Bechtel, John

Bechtel, John a German Reformed minister, was born Oct. 3, 1690, at Bergstrasse, in the Palatinate. He emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1726, and began to preach at Germantown in 1728 without ordination. He was, however, ordained in 1742 by Rev. David Nitschman, a bishop in the Moravian Church, as a minister in the German Reformed Church of that place. Two years later he was dismissed for holding different doctrinal views. He died April 16, 1777. See Harbaugh, Fathers of the Germ. Ref. Church, 1, 312.