Henry Augustus Buchtel

Who was Henry Augustus Buchtel?

Henry Augustus Buchtel was an American minister, educator, and public official, born near Akron, Ohio. He was the seventeenth governor of Colorado.

Henry Buchtel was the son of Jonathan B. Buchtel, a physician, and Eliza Newcomer Buchtel. Within a couple of years of his birth, his parents relocated their family to Elkhart, Indiana. Henry was a younger cousin of John Richards Buchtel, the founder in 1870 of Buchtel College. In 1871, Henry's older brother, William, married Helen Barnum, a daughter of P. T. Barnum.

He graduated from Indiana Asbury University in 1872 and was ordained to the Methodist Episcopal ministry. He married Mary Stevenson on 4 February 1873. The couple moved to Bulgaria where they served as missionaries from April until August 1873 when his wife's deteriorating health forced their return to the United States. Over the next twenty-six years, he served as pastor of congregations in Indiana, Colorado, New York, and New Jersey. During his years as a minister, Henry and Mary had four children: Frost Craft, Emma, Henry Jr., and Mary. Henry Jr. died in Denver from scarlet fever in 1901.