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John Bachman was born on Feb. 4, 1790 in Rhinebeck, New York. As a young
man he attended Williams College, where he studied the Bible and the
life of Martin Luther. In 1814, he was ordained as a Lutheran minister,
and called to serve the church of St. Johns, in Charleston, S.C. There,
he met a number of naturalists associated with the South Carolina
Medical College. As a pastor, Bachman initiated the Lutheran Synod of
South Carolina, served as its first president. He also founded South
Carolina's Lutheran theological seminary. In 1831 he met James
Audubon and they conspired to write a three volume work, The
Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America (1845-49). Bachman wrote a
large portion of the manuscript and edited all of it. Two of Audubon’s
daughters married two of Bachman’s sons, so they were united as family
as well as being close friends. As the Civil War neared, Bachman wrote a
book entitled The Unity of the Human Race (1850) criticizing
the practice of slavery. However, he bowed to the pressures of the
times, and gave the prayer that opened the meeting where the Ordinance
of Secession was enacted. He spent the war ministering to the wounded
and dying. He died of paralysis in 1874 in Columbia. |
