LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. Early The first Lutherans in Amer ica came from Holland during the Thirty Years' War on account of religious oppression, and settled in the colony of New Netherlands. The exact year of their arrival is not known; some seem to have come with the very first settlers in 1623, but they are mentioned in 1643 as living in Manhattan (New Amsterdam—New York). A congregation was established in 1648. The recognized religion of the colony being strict Calvinism, the Lutherans were treated very harshly, especially by the governor, Peter Stuyvesant. Their children had to be brought to Calvinistic preachers for baptism, and they were fined and imprisoned even for holding informal services for the reading of the Bible. They applied to their home church for a pastor of their own faith and John Ernest Gutwasser (Goetwater) was sent them in 1657, but was sent back by the authorities in 1659. They ob tained religious freedom only with the capture of the city by the English in 1664. In the fol lowing years ministers were sent to them from Amsterdam, Holland, but sometimes long va cancies occurred, and they were obliged to apply to the Lutheran Swedes on the Delaware for spiritual ministration. Prominent among their ministers in the 18th century was the German, Justus Falckner (1703-23), the first Lutheran minister ordained in America, who also served the Lutherans on both sides of the Hudson as far up as Albany ,• W. C. Berkenmeyer, also a German, and M. Knoll. Gradually the con gregations turned from the Dutch to the Ger man and English languages.
Distinctively Lutheran settlements were made by the Swedes along the Delaware, where Wilmington is now situated, beginning with 1638. Reorus Torkillus was their first pastor. He was succeeded by Iohn Campanius, who was the first to begin mission work among the North American Indians, and who translated Luther's Catechism into the Delaware language. His labors enabled William Penn, in after years, to carry out his pacific policy toward the Indians. Campanius also dedicated the first Lutheran church in the new world on the island of Tinicum, near Philadelphia. As most of the Swedish pastors returned to Sweden after some years, and as the Swedish was replaced by the English language, the congregations gradu ally fell away from their mother church and entered into communion with those of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
The great influx of German Lutherans took place in the first half of the 18th century, after the first German colony, under the leadership of Pastorius, had arrived in 1683 and founded Germantown, now a part of Philadelphia. In
Germantown the first German Lutheran service was conducted in 1694 by Rev. H. B. Koester, and in Falckner's Swamp (New Hanover, Pa.), near Philadelphia, the first German Lutheran church was in existence in 1704. This first German Lutheran congregation was served by Daniel Falckner, the older brother of Justus Falckner. In New York the leader of the immigrants was Joshua Kocherthal, a Lutheran minister from the Palatinate, arriving on New Year's day 1701. The Palatinate had been ravaged with fire and sword under Louis XIV of France, the inhabitants were obliged to flee in order to save their lives and many of these fugitives found a temporary refuge in England, where Queen Anne arranged for their emigration to America. In 1710 not less than 11 ships came to New York carrying some 3,000 immigrants. They settled in the Catskill Hills on the banks of the Hudson; later on many of them went westward and moved into the Schoharie Valley. All were served by the inde fatigable and faithful Kocherthal. In 1734 the Lutheran Salzburgers, driven from their homes in Austria through persecution, settled in Georgia not far from Savannah. Their settle ment was named Ebenezer, and their pastors were Bolzius and Gronau. Gradually groups of German Lutherans were found along the whole Atlantic Coast. In Pennsylvania alone some 60,000 Lutherans were settled about the year 1750, for whose spiritual wants there was, at first, no adequate provision. Several of these Pennsylvania congregations joined in sending a delegation to London (Court-chaplain Ziegen hagen), and to Halle in Germany (Prof. A. H. Francke), representing the needs of the immi grants and asking for able clergymen. These negotiations finally resulted in the coming to America of Henry Melchior Muehlenberg, the pious and indefatigable so-called "patriarch of the Lutheran Church in America?' He arrived in 1742, served the congregations that had called him, organized new congregations far and wide, built churches (Saint Michael's, Philadel phia) and in every possible way was active for the Church. He was followed by a number of educated and faithful men from Germany (Kurtz, Kunze and others), and thus an era of great activity began among the scattered Lutheran churches, their number being con tinually increased through the coming of more immigrants, and the Lutheran Church attain ing considerable influence.