FOREWORD

While our forefathers were founding, a little church for worship in their new frontier home, great events were in the making in Europe and in the American colonies. In Europe a new era was opening in which the power of kings fell; and the middle classes, having gained in wealth and knowledge, reached out for political control. Great names were connected with this change in civilization.

In 1714 Voltaire, who was to shake the domination of the clergy, was a youth of twenty; and Rousseau, the liberator of the disfranchised masses, was an infant aged two. Adam Smith, emancipator of the business man and apostle of individual liberties, was born in the year Zion's first pastor died; and Lavoisier, founder of modern chemistry, was still a boy when the present church was built at Oldwick. James Watt, inventor of the first engine capable of driving a machine, and thus the father of the Industrial Revolution, was born at about the time Zion was host to the first synod held in America. The Romantic Movement in art and literature was then flinging out its banners to demand freedom and justice for the humble and submerged.

Thus the life of Zion Church began even before the time of modern freedom, democracy, science, and mechanized industry. Her pastors ministered to her people, while they were not only conquering a wilderness, but while they were also adapting themselves to a bewildering maze of new ideas flowing in from Europe.

In America, 1714 saw seven year old Benjamin Franklin starting to school in Boston. Augustine Washington was cultivating his Virginia plantation, unaware of the destiny of his son to be named George upon his birth eighteen years later. It was twenty-nine years before Thomas was to be born to the Jeffersons in Virginia.

Zion Church was born exactly three quarters of a century before the birth of the United States. Our church and our country have grown up together.

So we see that this was a time when not only our church was founded, but when in Europe and America a new age and a new civilization was emerging.

JUSTUS FALCKNER (1714 - 1723)

We are fortunate indeed to have information about the first service of Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church. A historian writing about the church when it was a hundred years old was able to learn nothing about its beginning,. Nor have old letters and papers found in attics mentioned it. Zion's splendid records tell little of the period before the Revolution. But there are records in distant place: that can tell us much.

The early Lutheran Church in New York City has an item in its parish records of 1714 that gives us a skeleton story of the first service and congregation. From other writings this skeleton can draw flesh and tissue, life and breath. When all the information is drawn. together, we have the following story.

The First Pastor

The Pastor who officiated at the first service was Justus Falckner. This distinguished minister of Christ was born in Germany, the son and grandson of Lutheran clergymen. After studying theology, he came to America in the employ of a company dealing in real estate in Pennsylvania. There he was influenced by the Swedish Lutherans to enter the ministry. lie was the first Protestant ordained in America. His ordination service was prophetic of America in its mingling of races and tongues, for the young German was ordained by the Church of Sweden to serve the Dutch Lutherans of New York City. The service was attended by Indians and English people.

Although he was ordained to preach to the Dutch in New York, his parish was much larger. During his pastorate it grew until he was traveling over 1200 miles per year to cover it.

The Lutheran settlers of Hunterdon and Somerset Counties had hardly arrived before Falckner appeared to call them to worship. Once e&ch summer he came here by boat and horseback to administer the sacraments and preach the gospel to the Lutherans on the Raritan. His visits were events of high importance to our pioneering ancestors.

Dr. Graebner, the Lutheran historian describes Falckner as follows: "A particularly amiable, heart-winning personality it is, which in Pastor Justus Falckner presents itself before our eyes during his twenty years of active life; a man of excellent gifts, of fine acquirements, of lovely temper, of fervently devout disposition, decided in his Lutheranism, diligent and persevering in the pursuit of his calling - in a word, a perfect pastor."

The Parish

Such was Zion's first pastor. Let us look at the parish he entered in 1714. This part of Hunterdon County was a wilderness, practically untouched by axe or plow. Indians were living peacefully in their several local villages, where they remained until the big exodus a generation later. The land which had been purchased from them was being parceled out by wealthy English and Scotch proprietors to actual settlers from Great Britain, Ireland, Holland, and Germany. How recently these settlers had come is indicated by the fact that there was only one settler in Readington Township before 1712. In other words, Zion's first members were establishing a church for the care of their souls before they had had time enough to provide for the housing, clothing, and feeding of their bodies.

The People

Most of the charter members of the church were Germans from the Rhenish Palatinate. They constituted a small offstream from the largest wave of immigration to come into America in Colonial days, - the real beginning of the flood of Germans who poured into our country to change the course of American history and affect the temper of the American personality. The tellers of American History are only now beginning to sing the epic of the Palatine Refugees.

In their homeland a series of disastrous wars through a century in time had climaxed at last in a war more disastrous than the rest. As if the physical and spiritual poverty of prolonged warfare were not enough, their burdens were pressed heavier by a legend-making bitter winter and by an impossible tax load.

To the Palatines, in their despair, came word that Queen Anne of England wished settlers for her American colonies and would provide passage, in return for which naval stores were to be made for the new fatherland.

13,000 Palatines responded! The following figures hint at the epic story of their immigration. All were settled temporarily in a hastily built tent city in London. Anne, unprepared for such a multitude, could not provide against the starvation and disease which decimated them. After frantic efforts, they were disposed of in these ways. 3,000 Catholics were sent back to Germany. Of the remaining, all Protestant, 3,000 were colonized in Ireland, 1,000 were absorbed into the English population, 650 were sent to North Carolina, hundreds went into the army and navy, a thousand died wretchedly. Only 3,000 sailed for the promised land. Disease claimed 500 of them before 2,000 were finally settled on the Hudson River naval stores project. Many of the other 500, including our charter members, came into New Jersey. What refugees of history have endured more or hoped as much as these men and women of the first Palatine immigration?

