Hartzell, Joseph C. (Joseph Crane), 1842-1929

Joseph C. Hartzell was a missionary Bishop for Africa under the Methodist Episcopal Church. Hartzell was born on a farm in Illinois and was educated in that state, receiving a doctor of divinity from both Illinois Wesleyan University and Allegheny College in 1875. He married Jennie Culver of Chicago, Illinois in 1869 and was transfered to the Louisiana Conference as pastor in 1870. In 1873, he began to publish privately the Southwestern Christian Advocate, until it was adopted as an official paper of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1876. He continued to edit this paper until he resigned in 1881 to become assistant secretary of the Freedmen's Aid and Southern Education Society.

Upon the retirement of Bishop William Taylor, Hartzell was elected as Missionary Bishop for Africa (1896). He presided over the Liberia Conference (1897), organized the Congo Mission Conference, held the first sessions of the East Africa and West Central Africa Mission Conferences, which were formed from the Congo Mission Conferences (1901), and organized the American Mission in North Africa (1910). He dedicated St. Andrew's Methodist Episcopal Church, the first such church erected for the use of white people in Africa (1903). Hartzell died on Sept. 6, 1928 as a result of injuries sustained during a robbery at his home in Blue Ash, Ohio.