William Passavant

William Passavant
Rev. William A. Passavant
Born	October 9, 1821 Zelienople, Pennsylvania
Died	June 3, 1894 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Venerated in	Episcopal Church, Lutheran Church
Feast	3 January

William Alfred Passavant (October 9, 1821 - June 3, 1894) was a Lutheran minister noted for bringing the Lutheran Deaconess movement to the United States. He is commemorated in the Calendar of Saints of the Lutheran Church on November 24 with Justus Falckner and Jehu Jones. He is also honored with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America on January 3.

William Alfred Passavant was born in 1821 in Zelienople, Pennsylvania, the third and youngest son of Phillipe Louis Passavant and Fredericka Wilhelmina Basse (nicknamed "Zelie," hence the town's name). His grandfather, Baron Dettmar Basse, born in Iserlohn in the Ruhr Valley in what was then the Grand Duchy of Hesse and later became Germany, spent a decade in Paris as a diplomat and merchant before fleeing the Napoleonic Wars and emigrating to Philadelphia and then Pittsburgh in 1801. Drawn by the prospect of religious freedom and economic opportunity, the widower Baron bought 10,000 acres along Connoquenessing Creek in Butler County, Pennsylvania, began building a wood framed castle, and founded (with Christian Buhl) a new town complete with sawmill, brickyard, and an iron furnace. He also traveled and sent glowing letters back to Germany, persuading his daughter and her new husband (a French Huguenot who fled after repeal of the Edict of Nantes) to emigrate in 1807 from Frankfurt.