The faithful Falckner wrote down in his parish records between 1714 and 1723 the names of 110 people in this parish,-- infants, parents, and sponsors. Most of them were Palatines. These families compose the list and constituted, undoubtedly, the bulk of the congregation during his pastorate: Appelman, Braun, Day, Dippel, Fuchs, Hanschutt, Hendershott, Ferman, Kastner, Kremer, Langman, Messner, Niedbber, Pickel, Poel, Puff, Rickman, Reinbol, Reimer, Risch, Rose, Roseboom, Ruxloffsen, Simthinger, Spader, Stein, Schmidt, Schoemacher, Schwalb, Theuss, Tittel, Van Guinea, Vogt, Weidnecht, Wimmer, Weber..

The First Service

The location of the first service is eloquent of democracy and Christianity. It was held in a negro's home.

Aree von Guinea was born in Dutch Guiana, Africa. Slave hunters captured him and sold him in New York City. In 1705 he and his wife were members of the Lutheran Church in New York. He gained his freedom and was living in the Raritan valley as early as 1708. He is known to have been a property owner at the time of Zion's first service, but because of a law prohibiting ownership of property by slaves, the deed was not transferred to his name until 16 years later. He was a faithful Christian, honored by his neighbors, and as we shall see, was a good steward of the property entrusted him by Providence.

In his home on August 1st, 1714, Zion Church was born. The distinguished New York pastor here led the people in their first worship service in their new homeland. No doubt the Lord's supper was administered and a long sermon was preached.

In this service three children were baptized: Johan Balthasar Appelman, Johannes Christoffel Vocht, and Jora Day (colored). Both parents of all three were present. Baltes Pickel was sponsor for the Appelman child, Mr. and Mrs. Von Guinea for the Day infant.

In this first service of Zion, the officiating pastor was the first Protestant clergyman ever ordained in America; its first baptism was also the first baptism of a German child in New Jersey; it was the first service of the oldest active New Jersey Lutheran Church; it was the first service of the congregation which today worships in the oldest New Jersey Lutheran Church building. It was unique for the further reason that a white congregation was then founded in the home of a negro.

The site of this service was in the vicinity of the present Henry store in Potterstown.

Since the above described beginning, Lutheranism has had a continuous history in this district. It is not known when or how the congregation was given a constituted organization. There is every likelihood that Falckner arranged it at once by appointing or having an election of a lay reader and other permanent officers who provided for services with some regularity.

In these early years it is possible to recognize some subdivisions in the large New Jersey parish. Potterstown should be mentioned first.

Potterstown

There are two reasons for giving Potterstown this place of honor.

First: it was the birthplace of Zion Church. Second: after 1731 Potterstown gradually emerged as the center of a vigorous congregation which assumed the leadership in forming the united congregations and building a central church. But Potterstown is in the focus of our historical spotlight for only this one service in 1714 and is forgotten until 1729. During those 15 years, parish activity centered at Whitehouse and Pluckemin.

Whitehouse

We mention Whitehouse second because the congregation there had a faithful and resourceful layman, Baltes Pickel, whose hand did much of the moulding of Zion in her plastic years.

Justus Falckner certainly favored Whitehouse during his ministry. His parish records show that all the baptismal services for central New Jersey, were held, in the Pickel homestead through three consecutive years, 1719-1721, and possibly also in 1722.

This would indicate that regular Sunday services were held there also, with a lay reader officiating.

The Pluckemin Congregation

Although Justus Falckner is not known to have mentioned a congregation at Pluckemin, there must have been one of some vitality at that place in his time. For upon his death, the Lutherans there seized the initiative and held the leadership in local Lutheranism for a generation.

Earlier historians say that the members there were mainly Lutherans from Holland, to whom were added the later German settlers. They lived in Bernards, Warren, Bridgewater, and Bedminster Townships. They may have had visits from the Dutch Lutheran pastors of New York even before Falckner's day.

This congregation was never able to work in complete harmony with the other congregations in our area. The fact that it was predominantly Dutch and the other German might explain the many differences of opinion.

The sudden prominence of the Plunkemin Church may have been due to a gift it received. Both Hartwick and Muhlenberg mentioned that the Pluckemin Church had been given 100 acres of land for a church and parsonage by one Sonneman. If this gift came to them in 1722 or 1723, it would be sufficient explanation of Pluckemin's emergence at just that time. The gift caused the new pastor to reside in Pluckemin and naturally this residence brought to Pluckemin a new importance.

The Millstone Congregation

Falckner does not record any visits to Millstone, but does mention it as the residence of parents and sponsors of children he baptized. His brother, upon succeeding him, said that he was called to Plunkemin and Millstone. The congregation soon lost its Lutheran identity.

There are records of Lutherans living in this period at Nine Mile Run, Ten Mile Run, Oingens, Rocky Hill, and Piscataque.

During the nine years of Justus Falckner's pastorate, a comparatively small number of Lutherans was spread over a wide space. The whole area received a one or two-day visit once a year from its Pastor. In the meantime the religious life of the members was left under the guidance of laymen probably appointed or elected for this work. The large parish began to subdivide itself according to geography and leadership. All services were held in private homes.

