Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-11-04
E,rra,ttg Gllat

Susquehanna and the Swatara but
In Dauphin county religious history
as well. st. Peters was one of tbe
first group of churches in this coun-
" 10 form Sunday schools. Market
square, then the First Presbyterian
Church. was the first. Zion Church,
the parent church of Lutherans iIt
Harrisburg, organized it's scboo;
just a short time before the noted
congregation at Middletown. IT 4.
interesting to read in the program ar
the centennial on Sunday that rr
was in the pastorate of the Rev.
DR.. John George Lochman that St.
Peter's formed the school. DR..
Lochman, who was the main in
splratlon, had come from Lebanon
10 take up work in Harrisburg.
Middletown and vicinity. in 1816
and was figure in the life of this
city almost a century ago. He was
lions most famous pastor and of
great influence in the community.
not only president of the synod. but
received degrees from several CO..
leges. He is buried in Zion church
yard on Fourth street. The school
ltselt seems from the records of the
church to have been the child of a.
parochial school established by the
congregation very early in it's
history. However. the records only
refer to 1T occasionally and it does
not appear to have had the con-
tlnuity of the Sabbath school we
know and such as st. Peters has
maintained from 1919 onward. 1t
met in an old log house, say the
school officers, and DR.. Lochman-
who had organized the school at
Zion, made it point to attend the
meetings as often as he could. The
school was conducted by a band of
devoted men and women and is
now one of the most flourishing in
the county. It's superintendents
have included such men as John
Smell, one of the early teachers;
John Croll, who was superintendent
for fifty years; George Abner
Lauman, then Isaac o. Nssley, the
editor, and now E. S. Gerberich,
one of the active men of affairs in
! the lower end of the county. '--
st. Peters church, it may be said
| in passing, was one of the early
| bulwarks of Christianity in what is
| now Dauphin county. 1t was the
fourth congregation to be organized
in the upper part of what was then
Lancaster county and like Derry
| church, which dates from around
| 1920, and it's sister Presbyterian
| church, Paxton, dating from close
to 1870, it had an eventful history
| in early times. So one can say
that the history of Dauphin county
| begins with its churches. They
were the inspiration of the sturdy
| people who came here to live and
! these early churches were forced to
post sentinels to warn of approach
\ of Indians. st. Peters services had
| experiences of this kind just like
| Derry and Paxton, the latter
| church's gun racks, which were as
| much a part of the furniture as the
| pewS, having been removed only a
| few years ago. After the Presby-
| terians founded Derry and Paxton,
the Lutheran congregation at Hum
melstown founded a church in
| 1853. Harrisburg was then John
Harris fort and trading post and
any services held here were on the
| river front or in Harris house.
Early records, it may be said, show
that services were first held regu-
larly in Harrisburg in house near
| Third and Walnut and that the
Rev. Anthony Houtz was the first
minister to be regularly stationed in
| Harrisburg. He came in 1890 to
establish the Reformed church. The
Presbyterians and Lutherans Or
ganized soon after. Middletown
I
in 1920 or 1922, appear to have wor-
| shipped without any organization
until after John Fisher took. over
the Anderson Job tract about 1740
| and George Fisher laid out the
| town. There were meetings held
at houses and in the early part of
| 1863 it was decided to form a
Lutheran church. To build a place
of worship, in spite of PENIS doc
4
| necessary to obtain the consent of
| the Government, and the petition
for the right to build and to collect
money for that purpose was obtain
ed in 1894. 1t bears the signature
of John Penn. The church prop
erty was bought in September,
1854, and the church finished three
years later. Indians annoyed the
| builders as they did the worshippers
later on. Church history says that
no less a parsonage than Col. James
Burd, who next to John Harris was
the big man of the district, laid the
| corner stone The centennial of
| the church was celebrated Septem-
| ber 4, 1867, and the sesqui centen-
NAL two yeare ago. One of the
events at the time of the centen-
nial, which was recalled to-day by a
| Middletown man, was that 100
grains of wheat were sent TO the
oldest surviving heir of George
Fisher in payment of rent for
| century. The old deed calls for a
grain of wheat a year. The church,
strange to say, was not chartered
until it had been in existence fifty
years and it was only few years
before the Sunday school was form
ed that the steeple was built. In
| the seventies the old church, which
is one of the landmarks of Lower
| Dauphin county, was found too
small and the handsome new
church which now serves was con-
structed. Among the elder people
the old church is still known as the
"Kirche" because that term is used
I in the doorstone. Like st. Johns
church at Shiremanstown and
Paxton church this old bastion OF
religious life is we'll worth visit.
II is one of the few examples of old
church architecture in the county,
loved by it's people and revered by
| the folks for miles around for the
splendid influence it has had