John L LENHART, REV., LT. COMMANDER

Sources:

Genealogical Resources for Staten Island, Search for Lenhart
Leng, Davis and Vosburgh's Tombstone Inscriptions Volume II, Staten Island Gravestone Inscriptions
1840 Census
1850 Census

Notes:

                   Sought and received an appointment as Chaplain of the Navy and took oathon March 15, 1847.  He served on the Frigate Brandywine and receivingship North Carolina.  He was due to go to Africa aboard the USSConstellation, but his wife was dying from breast cancer and he gotpermission to stay home until she passed away in 1862.  After her death,he was assigned aboard the U.S. Sloop of War Cumberland.  On March 8,1862 at the battle of North Hampton Roads in Virginia, his ship wasrammed and sunk by the Confederate iron-clad CSS Virginia (Merrimac)where he went down with his ship.

From Staten Island Genealogical Resources via web: - Lenhart, Rev. JohnL.; Born: 10/29/1805; Died: 03/08/1862; Entered Service: U.S.N.Cumberland Chaplain; Muster into GAR: Post 163; Cemetery: BC BethelCemetery, Amboy Road and Bethel Ave., Tottenville, Staten Island; GeneralNotes:  Drowned at Hampton Roads, VA.

Tombstone Marker reads: - "Erected by the Ministry and Laity of theNewark Conference of the M.E. Church".  Lenhart, Ann, 679.  Lenhart, JohnL., Rev., 234, 679.  NOTE: the '679' refers to the Bethel MethodistEpiscopal Cemetery from the book by Leng, Davis and Vosburgh. (TombstoneMarker courtesy of Bob O'Connor - Genealogist, NY).

He was referred to as a citizen of Tottenville.
He had a Grand Army of the Republic Post named after him - number 163 -that existed from 1880-1924.

The following is an excerpt from the booklet "Sea Padres: Some Chaplainsof 'The Old
Navy'", by CDR H. Lawrence Martin, CHC, USN and  LT Timothy J. Demy, CHC,USNR, 1984.
This excerpt was found on the Bangor Naval Base homepage on the web.

            Chaplain John Lenhart, USN (1805-1862)

     " At the outbreak of the Civil War there were 24 chaplains serving inthe Navy, but only one, John Lenhart, was in U.S. waters
with the Home Squadron.  He was the first Navy chaplain to be killed inaction.
      Born 29 October 1805, Lenhart, a Methodist, was commissioned as achaplain 8 March 1847.  His initial orders were to (the ship) Brandywine.
      In October 1860, after an assignment in New York, Lenhart was orderedto the 40-gun frigate Cumberland, which served as flagship for the HomeSquadron. During the Civil War Cumberland served with the North AtlanticBlockading Squadron.  On 8 March 1862 the
Cumberland was rammed and sunk at Newport News, Virginia in a battle withthe
Confederate ironclad Virginia (formerly USS Merrimack).  Cumberland wentdown with 150 men, Chaplain Lenhart being among them.  Cumberland wentdown with her guns firing.
She settled into the mud with her topmast just above the water and stillflying her colors.
No other Navy chaplain would die in battle until 7 December 1941, whenChaplains Thomas
L. Kirkpatrick and Aloysius H. Schmitt were to lose their lives aboardArizona and Oklahoma.
      During World War II, a small chapel, the Lenhart Oratory, a part ofthe larger Royce Chapel at the Naval Training Center, Sampson, New York,was erected in memory of Chaplain
Lenhart."

1840 Cumberland County, NJ, Deerfield Twp., Bridgeton, page 138:
Rev. John L. Lenhart
One Male 30 & under 40
One Femail 15 and under 20
One Female 40 and under 50.

1850 Census, Essex County, JN, S. Ward, page 248:
Dwelling 672, Family 1045
John Lenhart, Male, 44, Chaplain USN, Born PA
Ann Lenhart, Female, age 47, Born Maryland
Mary Wright, Female, age 11, Born England.