DANIEL FALCKNER (1723 - 1734)

At his death, the first Pastor of Zion was succeeded by his brother Daniel, in our part of the parish. This elder brother had settled in 1694 near Philadelphia with a group of religious fanatics who are known to history as the "Hermits of the Wissahickon." In 1700 he returned from a visit to Europe, bringing with him his brother and a commission as agent of the Frankfort Land Company. In 1708 he succeeded Pastorius as Burgomaster of Germantown.

After that his name is lost until 1724, when he was holding together his brother's congregations on the Hudson River. In the church book at West Camp he wrote that he had been called as pastor to Pluckemin and Millstone. These two congregations sent money in 1727 to the New York Lutherans for their new church.

By 1731 the Lutherans of Whitehouse and Potterstown had already been separated from him for two years. The people of Pluckemin were also ready to receive his resignation, and an unsuccessful candidate was heard. Berkenmeyer, who succeeded Justus Falckner in New York, arranged a call for a Pastor for the reunited Raritan parish.

The Potterstown Congregation

At some time during Daniel Falckner's Pastorate, Potterstown became a busy center of the parish. By 1729 the members there had shown some independence by separating from the pastor and from Pluckemin. They erected their own church building, and at their invitation, Pastor Berkenmeyer came out from New York to dedicate the new building on Saturday, September 11th, 1731. He, administered the Lord's Supper on the following day.

If we seek an explanation for the sudden blossoming of this congregation, we can probably find it in the person of Baltes Pickel who, in 1729 removed from Whitehouse to Round Valley, where he was naturally associated with Potterstown.

The Whitehouse Congregation

Tradition says that there were at least two log meeting houses in the vicinity of Whitehouse at a very early date. The Lutheran Church was on the southwest corner of the Davis tract in old Leslysland. This is diagonally opposite the old Methodist cemetery. It was said to have been a log building, with a burying-ground adjacent. It can hardly be wrong to date this building between 1721 and 1729. At the earlier date services were still held in the Pickel home. The later date marks the removal of Baltes Pickel from Whitehouse.

The Pluckemin Congregation

Pluckemin also built its first church in this pastorate. The date usually given for it is 1725. It was set on the hill about one and one-quarter miles east of Pluckemin. The early date of its building and the local residence of the pastor gave Pluckemin a pre-eminence in this period.

The Fox Hill Congregation

At an early date the German settlers had begun to push to the north into Fox Hill, which took its name from Daniel Fuchs, one of the early Palatines.

These people also built their own log church on what was later known as the "Aunt Katie Sutton" farm, now the Hoffman estate. This congregation and church may have originated in this period.

Daniel Falckner had been a man of education and ability who had held positions of responsibility in business and government before he entered the ministry; but now he was getting old - himself stating that his head was like a pumpkin - and he accepted Berkenmeyer's suggestion that he retire in 1731. In his pastorate we see the large parish beginning to draw its inner and outer boundaries. His successor was to find himself pastor of a twenty-year-old parish, minister to four congregations - each with its own building. Berkenmeypr drew up a call in blank for a new pastor to be sent from Germany.

JOHN AUGUSTUS WOLF (1734 - 1745)

It was not until 1734 that the Reverend John Augustus Wolf arrived from Germany in answer to the call. Wolf was a character totally unfit for the office of the ministry. It was only a few months until he entered into a series of disputes with the congregations concerning salary, parsonage, and his personal conduct. To settle these disputes, the first Lutheran Synod held on American soil was convened in this parish. The delegates and pastors were as follows: from New York, Rev. Berkenneyer, Charles Beekman, Jacob Bos; from Hackensack, Rev. Knoll, John Van Norden, Abraham Van Buskirk; from Uylekill, Peter Frederick; from Potterstown, Rev. Wolf, Baltes Pickel, Lawrence Roelofson; from Pluckemin, Daniel Shoemaker, Hendrick Smith. The Synod resulted in a peace which was short lived, and Wolf continued to menace the congregation's spiritual welfare until 1745. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg came from Philadelphia in that year in response to our ancestors, appeals, and disposed of the matter with his accustomed dispatch and justice. Wolf left immediately.

During Wolf's pastorate, the parish bad its own school and schoolmaster, and it built or purchased a parsonage. The forms of worship used by the New York churches for the holy communion, marriage, burial, churching of women, etc., were in use here. Dutch and German were the languages of the services.

The congregations were organized according to the Amsterdam Church Constitution. At the beginning of the pastorate, the church was a member of the Amsterdam Synod; in the middle, of the Berkenmeyer Synod (New York); and at the end, they associated themselves with the Philadelphia group who later organized the Ministerium of Pennsylvania, our oldest American Synod.

In this period, Pluckemin was the strongest of the congregations.

The Potterstown church was the first to recognize Wolf's true character, and they turned from him within a month. At the end of the Wolf pastorate, Muhlenberg began to exercise his great influence through the Potterstown Congregation, resulting in its leadership during the years before the union in 1748.

The Whitehouse Congregation after 1741 had a lay preacher to conduct regular services, a John Langerfeld, who had served as an interim pastor in a Philadelphia church. He gave way in 1745 in favor of the temporary pastors whom Muhlenberg kept sending out until Weygand settled here.

Henry Melchior Muhlenberg

The visit of Muhlenberg was the first of many, and the service rendered then, welcome and helpful as it must have been, was but little when compared with the constant help the busy patriarch gave to the Raritan Lutherans in the next thirty years.

