Jacob C. Gottschalk

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Jacob C. Gottschalk was the first Mennonite Bishop in the New World arriving in Pennsylvania circa 1680.

He travelled to North America at the request of Mennonites who had already settled there and sent back to the Church in Germany for a minister a teacher for their children(?).

In some documents his name is spelled the Dutch way, Gaedschalk(?) and his home town (Goch) is near the border with so it is likely he spoke Dutch as well as German and some English (though at the time German was just as common in the colonies as English); indeed it narrowly lost to English as the official language of the United States.