Introduction

Biography

Falckner was the son of Da­ni­el Falck­ner, Lu­ther­an pas­tor at Lang­en­reins­dorf.

He en­tered the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hal­le in 1693 as a theo­lo­gy stu­dent un­der Au­gust Francke. Af­ter com­plet­ing his stu­dies, though, he de­cid­ed the min­is­try was not for him.

With his bro­ther Da­ni­el, who had just re­turned from Am­eri­ca, he ac­cept­ed, in Rot­ter­dam, a pow­er of at­tor­ney for the sale of Will­iam Penn’s lands in Penn­syl­van­ia.

In 1701, ten thou­sand acres of Penn’s lands were sold to Pro­vost An­dre­as Rud­man and oth­er Swedes liv­ing on Ma­na­taw­ny Creek.

His as­so­cia­tion with Rud­man made Falck­ner re­con­si­der the min­is­try, and he was or­dained on No­vem­ber 24, 1703, in the Swed­ish Church of Wi­ca­coa, Phi­la­del­phia, Penn­syl­van­ia, mak­ing him the first Lu­ther­an pas­tor or­dained in America.

His first as­sign­ment was pas­tor­al ov­er­sight of Dutch set­tlers on the Ma­na­taw­ny, near New Ha­no­ver. Short­ly af­ter­ward, Rud­man as­signed him to be pas­tor of Lu­ther­an con­gre­ga­tions in New York and Al­ba­ny.

Works

• Grondlycke On­der­richt (New York, 1708)