USA > Pennsylvania > Lebanon County > Lebanon > Old Salem in Lebanon : a history of the congregation and town > Part 6
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*He died on March 21, 1800, at the age of 76, and left four children. ** His wife also was a communicant.
*The original parchment Declaration is very much faded, and it and an old paper counterpart are still among the documents of the Treasurer of the congregation.
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OLD SALEM CHURCH.
to be erected on the aforesaid Lot of Ground a Larg Building for a place of Worship, intended hereafter to be called church, and the said 'lot or peace of ground' was granted to us 'by the directions and appointment of such of the in- habitants of the said town, and they agreed with parts of the said county as are members of the de- nomination of the German Evangelical Lutheran congregation professing the doctrine, worship and discipline agreeable to the Unvariated Confession of Augsburg,' and the above recited indenture was made to us and the aforesaid building hereafter to be finished and erected on the said lot 'in trust for the use and service of the members or persons be- longing to the aforesaid congregation assembled for public worship from time to time, and a place to bury the dead, and upon this further trust and confi- dence to the intent only that we," the trustees' "or such or so many of us as shall be and [remain(?)] in unity and religious fellowship with the said congre- gation whereunto we now belong, should stand and be seized of the said lot of ground and buildings thereon erected or to be erected to and for the uses aforesaid and to and for no other use, intent or purpose whatsoever and under the conditions, pro- visoes and restrictions given after mentioned.
PROVIDED always that neither we or any other persons succeeding us in this trust "who shall be declared by the vote of the two full third parts of the number of male communicating members of the said congregation for the time being be out of unity
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THE FIRST TRUSTEES.
with them shall be capable to execute this trust, .. nor have any right or interest in the premises while we or they shall so remain, but that in all such cases as also when any of us or others succeeding shall happen to depart this life" then it shall be law- ful for "the two full third parts of the. . male com- municating members . . . to make choice of oth- ers to manage . . .. the said trust instead of such as shall fall away or be deceased and upon this fur- ther trust and confidence that we . . . . upon the request of the full two third parts of the male com- municating members for the time being either to assign over the said trust or convey the said Lot of Ground ..... to such persons. as shall by them be nominated and appointed . . .
"NOW KNOW YE that we for the more effectual reserving the said lot . . . . and buildings to be erected . ... for the uses aforesaid
Do hereby acknowledge and declare that our names as inserted were so inserted and made use of for and on the behalf of the congregation afore- said, and we are therein trusted only by and for the members in unity with the said congregation and that we do not claim to have . . . . or ought to have any right . ... in the said lot . . . to our own use or benefit only, but only to and for the use, intent and services before mentioned under the lim- itation and restrictions above expressed and reserv- ed for no other · purpose or service whatso- ever.
"We the said Jacob Bickel, Daniel, Stroh ....
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Philip Fernsler and Michael Riether have set our hands and seals thereunto the 13th day of March, A. D. 1765."
The Declaration was acknowledged before J. J. Fay, justice of Lancaster county, on July 30, 1765, and sealed and delivered in the presence of Chris- topher Kucher, John Fay and John Thome. It was entered in the office for Recording of Deeds for Lancaster County, Book H, p. 296, on Aug. 22, 1765.
In this paper, as also in the deed, we see clearly that the original grant was not the whole block of ground 198 feet square, but ran from the alley 132 feet along Willow street toward Eighth, and leav- ing a lot of 66 feet at Eighth and Willow streets still out of our possession, but as the deed says "in- tended to be granted to us for a School-House."
We learn also that in this first paper of trust be- longing to the congregation, the latter deemed the cause of education of great importance and that the ground on Eighth street was a separate property, set apart for a school house.
The Declaration seems to show also that the sur- rounding country membership (Hill Church and Grube Kirche) are at this time in accord with the movement in Lebanon, and that Rev. Stoever him- self is in full sympathy with it. It still further
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THE FIRST TRUSTEES.
serves to indicate how fully and completely the offi- cers of the Church were in power only to serve the teaching of the Church and the will of the congre- gation. To such an extent was this the case that if at any time two-thirds of the members thought that the officers were overstepping the bounds of authority committed to them, the latter were to be removed.
