Christian Strenge

Johann Christian Strenge (October 24, 1757 – 1825) was a German-born American fraktur artist.

The only son of Johann Henrich Strenge and his wife, Maria Catharina Romer, Strenge was a native of the village of in Hesse. He became one of many Hessians who served the British crown in the American Revolution, Strenge enlisted in 1776 and, under the command of Johann Rall, arrived in New York in August of that year. Taken prisoner in the aftermath of the Battle of Trenton, he was later released to the British. By the time his military unit had been discharged in 1783, he had deserted. He moved to Hempfield in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania; he married and had a daughter, but both wife and child died. With his second wife he would have five children. The family moved in the 1790s to East Petersburg, Pennsylvania, where he began a teaching career; he taught at least one term in Chester County as well. Three pieces are in the collection of the Winterthur Museum.