Muhlenberg was a native of Eimbeck, Hanover Province, Germany. A graduate of the University of Goettingen, he had taught one year in the Francke institutions in Halle. In 1741, at the age of thirty, he was superintendent of an orphan home school and pastor of a church. At this time he was asked to go as a missionary to the wilds of America. Accepting, he became pastor of the scattered congregations of Philadelphia, Germantown, Providence, and New Hanover in Pennsylvania. He soon was the recognized leader of Lutherans over a wide area. He set the doctrinal, organizational, liturgical, and practical precedents for American Lutheranism. He sent detailed reports of his work to the pastors at Halle and kept a diary for his personal reference. It is from these documents that much of the early history of the Raritan congregations is drawn.

It is well to mention that Muhlenberg considered these societies as lying outside of his Philadelphia bailiwick and inside the New York. Only after repeated appeals were the early congregations able to secure his oversight and reap the benefits of his extraordinary good sense, tact, and powers of Christian leadership.

AN INTERLUDE (1745 - 1748)

From 1745 until 1748 the churches were without a pastor. They received extended visits, however, from Mr. J. N. Kurtz and Mr. J. N. Schaum, both of whom were being prepared for the ministry by Muhlenberg. For Schaum these visits proved to be eminently worthwhile; for he returned at the time of the dedication of Zion to be married to the daughter of Baltes Pickel.

In these years a satanic character, posing as a prince and a minister, and styling himself Prince Carl Rudolph, was traveling about the colonies preying upon Christian congregations. In 1747 the pastorless people of the Raritans, deceived by his charming manner, welcomed him into their pulpits. Chaos and havoc came with him. After too long a time, his open immorality revealed his true character and turned all against him. Kurtz was recalled to repair the damage.

The Union of the Churches

A little later, in August of 1748, Muhlenberg made a pastoral visitation to the Raritan Churches. After the last of a series of services he selected from each of the four congregations three persons for a general church council. The new body immediately began to discuss before the congregations the question of a new church building. "They desired," Muhlenberg wrote, "to erect a commodious church in a central locality, where the most distant members would not have to travel more than ten or twelve miles. To this proposition three of the congregations willingly assented, in the fourth, however, were a few obstinate heads who would not agree, but were resolved to build a church of their own. To the latter was given full freedom to build as many churches as they pleased. The three congregations, therefore, (and several people from the fourth), having estimated that the structure would cost three hundred and some pounds with their labor, straightway subscribed among themselves two hundred and forty pounds."

The Building of Zion

The building was begun in the spring of 1749. By August the walls were built as far as the roof. In the following year the work was completed and the dedication date was set for Advent Sunday, December Second. Muhlenberg was ready to delay the ceremony until better travelling weather in the spring, but he consented to the early date out of consideration for young Schaum, now a pastor, who planned to be married at the time of the dedication. Schaum did not favor postponement.

The Indenture

In Zion's archives is a yellowed parchment, the document by which the original church property was transferred to the Lutherans. The document - an indenture - is in the handwriting of Ralph Smith, the former owner of the property. Smith was a large landowner, wealthy, and the leading citizen of the village. A staunch Presbyterian, he was a moving spirit in the group which founded the Lamington Church.

This indenture, strangely, was not drawn until November tenth, 1749. Zion, thus, had built a church upon land which was not legally in its possession until the building was almost completed. This explains the meaning of the indenture when it speaks of a church already built on the property when it was transferred.

The above facts clearly indicate that the Zion Church building was planned and financed by the Lutherans and was built by their own hands. The old tradition that it was originally an Episcopal Church has no basis in fact.

JOHN ALBERT WEYGAND (1748 - 1753)

In August of 1748, when the churches had so quickly planned and financed their new church building, they were still without a resident pastor. In those days when ministers were few in America, Muhlenberg had no one to recommend for the Oldwick pulpit. Providence, however, was in action. In November, John Albert Weygand came to the Raritan congregations, was given residence at the home of Balthasar Pickell and began a pastorate which lasted five years.

Weygand was German born. He had studied theology but had not served in the active ministry. A clever booking agent one day offered him free passage to America as ship's chaplain. The agent used the prestige of a minister's presence aboard to bait others into making the trip. Upon landing in Philadelphia, the ship owner demanded that Weygand pay his passage on pain of being sold into bondage. He was rescued from his predicament by his fellow passengers, and, penniless, he sought out Muhlenberg. The latter took him under his wing, preparing him for a ministry in America. While still not ordained, he came to the New Jersey congregation at their request. Here he became known as a good preacher and pastor.

The call to Weygand, together with names already known to us, has the following signatures: Johannes Molick, Philip Weiss, Henrich Sauer, Jacob Fasbendar, Samuel Schwackheimer, Adam Fuckroth, Jacob Shubman, Samuel Barnhardt, Philip Duford, Jacob Damrom, Peiter Gass, isaac Von Buscherk, Jacob Klein, Johann Peter Brumeiner, David Rambach, Adam Heiler, Lenard Kretzer, Johannes Bandeler, Jacob Lunger, Jacob Ernst, Stovil Adam, Madeis Drimer, Linerd Nagbard, Michal Hallenbrant, Aree Vangenee, Richard Channel, Christ. Deger (Tiger), Ludwig Ditman, Heinrich Keller, Peter Salmon, Johannes Nikeldonia.

In December 1749, when he had been here only one year, Weygand performed an action which threw a cloud over the remaining years of his pastorate and which almost prevented his ordination. The action was not immmoral, but was ill-advised. In one afternoon he proposed marriage to the daughter of his leading layman and host, Baltes Pickel, and without awaiting Pickel's final decision, he proposed to another young woman to whom he was married before nightfall. Tho incident is told because it created the need for a parsonage at a time when the church was already in debt and was involved in church building operations. The church council, without hesitation, purchased a home and a fifty acre farm for the use of the pastor. This property, known as the Glebe, was one and one quarter miles west of town on the Potterstown road.

