Below is an excerpt from the "Annals of Philadelphia". Anyone familiar with
Barnabas Kuster? (Note: the followers of Kelpius practiced celibacy, so he
probably had no descendants).
As early as 1700 there were four hermits living near Germantown -- John
Seelig, Kelpius, Bony, and Conrad Mathias. They lived near Wissahiccon and
the Ridge. Benjamin Lay lived in a cave near the York Road at Branchtown.
John Kelpius, the hermit, was a German of Sieburgen in Transylvania, of an
eminent family (tradition says he was noble) and a student of Dr. John
Fabritius at Helmstadt. He was also a correspondent of Maecken, chaplain to
the Prince of Denmark in London. He came to this country in 1694 with John
Seelig, Barnard Kuster (Coster), Daniel Falkener, and about forty-two
others, being generally men of education and learning, to devote themselves,
for piety's sake, to a solitary or single life; and receiving the
appellation of the "Society of the Woman in the wilderness". They first
arrived among the Germans at Germantown, where they shone awhile "as a
peculiar light" but they settled chiefly "on the Ridge", then a
wilderness.
In 1708, Kelpius, who was regarded as their leader, died "in the midst of
his days", (said to be 35) -- after his death the members began to fall in
with the world around them, and some of them to break their avowed religious
intentions by marrying. Thus the society lost it distinctive character and
died away; but previous to their dispersion they were joined about the year
1704 by some others among whom was Conrad Mathias (the last of the Ridge
hermits) a Switzer, and by Christopher Witt (sometimes called Dr. Witt of
Germantown) a professor of medicine, and a "magus" or diviner.
After the death of Kelpius, the faith was continued in the person of John
Seelig who had been his companion, and was also a scholar. Seelig lived
many years after him as a hermit, and was remarkable for resisting the
offers of the world, and for wearing a coarse garment like that of Kelpius.
This Seelig records the death of his friend Kelpius in 1708, in a MS. Hymn
Book of Kelpius', (set to music) which I have seen -- saying he died in his
garden, and attended by all his children, (spiritual ones, and children whom
he taught gratis) weeping as for the loss of a father. That Kelpius was a
man of learning is tested by some of his writings; a very small-written book
of one hundred pages, once in my possession. It contains his writings in
Latin, Hebrew, Greek, German and English; and this last (which is very
remarkable, he being a foreigner) is very free and pure. The journal of his
voyage to this country, in sixteen pages, is all in Latin; some of his
letters (of which there are several in German, and two in English) are in
Latin; they are all on religious topics, and saving his peculiar religious
opinions, reason very acutely and soberly. From venturing with the
thousands of his day to give spiritual interpretations to Scripture, where
it was not so intended, he fell upon a scheme of religion which drove him
and other students from the Universities of Germany, and under the name of
Pietists, &c., to seek for some immediate and strange revelations. He and
his friends therefore expected the millennium year was close at hand -- so
near that he told the first Alex. Mack (the first of the Germantown Tunkers)
that he should not die till he saw it ! He believed also that "the woman in
the wilderness" mentioned in the Revelations, was prefigurative of the great
deliverance that was then soon to be displayed for the church of Christ. As
she was "to come up from the wilderness leaning on her beloved," so the
beloved in the wilderness, laid aside all other engagements (i.e. being
hermits, and trimming their lamps and adorning themselves with holiness,
that they may be prepared to meet the same with joy), Therefore they did
well to observe the signs of the time, and every new phenomenon(whether
moral or preternatural) of meteors, stars, or colours of the skies, if
peradventure the harbinger may appear". He argued too, that there was a
three-fold wilderness, like state of progression in spiritual holiness : to
wit, "the barren, the fruitful and the wilderness state of the elect of
God". In the last state, after which he was seeking, as a highest degree of
holiness, he believed it very essential to attain it by dwelling in solitude
or in the wilderness; therefore he argues Moses' holiness by being prepared
forty years in the wilderness -- Christ's being tempted forty days in the
wilderness as an epitome of the other -- John the Baptist coming from the
wilderness, &c. He thought it thus proved that holy men might be thus
qualified to come forth among men again, to convert whole cities, and to
work signs and wonders. He was much visited by religious persons. Kelpius
professed love and charity with all -- but desired to live without a name or
sect. The name they obtained was given by others. There are two of
Kelpius' MS Hymn books still extant in Germantown; one of his own composing,
in German, is called elegant; they are curious too, because they are all
translated into English poetry (line for line) by Dr. C. Witt, the diviner
or magus. The titles of some of them may exhibit the mind of the author :
"Of the wilderness -- or Virgin-Cross love"
"The contentment of the God-loving soul"
"Of the power of the new virgin-body wherein the Lord revealeth his
mysteries" "A loving moan of the disconsolate soul"
"Upon `Rest' after he had been wearied with `Labour' in the
wilderness"