch

Reformed Church in America The Reformed Church in America (RCA) is a mainline Reformed Protestant denomination in Canada and the United States. It has about 152,317 members. From its beginning in 1628 until 1819, it was the North American branch of the Dutch Reforme ...

Biography

He was probably born ''Jonas Joannis Michielsz'' in

Hoorn Hoorn () is a city and municipality in the northwest of the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is the largest town and the traditional capital of the region of West Friesland. Hoorn is located on the Markermeer, 20 kilometers ...

. He studied at the

University of Leyden Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city of Le ...

from 1600-1605, and worked as a clergyman in various towns in Brabant from 1607-1612, from 1612-14 in "Nieuwbokswoude" (modern Nibbixwoud), and from 1614-1624 in

Hem A hem in sewing is a garment finishing method, where the edge of a piece of cloth is folded and sewn to prevent unravelling of the fabric and to adjust the length of the piece in garments, such as at the end of the sleeve or the bottom of the ga ...

. He married in 1614. In 1624 he traveled, presumably with the fleet of Piet Hein, to

Salvador, Brazil Salvador ( English: ''Savior'') is a Brazilian municipality and capital city of the state of Bahia. Situated in the Zona da Mata in the Northeast Region of Brazil, Salvador is recognized throughout the country and internationally for its cuisi ...

, where he served until the town was recaptured by the Portuguese in May 1625. From there he crossed the Atlantic to Guinea where he stayed until 1627. After briefly returning to the Netherlands, he went to

New Amsterdam New Amsterdam ( nl, Nieuw Amsterdam, or ) was a 17th-century Dutch settlement established at the southern tip of Manhattan Island that served as the seat of the colonial government in New Netherland. The initial trading ''factory'' gave rise ...

in January 1628, and was thus the first minister of the Dutch Reformed Church in what would become the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

. He organized a

consistory Consistory is the anglicized form of the consistorium, a council of the closest advisors of the Roman emperors. It can also refer to: *A papal consistory, a formal meeting of the Sacred College of Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church *Consistory ...

, and administered the

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, but returned to Holland in a few years, probably before the arrival of his successor,

Everardus Bogardus The Reverend Everardus Bogardus (1607 – 27 September 1647) was the dominie of the New Netherlands, and was the second minister of the Dutch Reformed Church, the oldest established church in present-day New York, which was then located on ...

, in 1633. Michaëlius' wife died in New Amsterdam shortly after his arrival. The classis of Amsterdam wished to send Michaëlius back to America in 1637, but he did not return owing to political opposition from New Amsterdam.''Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664'', ed. J. Franklin Jameson. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909. p. 120. It was long supposed that Bogardus was the first Reformed Church clergyman in the future United States, but the precedence of Michaëlius was established by a letter from him to Adrian Smoutius, dated New Amsterdam, 11 August 1628, which was found in the late 19th century in the Dutch archives at

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a list of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's ad ...

. In this letter he describes the degraded state of the natives, and proposes to educate their children without trying to redeem the parents. The letter is printed in an appendix to Mary L. Booth's ''History of the City of New York'' (New York, 1859).

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References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Michaelius, Jonas 1577 births 1638 deaths People from Hoorn Leiden University alumni 17th-century Dutch Calvinist and Reformed ministers People of New Netherland Reformed Church in America ministers

Biography

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