Schmucker, Samuel Simon

Schmucker, Samuel Simon (1799–1873) Protestant religious leader, educator; born in Hagerstown, Md. Trained at the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton Theological Seminary, he became a leader of American Lutherism when in 1820 he cofounded, with his father, the General Synod of Lutheran Churches. In 1826 he was appointed the first professor of the Lutheran seminary, in Gettysburg, Pa. He remained there until 1864. He advocated "American Lutheranism" in contrast to a sterner creed favored by German and Scandinavian immigrants, and was a political liberal, supporting abolition and other reform movements.