Huidekoper

lisions of opinion, and given to deeds of gen-
erosity where there was need. On Nov. 10, 1853,
he married in New York Harriet Nancy, fifth
daughter of Henry Sturges Thorp and Julia
Ann (Parker) Thorp. At his death in Meadville,
he was survived by two of his four children.

[Huidckoper, Am. Branch (1928), comp. by F. L.
Huidekoper; N. M. and Francis Tiffany, Harm Jan
Huidekoper (1904) ; E. M. Wilbur, A Hist. Sketch of
the Independent Cong. Ch.> Meadvillet Pa., 1825-1900
(1902) ; F. A. Christie, The Makers of the Meadville
Thcol. School, 1844-1894 (1927); Christian Register,
May 26, 1892.] F.A.C

HUIDEKOPER, HARM JAN (Apr. 3,1776-
May 22, 1854), business man, lay theologian,
founder of the Meadville Theological School,
was descended from a Frisian family of Men-
nonite faith. He was born in Hoogeveen, Prov-
ince of Drenthe, Holland, son of Anne Jans
Huidekoper by his second wife, Gesiena Fred-
erica Wolthers. Completing in 1795 his formal
education in a school in Hasselt and an Institute
in Crefeld, Germany, he found Holland held by
the French, at war with England, and ruined in
its commerce. Aided by his half-brother, Jan, who
had made a tour in America, he therefore sought
a career in the United States and arrived in
New York Oct. 14, 1796, on the American brig
Prudence. A winter spent with a marriage con-
nection of his brother in Cazenovia, N. Y,, con-
vinced him that to make a farm from the wilder-
ness was of prohibitive cost, and in the next
summer he removed to Oldenbarneveld to join a
group of notable Hollanders banished or self-
exiled following the struggle with the House of
Orange for free government in 1787. After em-
ployment in the local office of the Holland Land
Company, he became in February 1802 the book-
keeper of its general agency in Philadelphia and
secretary of the Pennsylvania Population So-
ciety. These were companies of Holland mer-
chants who had invested the proceeds of their
loans to the American colonies during the Revo-
lution in large land purchases in New York
State and northwestern Pennsylvania. Desiring
a country life, Huidekoper secured appointment
as local agent in Meadville, Pa., purchasing also
for himself extensive holdings in that neighbor-
hood. He entered upon his duties in January
1805 amid disordered frontier conditions that ex-
acted skill and courage. Indian warfare had
made it impossible for the land company to com-
ply with some provisions of a Pennsylvania land
act of 1792, and when peace came in 1796 many
squatters took possession, claiming that the for-
mer owners had forfeited title. Lawless intruders
even plotted to destroy the offices and records
of the company and to drive away or kill the

Huidekoper

agents. Although a state supreme court decision
had impaired the company's titles Huidekoper,
on his arrival, began suit in the United States
circuit court for the ejectment of an intruder,
and a construction of the law by Chief Justice
Marshall necessitated a judgment of the circuit
court in Huidekoper's favor. This remedied the
general situation. Orderly civilization in the
region owed much to his firm policy, his eminent
integrity, his personal aid of struggling farmers,
and the example of his own arduous grappling
with economic difficulties in an area isolated be-
cause of primitive means of transportation. Af-
ter the Hollanders sold their company holdings
(1810) and some land of the Population Society
(1813), Huidekoper as agent of the new owners
had profitable commissions due to the influx of
settlers after the War of 1812. Finally, in 1836,
he purchased for $178,400 the lands retained in
the sale of 1813. This prosperous Hollander early
became an ardent American, rejoicing in Amer-
ican freedom and in the responsibilities of citizen-
ship. While not enrolled in the army in 1812, he
was of service to Perry in the preparation of the
Lake Erie fleet and in the equipment of the
militia,

Through his home life, also, Huidekoper was
a social force. Having married, Sept i, 1806,
Rebecca Colhoon, daughter of Andrew Colhoon
of Carlisle, Pa., he built in fair surroundings a
spacious home, Pomona Hall, celebrated for cul-
tured life and hospitality in the letters and jour-
nals of many notable visitors, among them
Harriet Martineau. Concerned for the religious
education of his children, he became a patient
student of Scripture and of church history. He
had been reared in the Dutch Reformed Church
but its Calvinism had been modified in his case
by the influence of Mennonite preaching in Cre-
feld and the catholicity of a union church in Old-
enbarneveld. Disturbed by the rigor of the Pres-
byterian Church in Meadville and responsive to
the Unitarian movement in New England, he
created in 1825 a home school for his children,
with public Unitarian worship on Sunday, under
a succession of young graduates of Harvard Col-
lege of later distinction in Unitarian pulpits. In
defence of his new theology he maintained for
two years (1831-32) a monthly periodical, The
Unitarian Essayist, in which he published a com-
plete controversial survey of doctrine, and he
made later contributions to The Western Mes-
senger, a journal founded at his instance and
edited successively by Ephraim Peabody in Cin-
cinnati, James Freeman Garke in Louisville, aad
W. H. Channmg in Cincinnati. The permanent
result of this religious zeal was the Unitarian

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