John Christian Frederick Heyer
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John Christian Frederick Heyer (1793-November 7, 1873) was the first Lutheran missionary sent to the United States. He later founded several Lutheran missions in India. He is commemorated as a missionary in the Calendar of Saints of the Lutheran Church on November 7 with Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg and Ludwig Nommensen.
He was born in Germany in 1793. After being confirmed in 1807, his parent sent him away from Napoleonic Europe to reside in America with relatives. He studied theology in Philadelphia, and later returned to Germany in 1814 to study at the University of Gottingen. He then returned to the United States and was licensed as a lay preacher. He worked as a preacher in Pennsylvania, Missouri, and points between. He married in 1819, and was ordained in 1820. He spent the next twenty years preaching, establishing Sunday schools, and teaching at Gettysburg College.
His wife died after twenty years of marriage. She is buried in the cemetery at Friedens Lutheran Church, Friedens, PA. At that point, Heyer determined to enter the foreign missions. He learned some Sanskrit and medicine, and set sail for India from Boston with three missionary couples. He worked founding missions in the Andhra Pradesh region of India between 1822 and 1857, returning to the United States to earn an M.D. from Johns Hopkins University. His health deteriorated, and he returned to the United States to organize churches there, which particular attention to the new Minnesota territory. In 1869, he returned to Andhra Pradesh for two years, where he helped to reestablish the missionary spirit there. He then returned to the United States, where he served as the chaplain of the new Lutheran seminary in Philadelphia until his death in 1873. He was buried beside his wife in Friedens, PA.