This parsonage was a sign of the final separation of the union church from Pluckemin, whose parsonage now was unused.

The Original Building

The original church building, completed in 1750, has been described as an "almost exact model of the Episcopal Church built by George Washington at Pohick Valley, Virginia. It had low walls, topped by a barrack shaped roof, sloping to the four sides. The windows were small, square, and high from the ground. The pulpit with its high sounding board was opposite the large doors, which were in the middle of the south wall. In the center of the church, in the broad aisle was a huge pit ... filled with glowing charcoal. There were five aisles and two galleries at the sides, one being used as an organ loft and containing a fine instrument for those days,--a valuable relic now unfortunatoly lost to the church." (The first organ in New York had been installed just twenty years before.)

The Dedication

The dedication took place on Advent Sunday, December 2nd, 1750. The Reverends Peter Brunnholtz, of Philadelphia, J. P. Handschuh, of Lancaster, J. N. Kurtz, of Tulpehocken, J. H. Schaum of York, and J. C. Hartwick of Rhinebeck, N. Y., were selected to perform the services. They were accompanied by an organist to play on the fine instrument imported from Germany. Muhlenberg, who could not attend, mildly complained that the ceremony "should have taken place at a more convenient season, namely in the spring - but our own dear Brother Schaum was impatient to consummate his betrothal vows." The above company traveled from Philadelphia in severe weather, Schaum contracting a lameness from which he did not recover for many months.

Early on the morning of the Second of December, 1750, all the clergymen assembled to view the new building. Then they proceeded to the Glebe where the church councilmen, wardens and male members of the congregations were assembled. At this meeting the ordination of Pastor Weygand was approved by clergy and laity. Then in an orderly procession on foot (Schaum limped behind) the entire party moved to the church where a great crowd was assembled for the ceremony.

Each pastor dedicated that which was assigned him. The Reverend Mr. Handschuy preached the principal sermon in German. Then followed the ordination, after which Mr. Hartwick preached a fine English sermon. Between all the acts appropriate hymns, were sung. By five o'clock in the evening the services were over.

The Parsonage

There is no information to guide us in describing the parsonage. Dr. John Honeyman, in his history of the church, conjectured that it was a one-story structure of smooth hewn logs, clapboarded and destitute of plaster. It was soon to be remodeled and enlarged for the use of Father Muhlenberg and his family.

Pluckemin

By this time Pluckemin had lost the parsonage, most of its 100 acres, and thus had left only a little land and their little church in which no services were held. In 1752, the members requested Zion to permit Mr. Weygand to hold services for them every six or eight weeks. This marked a renewal of relationship, and later Pluckemin and New Germantown were chartered as a two-congregation united parish.

Trouble

By 1753, Zion had divided into two parties. The trouble took the form of dissatisfaction with the pastor, but underneath this local infection was a poison affecting the whole organism of pioneer Lutheranism in America. For among the thousands of newcomers from Europe were many unworthy people who gained membership in the church. To confound the confusion they caused, there were also adventurers who appointed themselves as pastors and tried to attach themselves as parasites on the earthly body of our Lord. Under this double influence, every petty local issue was likely to swell to the proportions of a decisive battle.

At any rate, Weygand, whose practices were being seriously questioned at New Germantown, was enthusiastically called to the Dutch Lutheran Congregations of New York City and Hackensack, New Jersey. He accepted and served there until his death.

LUDOLPH HENRY SCHRENCK (1753 - 1756)

Muhlenberg, on a visit, cleared the landscape of wreckage and set up the following guideposts to keep the church in progress without danger of collision. Pluckemin was to have the service on each fourth Sunday, and was to pay one fourth of the salary. All members were to pledge in advance their year's contribution to the salaries of minister and organist. The Synod, not the courts or anyone else, was to mediate all disputes. Finally, Ludolph Henry Schrenk was called to the vacant pulpit.

The Pastor

Schrenk was a well educated German who arrived in Philadelphia in 1749. He was dependent for awhile upon Muhlenberg's charity and by him was trained as a catechist and lay preacher. He served in this capacity at several towns in Eastern Pennsylvania acceptably enough to be ordained in 1752. The following year he was called to Zion. Here, if history tells his true story, he bit all the hands that fed him.

His first year was as brilliant and promising as had been his services to the Pennsylvanians. Whether the fault lay in his body, mind, or soul is not to be known, but one day he took undue offense at some innocent remarks made by Baltes Pickel and John Melick. At the next public service he read them both out of office and membership. In due time the congregation declared its sympathy with the councilmen and showed the seriousness of its intentions by bringing in an Episcopal missionary who held an Episcopal service in the church. By 1756, Muhlenberg managed to smooth the way again. But Schrenk deserted, although the congregation had displayed patience and forbearance, promising to support his ministry.

These difficult days, under Providence, excited the sympathy of Muhlenberg. It was too much to expect that he should leave his Philadelphia, work to come to New Germantown. But that is exactly what he did.

