BEISSEL. bi's•el, JOU ANN CONRAD ( ] 690 1768). A German mystic. prominent as the founder of the sect of "Seventh-Day Dunkers," and of the Ephrata Community. He was born at Eberbach in the Palatinate, and learned the trade of a baker. He also studied music and became a competent violinist. After he had taken a course in theology at Halle he was ban ished (in 1720) for holding Pietistic and In spirational views. emigrated to America, and with a few friends settled in Germantown, Pa. In the following year he became a hermit at Mill Creek, Lancaster County. Pa., where he remained until I724, when he returned to Germantown, and was there baptized as a Dunker. lie soon began to preach doctrines distasteful to the Hunkers, especially with regard to celibacy and the observance of Saturday as Sabbath, and in May, 1725, founded the sect of Seventh-Day Hunkers. lie again became a hermit in 1732, this time on the river Cocalieo; but his a,lherents followed him to his retreat, and in 1735 he founded the "Order of the Solitary." and estab lished the celebrated settlement at Ephrata. Pa.
(q.v.). at whose head he remained until his death. Here he put into practice many of his socialistic, communistic, and religious theories.
He published various collections of hymns, including The Voice of the Lonely and Forsaken. Turtle Dove—that is, of the Christian Church; by a Peaceable Pilgrim Traveling to Tranquil Eternity (1747); and Paradisiacal Wonder-Play (1766), which contains the sect's quaint "Brother Song" of 215 stanzas, and its "Sister Song" of 250 stanzas. He was also the author of the first volume of German poetry published in America, Giittliche Liebes- mid Lobestone (Philadelphia, 1730). By his fellow-religionists he was known as "Friedsam," and the inscription on his tombstone at Ephrata reads: "Here rests an outgrowth of the love of God, 'Friedsam,' a Solitary Brother, afterwards a leader, ruler, teacher of the Solitary and the Congregation of Christ in and around Ephrata." For a par tial account of his life, consult the curious Chronicon Ephratense (Ephrata, 1786).