Anthony Jacob Henkel was the husband of Maria Elizabeth Dentzer Henkel and the son of Georg and Anna Eulalia Dentzer Henckel.

Reverend Anthony Jacob Henckel, notable emigrant of 1717 to America, was born at Mehrenberg, Germany om 1668. Baptized December 27, 1668 in the Evangelical Lutheran Church at Mehrenberg; died August 12, 1728 near Germantown,Pa. Married April 25, 1692 at Kirchain, Germany to Maria Elizabeth Dentzer, daughter of Rev. Nicholas Dentzer, Lutheran pastor of Birkenau, Germany, who was son of Simon Dentzer of Marburg, Germany and a brother of Othmar Dentzer, maternal grandfather of Rev. Anthony Jacob Henckel. She was baptized May 26, 1672 at Birkenau, Germany; died Jan. 23, 1744 at Germantown, Pa. They were parents of 12 children. Both are buried in the same grave in the churchyard of St.Michaels Church that he founded in 1721. On June 7, 1910, under the direction of the executive officers of the Henckel Association, the grave, in a remote location, was opened and the remains were reinterred near the mail walk and directly in front of the church.

He graduated from Giessen University, Giessen, Germany in 1688 [or 1692??]. He was pastor of several Lutheran churches in Germany before he moved to the United States and found what is now St. Michael's Lutheran church (which is still in use) located in Germantown, Pennsylvania (now part of Philadelphia.) He and his wife (Maria Elizabeth (nee Dentzer) Hinkle ) are buried in the cemetery on the grounds of St. Michael's.

Anton (Anthony) Jacob Henckel, a Lutheran pastor from the northern region Kraichgau area east of Heidelberg, was almost fifty when he arrived in 1717. He had been ordained in Germany and had served 25 years as a pastor with various congregation s in the upper east Heidelberg. He was probably responsible for organizing the first Lutheran congregations in Pennsylvania. He lived at Falckner's Swamp in today's Montgomery Co., PA and served the German communities throughout present-day Philadelphia and Montgomery Counties. He died in a fall from horseback in August, 1728 at the age of 60. Anton Jacob and Maria Elizabeth are buried at St. Michael Evangelical Lutheran Church, Germantown, Philadelphia, PA.)


From "A History of Pendleton County West Virginia" by Oren F. Morton