Augustus Lutheran Church | |
Location | 717 Main Street, Trappe, Pennsylvania |
---|---|
Coordinates | 40°12′07″N75°28′50″W / 40.2019°N 75.4805°W |
Built | 1743 |
Architect | Heinrich Melchior Muhlenburg |
NRHP reference No. | 67000019 [1] |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | December 24, 1967 [1] |
Designated NHL | December 24, 1967 [2] |
Designated PHMC | September 3, 1947 [3] |
Augustus Lutheran Church is a historic church and Lutheran congregation at 717 West Main Street in Trappe, Pennsylvania. Consecrated in 1745, it is the oldest extant Lutheran church building in the United States. [4] It continues to be used by the founding congregation for services on Christmas Eve and during the summer. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1967. [2]
The Trappe area was settled in 1717 by Germans who worshipped informally or under itinerant preachers until the arrival of Heinrich Melchior Mühlenberg in 1742. Their first church, which cost 200 pounds sterling, was designed by Mühlenberg. All of the interior fittings were fabricated from local materials, including the pulpit, which is made of American black walnut. The building is constructed of red sandstone (now faced with stucco); the east end of the building is formed into a three-sided apse. Above the south entrance is a date stone inscribed in Latin with the names of the church's founders, including Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, Frederick Marsteller, John Nicholas Cressman, Anthony Heilman (Hallman), Jacob Miller, Henry Haas, and George Kebner. The roof is framed with oak rafters and covered in cedar shingles. The cemetery at the rear of the building contains tombstones dating from 1736 and earlier, as well as the graves of Muhlenberg, his wife Anna Maria Weiser, and their daughter Mary Swaine and son General Peter Muhlenberg. [5]
Although the shell of the building was finished in 1743, the church was not consecrated until 1745. It was named after August Hermann Francke, founder of the Francke Foundations in Halle, Germany, a center of Lutheran Pietism where Henry Melchior Muhlenberg had trained. During the American Revolution, the building was used as a camping site and hospital for the Continental Army. A monument at the west end of the church commemorates unknown Revolutionary War soldiers buried in the cemetery.
By the mid-1800s, the congregation had outgrown the old building, and a new brick church was built. This structure was consecrated in 1852, whereupon the old building became used for Sunday School classes. A freak thunderstorm in 1860 severely damaged the roof; however, it was decided to restore the building rather than tear it down. A cast-iron stove was then added to the previously unheated building. Renovations in the 1920s restored the building to its original appearance. In the late 1950s, services were once again held in the Old Church in the summer and on Christmas Eve, a tradition which continues to the present day. A digital organ was placed in the original organ case in the early 1990s.
The church was declared a National Historic Landmark on December 24, 1967. [2] [4]
Trappe is a borough in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 3,509 at the 2010 census. Augustus Lutheran Church, built in 1743, is the oldest unchanged Lutheran church building in the United States in continuous use by the same congregation. It has been designated a National Historic Landmark.
Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg was an American minister and politician who was the first Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and the first Dean of the United States House of Representatives. A member of the Federalist Party, he was delegate to the Pennsylvania state constitutional convention and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania and a Lutheran pastor by profession, Muhlenberg was born in Trappe, Pennsylvania. His home, known as The Speaker's House, is now a museum and is currently undergoing restoration to restore its appearance during Muhlenberg's occupancy.
Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, was a German-born Lutheran clergyman and missionary. Born in Einbeck, Muhlenberg immigrated to the Province of Pennsylvania in response to demands from Lutherans for missionary work in the colony. Integral to the founding of the first Lutheran church body or denomination in North America, Muhlenberg is considered the patriarch of the Lutheran Church in the United States. Muhlenberg and his wife Anna Maria had a large family, several of whom had a significant impact on colonial life in North America as pastors, military officers, and politicians. His and Anna Maria's descendants continued to be active in Pennsylvania and national political life.
John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg was an American clergyman and military officer who served during the American Revolutionary War. A member of Pennsylvania's prominent Muhlenberg family political dynasty, he became a respected figure in the newly independent United States as a Lutheran minister and member of the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate.
The Muhlenberg family created a United States political, religious, and military dynasty that was primarily based in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, but which had also expanded into the State of Ohio by the early nineteenth century. The German American family descends from Heinrich Melchior Mühlenberg/Henry Muhlenberg (1711–1787), a German immigrant, noted Lutheran minister, and founder of the Lutheran Church in America.
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Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Muhlenberg was an American clergyman and botanist.
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(help) and Accompanying 3 National Park Service photos, exterior, from 1967. (970 KB)