Paul Henkel and his sons founded the first Lutheran publishing house in the United States of America, Henkel Press.
Paul Henkel was born in the North Carolina frontier in 1754. Then, as fighting in the French and Indian War to the area, his family moved to Virginia in 1760. While there, he married Elizabeth Negeley and learned the cooper trade. (A cooper crafted barrels, kegs, and similar containers.) Around 1783, Henkel received a license to preach. Later, in 1792, the Ministerium of Pennsylvania ordained him.
As the great grandson of Rev. Gerhard Henkel, former court chaplain to the Duke Moritz of Saxony who fled to the colonies when the Duke converted to Catholicism, Paul Henkel grew up in a family with a strong Lutheran background. Rev. Paul Henkel participated in organizing the North Carolina Synod in 1803. Frequently accompanied by his wife, he traveled extensively over several states from South Carolina to Indiana encouraging German immigrants to retain their German and Lutheran identities, while organizing Lutheran Churches.
Rev. Henkel and two of his sons founded Henkel Press in 1806. At first, the press briefly published two newspapers in German and English. More importantly, it published the Augsburg Confession and a catechism that drew directly from the Augsburg Confession in both German and English for distribution to all the new churches he formed in his travels. As Lutheran church entities joined together, eventually becoming the ELCA, so too did Lutheran publishing houses merge together. Thus, Henkel Press is the oldest ancestor of Augsburg Fortress Publishers.
Then, in 1819 a dispute arose in the North Carolina Synod over the importance of the Augsburg Confession. Rev. Samuel Simon Schmucker proposed altering the Augsburg Confession to create a version more compatible with Reformed Theology. Instead of compromising Confessional theology, the Henkels pulled out of the North Carolina Synod and helped organize the Tennessee Synod in 1820.
When Rev. Henkel passed away in 1825, an obituary stated, “During his illness his greatest concern was that we might all remain faithful to the pure Evangelical Lutheran doctrine, and with meekness and patience, yet manfully contend for the truth for which he had contended so earnestly.”
Sources:
- Wikipedia contributors. (2023, April 8). Paul Henkel. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 04:07, July 30, 2025, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paul_Henkel&oldid=1148831968
- Keever, Homer M. “Henkel, Paul.” NCpedia. State Library of NC. 1988. https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/henkel-paul.
- Bente, F. (1919). American lutheranism: Vol. 1-2, https://biblehub.com/library/bente/american_lutheranism/the_henkels.htm
- Rev. Paulus Henkel. The Library of Virginia. (n.d.). https://old.lva.virginia.gov/virginiaprint/bios/bio.php?id=21