We learn still further that in this first Acknowl- edgment of Trust, and in connection with the very ground upon which we stand, the faith of the Un- altered Augsburg Confession (i. e. "Old Lutheran- ism") was expressly specified as the purpose and the only purpose for which the property existed, and we can have the glad consciousness that through the storms of a century and a third, though many other sections of the State have yielded, Old Salem has always stood in doctrine firm as a rock. The adamantine character is rarely in favor in any generation, but it is the one that outlives genera- tions and remains true to its destiny. It has its de- fects, which we must accept and attempt to over- come, and its strength through which we hope to abide.
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CHAPTER XIV.
OLD SALEM'S FIRST CHURCH.
T was in March of '65 that the Church ground was deeded. By July of that year the lot intended for the School-house on Eighth street* had prob- ably not yet come into its WEATHER-VANE of 1765 possession, ** though as early as March it was "in- tended to be granted for a School House." But in March already the trustees had said that "a large building is now erecting or intending to be imme- diately erected on the lot." The building was placed on the corner of Willow street and Doe alley, and was a structure of logs, surmounted by a small steeple. It is the conviction of the writer that the building was begun in 1766. This date is contrary to the universally received tradition .* But the trustees definitely say the building was "erecting or intend- ing to be immediately erected" in 1765. Dr. Loch- mann expressly states that the Church was built in
*Probably the corner of Eighth and Willow streets.
"It would doubtless, though not necessarily, have been mentioned in the Trustees' Acknowledgement, if it had.
*This tradition is based upon the petition of 1768. There are many other facts to be taken into consideration.
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1766. The Petition of 1768 as a general statement drawn up for strangers and intended to be as brief as possible and to influence persons to give, does not, in my judgment, preclude the theory that the building was already under way when it was drawn up. We know further that on the 4th of May, 1766, delegates from Lebanon went to Lancaster to par- ticipate in the dedication of Old Trinity Church,* and that on June IIth of the same year delegates from Lebanon went to Synod at Philadelphia and were present at the corner-stone laying of the great Zion Church there. It is not unlikely that these del- egates returned home with great enthusiasm for the immediate erection of the Church which had been intended already in 1765, and that they pushed the project into action. We know, further, that the Grube building was abandoned and torn down in 1768, which perhaps would hardly have been the case if there were no church begun in Lebanon in which (recalling Stoever's words) town and country could agree to worship. Again, in 1769, the con- gregation received the beautiful new communion service, presented by Andreas Doewler, which is still handsome. It is more likely that the gift was bestowed because it was already needed in the new Church than because it would be needed in a year or two to come .** But one of the most cogent ar- guments of all for the earlier building (i. e. before
*The present building.
** This communion service comprises two flagons, two plates and a chalice, and is kept with the other church vessels. It bears the inscrip- tion "Henrich Andonius Doewler, 1769."
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1769, 1770) is the fact that our small bell was cast in London in 1770 for the "Lutheran Congrega- tion in Lebanon Town." Now when a congrega- tion is about to build a church, the bell that is to be raised on the completed structure, is not one of the first things the builders think about. It is usually one of the last. Yet here were Pack and Chapman in far off London casting a bell for us already in 1770. Correspondence was very slow in that day, and bell making was not a rapid process, and the bell must have been cast many months after the or- der was given, and if the order was given only when the Church was under way, as is likely, this would throw the beginning of the building into the earlier period. There is still a final point to be made in fa- vor of this view. It is that German Christians, and especially Lutherans, would hardly begin the work of a new church by calling on outsders-the general public of the province, first of all, to enable them to carry it out. They would be far more likely to give what they could, and build what they could, and only after they discovered that they were getting into too deep water and that they could not finish the undertaking, would they be likely to apply to outsiders.
For these reasons we set down the beginning of the building in 1766. In 1767 came the death of George Steitz .* Tradition says he was a member
*George Reynolds probably died in 1766. It is sad to see how swiftly these men drop off after the Sheriff's sale of '63. In 1760 George had married Eleonora Trotter, daughter of Robert Trotter. She was born on October 13, 1736, and was baptized and confirmed. They had one child, who married Thomas Clark. Eleonora Reynolds died June 30, 1798, at the age of 61 years, 8 mo. and 2 weeks. (See Church Record.)
