Hunsicker family
Hunsicker (Hunziker, Unzicker, Hunzinger, Hunsinger, Honsaker) is a Swiss family from the region of Aargau, represented today in Alsace, the Palatinate, and America. The Hunsickers left Switzerland because of religious persecution about the middle of the 17th century. One of the well-known European representatives of the family was Abraham Hunzinger (1792-1859), author of Das Religions-, Kirchen- und Schulwesen der Mennoniten (Speyer, 1830). Valentine Hunsicker (1700-1771) emigrated from Europe to eastern Pennsylvania in 1717 and served as deacon in the Skippack congregation (MC) of the Franconia Conference about 1739. Three of the more prominent American Hunsickers were Bishop Henry Hunsicker (1752-1836) and his sons, Bishop John Hunsicker (1773-1847), senior bishop of the Franconia Conference in 1847 (he seceded with John H. Oberholtzer), and his younger brother, Preacher Abraham Hunsicker (1793-1872), who also seceded in 1847, and who with the help of his son, Henry A. Hunsicker, established Freeland Seminary in 1848. Henry A. Hunsicker served as principal of Freeland Seminary from 1848 until 1865. (The name of the school was changed to Ursinus College in 1869; the institution had not long remained Mennonite, but had become a college of the Reformed Church.) Oberholtzer's conference ordained Preacher Abraham Hunsicker a bishop in 1847 and his son Henry A. Hunsicker a preacher in 1850, but in 1851 expelled them both. They then carried on a sort of non-sectarian work. The Unzicker families of the Midwest, especially in Illinois, are 19th-century immigrants from Europe, and included a number of Amish Mennonite ministers. The best-known layman named Hunsicker was Leidy D. Hunsicker (1878-1954) of the Blooming Glen, Pennsylvania, Mennonite Church (MC), a noted chorister for 40 years.
Bibliography
Hunsicker, Henry A. A genealogical history of the Hunsicker family. Philadelphia: Printed for private circulation by J.B. Lippincott Co., 1911.
| Author(s) | John C Wenger |
|---|---|
| Date Published | 1956 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
Wenger, John C. "Hunsicker family." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1956. Web. 22 Nov 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Hunsicker_family&oldid=65518.
APA style
Wenger, John C. (1956). Hunsicker family. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 22 November 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Hunsicker_family&oldid=65518.
Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 2, pp. 844-845. All rights reserved.
©1996-2024 by the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. All rights reserved.