In 1802 two hundred members of the German church who had not united with Zion in 1797 asked for a separate English church. The request was declined, but regular services in English were held in the afternoon with promises of a new church as soon as possible.
In 1804 Strebeck, the pastor of Zion, joined the Episcopalians and subsequently became rector of St. Stephen's Church. Here he was followed in the course of years by a constant procession of his former parishioners. It will be recalled that Zion had not been received into connection with the Ministerium.
In 1805 Ralph Williston was chosen pastor. In 1810 he also became an Episcopalian. Not long after, the entire congregation followed him into the Episcopal fold. The resolution effecting the change read as follows:
"Whereas, many difficulties attend the upholding of the Lutheran religion among us, and whereas, that inasmuch as the doctrine and government of the Episcopal Church is so nearly allied to the Lutheran, and also on account of the present embarrassment of the finances of this church, therefore
"RESOLVED, That the English Lutheran Church with its present form of worship and government be dissolved after Tuesday, the 13th day of March next, and that this Church do from that day forward become a parish of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and the present board of officers of this church take every measure to carry this resolve into effect."* *On West Fifty-seventh Street, a few steps from Carnegie Hall, the visitor interested fn Lutheran antiquities may find the stately Episcopal Church of Zion and St. Timothy. It has a membership of 1,300. Its communion vessels still bear the inscription: ZION LUTHERAN CHURCH.
Kunze died in 1807. His successor, Frederick William Geissenhainer of New Hanover, Pa., took charge in 1808 and remained till 1814 when the state of his health compelled him to return to Pennsylvania.
He was succeeded by Frederick Christian Schaeffer of Harrisburg, a gifted man who preached equally well in German and in English. On the tercentenary of the Reformation in 1817 he preached a Reformation sermon in St. Paul's Episcopal Church on Broadway, which attracted widespread attention. A copy is preserved in the New York Public Library.
[illustration: "Fragment of Kunze's Gravestone discovered by the author in 1907, in Greenwich Village, where some laborers were digging the foundation for a new building. Kunze's ashed repose in the Lorillard vault of the churchyard of St. Mark's in the Bowery, Tenth Street and Second Avenue.">[
After twenty years the promise of a separate English church was fulfilled, when in 1822 a large and beautiful structure was erected in Walker Street, just east of Broadway, and placed at the disposal of the English portion of the congregation. It was called St. Matthew's Church. Schaeffer was assigned to the pastorate and Geissenhainer was recalled from Pennsylvania to take charge of the German part of the congregation. New trouble soon developed. The English congregation demanded representation in the Church Council. This the mother church declined to concede, although it is claimed they had agreed to do so when the English congregation was formed. The new congregation was unable to maintain itself, and in 1826 the church was sold for a debt of $14,000, and Pastor Schaeffer resigned. The Walker Street building was bought by Daniel Birdsall who resold it to the mother church. The legal questions at issue in the transaction were taken into court and decided in favor of the mother church.
A son of the pastor, Frederick William Geissenhainer, Jr., was called from Pennsylvania to minister in St. Matthew's Church in English, so long as this could be done without detriment to the German congregation. This continued for three years, by which time a deficit of $5,000 had accumulated.