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of the Salem Church, and it would have been a very extraordinary thing for him to have signed that stiffest of Lutheran papers as a member of the Tul- pehocken Lutheran Church, with Stoever, if he had not himself been a Lutheran.
(Steitz's tomb has not been found, though the tombstones of his daughter Eleanor and his grand- daughter Catharine Reynolds, who married Thom- as Clark against her grandfather's wish, are all to be found in our old graveyard. For a curious the- ory of Rev. P. C. Croll as to the burial of Steitz on the Old Reformed cemetery, see Croll's Landmarks in the Lebanon Valley. The theory is that a tomb- stone bearing the name "George Stein" originally read "George Steitz." Rev. Croll says the date of death of the occupant seems to be 1787).
The oldest record of burial that is marked by a tombstone on Salem Lutheran cemetery is the fol- lowing :
IST GEBOREN IM JAHR 1751, DEN 24 AUGUST, IST GESTORPEN IM JAHR 1768.
This inscription is on the top part of the stone which is broken and removed from its original place-the lower part cannot be found.
In 1768, the Petition, already referred to, was sent out to well-disposed Protestants. It was sign- ed by the Rev. John Caspar Stoever and nine mem-
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OLD SALEM CHURCH.
bers of the Church, and was attested by six justices of the peace of Lebanon township and of the bor- ough of Lebanon. There are two copies of it in the possession of the congregation, the one in English with the Treasurer's documents, and the one in Ger- man, discovered recently by Dr. Schantz and my father in connection with the old Church records. As the English Petition has frequently been in print, and as the German was the original, written in a better Lutheran tone, by Stoever himself, I give a rough translation of the German here. It will be noticed that Rev. John Nicholas Kurtz personally endorses and attests the German paper. His en- dorsement shows that Stoever and he were united in this matter of building, and that probably thor- ough harmony prevailed in favor of the undertak- ing.
Grace and Peace, Salvation and Blessing from God the Father in Christ Jesus to each and all protestant lovers of the Divine Word and to the congregations of the Evangelical Religion, together with our greeting.
SINCE in the little town of Lebanon, newly laid out some years ago, there has been gathered a small number of members confessing the Evangelical Lutheran Religion and they have built homes here and up to this time have held their Divine Service in private houses, but have been obliged on account of the growth of the congregation and the small- ness of the space to decide to build up a proper church building for the more comfortable ordering of all acts of Divine worship;
BUT of ourselves unaided we have not the means (because we are for the most part beginners [in settling here] and also have just recently bought a schoolhouse) to carry out this highly necessary church building in a worthy manner. Therefore there is sent forth this friendly petition to each and all the protestant lovers and upright friends of the Christian Evangelical Religion and the Divine Word that for the furthering of the glory of God and of the Christian religion, they would favor us in this our Christian purpose with their temporal blessings and ability and with a cheerful heart aid us somewhat with their beneficent hands.
For the receiving of such gifts of love we have empowered the bearers
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of this, our trusty brethren, Friedrich Yensel, Christian Frendling.
May the giver of all good and perfect gifts again recompense each and all of the benevolent benefactors who have presented their gifts of love to us for our building of the church, abundantly in body and soul with a thousandfold blessings in time and eternity.
This do the undersigned wish from the depth of their heart. Lebanon the 2nd Day of September, 1768.
John Caspar Stoever, pastor in Lebanon, hereby testifies that the above is in accordance with the truth.
DANIEL STROH, JACOB EMEL, MICHAEL RIEDER, PHILIP FERNSLER, JOHANN HEINRICH RAHDER, JOHANN JACOB STIEB, FRIEDRICH YENSEL, GEORGE DIETRICH, CHRISTOPHER WEGMAN, JR.
Ph. de HAAS.
I, the undersigned, testify to what is stated above, with the earnest plea that each one who calls himself a Christian will bear in mind the admonition of the Holy Scriptures: To do good and to help each other, forget not. NICOLAUS KURTZ, Pastor.
Of these men, nothing has come to light in refer- ence to Emel or Immel. Nor is anything known of Daniel Stroh, though we know George Strow signed a Stoever deed as a witness on October 31, 1765. Frederick Yensel is a faithful and regular communicant as early as the Church Records open, and is here entrusted with the difficult task of col- lecting funds.
