{"id":98,"date":"2011-08-01T21:50:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-01T21:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/new.brethren.org\/bhla\/?p=98"},"modified":"2023-06-15T21:18:46","modified_gmt":"2023-06-15T21:18:46","slug":"abraham-cassel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bhla\/hiddengems\/abraham-cassel\/","title":{"rendered":"Abraham Harley Cassel (1820-1908)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Described as \u201cthe foremost Pennsylvania German bibliophile and a widely known authority on the literature of the Germans in America\u2026,\u201d Abraham Cassel was a 19th-century Pennsylvania German book collector and antiquarian whose personal collection in his home in Harleysville, PA, &#8211; the \u201cCassel Library\u201d \u2013served as the major informational source for Martin Grove Brumbaugh\u2019s&nbsp;<em>History of the German Baptist Brethren<\/em>&nbsp;(1899). Brumbaugh also dedicated the book to Cassel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A descendant of Johann Christoph Sauer and Peter Becker, Cassel\u2019s collection contained over 8,000 books and more than 40,000 pamphlets, manuscripts, and other ephemera. M. G. Brumbaugh stated that \u201cOur history was engraved and preserved on the shelves of his library. He kept safe our records as a denomination.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Abraham Harley Cassel\u2019s library was eventually distributed among several Brethren-related colleges and Bethany Theological Seminary, with a large portion also going to The Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-2 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"391\" data-id=\"99\" src=\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bhla\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2019\/08\/cassel-home.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-99\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bhla\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2019\/08\/cassel-home.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bhla\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2019\/08\/cassel-home-300x235.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Cassel standing in front of his home in Harleysville, PA, site of the \u201cCassel Library.\u201d Courtesy of the Brethren Historical Library and Archives.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"279\" height=\"400\" data-id=\"101\" src=\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bhla\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2019\/08\/cassel-portrait.jpg\" alt=\"Abraham Harley Cassel\" class=\"wp-image-101\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bhla\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2019\/08\/cassel-portrait.jpg 279w, https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bhla\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2019\/08\/cassel-portrait-209x300.jpg 209w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 279px) 100vw, 279px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A portrait of Abraham Harley Cassel. Courtesy of the Brethren Historical Library and Archives.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"323\" height=\"400\" data-id=\"102\" src=\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bhla\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2019\/08\/cassel-with-sauer-bible.jpg\" alt=\"Cassel using magnifying glass to examine old Bible\" class=\"wp-image-102\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bhla\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2019\/08\/cassel-with-sauer-bible.jpg 323w, https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bhla\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2019\/08\/cassel-with-sauer-bible-242x300.jpg 242w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 323px) 100vw, 323px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Abraham Cassel examining a Sauer Bible. Note some crowded shelves of his collection in the background. Courtesy of the Brethren Historical Library and Archives. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"327\" height=\"400\" data-id=\"100\" src=\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bhla\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2019\/08\/cassel-on-front-porch.jpg\" alt=\"Cassell holding Sauer Bible\" class=\"wp-image-100\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bhla\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2019\/08\/cassel-on-front-porch.jpg 327w, https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bhla\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2019\/08\/cassel-on-front-porch-245x300.jpg 245w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 327px) 100vw, 327px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Cassel holding a Sauer Bible on his front porch in Harleysville, PA, c. 1900. (Robert C. Bucher Collection). Courtesy of the Brethren Historical Library and Archives. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Described as \u201cthe foremost Pennsylvania German bibliophile and a widely known authority on the literature of the Germans in America\u2026,\u201d Abraham Cassel was a 19th-century Pennsylvania German book collector and antiquarian whose personal collection in his home in Harleysville, PA, &#8211; the \u201cCassel Library\u201d \u2013served as the major informational source for Martin Grove Brumbaugh\u2019s&nbsp;History of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4,3,7,2,9,6,8,10,5],"class_list":["post-98","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-abraham-harvey-cassel","tag-bhla","tag-book-collector","tag-brethren-historical-library-and-archives","tag-cassell-library","tag-german","tag-harleysville","tag-hidden-gem","tag-pennsylvania"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bhla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bhla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bhla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bhla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bhla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bhla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":524,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bhla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98\/revisions\/524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bhla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bhla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bhla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}