John Christopher Hartwick

John Christopher Hartwick (January 6, 1714 – July 17, 1796) was an American Lutheran minister in Colonial America and founder of Hartwick College.

Hartwick was a native of the dukedom of Saxe-Gotha in the province of Thuringia in Germany and studied at the University of Halle. He was educated in the Lutheran Pietism movement. Hartwick emigrated to America in 1746 to serve as a missionary to the German settlers in and around Rhinebeck in New York’s Hudson Valley.

He was an eccentric idealist and intolerant of parishioner's vices, requiring them to sign a promise that they would "forswear shooting, horse-racing, boozing, and dancing." He was forcefully removed from his first parish by fellow ministers of the area, and from there moved around the northern colonies, unable to find a that would put up with his pious .

Hartwick felt that allowing the common person to own land and live so far from one another was the cause of their immorality. He envisioned a utopian community dedicated to the principles of pious living. He made a series of land deals and eventually obtained a nearly 24,000 acre (97 km²) patent from the Mohawk Indians in Otsego County, New York located southwest of what would become Cooperstown, New York.

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