Source: Pennsylvania, A History, George P. Donehoo, (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1926), p. 171
Surnames: Stpidt. Oswald, Reppert, Baer, Carl, Lease, Kline, Herring, DeLong, Yoder
As a preacher and pastor, Rev. John Baer Stoudt, D. D., has won an enviable and popular regard in the field of ministerial service in the Reformed Church of Pennsylvania, and particularly in the Borough of Northampton, where he has had an important charge for thirteen years, but he is known to the public-at-large as an antiquarian and historian of wide learning, and his contributions to the history of this State are many and varied. His most recent public service of marked importance was as director of the Huguenot-Walloon Tercentenary in commemoration of the three hundredth anniversary of the Settlement of New Netherland, he having been given charge of the celebrations both in the United States and Europe. For this latter work and that of historian he has attained wide recognitions of high honor in this country and abroad.
Stoudt is one of the early Palatinate names, other spellings being Staudt and Stout. Members of this family figured prominently in some of the Crusades. In Holland, into which country the family spread, several of its members were raised to the nobility. When the persecutions of the Bloody Alba were at their height, members of the family found refuge in England, where Richard Stoudt enlisted in the English Navy. This Richard was wont to make visits to New Amsterdam, and upon one of them he was presented to Penelope Van Princis, whom he later married, and they settled in Middletown, New Jersey, prior to 1688, thus becoming the progenitors of this large and worthy family. The Stoudts, or Staudts, of Pennsylvania emigrated directly from the Palatinate, and there are evidences that they divided into two groups, that of Berks County and that of Bucks County. There arrived in Philadelphia, September 18, 1733, John Michael Staudt from whom Dr. Stoudt traces descent, and on August 30, 1737, John Jacob, Johannes and Hans Adam Staudt, and, on September 24 of the same year, Peter Staudt. It is believed that these four were brothers. Peter and Daniel came in 1738, and another Peter in 1741, these being joined in 1744 by George Wilhelm, all of them relatives, as the recently issued genealogy of the family shows. They were the sturdy forbears of the present generation of the Stoudt family. They built into the early Colonial structure of America their proportion of its stability and progressiveness, and in the early history of the United States they were identified with the great national movement which gave so firm a foundation to the new American Republic. John Michael Staudt settled at Stoudts Ferry on the Schuylkill River north of Reading, Pennsylvania. He became the progenitor of a large family.
Henry Stoudt, grandfather of Rev. John Baer Stoudt, D. D., and a great-grandson of the emigrant mentioned above, was born March 27, 1827, and died September 23, 1859, the son of Reuben Stoudt. He married Otilla Reppert, daughter of Peter and Elizabeth (Oswald) Reppert. She was born December 12, 1827, and died August 3, 1877. She and her husband are buried at De Long Reformed Church, of which they were members. They resided at Topton. To them were born six children: John R., of whom further; Hannah; Francis; Oliver; Daniel; Lucius.
John R. Stoudt was born February 10, 1848, son of Henry and Otilla (Reppert) Stoudt. He was brought up on the home farm, and having obtained a common school education, he learned the trade of miller. In 1877 he began to engage in farming, and followed that occupation until his death, February 3, 1907. He and his wife were members of the Reformed Church and were confirmed in De Long's Church, Bowers, Berks County. He married, June 10, 1876, Anna Amanda Carl Baer, daughter of Charles and Anna (Carl) Baer, who were descended from Huguenots. Following the death of her husband, Mrs. Stoudt took up her residence in Fleetwood, where she reared her family of six children: 1. Charles Henry, for many years a member of the police force of Reading, was shot by a bandit, July 1, 1924; married Minnie Lease, and left two children, Mabel and Charles. 2. John Baer, of whom further. 3. George B., a machinist, lives in San Bernardino, California; married, and has sons, Calvin, Francis, Paul, Kenneth and Norman. 4. Jacob, a moulder; lives at Fleetwood; married Katie Kline; has two daughters, Anna and Esther. 5. Annie L., married John Herring, a contractor at Fleetwood, and they had one son, Harold Robert; she died in May, 1916. 6. Lieutenant Frederick M., who served one and one-half years as a lieutenant in the Motor Transport Corps with the American Expeditionary Forces in France; married Grace M. Merkel.