The Barn List

We know the names of the substantial members of Zion in this period from a subscription list for the repair of the parsonage barn. They are: Adam Fueckroth, Balthas Bikel, Lorentz Rulofson, Jacob Schubmann, Casparus Hindersheitt, Johannes Molich Sr., David molich, Johannes Molich, Samuel Bernhardt, Matthias Van Horne, Hermanus Rulofson, Leonhardt Streit, Michael Buskercken, Jacob Fasbinder, John Hindersheitt, leonhard Nachbahr, John Stein, Christoph Kern, Matthias Sohnemann, Christoph Durrenberger, Samuel Schwachheimer, Thomas Neil, Rulof Rulofson, Philipp Weiss, Jost Schertz, Georg Albers, Michael Ellick, Anthon Molick, Isaac Van Boskerken, Gothfried Klein, George Dippel.

Next comes a list of delinquents with this statement:

The following have indeed written down their names, but they have not as yet paid up to this 12th January, 1756: Philipp Fueckrot, Philipp Tuffort, Lorentz Slicar, Valentine Caspar (?), Johannes Schortz has paid 10s, Jost Schertz has yet to pay 6s. 4d., Jacob Klein, 5s., Abraham Schertz has paid 10s., Balthes Bickel, Jun., 7s.; the whole amounting to 3. 14s. 4d."

Long Valley

The Lutheran Church at Long Valley traces its history back to the early days of the Union Church at New Germantown. After the Fox Hill Congregation disappeared in the union, the people of Long Valley had a great distance to travel to worship. For years they'did so. It is reported that many of them walked the whole distance barefoot, sitting down to put on their shoes before entering God's House.

However, their isolation drew then together as a separate congregation, and it was in the first years after the build ing of Zion that they requested occasional preaching services in their own district.

HENRY MELCHIOR MUHLENBERG (1756 - 1760)

Muhlenberg had grown weary of the New Jersey troubles and seemed to be done with the congregations. But after Schrenk left he was persuaded to promise a visit in the following spring. This news was received enthusiastically, especially in Pluckemin where the people at once decided to replace their old church with a fine stone structure.

New Pluckemin Church

In a short time they subscribed 300 pounds to which was added 200 Pounds by the "English Church People" with the understanding that the "preacher would now and then deliver an English sermon." The Patriarch tried to persuade them to "abstain from their intended expensive church-building, as we were now in the midst of war" (French and Indian). "But they answered that it was better to spend their little means in building a house to the Lord than to save them for the enemy."

Parsonage Enlarged

Muhlenberg was again overruled by the persuasive members of Zion, when, as his last objection to their plan for him to be their resident pastor, he said that the parsonage was "too small and unsuitable for my family." They erected, within four months, with much labor and at heavy cost, a roomy building, of stone next to the old one.

Several Muhlenberg Visits

After Schrenk left and before Muhlenberg settled in the enlarged parsonage, the Patriarch visited New Germantown three times. (1) In the Spring, 1757, for one month. (2) In the fall, for more than a month. (3) In the spring of 1758 for nine weeks.

In the spring of 1759, with his wife and four of the children (Peter was brought later), he came to New Germantown to reside. It was in one of his reports of this period that the name "New Germantown" was first recorded. Previously the town was known as Smithfield.

Muhlenberg

We have seen the masterful hand of the Patriarch of American Lutheranism settling grievous disputes with ease and skill, after the failure of all other mediators--local leaders, the civil courts, and the New York Churchmen. We have also seen the Pluckemin Congregation springing to new life, planning to build a new and expensive church, merely because Muhlenberg said he would resume his distant oversight of the congregation and make an occasional visitation. These two facts strong ly indicate the greatness of this Christian personality. He was prominent, popular, learned, vigorous, handsome, and gifted with a rich, powerful tenor voice. The largest meeting houses of the day were filled to the doors upon announcement that he would preach. He was a preacher, pastor, and executive with superlative talents.

His greatness is not diminished when viewed through the careers of his children. The three sons entered the ministry. Two of them transferred to the service of the newly formed nation after the war for American independence. All three achieved a place of distinction in history.

Henry was not only a splendid preacher and pastor, but a botanist respected in Europe and America, and an educator--the first president of Franklin College, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Peter, known to every school boy for his "time to fight" speech, left the pulpit and took up the sword, rising to the rank of Major General under Washington. After the war he was Vice President of Pennsylvania under President Benjamin Franklin; later was a representative in the first, second, and third congresses; and later still, a United States Senator.

Frederick was President of the Pennsylvania State Convention which ratified the Constitution in 1787, and had the honor of being the first Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States.

Three of the male Muhlenbergs, Henry Melchior, Henry Jr., and Peter, were resident pastors of Zion Church.

Of Muhlenberg's four daughters, one was the mother of Governor Schultze of Pennsylvania, a second married a great preacher and pastor, another married General Francis Swaine, and the fourth was the wife of Matthias Richards, member of Congress.

We need not wonder therefore why Zion's best historian spoke of Muhlenberg's pastorate as an "event in the history of venerable Zion, an event that every son and daughter of the church may contemplate with pride."

Muhlenberg resided in the parsonage from June 14, 1759 to May 1, 1760. His diary gives a detailed account of his work.

During the four years after Schrenk left, the church had a resident pastor for less than one year. Nevertheless it was one of the finest periods in all the long history of the church. The prosperity of Zion between 1756 and 1760 is another one of the many local witnesses to the superlative qualities of the Patriarch of American Lutheranism.

Frederick Schultz

One Rev. Frederick Schultz, who had recently left the Lutheran ministry, was living in New Germantown in 1759 and was paid by the church for his services for "the last half year." He was not regularly called as pastor but merely served as pulpit supply. He spent his time in alchemistic researches and so aroused the curiosity of the superstitious that they indulged in midnight expeditions, over a long period of years, to dig for treasure in his back yard.

