FARMER, FERDINAND

Missionary; b. Weissenstein, Württemberg, Germany, Oct. 13, 1720; d. Philadelphia, Pa., Aug. 17, 1786. As Ferdinand Steinmeyer, he abandoned the study of medicine to enter the Society of Jesus at Landsberg in 1743. Ordained about 1750, he was first assigned to China. When the Jesuits in the British colonies in America appealed to the German Jesuit Province for priests to serve the numerous German immigrants in Pennsylvania, Steinmeyer was reassigned to America. He landed in the New World in 1752 and established himself in Lancaster, Pa., as Father Ferdinand Farmer. Using Lancaster as his headquarters, he traveled constantly through eastern Pennsylvania and ministered to all Catholics, serving existing congregations and forming new ones.

In 1758 he transferred his headquarters permanently to old St. Joseph's Church in Philadelphia, continuing his constant missionary journeys, not only in Pennsylvania and Delaware, but also in New Jersey. By the time of the Revolutionary War, he had reached the borders of New York and may have entered New York City. When the British army occupied Philadelphia in 1777, he extended his spiritual ministrations to the Hessian regiments. However, when British headquarters endeavored to raise a regiment of Catholic volunteers and sought to enlist Farmer as their chaplain, he refused.

After the British evacuation in 1778, Farmer extended his missionary expeditions across the Hudson River and gathered the first Catholic congregation in New York City. He had a lifelong interest in natural science, and as an early member of the American Philosophical Society, he corresponded with scholars in Europe. In 1779 he was elected a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania. He is sometimes called the father of the Church in New Jersey and in New York.

Bibliography: j. m. daley, "Pioneer Missionary," Wood-stock Letters, 75 (1946) 103–115, 207–231, 311–321. j. f. quirk, "Father Ferdinand Farmer," Historical Records and Studies of the U. S. Catholic Historical Society of New York 6.2 (1912) 235–248.

[f. x. curran]