Conrad Beissel (1691-1768) was born in Eberbach, a town deeply divided between Catholics and Calvinists.
As one of the latter, he took up the baking trade in Heidelberg. He absorbed radical Pietist ideas there and decided to emigrate to Pennsylvania in 1720. There it was his hope to join a colony on the Wissahickon Creek in Philadelphia, founded by one Johannes Kelpius in 1691. Known as the Society of the Woman in the Wilderness, its members were awaiting the imminent coming of the Lord.
When Beissel arrived, he was surprised to find that Kelpius had been dead for 12 years. However, Conrad Matthei, one of Kelpius’s closest assistants, started to work with Beissel. This experience – and his falling in with the local German Baptists – helped crystallise Beissel’s religious thought.
