Loy was a prominent pastor, editor, author, and hymnist who served as president of Capital University in Columbus, Ohio.
[1] Matthias Loy was the fourth of seven children of Matthias and Christina Loy, immigrants from Germany who lived as tenant farmers in the Blue Mountain area of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.
In 1834, when Matthias was six years old, the family moved to Hogestown, a village nine miles (14 km) west of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
He received a classical education at Harrisburg Academy and graduated from the German Theological Seminary of the Ohio Synod, a predecessor body of Trinity Lutheran Seminary, in Columbus, Ohio in 1849.
In 1865 he resigned his pastorate to become professor in the Theological Seminary of Capital University in Columbus.