Ferdinand Steinmeyer, also known as Ferdinand Farmer, was a German Jesuit missionary who worked in North America.
Biography
He was born in Swabia, southern Germany and studied medicine for three years before entering the Society of Jesus at Landsbergin September 1743. He desired to labor on the missions in China but was sent to America instead, arriving in 1752. His first mission was at Lancaster, Pennsylvania. where he remained until 1758. He was then transferred to St. Joseph's Church inPhiladelphia to look after the German settlers in that area.
Travels
However, his labours were not limited to St Joseph's Church. He traveled on horseback over rough country roads, making tours throughout eastern Pennsylvania and northern and central New Jersey every spring and autumn, ministering to the scattered groups of Catholics at Mount Hope, Macopin, Basking Ridge, Trenton, Ringwood, and other places. He also crossed over into New York State, even though by a law of 1700 a priest rendered himself liable to life imprisonment for attempting to enter New York while it remained under British rule. He kept a separate registry in New York of batisms performed there. Farmer made irregular visits to the southern New York iron region, during and after the Revolution. Parish archives of Old St. Joseph's Church in Philadelphia record trips made by Jesuit Father Ferdinand Steinmeyer to the Revolutionary War depot near Fishkill, New York in 1781, where he baptized over a dozen children of French-Canadian and Acadian parents. Most of the men were members of the 1st Canadian Regiment of the Continental Army, recruited in 1775 by James Livingston in anticipation of an invasion of Quebec. As the expedition failed, they, their families, and the American militias were driven out of Canada. There can be little doubt, however, that Father Farmer on his journeys through Northern New Jersey crossed over into New York and attended to the Catholics there, even venturing into the city itself, where he kept the faith alive. In 1781 and 1782 Farmer regularly celebrated Mass, in the house of a German fellow-countryman in Wall Street, in a loft in Water Street, and wherever else they could find accommodation; and he practically founded St. Peter's Church. In October 1785, he founded St. Stephen's in Warwick, New York. With all his missionary work he found time to take an active interest in public and literary affairs. In 1779 he was appointed one of the first trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, while as a philosopher and astronomer his reputation had reached the learned societies of Europe with whom he corresponded. He was a member of the American Philosophical Society. He died in Philadelphia, at the age of sixty-five, a few months after returning from a missionary trip to New York. His funeral was held at St. Mary's Church and his remains were interred in old St. Joseph's.