PAUL BRYZELIUS (1760 - 1766)

The Rev. Paul Bryzelius, a Swedish Moravian recently converted to Lutheranism, served the congregation beginning--in 1760. It is known that he was a vigorous, courageous, energetic pastor, zealous in the performance of duty. The congregations, cautious after their unfortunate experiences with frontier pastors, did not give him a regular call until 1765. In the following year he left Zion, and Lutheranism too, to go to London for ordination as rector of a congregation of German, French, Swiss, and English, at Lunenberg, Nova Scotia. The Germans who dominated this group were dissatisfied because Bryzelius became too Episcopal in form and doctrine, and they separated to call their own pastor, the Rev. Frederick Schultz, mentioned above.

In 1767 Muhlenberg was formally elected "Rector" and continued in this capacity until 1775. During this period the Patriarch was not in residence but served the church through assistants.

The Charter

In the archives of Zion is a fine old parchment, a charter issued by King George III through Governor William Franklin to the, United Churches of Zion, (Oldwick) and St. Paul's (Pluckemin). Thus after fifty years of ministry to the community, Zion first was established as a legal religious society recognized by its colony and empire.

A month earlier in this same year, a constitution was adopted,--Zion's first, so far as we know.

Muhlenberg and his assistants, Peter Muhlenberg and Christian Streit, served the united congregations by turns from 1767 until February 1769.

PETER MUHLENBERG (1769 - 1772)

In 1769 Peter Muhlenberg settled in New Germantown as resident pastor, officially remaining as assistant to the rector, his father. He lived and worked here for three years.

His regular reports to his father have not been printed and probably are lost. Little is known of the details of his ministry. All entries in the vestry book were made, not by the resident pastor, but by his father.

On June 25th, 1770, an important meeting was held, at which the following, among other decisions were made. Services were to be held in New Germantown every other Sunday; on the alternate Sundays services were to be held at Pluckemin and Long Valley. The three corgregations divided between them the burden of debt and some new obligations for the repair of the parsonage and for a wall around the church yard.

The Parish Register

So far as is known, no permanent record of ministerial acts was made locally until 1771, when Peter Muhlenberg inscribed the title page, and the first entries were made. From that day to this the pastors have kept their records with fidelity and all the registers are preserved.

The Worship Service

Schaum, when he came to Zion in 1747, was directed to use the Formula of Worship which was handed him in manuscript. In the following year Muhlenberg and Brunnholtz, who had prepared it, revised it with the help of Handschuh. Later this Formula with few changes was adopted by the Synod for use in all the churches. This Formula was not printed for many years. Of all the manuscripts, only two are preserved. One of them was written by Peter Muhlenberg about the time of his coming to Zion and in all probability was used by him here. This service does not differ greatly from the Common Service in use today.

A Call from Virginia

In the spring of 1771, Peter Muhlenberg received a call to serve in the Shenandoah Valley in a district settled almost entirely by German Lutherans from Pennsylvania. Because the church laws of Virginia had established the Church of England and made it difficult for dissenters, it was necessary for Muhlenberg to go to London for Episcopal ordination. This was a technicality. Muhlenberg remained a Lutheran to the end of his life.

In the spring of 1772, he proceeded to London, was duly ordained and established in the Virginia parish. Here he became an associate of George Washington and Patrick Henry and other Virginians in the pre-Revolution struggles for liberty.

At the outbreak of war, he preached a sermon on the text, "There is a season ... to every purpose under heaven," ending with the words, "A time to preach and a time to pray,--but there is also a time to fight, and that time has now come." After the service he removed his gown to reveal the military uniform he was wearing. Drums at the church door called men to enlist. This was the beginning of the 8th Virginia Regiment, composed almost entirely of Germans from the Shenandoah Valley. Of this Regiment, General Richard Henry Lee said, "It was not only the most complete in numbers, but the best armed, clothed and equipped. His soldiers were alert, zealous and spirited."

Muhlenberg entered the service as a Colonel, was promoted first to Brigadier General, and then to Major General. He took part in many of the major battles of the War, and was with the suffering troops at Valley Forge.

On one occasion he rode through Oldwick at the head of four thousand troops. There are records indicating that he made several visits to his old parish during the times when his army was quartered nearby.

After the war Muhlenberg continued in the public service until the end of his life. His native state erected a statue in the national capitol at Washington to perpetuate his memory.

HENRY MUHLENBERG, JR. (1771 - 1774)

To succeed his brother as the "constituted assistant," Henry came to reside in New Germantown for tbree years. His pastorate was marked by the thoroughness which attended his work throughout his life. This last of the Muhlenbergs to serve here left the congregation strong and prospering.

WILLIAM ANTHONY GRAFF (1775 - 1809)

In the summer of 1775, William Anthony Graff was called from Ramapo and Hackensack to serve the United Congregations of Zion and St. Paul's. Graff accepted the call which promised him the Glebe and parsonage and three hundred and twenty dollars per year.

Upon Graff's acceptance, the elder Muhlenberg wrote his last letter to the Raritan Churches, clearing up all his relationships. He never visited the congregations again. Thus after thirty years of difficulties, he was at last able to turn over the affairs of Zion to a competent pastor for a long ministry.

Graff was born of a highly respectable German family. Upon his father's death his studies in theology at the University of Halle were ended, and he entered upon a career as a soldier. He served with the British in the French and Indian War, after which he was left stranded and penniless in America.

