Henry Jacob Acker (HJA) was born in Catskill, NY on November 29, 1833. We know nothing about his early years, but he graduated from Williams College in 1855, his Oration title “Luxury – Its proper Uses and Limit.” He then pursued theological studies at the Union Seminary, and was married to Sarah Booth Dowie of Andes, NY in 1857.
HJA's ministerial duties took him first to Greenport, Long Island (1859), and then to the Presbyterian church in Amity, NY. His obituary entry in the Williams College annals says that the Amity church “was favored with a precious and extensive revival which served to make strong the attachment of pastor and people.”
In October 1863 HJA was drafted into the Union Army. According to the practice of the time, the church elders offered to pay the $300 necessary to release him from the draft, but he refused. He entered the 86th NY Volunteers in November of 1863 and served until March of 1865. There is a good deal of evidence suggesting that he contracted the tuberculosis that eventually did him in during his military service, but his widow Sarah was never able to prove this, despite her lifelong attempts to secure the pension due her.
After the war, HJA went to work for the American Tract Society as District Secretary for Connecticut and Rhode Island. “But his heart yearned for the work of the ministry,” and in 1869 he became the pastor of the Presbyterian church in Pleasant Valley, NY, which today remains a vibrant congregation.
HJA died on January 1, 1874, just months before his fifth child, Margaret Kate Acker, who lived to be 100 years old, would be born. He is buried in the Pleasant Valley church cemetery; the stone marking his grave reads: “A tribute of affection to our pastor by his loving people.”
Below - Scans of HJA's 1865 diary. The April entries report on his symptoms of tuberculosis.
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