MUHLENBERG, WILLIAM AUGUSTUS (1796 1877), American philanthropist and Protestant Episcopal clergy man, was born in Philadelphia on Sept. 16, 1796, and graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1814. While at St. James's church in Lancaster, Pa., he wrote A Plea for Christian Hymns (1821), drew up for his own parish Church Poetry (1823), and was a member of the committee from the general convention which compiled an adequate collection of psalms and hymns, thus preparing the way for greater flexibility in the service. During his rectorship at St. George's, Flushing, L.I., he founded the Flushing institute in 1828, which developed after a time into St. Paul's college, and which was probably the first Protestant Episcopal school in the United States. The Church of the Holy Communion in New York city, a "free church" built in 1844-45 by his sister Mrs. Mary Rogers, he made a pioneer in the practical Christianity to which his later years were devoted. In addition to numerous
parish activities he founded there the first American order of Protestant Episcopal deaconesses, the Sisterhood of the Church of the Holy Communion, which was formally organized in 1852. As a result of the work of the Sisters he established what he called his "hospital-church," St. Luke's in 1858. St. Johnland, his "church village" begun on Long Island in 1866 as an embodiment of Evangelical brotherhood, was designed to better the condition of the working class in general but particularly to provide healthy shelter for children and indigent old people. He died in New York city on April 8, 1877.
Anne Ayres, who was closely associated with him as "First Sister," described his life and work (1880) ; and W. W. Newton is the author of another biography (1890).