Reverend William John Pohlman

1812 - 1849  (36 years)

• Name	William John Pohlman
  Prefix	Reverend
  Birth	17 Feb 1812	Albany, New York
  Gender	Male
  Death	5 Jan 1849	China Sea   [1]
  Person ID	I807	Scudder
  Last Modified	29 Jul 2005

  
  

  Family	Theodosia Rachel Scudder,   b. 26 Jan 1810, Freehold, Monmouth, New Jersey d. 30 Sep 1845, Amoy, China (Age 35 years)
  Marriage	2 Apr 1838	New York City, New York   [1]
  Children	1. Julia Ann Pohlman   d. INFANT   2. Mary Scudder Pohlman,   b. Abt 1840, East Indies d. 30 Oct 1884, Raritan, Somerset, New Jersey (Age 44 years)   3. Edward Pohlman   d. CHILD   4. William Henry Pohlman,   b. 10 Jan 1842, Borneo d. 21 Jul 1863, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (Age 21 years)   5. Julia Ann Pohlman,   b. Sep 1845, China d. Sep 1845, China (Age 0 years)
  Family ID	F367	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	3 Mar 2024

  
  

• Notes

  William graduated from the New Brunswick Seminary. On May 25, 1838, he and Theodosia embarked from New York to serve in a mission in the East Indies. They remained in Batavia for a few years, to become acquainted with the people among whom they would serve. He studied Chinese and worked as a missionary to the Chinese in Batavia. He maintained a boarding school for boys who were taught five hours of Chinese and three hours of English daily, in addition to the time spent on the usual religious subjects. Following the first Opium War in 1842, China was forced by the British to open her doors to the Western countries, to include missionaries. The Reformed Church decided that China would be more fruitful for missionaries than Borneo. Because of his knowledge of Chinese, William was assigned to China. William and his family came from Borneo to Amoy, arriving in June 1844. In a year and a half from the time of their arrival at Amoy, a fellow missionary, Reverend Elihu Doty, was on his way to the United States with two of his own and two of William's children. The other members of their families, the mothers and the children, were Iying in the Mission cemetery on Kolongsu. To 'hold the fort,' so far as the Mission was concerned, William was left alone. William had a new dialect to acquire, yet when health allowed, he daily visited his little mission chapel, and twice on the Sabbath, to preach the Gospel of Christ. He was a man of work, of great activity. In 1847, he was suffering from ophthalmia. Much of his reading and writing had to be done for him by others. He was still subject to occasional attacks of the old malarial fever. Besides all this he was now alone in the world, his whole family gone, two of his little ones in New York, and the others, mother and children, sleeping their last sleep. William embarked from Hong Kong enroute to Amoy on January 2nd in the schooner Omega. On the morning of probably the 5th, at about two o'clock, she struck near Breaker Point, one hundred and twenty miles from Hong Kong. A strong wind was blowing at the time, so that every effort to get the ship off was unavailing. She was driven farther on the sand and fell over on her side. Her long boat and one quarter boat were carried away, and her cabin filled with water. The men on board clung to the vessel until morning. The remaining boat was then lowered. Those of the crew who were able to swim were directed to swim to the shore. The captain, first and second officers, and William entered the boat and those of the crew who could not swim also received permission to enter. But a general rush was made for the boat, by which it was overturned, and those who could not swim, William among the number, perished.

  
  

• Sources

  [S14] Genealogy of Descendants of Jacob Scudder T-2-3-7-Partial and Descendants of Peter Scudder T-2-3-11, Vol. XXVII, p. 14.