The little towhead, cheerful and confident, responded, “No, Mother, I shall not die now. The brokenhearted Caroline explained to her son the danger he faced. His parents resigned themselves to his death. The Hecker family survived intact, but shortly after the epidemic ceased, Isaac contracted a virulent smallpox. In 1822, a yellow fever epidemic swept through New York City, killing thousands. Lively, cheerful and ingenuous, the little boy quickly won everyone’s affection. His blonde hair, blue eyes and high forehead proclaimed his German ancestry. Isaac, the Heckers’ youngest son, was born December 18, 1819. Later, he became the owner of a brass-forging business in Lower Manhattan. His father, employed as a metalworker by James Allaire, helped in the development and installation of an improved boiler for Robert Fulton’s Clermont, the first steamship to successfully navigate the Hudson River. John Jonas Hecker, Isaac’s father, and Caroline Friend, his mother, both German immigrants, brought four boys and one girl into the world. His brothers, John and George, awaited him at the bakery.

And, on this October evening, he realized that he had once again failed to discern the divine will.Īs clouds cast a veil across the moon’s face, now shrunken and pale, Isaac stood up and walked briskly into the city, returning to his work at Hecker’s bakery at 56 Rutgers Street. From childhood, he believed God had called him to a special mission in life. He had never felt so alone as he did that October evening in the year 1837.įor some time, he had inhabited a private world whose few features he scarcely understood. Seventeen-year-old Isaac Hecker, the youth rapt in contemplation on the East River dock, was experiencing profound loneliness and bewilderment. The gigantic moon floating in the tranquil night bathed his sore spirit. Sitting alone on a wharf, a young man leaned against a piling, pulled his knees to his chest and turned his eyes upward to nature’s silent grandeur. The luminous disk, cutting cleanly into the blue-black sky, released a golden cone of light upon the river’s black currents racing into the bay below. The harvest moon hung round and fat and orange over New York City’s East River that warm October night.

Eldest souls bright church