page_title: Zion Reformed United Church of Christ
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Zion Reformed United Church of Christ / History
caption_attribution_description: English: 1774 Sketch of Zion Church as it originally appeared soon after construction.
context_page_description: Zion Reformed United Church of Christ, originally The German Reformed Church was founded in 1770 in Hagerstown, Maryland. The church, at 201 North Potomac Street, was the first within the town limits. It is the oldest church building in Washington County, Maryland that has been in continuous use as a church since its construction. During the American Civil War, the church’s bell tower was used as a lookout by Union troops under the command of General George Custer.
context_section_description: The 18th century western frontier of the Maryland colony had previously been ravaged by marauding Shawnee and Delaware Indians after General Edward Braddock’s defeat at Fort Duquesne. In spite of the danger, German settlers erected a log schoolhouse around 1766 on the grounds of the present church, an area then known as Potato Hill. This building was used by the German community both as a school and as a place for religious services. Local Indians  would listen to the lessons through the windows. The Tuscarora Indians were the last native people known to inhabit the area in large numbers. The log school building was used for services until the stone church was built, then it continued to serve as a day school and as a lecture hall.
  German-speaking immigrants comprised the majority of Hagerstown’s earliest inhabitants and they brought with them from their homeland their religious customs. Fleeing to Holland for safety, these persecuted Protestants were befriended and supported, both in Holland and later in America, by the tolerant and kindly Dutch people. A group of forty German refugees from the religious persecutions in Switzerland and the German Palatinate, organized a German Reformed, or Calvinist, congregation in Elizabeth’s Town, later known as Hagerstown. The Reformed settlements of the Conococheague area were served at intervals by ministers sent from Philadelphia. The earliest church record for the congregation is of the baptism of George Snyder, son of Jacob and Catharine Snyder, on October 20, 1766. From this date forward there is a continuous baptismal record. In September, 1770, the Rev. Jacob Weimer was appointed as the first pastor.
  Jonathan Hager, a member of the congregation and Proprietary of Elizabeth’s Town, now called Hagerstown, had laid out the town in 1762 and named it Elizabeth’s Town, in honor of his wife, Elizabeth. In 1770, Hager gave the church two lots in the northern part of town on Potomac Street, the principal street.
  Four years passed before work was begun on the building. The congregation elected as builder, mason and architect William Heyser/Wilhelm Heiser, a member and deacon of the congregation, who, with the cooperation of his colleagues, the other deacons of the congregation, namely, Philip Oster, Peter Wagner, and Jacob Hauser, brought the work so far as to lay the cornerstone on Wednesday, August 10, 1774. Built by Germans upon solid rock, this stone church, though enlarged and altered, has endured for more than two centuries. The interior of the building stood unfinished for some years while the building-master, Capt. Heyser, organized a company of German volunteers and led them to support General George Washington. Wounded at the Battle of Brandywine, Capt. Heyser returned home to recuperate and, in time, to complete the church building.
  Zion Reformed Church's limestone walls have witnessed uninterrupted congregational worship since 1774. From the foundation, which was built upon a rock, to the bell tower pointing skyward, the church was erected by its founders as a symbol of religious freedom in their new homeland. The church was the first large building in the town and its commanding presence on a hilltop overlooking the town of 50,000 today is the same building which stood watch over the town in its infancy as a small hamlet of a few hundred houses. While the property has been improved and enlarged, within and without, the sanctuary maintains the original 1774 proportions and the original 2-foot-thick (0.61 m) limestone masonry walls.
  Unable to locate the original deed from Captain Hager, the church leadership sought legal title to the land on which this church stands. In 1784, the land was purchased from the estate of the founder of Hagerstown, Captain Jonathan Hager, for a nominal fee but subject to an annual ground rent of one shilling and sixpence sterling paid faithfully by the congregation each March 1 for seventy-five years.
caption: Zion Church as it appeared shortly after construction.
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