Franklin College 有四名創始人:
1. Justus Heinrich Christian Helmuth: Born Justus Heinrich Christian Helmuth in Brunswick, Germany, Helmuth was the son of Johann Christoph Helmuth, a baker, and his wife Justina. After the death of his father in 1756, Helmuth received his early education at the orphanage in Halle and attended the Latin school at Halle's pietist center before preparing for the ministry and working as a teacher in Halle. He then accepted a call to Trinity Lutheran Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Two years after emigrating to America in 1768, he married Maria Barbara Keppele, the daughter of Johann Henrich Keppele, an important Pennsylvania German merchant-trader. From 1779 until his retirement in 1820, Rev. Helmuth served as the pastor of Philadelphia's St. Michael's and Zion parish, the largest Lutheran Parish in the United States. As the senior minister of the Lutheran Church in Philadelphia, Helmuth followed John Christopher Kunze to serve as an ex officio trustee of the University of the State of Pennsylvania (now the University of Pennsylvania). During the early 1780's Helmuth and Kunze worked together worked to create a German-Latin school to prepare German Lutheran children for admission to a college within the University of the State of Pennsylvania; however, their ambitious plans for a Lutheran College within the University, receiving students from feeder schools, did not materialize. Kunze left the University, to be replaced as Professor of German by Helmuth. Helmuth was elected by the Trustees as Professor of German in August of 1784. In 1784 Helmuth was elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society. He published a number of scholarly books and leaflets, and in 1812 founded the first Lutheran church paper in the United States, Evangelisches Magasin.
2. Cospar Detrich Weiberg was a native of Westofen in the county of Marck, Germany. He was educated at Duisburg and came to America as an ordained minister in 1762. He was pastor of the Reformed Church of Easton in 1763, and of the Race Street Reformed Church, Philadelphia, from 1763 to 1790. During the Revolution he was imprisoned by the British for his devotion to the American cause. He died August 21, 1790.
3. Johann Wilhelm Hendel was born at Durkheim in the Palatinate and was educated at Heidelberg. In 1764 he was sent to America by the synods of Holland and was successviely pastor of the following charges: Reformed Church of Lacanster, 1765-1769; Tulpehocken, 1769-1782; Lacanster, the second time, 1782-1794; Philadelphia, 1794-1798. He died of yellow fever, September 29, 1798.
4. Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Muhlenberg, youngest son of the Rev. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, "the patriarch of the Lutheran Church in America," was born at New Providence, Montgomery County, Pensylvania, November 17, 1753; died at Lancaster, Pensylvaina, May 23, 1815. He studied at Halle, became assistant pastor of the Lutheran Church, Lacaster, from 1780 until his death. He was a celebrated botanist and an active member of the American Philosophical Society and other learned bodies. Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography says: " His works are regarded as standards by scientists."
Marshall College 創始人是Frederick Augustus Rauch:
Frederick Augustus Rauch (27 July 1806 Hesse-Darmstadt - 2 March 1841 Mercersburg, Pennsylvania) graduated from the University of Marburg, afterward studied at Giessen and Heidelberg, and became extraordinary professor at the University of Giessen. He fled from the country on account of a public utterance on some political subject, and landed in the United States in 1831, learned English in Easton, Pennsylvania, where he gave lessons on the pianoforte, was professor of German in Lafayette College for a short time. He was then chosen as principal of a classical school that had been established by the authorities of the German Reformed Church at York, Pennsylvania, and a few months later was ordained to the ministry and appointed professor of biblical literature in the theological seminary at York, while retaining charge of the academy, which, in 1835, moved to Mercersburg. Under his management the school flourished, and in 1836 was transformed into Marshall College, of which he became the first president.