FIFTH GENERATION

20. Charles Lachman ^{(1)(2) (3)} was born on 2 Apr 1818 in Fegleysville, Pa. He died on 16 Dec 1887. He was buried in (Old) Falkner Reformed Church Cemetery (Montgomery County) , Pa. Buried at Falkner Reformed Church in the Old Cemetrt between Pottstown & Boyertown

The name Falkner Swamp

In 1700 Daniel Falkner was appointed the agent of the Frankfort Company, London, to sell the tract of land, 22,377 acres, extending from the Schuylkill River to Pennsburg. The land in this area of the tract was bottom land or meadow, and called in German Schwamm. Soon this section became known as Falkner's Schwamm or as it has been abridged and anglicized Falkner Swamp.

In 1940, the Falkner Swamp Church, on the highway between Boyertown and Limerick, marked the 215th anniversary of the Reformed Church in the United States.

The Falkner Swamp Reformed congregation had a small beginning and a hard struggle for existence. But her original members were men and women in whose hearts was a deep rooted faith in God, and a strong love for the Reformed Church.
Oprression and persecution in the early 18th century drove thousands of Palatinate germans to the New World. With them they brought their unbreakable faith in God, Bibles, hymnbooks and catechisms. At first having no crurch edifice, they worshiped in private homes and barns. Having, also, no ministers, they would hire, when available, school teachers, to read the service for them. Of such a group were the fathers of this congregation. In 1720 the German Reformed in this area hired a school teacher in their midst, John Philip Boehm, as lay reader. Boehm was an enthusiastic, consecrated leader, and was soon urged to assume some of the offices of the ministry, even though un-ordained. He drew up a "kirchen-Ordnung", a form of church government, for the Falkner Swamp Reformed congregation. In the same year, October 15, 1725, he distributed the elemnets of the Holy Communion for the first time to forty communicants.
Boehm by this time, also served the congregations at Skippack and Wite Marsh.

In 1727 his ministerial acts were challenged by the Rev. George Michael Weiss, the first regularly ordained German Reformed mimister in Pennsylvania. Upon petition from his three charges, the Reformed Church of Holland, accepted Boehm's Form of Church Government, approved his ministerial acts, and paved the way for his ordination in New York. Boehm was ordained in that city on November 23, 1729. This church continued to support the struggling German congregation as a missionary project until almost the close of the century.

There is some belief that the first church building was a log cabin, but Boehm in a report to Holland in 1739, says "at Falkner Swamo there is yet nothing. Services are held with inconvenience in houses and barns". In 1744 he reports ; "The congregation at Falkner Swamp has erected a well- build frame church, which may last a long time , but they still owe nearly 60 pounds on it". Under the successful pastorate of the congregations's fourth minister, Rev Frederick Daellicker, the present brick edifice was completed in the year 1790. This brick church was remodeled in 1869 under the pastorate of Rev. Lucian J. Mayer. Again in 1900, during the pastorate of Rev. George W. Roth, it was remodeled.

Becuase of the infirmities of old age, Beohm conclude twenty-three years of ministering to his beloved congregation, and recommended Jogn Philip Leydich as his successor. Rev. Leydich, a recent missionary arrival from Holland, began his his pastorate in 1748. Some of his direct descendants are still active workers in Falkner Swamp. Under the wise leadership of its third pastor, Rev. Nicholas Pomp, the congregation weathered the hardships of the Reolutionary War period.

The Rev. Micheal Schlatter, one of the first missionaries of the Holland Reformed Church, called the scattered German churchs and their pastors to a meeting in Philadelphia, Sepember 29, 1747. there they organized themselves into a Coetus, a word corresponding to synod, under the jurisdiction of Holland. Schlatter, Boehm, Weiss, John Barth were the ministers present. This year (1947) marks the 200th anniversary of this organization, the first judicatory of the Reformed Church in the United States. Following the successful completion of the Revolutionary War this Coetus in 1793, declared itself independent of the mother church. Thus began the Synod of the German Reformed Church in the United States.

The infant church felt the need of a training school for ministerial candidates. Accordingly Rev. Lebrecht Frederick Herman, who began his pastorate at Falkner Swamp about 1800, opened in the parsonage what was known as Swamp College. Thirteen young men, five being his sons, were trained by him in this school for Christian ministry, our first theological seminary.

With the formation of Goshenhoppen Classis in 1841, Falkner Swamp tranferred its activity, though not always as wisely as it might, to this new unit of the church. In its history it has been united with a number of neighboring congregations as a charge. The Goshenhoppen Classis in 1891 united St. Paul's Church, Amityville, and Falkne Swamp into the Swamp-Amity Charge. Two years later, Trinity, Bechtelsville, was added. The Rev. George W. Roth was called as firts pastor of this new charge which exists until today.

Falkner Swamp has had a long and brilliant history, though at times stormy and obstinate, and has contributed much in influence and consecrated leadership to the development of the Reformed Church. She and her neighboring sister congregations have molded the character and policy of our church. It is fitting that the membership of the Evangelical and Reformed Church should rightly honor this cradle of the Church. It is appropriate that the Reading Synod promote these annual services, that the Church be ever cogizant of its rich and glorious heritage.

21. Sophia Ladiman^{(1) (2)(3)} was born on 7 Jun 1821. She died on 13 Oct 1898. She was buried in (Old) Falkner Reformed Church Cemetery (Montgomery County), Pa. Buried at Falkner Reformed Church in the Old Cemetrt between Pottstown & Boyertown
Children were:

10 i. Henry Tared Lachman.