Rev. John Baer Stoudt, D. D., second child of John R. and Anna Amanda Carl (Baer) Stoudt, was born in Maxatawny Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania, October 7, 1878, and with his parents removed at an early age to Richmond Township, near Fleetwood. His youth was passed on the parental farmstead, and he studied at the local public schools, later graduating from the Fleetwood High School. In 1896 he was granted a license to teach in the public schools, and for three years he followed that profession. Entering the Keystone State Normal School, he was graduated in 1900, and pursuing his studies still further at Franklin and Marshall College, he was graduated from that institution in the class of 1905. He participated prominently in literary and oratorical work, both at the normal school and in college, and was the winner of a number of collegiate and inter-collegiate prizes. Having elected the ministerial profession for his life-work, he next entered the Eastern Theological Seminary of the Reformed Church, whence he was graduated with honors in the class of 1908. In the summer of 1906 he was a theological student at the University of Chicago. He took his examination for the ministry, June 3, 1908, and received his license to preach from Lehigh Classis, Jacksonville, Lehigh County. His first call to a pastorate came on September 1, 1908, from the Salisbury charge, Emaus, Pennsylvania, consisting of the congregations of New Jersualem in Western Salisbury, St. John's in Emaus and St. Mark's in South Allentown. He was installed as pastor, September 27, 1908, at St. Mark's Church, South Allentown. For approximately two and one-half years he labored with diligence in this field and his ministry was blessed with spiritual conquests and material benefits. He exhibited during that period those qualities of pastor and preacher that since have been developed to such a high degree of effectiveness. They were recognized by Grace Reformed Church at Northampton, Pennsylvania, which extended him a unanimous call to become its pastor. He accepted, and on February 9, 1911, removed from Emaus to Northampton, where his service is highly esteemed by the congregation and the community. His literary successes also have brought him into more than local prominence, since his name is known in that respect on both sides the Atlantic.
Dr. Stoudt, being a descendant of Huguenots, and having pursued deep researches in Huguenot relations in connection with his history work and the gathering of antiquities, was eminently qualified for the appointment as the director of the Huguenot-Walloon Tercentenary, which he received in 1922, the celebration to take place in 1924, three hundred years after the settlement of New Netherland in 1624, which event it commemorated. His duties in that position called upon him to assume charge of the observance of the anniversary in this country and in Europe, and to his unusual ability in that line was due in a large measure the very successful conduct and beneficial results of the celebration. To his initiative and ideas must the credit be given for the designs of both the Huguenot commemorative stamps and the Huguenot memorial half-dollar. Dr. Stoudt's highly valued contributions to American history, and especially of that dealing with the Huguenot settlements in America, have been recognized by the University of Geneva with the Swiss-American medal, as "the creator of friendly feeling among the descendants of the Huguenots throughout the world;" by Belgium with Knighthood of the Order of the Crown and by France with Knighthood of the Legion of Honor, the latter decoration having been conferred upon him by President Doumergue, of France, in person. He also was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity by the University of Montpelier in France.
During the World War, Dr. Stoudt gave patriotic service on many committees in his borough of Northampton, and he is a member of the Committee for Christian Service in France and Belgium of the Federal Council of Churches. He was made an honorary chaplain of the Belgian Army.
As would be expected of one of Dr. Stoudts's standing and interests, he is actively associated with educational movements. In December, 1924, he was elected associate president of Cedar Crest College at Allentown, Pennsylvania. He was the organizer and first president of the Huguenot Society of Pennsylvania, and now is chairman of its executive committee. He is historian of the Huguenot League of America; honorary member of the John Calvin Society, Geneva, Switzerland, of the Waldensian Society of Italy and of the Societe L'Histoire du Protestantisme Francais of Paris; member of the executive committee of the Pennsylvania German Society; member of the council of the Historical Society of the Reformed Church in the United States; member of the Lehigh, Lancaster and Berks Counties Historical societies; and archivist of the borough of Northampton. Among his numerous literary productions, the following as of the more important works are mentioned: "The Huguenot Cross," "The History of the West Salisbury Reformed Congregations," "The History of the Grace Reformed Church, Northampton, Pennsylvania," "Michael Schlatter in the Valley of the Lehigh," "Rev. Philip Jacob Michael, A Revolutionary Chaplain," "The Moravians in the Oley Valley," "The Life and Services of Colonel John Siegfried," "The Dispersion of the Kocherthal Colony," "The Borough of Northampton in the World War," "The Pottery Inscriptions of the Pennsylvania Germans," "The Folklore of the Pennsylvania Germans," "The Stoudt Genealogy," and was joint author of the "Centennial History of Lehigh County" (3 vols.). He is affiliated with the Free and Accepted Masons, and is a member of the Knights Templar of that order.
Rev. Dr. John Baer Stoudt married, October 15, 1908, at the DeLong homestead, Maxatawny Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania, Elizabeth A. DeLong, a daughter of Joseph S. and Mary (Yoder) DeLong. They are the parents of one son, John Joseph Stoudt, born March 11, 1911. Mrs. Stoudt is a member of Liberty Bell Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution. During the World War she served on many local committees of the American Red Cross, Liberty Loan campaigns and other welfare enterprises. Dr. Stoudt has his residence at No. 1054 Tilghman Street, Allentown, Pennsylvania.
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