Ashbel Green Simonton
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Ashbel Green Simonton | |
|---|---|
 Reverend Ashbel Green Simonton | |
| Born | January 20, 1833 |
| Died | December 9, 1867 (aged 34) São Paulo, Brazil |
| Burial place | Protestant Cemetery (São Paulo, Brazil) |
| Occupations | Presbyterian minister and missionary |
| Parents |
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Ashbel Green Simonton (January 20, 1833 – December 9, 1867) was an American Presbyterian minister, and the first missionary to settle a Protestant church in Brazil, Igreja Presbiteriana do Brasil, which translates as Presbyterian Church of Brazil[citation needed].
Simonton was born in present-day West Hanover Township, Pennsylvania, and spent his childhood on the family's estate, named Antigua. His parents were the doctor and politician William Simonton, who was elected twice to Congress, and Mrs. Martha Davis Snodgrass (1791–1862), daughter of James Snodgrass, a Presbyterian minister, who was the pastor of the local church.
Ashbel was named after Ashbel Green, president of New Jersey College. He was one among nine brothers and sisters. The boys, William, John, James, Thomas and Ashbel, called themselves the "quinque fratres" (five brothers). One of his brothers, James Snodgrass Simonton, four years older than Ashbel, was also a missionary to Brazil, spending three years as a teacher in the city of Vassouras, in the state of Rio de Janeiro. One of his four sisters, Elizabeth Wiggins Simonton (1822–1879), also called Lille, married the Presbyterian minister and missionary Alexander Latimer Blackford, a colleague of Simonton in Brazil and the co-founder of the Igreja Presbiteriana do Brasil.
In 1846, the family moved to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where Simonton finished high school. He graduated from New Jersey College, which is now Princeton University.
