[49-320b] REV. CHESTER DAVID HARTRANFT, same as above, m 2d time, Nov. 22, 1911, IDA THOMAS BERG, b May 6, 1853; dau Rev. Dr. Joseph F. and Elenora (Pomp) Berg; sister of his first wife. Widow resides in Wolfenbiittel, Germany, Neuerweg 19. Dr. Hartranft died during World War in Germany and is buried in Wolfenbiittel.
REV. CHESTER DAVID HARTRANFT, D.D.
The name of Chester David Hartranft has been indelibly impressed upon the minds of the Schwenkfelder people. His reputation as a scholar, an energizing theologian and a Christian gentleman has been carried into many lands. He was a native of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, having been born October 15, 1839, on the banks of the Swamp Creek in Frederick Township, a son of Samuel Hartranft and his wife, Salome (née Stetler). Early in his life he removed with his parents to Philadelphia where he grew to mankood. After completing his public school course in Montgomery County and subsequently in Philadelphia, he entered the Central High School in that city graduating in 1856. Failing to obtain an appointment to West Point by reason of his youth, he continued his studies in Rambo’s school at Trappe and in the Hill School at Pottstown. Subsequently, he entered the University of Pennsylvania from which institution he was graduated in 1861, standing third in his class. As a student he showed great aptitude in the study of mathematics and the languages; at the same time he was noted for athletic prowess.
While at the University he was chosen captain of a volunteer company, and later in the 18th Regiment of Pa. Vols., he held the same rank; circumstances, however, prevented him from seeing extended active service. After this brief military experience he entered the Reformed Theological Seminary at New Brunswick, New Jersey, graduating in 1864. During the fourteen years which followed, he was pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church at South Bushwick, now a part of Brooklyn. In 1866 he returned to New Brunswick as pastor of the Reformed Church, remaining there until 1878, when he was called to the Hartford Theological Seminary.
For twenty-five years Dr. Hartranft gave to Hartford so much of himself and of his broad ideas of what a Theological Seminary should be in the midst of a great city that for generations to come the impression he made upon the institution will be a living force. He gave instruction in almost every department during the years of active service as a teacher there. For the last fifteen years of his active eonnection with the institution he served as its president and from 1903 to the end of his life he was honorary president. One of his colleagues at Hartford has very appropriately said of Dr. Hartranft: “For himself, he could not rest until he had reached a rational classification of all theological education and knowledge, arranging what were otherwise an assemblage of separate and even heterogeneous disciplines into one great organism having a central principle and vital correlation between all its parts. And it was the dream of his life to make such a uniform system of thought the framework of instruction in an institution. Undoubtedly it was the hope of this that drew him to Hartford. Forits realization he wrought patiently and long, not with imperious urgency or with inconsiderate objection to what had been or was but with infinite kindliness and wisdom. It was ten years after his coming that the formal readjustment of the curriculum took place which was the first extensive result of his efforts, through various signs of what was in view had been visible long before. T'o be sure, this particular readjustment was far from embodying his ideas in full, and was felt by him to be only provisional. But for the Seminary, if not for theological education in general it may truly be said to have marked an epoch.”’
All through his life he was a fervent lover of music and art. For at least a decade he condueted an oratorio and also served as president of the Oratorio Society of New Brunswick, New Jersey. His studies and criticisms made in European galleries, although never edited and never published, reveal a perception wholly characteristic of his esthetic vision.
He received the degree of Mus. D. from the Rutgers College as early as 1861 as a result of his remarkable gifts for music. The degree of D. D. was conferred upon him by Rutgers in 1876 and by Williams in 1893.
Dr. Hartranft was himself a descendant of the Schwenkfelder people of Pennsylvania and it was eminently fitting and altogether natural to have the late Honorable Christopher Heydrick of Pennsylvania and Major-General John F. Hartranft suggest him as the orator on the occasion of the Sesquicentennial exercises of the landing of the Schwenkfelders in Pennsylvania, held September 24, 1884. The invitation for this was written by Christopher Heydrick, January 26, 1883.
One of the significant dates in Sechwenkfelder history is the twenty-seventh of August, 1884, when Dr. Hartranft issued and circulated a letter among the Schwenkfelders suggesting the publication of the ‘‘Corpus Schwenckfeldianorum.’’ The appeal which he made in this letter and in his subsequent address delivered on the twenty-fourth of September of that year in the Worcester Schwenkfelder Church was responded to with enthusiasm by the Schwenkfelder people. The inception of the publication which later followed under the title of ‘Corpus Schwenckfeldianorum”’ marked the beginning of a revival of interest in all matters pertaining to the history of this people. The impetus which Dr. Hartranft thus gave to the modern life and growth of the Schwenkfelder Church cannot be measured. The
fruition of the publication which he thus inaugurated was the appearance of Volume I in 1907, Volume II in 1911, Volume JII in 1913, Volume IV in 1914, Volume ’'V in 1916.
Dr. Hartranft issued very few other publications. Among these may be mentioned: ‘Some Thoughts on the Scope of Theology in Theological Education,” a twenty-four page pamphlet; and “Influence of Biblical Theology upon the Theological Sciences,” a thirty-five page pamphlet. Apart from these he published: (1) Translation and Enlargement of Exposition of Numbers and Deuteronomy in Lange’s Commentary; (2) Sozomenus; Church History from A. D. 325-425 in Schaff and Wace Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, 1890. Mention may also be made of his paper on ‘“‘Theological Encyclopaedia’ published on pp. 251-265 of ‘‘Recent Christian Progress,” edited by Lewis Bayles Paton and published by the Macmillan Company in 1909.
Dr. Hartranft resided in Wolfenbuettel, Germany, for the most part from 1902 to the time of his death which occurred December 31, 1914. His body was laid to rest on January 2, 1915, in the cemetery at Wolfenbuetiel. [EZ. EZ. S. J.]