Introduction

Biography

George was the son of John Christ­ian Haas and An­na Mar­ga­ret Shur. He mar­ried twice, to An­na Ca­the­rine So­phia Han­sen (1882) and Cla­ra Holt­hus­en (1906).

He gra­du­at­ed from the Uni­vers­ity of Penn­syl­van­ia (BA 1876) and Penn­syl­van­ia Theo­lo­gic­al Se­mi­na­ry (1880).

He pas­tored at St. Mark’s Ger­man Lu­ther­an Church, Man­hat­tan, New York, 1882–1921, and ed­it­ed the 1898 Hym­nal of the Ev­an­gel­ic­al Church.

On June 15, 1904, St. Mark’s char­tered the steam­boat Ge­ne­ral Slo­cum for its an­nu­al chur­ch pic­nic ex­cur­sion. Short­ly af­ter the ship be­gan head­ing up the East Riv­er with 1,658 pas­sen­gers and crew, it caught fire and sank near North Bro­ther Is­land, off the Bronx.

Haas’ wife An­na and daugh­ter Ger­trude were among the ov­er 1,000 vic­tims of the di­sas­ter.

This was the dead­li­est in­ci­dent in New York un­til the ter­ror­ist at­tacks of Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001. A me­mor­ial to the di­sas­ter stands in Tomp­kins Square Park in Man­hat­tan.