Some Historic Churches in Lancaster County
By DR. H. M. J. KLEIN
In response to William Penn’s invitation, a large number of European people left their homes during the first quarter of the eighteenth century and came to Pennsylvania in search of religious freedom and economic opportunity.
Following the rivers and the Indian trails from Philadelphia they soon found their way to the rich soil which is now Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
As early as 1709 a small group of Mennonites, followers of the martyr Menno Simons—“Switzers” as they were called—arrived in Penn’s Province, found their way to the Pequea creek and took up 10,000 acres of land. They were the direct descendants of the bitterly persecuted Anabaptists of the 16th century. They brought with them their lay ministers and their Bibles, and worshipped at first in their log houses. Later when these pioneer farmers began to erect meeting houses, they divided the building into two apartments by a swinging partition suspended from the ceiling. One apartment was used for religious, and the other for school purposes. Today, large Mennonite ‘meeting houses’ as their church buildings are called, are found everywhere in Lancaster County: at Willow Street, Mellingers, Strasburg, Manheim, Warwick and Brecknock as well as in a score of other congregational centers. Their ministers are now educated in the Mennonite colleges and seminaries. Two customs, however, have been strictly maintained: feet-washing in connection with the communion service, and the prayer head-covering among the women of the church.
The Amish are an offspring from the Mennonites on the practice of shunning. They came to America later. The names of Amish families are found among the early settlers of Lancaster County as early as 1725. About 1740 an Amish congregation was established near the headwaters of the Conestoga and Pequea creeks in Lancaster County. This settlement has continued to be a prosperous Amish community, and today this region constitutes one of the largest Amish settlements in America.
The early Amish settlers worshipped in private houses. They believed that to erect houses of worship was a tendency toward worldliness. They all continued this practice of worship until more recently. Today there are “House-Amish” and “Church-Amish.” The branch which is known among them as the “Old Order” still continues to worship in private homesteads. The Church Amish acquired a ‘church house’ for use in public worship. Their plain meeting houses are to be found in northeastern Lancaster County. Religion, whether in homestead or church, has first place in Amish life.
The Church of the Brethren, sometimes called Dunkers, is another group of the plain People of Europe who accepted William Penn’s invitation in 1719 and to find its way to the Conestoga Valley. They follow closely the practice of the Apostolic Church. Since 1776 they have had higher institutions of learning, among them Elizabethtown College located within the boundary of Lancaster County. They have established homes for the aged, the infirm and the orphans in our area, and are well organized for missionary endeavor. Their substantial church buildings are scattered throughout the county.
While the Plain People were among the earliest and most unique settlers in Lancaster County, they were soon followed in large numbers by the so-called church people of Europe: the Lutherans, the Reformed, the Moravians, the members of the Church of England and the Church of Scotland, whose descendants today constitute a large majority of the inhabitants of this county.
The Lutherans who probably outnumber the members of any other religious denomination in Lancaster County, were among the earliest settlers having been associated with New Sweden as early as 1643. Many of their churches were founded in the county in the second quarter of the 18th century. The New Holland Trinity Church dates from 1730. The old Warwick Church at Brickerville records baptisms from 1731. St. Michael’s in Strasburg has a similar entry on May 1, 1730. Then there is the story of Old Trinity in Lancaster, with its beginning in 1729, the year in which Lancaster County was established. Its church building and school house were commenced in 1734.
The German Reformed Church people, coming from the Palatinate, were in the Conestoga Valley before 1725. For the next few years religious meetings were conducted in private houses by Conrad Tempelmann. On October 15, 1727 the first Reformed communion service was held in what is now known as Heller’s Church in Upper Leacock Township. When Lancaster became a Townstead, there were Reformed congregations at Lancaster, Cocalico and Zeltenreich.
Among the churches that branched from Heller’s Church was the First Reformed congregation in Lancaster. Its log church was built and dedicated in 1734 on a plot of ground given by James Hamilton.
Among the 18th century Reformed congregations in Lancaster County are Maytown, Muddy Creek, Bethany near Ephrata, Zion’s at Brickerville; Christ Church, Elizabethtown; St. Stephens, New Holland; Zeltenreich, near New Holland; Zion, New Providence; Swamp, West Cocalico; St. Paul’s, Manheim.