There are few families that have an older and more honorable record in the congregation than that of the Yensel family. Michael Rieder we have seen to have been a regular communicant, Jacob Stieb went to the first recorded communion, and so likewise did George Dietrich. Antonius Doewler,
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who presented the Communion Service, was also a regular communicant.
With what success the petition met is unknown. The result was probably not what was expected, and the "large log church" which doubtless was be- gun in 1766* and in which the first communion per- haps was celebrated in 1769, and which in 1770 or later received the beautiful little bell, which has a considerable quantity of silver in its composition and weighs about 1000 pounds, in its steeple, ** the whole being surmounted by the curious iron rooster as a weather vane,* remained unfinished, though used, for some years. One reason for the disheart- ening delay was the cropping out of the old diffi- culty, as to the pastorate, ** in an aggravated form.
*Regina, the German captive, had been released at Carlisle in 1765 on recognizing her mother's singing of the German choral "Allein und doch nicht ganz allein." In this year also the first stamp act was passed against the colonies, and at Philadelphia the Medical School of the University of Pennsylvania was founded. The University had already been founded, and soon here and at the University of New York Dr. Kuntze was to become the first professor of the Hebrew and Oriental languages in this country. Between 1745 and 1770 more than 50 German clergymen came to Pennsylvania, educated in the German universities, and their thorough knowledge, especially of the Latin language, awak- ened the admiration of the Harvard professors of that day.
** The bell bears the inscription in raised letters, "For the Lutheran congregation in Lebanon town, Lancaster county, in the Province of Pennsylvania. Pack and Chapman of London, Fecit 1770." It is in use every Sunday.
*It is an odd fact that instead of a cross, old Salem should always have had a weather vane, the symbol of the unsteady, the varying, the changeable, upon her loftiest peak. The emblem does not accord with the sturdiness of either her faith or her history.
** Of the meeting of the Ministerium in 1767, no records are existent. But in 1768, 1769, 1770 (nothing is known of 1771), 1772, Rev. Stoever was present at Synod and took an active part in both the business proceedings and the worship of the body. In one of the years he was a member of the Examining Committee, and, we think, Peter Muhlenberg appeared be-
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It must have been a painful situation for the con- gregation in 1770 and 1771, and in September, 1772, the matter was brought before Synod.
Only now are our eyes opened to the magnitude of the dispute into which the congregation had drifted .* One neither can nor should pass judg- ment upon the parties involved. There were two sides to the case. Rev. Stoever doubtless felt that he had been the pioneer in the community for a full generation; that he was the chief Lutheran person- age in the place; that he had donated the ground, and used his influence to secure contributions. But he was in a minority. His manner was not calculat- ed to make friends, and a large part of the congre- gation must have felt that under his scant ministra- tions progress was not being made.
Of this trouble, coming before Synod at Lancas- ter, on the morning of Tuesday, September 29th, we have just discovered the following account in the Documentary History of the Ministerium .** "In the morning session the matter of the dispute in the congregation in Lebanon was taken up, which is
fore him as a candidate. He was there also from the Lebanon district in 1773. Frederick August Muhlenberg was there from Heidelberg town. From 1774 to 1777 the disturbances connected with the Revolutionary War interfered with the meetings, and from '77 to '79 Rev. Stoever was doubt- less too aged to attend. Lay delegates from Lebanon, Manheim, Schaef- ferstown, were present at the dedication of Zion church in Philadelphia. Rev. Stoever took part in the exercises. The heat on that day was so great, and the crowd present so large that the sermon could not be con- cluded. A collection of £200, P. S., was lifted at the doors.
*The Church was born and bred in tribulation, and it was no wonder that the succeeding generation, in taking a new start, desired to call it "Salem."
