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Henry Haverstick Ranck was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania on July 24, 1868. His theological education took place both at home and in New York; Ranck attended Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster before studying at Union Theological Seminary (then located at 700 Park Avenue) from 1892 to 1893. He returned to Lancaster to attend the Theological Seminary of the Reformed Church from 1894 to 1895, then pursued graduate studies at the seminary from 1895 to 1896. Before his formal ordination, Ranck served as an acting pastor in Greencastle, Pennsylvania, as well as the librarian at the Theological Seminary of the Reformed Church from 1896 to 1899. Ranck was ordained by the Reformed Church of the United States on December 5, 1896. In addition to this role as a librarian, Ranck worked as a pastor in Reformed congregations in Mechanicsburg (1896-1899) and at St. John's Church in Lebanon, Pennsylvania from 1899 to 1901. In 1901, Ranck began a fourteen-year career serving as a pastor at St. Andrew's Church in Reading, Pennsylvania. In 1912, Ranck published a biographical work on one of Reading's prominent Reformed church figures, The Life of the Reverend Benjamin Bausman, D.D., LL.D. In 1914, he became the pastor at Grace Church in Washington, D.C., where he would remain until 1939. In 1916, he received his doctorate of divinity (D.D.) from Franklin and Marshall College. In addition to his ministerial service, Ranck served as a delegate with the Alliance of Reformed Churches in Cardiff, Wales in 1925, the Stockholm Conference in 1925, and Oxford and Edinburgh in 1925. Ranck died on August 19, 1948 in his hometown of Lancaster.
Union Theological Seminary Archives: UTS 1, papers of faculty and students
Item description, UTS1: Henry Haverstick Ranck letters, 1892-1986, box #, folder #, The Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University in the City of New York.
The letters were cataloged by Lynn A. Grove on 1988-07-13. Materials were placed in new acid-free folders and boxes. Acidic items were separated from one another by interleaving with acid-free paper as needed. The finding aid was created by Rebecca Nieto in 2017 with the support of the Henry Luce Foundation and the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, and edited by Leah Edelman in 2020.
Some material in this collection may be protected by copyright and other rights. Information concerning copyright, fair use, and reproduction requests can be consulted at Columbia's Copyright Advisory Office.
This collection is open for research.
This collection is arranged in chronological order.
This collection contains letters sent by Henry Haverstick Ranck to his then fiancée, Mary H. Byrne (later Mary Byrne Ranck), while he was a student at Union Theological Seminary between October 27, 1892 and June 12, 1893, as well as a photocopy of the Rank/Ranck family newsletter from 1986, which provides biographical context to the Ranck-Byrne letters.