My Genealogy Hound

REV. WILLIAM S. GOTTSHALL is a direct descendant of Jacob Gottschall, a Mennonite minister who came to this country from Holland in 1702. He is believed to have been the second Mennonite minister in America. He remained among the Mennonites of Germantown a few years only, and then settled permanently in Skippack, where he became the pastor of that congregation. Rev. William S. Gottshall was born June 23, 1865, near Schwenksville. He is the son of Bishop Moses H. Gottshall, who was also a prominent Mennonite clergyman.

Bishop Gottshall (father) was born in the same house in which he died near Schwenksville, Frederick township, March 25, 1815. He was reared on the farm, and became himself a farmer by occupation, in accordance with traditions of the Mennonites, whose pastors usually followed some vocation aside from their ministerial calling. He was intelligent and naturally studious, but his education was limited, being only what the ordinary schools at that time furnished. He was the first pastor of the Schwenksville Mennonite congregation, having been elected in 1847. He was ordained a bishop in 1850. He organized the Bowmansville congregation in Lancaster county, in 1855, and the first Mennonite church in Philadelphia in 1865. The following congregations were in his charge as a bishop of the Mennonite church: Schwenksville, Bertolet’s, Bowmansville, Deep Run, Boyertown and Philadelphia, but only in the first five at the time of his death, which occurred October 26, 1888, at the age of seventy-three years and seven months. Some idea of the esteem in which he was held may be conveyed by the number of people in attendance at his funeral, fully fifteen hundred being present. It was the largest ever held in that community. Twenty-seven ministers of different denominations were among those in attendance. Bishop Gottshall was one of the most influential ministers in the Mennonite denomination. He was a man of great piety, of strong convictions, and thoroughly imbued with the importance of right living. He was an eloquent and forcible speaker, exerting a powerful influence upon his audience as the words of truth came from his heart, and flowed from his lips. He had few equal’s for popularity among all denominations.

Rev. William S. Gottshall was occupied on the homestead farm until he was seventeen years of age, attending school in the vicinity of his home a few months during each winter in the intervals of farm employment. He also studied two spring terms at Perkiomen Seminary, Pennsburg, and one at Ursinus College. He began to teach public schools at seventeen years of age, being engaged in this occupation for three terms. On October 15, 1884, he was ordained to the ministry as his father’s assistant, and on November 24, 1886, he was ordained as bishop. Through the kindly interest of one of the directors of Ursinus, the president of that college invited him to join the theological class at that institution, from which he graduated in 1889. The father’s five congregations became also the sons’, and he served them all for four years, resigning that at Deep Run in 1892, and that at Boyertown in 1895. In the last named year he organized the First Mennonite church of Pottstown, and became its pastor, his present charge comprising Schwenksville, Bertolet, Pottstown and Bowmansville.

Bishop Gottshall is an able, eloquent and forcible preacher, an earnest and indefatigable church worker, and is thoroughly devoted to the welfare of the congregations in his charge. He is widely known, and is highly respected by all who know him. He has held many prominent positions in the Mennonite church, including the following: Secretary for a number of years of the Home Mission Committee of the Eastern Conference; member of the Foreign Mission Board of the General Conference from 1893 to 1896; director of the Bethel College at Newton, Kansas, from 1896 to 1900; business manager of The Mennonite, the English organ of the church, from 1899 to 1901; secretary of the Eastern Conference since 1893; treasurer of the Home Mission Board of the General Conference since 1896; member of the Eastern Conference Publication Committee since 1899; and others. He has been elected a school director of the borough of Schwenksville, and is treasurer of the board, and chaplain of the Mennonite Home for the Aged, at Frederick, Pennsylvania.

Bishop Gottshall married, on September 22, 1886, at Lincoln, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, Nancy K. Von Neida, daughter of Henry and Sallie Von Neida, of Bowmansville. Her ancestors were from Switzerland, where they belonged to the nobility. Their children: Aaron Elmer, born October 13, 1889; Jennie May, born January 24, 1892; Flora Alberta, born February 27, 1896; Paul Herbert, born February 12, 1898.