** Page 132.
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OLD SALEM CHURCH.
too extended to be here described. The congrega- tion has divided into two parties; the minor party adheres to Rev. St-, and assumes right and au- thority over the half-built church, and whoever can- not and will not side with Mr. St- is denied a right in the church and cemetery. On the one side the Zinzendorfians, who have an organization near here, watch diligently; on the other side, the vaga- bonds* prowl around, and seek to fish in the muddy water. The major part of the congregation has for years earnestly requested the Ministerium, that their grievances against Mr. St- might be heard and investigated, and decided. But this could not be accomplished otherwise, ut et audiretur altera pars, and this not without mutual consent, for the Ministerium has no authoritative power, conse- quently it must have been decided before the gov- ernmental authority by a formal process, and the laws of this country have nothing to do with reli- gious disputes or questions of the law. And if two parties desire to decide a matter of dispute by arbi- tration, both parties must give their consent, and obligate themselves in writing, that they will yield to the arbitrators they have chosen. The Ministe- rium offered such an arbitration, and the complain- ing party was very willing to accede, but Mr. St- is said to have answered, he did not want to be judged, etc. Finally he consented, and a com-
*Self-constituted wandering preachers, of no character who officiated for the sake of the loaves and fishes. There were a number of such in Penn- sylvania at this time.
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OLD SALEM'S FIRST CHURCH.
mittee was appointed by the Ministerium to inves- tigate, and was sent to Lebanon. But he was unwil- ling to obligate himself to receive their decision, and so the whole meeting and transaction had the same form as an irregular Polish "Reichstag." The committee, therefore, upon the earnest request of the major party, found reason to advise Fr- M- to accept of and serve them, because he lived nearest. But Mr. St- behaved, as the fable says, like the dog on the hay stack. Briefly, since he would not give up the Church, our people spoke to the Reformed, asking them for permission to use their church, and were there served by Frederick Mühlenberg, now and then, as his other congrega- tional engagements permitted him. But what the delegates of the larger party wanted this time con- sisted of two points : (a) that we should exclude Mr. St- from the United Ministerium, (b) or consent that they might open the Lutheran Church forcibly and hold their services in it. Neither of these was the Ministerium willing to grant and advise, but re- solved to send a letter to Mr. St-, and in it re- monstrate with him, that it might be well to open the Church to the large party opposed to him, to be used on those Sundays when he with his small party did not use it, and at his pleasure he might retain the right in it when the others had no service."
CHAPTER XV.
A NEW PASTOR.
Lebanon Lancaster Bunty Dauphin.
VIDENTLY the request of Synod had an effect der upon Pastor Stoever. Not only must the church have been opened to all, but by May Ist, 1773, young Frederick Augustus Conrad Muh- lenberg was pastor there .* Young Muhlen- berg had evidently been 338 40%. to Lebanon and officiated here at least a year before the congregational diffi- culties had been referred to Synod. In the old Church Record we find ** the record of a commu- nion held on the Sunday Exaudi, 1771, in the handwriting of Muhlenberg. This is the oldest record of any kind in the books of the congregation, and it shows that on that day there were 89 communicants, of whom the men were,
"He so states in title page of the first Church Record Book.
*Page 414. This is in an obscure place and out of the chronological order.
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A NEW PASTOR.
Jacob Stieb, Martin Yensel, Christopher Friedrich, Peter Richart, Nicolaus Gebhard, Friedrich Yen- sel, John Heikedorn, Christoph Embig, Anthon Doebler, Peter Miller, Michael Rider, Adam Schott, and Bernhardt and Jacob Embig.
Young Muhlenberg was 23 years old when he began his pastorate, in 1773, and the first child he baptized here was Johan Schantz Henrich (Henry). The second was Maria Jacobina Ritscher, a daugh- ter of John Peter Ritscher .* Pastor Muhlenberg recorded at least thirteen baptisms, and five deaths, including children of George Risling and Christo- phel Kucher. The only adult death recorded by him is that of Daniel Ziebel, a regular member of the congregation. He has placed a register of sub- jects and pages toward the close of the book, in ad- dition to the enumeration on the title page. Ac- cording to this latter register, the first page of bap- tisms, a page of confirmations, and the record of elders and deacons have been cut out of the book. Close examination will show that leaves are missing at these places in the book. Their loss is a great one to the record. There is no record of either catechumens or of marriages by Muhlenberg, now in the book. On the last page Muhlenberg, under the date of May 12th, 1773, gives the names of those who have paid the "Herr Schulmeister's" money in advance. Here we see that the congregation al-
*Mr. Ritscher took the precaution to have the baptisms of his three other children inscribed on the first page of this first Church Register. They are Magdalena, John Adam, whom we shall meet often again, and John.
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