Lancaster County is one of the centres of the Moravian Church in America. The Lititz congregation was organized soon after 1742, following the visit of Count Zinzendorf. The original Gemeinhaus was dedicated a few years later. Trombones were substituted for French horns in the church orchestra in 1770.
TRINITY LUTHERAN CHURCH
The Moravian Church in Lancaster has an interesting history. Count Zinzendorf preached in the Court House in Center Square, Lancaster, in 1742, when he was asked by some of his hearers to send a regular preacher to serve them. When Bishop Spangenberg preached in the Court House and advocated a merger of the church denominations, he was pelted with stones. The result was that the Moravians of Lancaster erected a stone church of their own on the corner of Orange and Market streets. It is recorded that the brethren gathered from Warwick to Lancaster to haul stone for the building, fifteen men and eight wagons in two days bringing in 94 large loads of the finest stone.
The ministrations of the Church of England came to the Lancaster County area very early. The rector of St. David’s Episcopal Church is known to have made journeys on the road to Conestoga in 1717 and to have designed to preach there once a month.
St. John’s Church, Pequea, has had an interesting history since 1728.
Probably the oldest inland Episcopal church in America is the Bangor Church of Churchtown, founded by the early Welsh in 1722. The first church built of logs was completed in 1734. This church derived its name from the Bangor Cathedral in Wales. In its burial ground lie soldiers of every war, including the French and Indian. It is said that George Washington worshipped here in 1758 and later during his winter at Valley Forge.
St. James’ is the Pioneer Episcopal church in Lancaster city. The first entry in the record of St. James’ Parish is dated October 3, 1744. Land for the building site was donated by James Hamilton. Thomas Cookson, Lancaster’s first Burgess, raised the money for the building. The church was built in 1754 on the lot still occupied for that purpose, and has been an historic landmark in Lancaster for more than two centuries.
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Lancaster, dates from 1853. It was established by Bishop Bowman and was known as St. John’s Free Church, in which the seats would be free to all who desired to avail themselves of the privileges of God’s house.
The Scotch Irish and the Welsh came to Lancaster County in the second decade of the 18th century, and brought with them the tenets of the Presbyterian church. The Rev. David Evans founded the Upper Octorara Church in 1720 and was at Donegal in the same year. For twenty years the immigration from Ulster averaged 20,000 a year. Donegal in Lancaster County became one of the strong seats of Presbyterianism in America. The Donegal Church became a center of patriotic endeavor, both in the French and Indian War and in the American Revolution. Its story is unique in American church history.
The Pequea Presbyterian Church dates back to the Rev. Adam Boyd who came from Ireland in 1722 and organized a group of churches west of the Octoraro. In 1731 the Pequea Church secured his services every sixth Sabbath.
The first log Pequea Church stood near a large white oak tree, which is still standing and marks the spot where Geo. Whitefield preached.
The Middle Octoraro Presbyterian Church was organized by the Rev. Adam Boyd in 1727. In the lower end of the county the Chestnut Level Church and the Little Britain Church belong to the early colonial period, as does the Leacock Church of 1739.
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
The First Presbyterian Church of Lancaster began in 1763, when James Hamilton granted Lot No. 19 on East Orange Street, on which a church building was erected in 1767. Services were held in the old Court House in Centre Square while the church was being built with funds secured by a lottery enterprise. This method was frequently used in the 18th century to build churches or construct roads.
The Presbyterian Church of Strasburg was dedicated on Christmas Day, 1833; that of Marietta in 1821; of Mt. Joy, 1840; of Christiana, 1859; Memorial Presbyterian Church of Lancaster, 1871.
Methodist ministers first visited Lancaster County in 1781, and a year later the Lancaster Circuit was formed. Bishop Asbury, who died in 1816, was well known in Lancaster County. He frequently stayed in Strasburg at the Inn of John Funck who painted his portrait on a now famous wooden panel in Washington, D. C. The Methodists erected a church near Willow Street in 1791, and another at Strasburg in 1807.
