Barbara Heck

BARBARA (Heck), Bastian Ruckle and Margaret Embury had a daughter called Barbara (Heck), born 1734. In 1760 she married Paul Heck and together they had seven kids. Four survived to adulthood.

The typical biography includes an individual who was an important participant of significant events, or who had a unique statement or ideas that were recorded. Barbara Heck, on the contrary, did not leave writings or statements. Evidence of such details as the date she got married marriage, is only secondary. There is no evidence of primary sources through which one could reconstruct her motivations or her conduct throughout the course of her life. Despite this, she was a cult figure during the early days of Methodism. The biographer's mission is to determine and justify the myth and, if it is possible, to identify the actual person featured in it.

Abel Stevens, a Methodist historian in 1866, wrote about this. Barbara Heck, a humble woman of in the New World who is credited with the growth of Methodism across the United States, has undoubtedly risen to first place in the ecclesiastical history of the New World. Her record is based more on the significance of the cause that she is associated with than her personal lives. Barbara Heck was involved fortuitously with the beginning of Methodism in both the United States and Canada and her fame is based on the natural tendency of a highly successful movement or institution to glorify its beginnings in order to strengthen the sense of tradition as well as the continuity of its history.