Henry Antes

Henry Antes (born in Germany in 1701; died in Upper Frederick Township, Pennsylvania, 20 July 1755) was an early 18th-century settler of Pennsylvania, an architect and builder and a leader of the Moravian Church.

The name “Antes” is a Greek paraphrase of the German “Blume,” adopted as a disguise during persecutions of 1620. Henry Antes emigrated with his father's family to Pennsylvania Colony about 1720, and built a paper mill on the Wissahickon near Philadelphia. Here he married Christina, daughter of William Dewees, and became a leader in the civil and religious affairs of the colony. He was the friend of Whitefield and Zinzendorf, and, after consultation with the latter, assumed the leadership of the religious organization founded in 1741, and known as “Unitas Fratrum,” or Moravian Church. He was one of the founders of Bethlehem.

The house he designed and built in 1736 was used as the first multicultural school during the colonial period, is now the residence of the Goshenhoppen Historians, Inc. [1].

His son Philip Frederick (or just Frederick) Antes (born 2 July 1730; died in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 20 September 1801) held political and military offices, and was a judge of the court of common pleas. During the American Revolution, the British put a reward on his head. In 1776, in company with a Mr. Potts at Warwick furnace, he successfully cast an 18-pound cannon, the first cannon ever made in America.

Henry's daughter, Anna Catherina, joined the Moravian Church, married a physician and moved to what is now Old Salem, NC. Her story is found in The Road to Salem by Adelaide L Fries. More information can be found about her at this sit: http://records.ancestry.com/Anna_Catherina_Antes_records.ashx?pid=15967526

Antes's son John was a Moravian missionary in Egypt, served in England in the Moravian Church and was a well-known composer of orchestral and choral music. Benjamin Henry Latrobe was his grandson and the second Architect of the Capitol.