John Campanius

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birth_date = August 15, 1601
birth_place = Stockholm, Sweden
death_date = 1683
death_place = Sweden
church = Church of Sweden
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education = Uppsala University
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offices_held =
title = Ordained pastor, missionary to North America
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John Campanius (August 15, 1601–1683) was a Swedish Lutheran clergyman.

He was born in Stockholm, and attended the Uppsala University, where he studied theology and graduated in 1633. He served as the chaplain to the Swedish delegation in Russia in 1634. He then moved to Nortalje, Sweden, where he served as schoolmaster beginning in 1635. He also served as chaplain and preceptor of the Stockholm Orphan's Home, a position he continued in through 1642.

He left Sweden to accompany the first Swedish settlers to Fort Christiana, near Wilmington, Delaware, and served as a missionary to the nearby Lenape Indians. For several years the new colony had no specific location for organized worship. Campanius had to visit the settlers at their cabins, which ranged all the way up to Fort New Gothenberg. One of the few items which remain from those trips is a gilded silver chalice used in celebrating the Eucharist.

Campanius also began to make notable headway in evangelizing the Lenape. He gained a good grasp of their language, and learned how to preach to them with good effect. He also transliterated their words, numbers, and common phrases for the use of later missionaries. After gaining experience in this way, he eventually was able to translate the Lutheran Cathecism into the Lenape language. This effort, which was not printed until 1696, is one of the first attempts by a European native to create a written document in one of the native Native American languages. Campanius also studied the traditions of the natives, and recorded them in his journal. While this did help to preserve some anthropological information on them, it also helped perpetrate the idea that the Native Americans were descendants of the lost tribes of Israel.

He is considered by some to be the first weatherman in America because he kept a daily record of the weather at New Sweden. The records included at least 1644 and 1645 and were published in Sweden in 1702.

By 1647, he wrote to his Archbishop in Stockholm that he had gotten weary of his work in Delaware, and requested that he be allowed to return to Sweden. In 1648, three other ministers were sent to Delaware to continue his work, and Campanius was allowed to return to Sweden. There he served as minister at Frosthult and Hernevi until his death in 1683.

References

*Bowden, Henry Warner. "Dictionary of American Religious Biography." Westport, CT: Greenwood, Press, 1977. ISBN 0-8371-8906-3.
*Gross, Ernie. "This Day In Religion." New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, 1990. ISBN 1-55570-045-4.
*Ludlum, David M. The Weather Factor. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1984, p. 7-8.