Henkel Family Reunion at Perkins

Last month, more than 60 Henkel family members from around the country reunited at Duke's Perkins Library where the family printing press, acquired by the library in 1931, is on permanent display.

In addition to viewing the Henkel Press, family members, descended from German Lutherans, examined a selection of imprints and documents from the library's extensive collection of their letters and diaries. The papers and documents will be on display at Perkins outside the Mary Duke Biddle Rare Book Room until August.

The diaries and letters document a religious controversy that led to a schism and founding of a new synod, which is a church council that makes decisions about matters of faith relating to morals or discipline.

The Henkels, who last reunited at Duke in 1989, also looked at examples of the books and printing blocks associated with the press. Many brought their family trees and information about historic sites they've visited in Europe and the United States related to Henkel family history.

In addition, Stephanie Wolfley-Mitchell spoke to the Henkels about an historic French Bible she discovered in Canada that contained the muster rolls for the Henkel (also spelled Hinkle or Henckel) troops that defended the German Valley at Hinkle's Fort in Pendleton County, West Virginia.

The Henkel family, known for its prominent role in Lutheranism and printing in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, is descended from Anthony Jacob Henkel, a German immigrant. Upon his arrival in America in 1717, he founded St. Michael's Lutheran Church near Germantown, Pa.

His great-grandson Paul Henkel followed the family tradition, becoming a Lutheran missionary in North Carolina and several other states. Eventually, he settled in New Market, Va., where, by 1806, he and two of his sons founded the Henkel Press. He saw the venture as a way to preserve German culture and promote Lutheranism.

The Henkels purchased the press for $135 sometime before 1810. Their first imprint was a German-language broadside of hymns and prayers used at a service at the Roders Church in Rockingham County, Va.

Over time, the Henkels printed official proceedings of the Lutheran church, German and English hymnbooks and catechisms, and Paul Henkel's writings on baptism. Paul's sons, Ambrose and Andrew, carved the woodblocks and metal plates for printing the pictures in the books. Ambrose made the ink for the press, using lampblack, linseed oil and boiled onions.

The Duke library acquired the Henkel press from Elon O. Henkel, the last of the family printers, in 1931. It is built after the style of Adam Ramage, a Scottish joiner who came to America in 1795. The light construction of Ramage's presses made them popular with the settlers who used them to spread printing throughout the country. The presses have been described as similar to the printing machine invented by Gutenberg.

Perkins Library holds more than 190 Henkel imprints in all, including 52 titles in German, written and/or printed by the Henkels. (The family also printed works in English.) The oldest imprint dates from 1806 and the most recent from 1834. Many Henkel descendants remained involved in the printing business into the 20th century, though none of the reunited Henkels is in the profession.