Atlas of Moravian Settlements
First edition of this interesting atlas covering the regions of the world with Moravian Missionary Settlements, with maps drawn by American Moravian missionary Levin Theodor Reichel and lithographed in Berlin at the establishment of Leopold Kraatz.
Born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and having spent most of the formative years of his life and career in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, LT Reichel created this comprehensive study of the Moravian Missions throughout the world after spending several years inspecting the West Indian Moravian mission system.
The contains 15 maps, representing all the mission areas of the Moravian Church, revised and supplemented by the missionaries in each place. The text includes statistical tables on the number of stations, mission workers, and baptized, a list of all schools maintained by the brothers, and a brief, country-organized mission chronicle.
The atlas also makes an important geographical contribution, as it offers many details generally not available through other cartographic sources.
The maps include:
- South Greenland
- Labrador
- United States of North America (3 maps on one sheet)
- the Mosquito Coast
- St. Thomas and St. John
- St. Croix
- Jamaica
- Antigua
- St. Kitts
- Barbados
- Tobago
- Surinam (with Paramaribo)
- South Africa
- Victoria Southeast Australia
- West Himalaya
Levin Theodor Reichel, Bishop of the Moravian Church, came from an old and respected Saxon family of preachers who had joined the Moravian community.
Reichel was born on March 4, 1812, in the Moravian colony of Bethlehem in Pennsylvania. He moved in 1818to the Moravian colony of Niesky in Silesia.
After completing his studies, he received a call in 1834 to serve the Moravian congregations in North America. Initially, he worked for 3 years as a teacher in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, then from 1837 as a preacher in Schoeneck, and from 1839 in Emmaus, later from 1844 as a married choir director again in Nazareth, from 1853 as a community helper in Lititz, and from 1854 as president of the Provincial Helpers' Conference in Salem, Wachau, North Carolina.
In 1857, he participated as a delegate in the General Synod in Herrnhut.
In the fall of 1858, he was assigned to inspect the West Indian Moravian missions. He first visited the Danish islands of St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix, then the English possessions of St. Kitts and Antigua.
During his time in the Caribbean, he inspected the churches and schools, held conferences with the missionaries and native helpers, visited the black plantation workers, preached and baptized, resolved disputes, cared for the elimination of abuses, and left various suggestions.
In the summer of 1859, he returned to Germany, where he created maps of all the countries where the Moravian Church conducts its conversion work, indicating all existing churches, schools, and preaching places. From these maps, he created his his "Mission Atlas of the Moravian Unity", which was published in 1860 by the Mission Department in Herrnhut as a replacement for the outdated and out-of-print atlas by Linder.