Fifty-four clergymen are named as having supplied the local Methodist churches of Lancaster County up to the year 1802 when the Soudersburg church was erected. Boehm’s Church, still standing in Pequea township, was a pioneer Methodist institution. Henry Boehm had a great deal to do with the founding of the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Lancaster in 1807. The church building was erected in 1809 at the corner of Walnut and Christian streets. In 1840 ground was acquired extending the church lot to Duke street, where a handsome church structure now stands.
ST. JAMES EPISCOPAL
St. Paul’s Methodist Church dates from 1849; Broad Street from 1867; Bethel African Methodist Church from 1821. Many Methodist churches are found in southern Lancaster County and in the Octoraro Valley, and in all the Boroughs.
The Church of the United Brethren was the outcome of a meeting held in the Isaac Long barn near Oregon, Lancaster County, in the middle of the 18th century, when leaders of four denominations decided to be Brethren. It was not, however, until 1800 that the new denomination was separately organized. The oldest United Brethren congregation in Lancaster County is Ranck’s in the New Holland Circuit. The congregation met for forty years in a private house until a church was built in 1844.
There are many United Brethren churches in rural Lancaster County. The Otterbein U. B. Church in Lancaster City began in 1902 as a Mission Sunday School and has grown into one of the most vigorous churches in the city.
It is impossible in this space to do more than mention some of the other denominations, some of which are comparatively strong in Lancaster County. There are the United Evangelical churches, the Winebrennerians, or Church of God, members who have been active in the county for more than a century; the German Baptists and the English Baptists; the Church of Christ; the Swedenborgians and the Evangelical Association.
The Quakers crossed the Atlantic with Wm. Penn, and soon found their way into what is now Lancaster County. John Kennerly settled near Christiana in 1691. The first Friends meeting house was erected by Sadsbury Quakers in 1725. The Bart meeting house, erected 100 years later, represented the views of the Hicksite Friends. In 1758 the Penn Hill meeting house was built. The Quaker meeting house at Bird-in-Hand dates from 1749, the same year in which the Lampeter meeting house was built.
The Church of Our Father (Unitarian) was a rather late arriver in Lancaster. It was organized in 1902, and the stone church on West Chestnut Street was dedicated in 1909. The lecture hall in connection with the church was named Emerson Hall.
Independent congregations like the First Baptist, Calvary Independent, Seventh Day Adventists, Church of the Nazarene, Pentecostal Association, Christian Scientists, and Latter Day Saints have substantial church buildings in Lancaster. To this group we may add the Monastic Orders of provincial Ephrata, with their remarkable buildings at the Cloister. These Seventh Day Baptists, with their Prayer Hall, (The Saal), built about 1734, are unique in American history and folklore.
The first Roman Catholic Mission in Lancaster was established in 1741. A log church was built in 1742 on the site of the present St. Mary’s Convent. Father Keenan served St. Mary’s Church for more than half a century. St. Joseph’s and St. Anthony’s followed in the 19th century. St. Peter’s of Elizabethtown was founded in 1752. A number of Catholic churches are to be found in the boroughs of the county, and impressive churches have been erected in the city.
The Jewish faith has been established in Lancaster since 1732. The first organized congregation of Jews in Pennsylvania met at the home of Joseph Simon, a Lancaster merchant. Later they met in a building on the northwest corner of North Queen Street and Centre Square. The first Temple was built in 1866, and the present structure at Duke and James Streets was dedicated in 1896.
In the nature of the case, we must forego reference to most of the individual churches in the Lancaster area, in this brief outline. My purpose in writing this article has been to impress on the public the fact that religion since early colonial and provincial days has been a vital factor in the area of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
DONEGAL CHURCH AND WITNESS TREE
In June, 1777, the members of Donegal Church (est. 1719), one of the major centers of early American Presbyterianism, forced their pastor, Mr. McFarquhar, to gather with them under the tree outside the Church and “bear witness” to support of the sacred cause of the American Revolution. The “Witness Tree,” a fine old oak, and the church, still stand. Both may be visited.