Frederick Christian Schaeffer (1792–1831), Lutheran clergyman, was a native of Germantown, Pennsylvania, who received a classical education at a local academy and from his father before he entered the ministry in 1812. He spent three years at a church in Harrisburg before being called to serve an English- and German-speaking congregation in New York City. When it divided in 1823, Schaeffer continued to minister to the English speakers. He became a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1819, and in 1830 he was appointed professor of German language and literature and awarded an honorary doctorate by Columbia College (later Columbia University) (DAB description begins Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, 1928–36, 20 vols. description ends ; William B. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit [1857–69], 9:145–8; APS description begins American Philosophical Society description ends , Minutes, 15 Oct. 1819 [MS in PPAmP]; Milton Halsey Thomas, Columbia University Officers and Alumni 1754–1857 [1936], 26, 82, 288; Washington Daily National Journal, 31 Mar. 1831).

On this day Schaeffer also wrote to John Adams and James Madison enclosing the pamphlet noted above (5 Jan. 1820 reply by Adams in Lb in MHi: Adams Papers; Madison, Papers, Retirement Ser., 1:576–7).