Muhlenberg befriended him, guiding him out of "practical atheism" into the life "which the Spirit may surely build." Weygand, Muhlenberg, and the people of his congregation unanimously testify to his fifteen years of splendid ministry in Hackensack and Ramapo.

At the age of forty-eight, when he came to Zion, he was a man of God, well experienced in his work. He was a stout, fine looking man, well educated, cheerful and good humored. During his long life in America, he spelled, composed, and pronounced English with difficulty and sometimes with comic results.

War

Nothing is so harmful to the work of the church as is war and its after effects. When the fifth commandment is suspended, vice and confusion prevail. The church patriotically sends its men to the battle, and the battle returns only a few.

It was Graff's difficult assignment to hold the people of the Raritan to the faith during the years of war and reconstruction.

The Legacy

Another vexing problem had to be faced at once. Baltes Pickel (II) who had been administering his father's handsome legacy to the church, was dissatisfied with the use to which the interest was put. After a lengthy controversy the entire legacy was turned over to the church. The income helped the work of the church through many lean years.

The people of New Germantown were for the most part ardent patriots, supporting the Colonies in the struggle for temporal liberties. Early in the war the town was host to the "Council of Safety," among whose members were Gov. Livingston and William Patterson, a future Governor and Justice of the United States Supreme Court. During 1777-78, a regiment of cavalry wintered here. In 1780 Washington made a military inspection of the town and countryside.

The war-time inflation of currency caused much trouble for the trustees of Zion and the legacy shrank by one-third.

New Synod Connection

Neither why or exactly when is not known, but Zion Church became a member of the Ministerium of New York. Graf was a delegate to the 1792 Convention and the congregation maintained its obligations to this Synod until 1861 when it united with the Synod of New Jersey.

Spruce Run

Zion, which had been formed a half century earlier by the union of three congregations, (Leslysland, Fox Hill, Potterstown) which had been united with another established congregation (Pluckemin), and which had been the mother of a fifth (Long Valley), now brought a sixth congregation into the family.

In 1800 the Lutherans at Spruce Run joined with the Reformed to build a union church. It was a frame building which the people did not paint for many years, but finally covered with a fine coat of red!

This new congregation assumed part of the support of the pastor. A portion of its contribution arrived through the winter snow in a caravan of nine sleds, all loaded with provisions and supplies for the parsonage. The names of seven of the drivers are known: Frederick, William and Morris Fritts, Andrew Moore, Christopher Martenis, Christopher Heldebrant, and a Mr. Force.

Pastor Graf, according to a new plan, now preached a round of eight Sunday,--three at New Germantown, two each at Pluckemin and Long Valley, one at Spruce Run.

Pluckemin Dissolves

Long Valley was becoming a stronger congregation but Pluckemin was rapidly heading toward complete dissolution. The latter held its last election of officers in 1798; its last recorded council meeting in 1802. A decade or so later even the building was gone. Its cornerstone, dramatically discovered,-part at the bottom of a filled-in cistern, part in a cellar,--is now mounted near the doorway of the Pluckemin Presbyterian Church. An altar cloth and a list of the contributors to the building fund are its only other relies.

A Long Pastorate

Graf, who arrived at the beginning of the War for Independence, grew old during his service of the church. His tired body was laid to rest in the cemetery behind the church. He was loved and respected to the very end of his thirty-five year pastorate.

Baltes Pickel

In the hard times during and after the War, the church was helped, perhaps sustained, financially, by the income from a legacy of 1000 Pounds left by Baltes Pickel. Indeed, throughout the entire nineteenth century, it was a substantial part of the church's income.

Baltes Pickel cannot be forgotten. He was present at the very first service of the congregation. Because of his evident talents the people called him into lay leadership. He exercised his influence toward the building of the Potterstown church, the union of the congregations, and the construction of the present building. His body lies in an appropriate place of honor, under the chancel, which was an addition to the church, built-upon a part of the cemetery.

A regrettable circumstance is the disappearance of the legacy. Amends can be made in the future upon some occasion when the congregation raises a comparable sum for benevolent purposes or for a permanent structure, by attaching this faithful layman's name to the project.

ERNEST LEWIS HAZELIUS (1809 - 1815)

Providence supplied the church with another fine, able pastor in the person of Ernest Lewis Hazelius. This man, a descendant of a long line of Swedish pastors, was born in Neusalz, province of Silesia, Prussia. His father had left the ministry, and Lutheranism and Sweden. In Germany he married a Moravian lady, a school time friend of Catherine the Great of Russia.

Prince or Preacher?

From his birth until he was twelve, Catherine had sought to adopt young Hazelius as her own son. Finally the lad gave the decision which his parents had postponed. He decided against a life in the Russian Court, and at the same time expressed the conviction that he was called to the ministry of Christ.

The deep gulf between the gospel ministry and Russian Court life is known to all who are acquainted with the wealth, power, and degeneracy of Catherine and her coterie. The lad Hazelius had been offered the whole world and had declined to give his soul in exchange.

After preparing for the ministry, Hazelius came to America as a Moravian missionary, assigned as a classical teacher in the Moravian Seminary at Nazareth, Pa. He landed at Baltimore on October 27th, 1800.

In 1809 he left the Seminary and Moravianism, and settled in Philadelphia earnestly desiring to unite with the churoh which his ancestors had served. Within a few months he had received and accepted a call to succeed Graff at New Germantown.

A Strong Pastorat