In 1787, after about nine years without a regular pastor, William Carpenter, Jr., assumed the duties of the pastor. At first, he was restricted to administering baptism and to preaching. He could not serve communion; outside people had to be called in for this. In time, this restriction was lifted and he went on to serve the most years of any pastor at Hebron Church. In 1813 or 1814 he moved to Boone Co., Kentucky where he served many more years with a congregation of people who had moved from the Robinson River community. When he left Hebron, services were still being conducted in the German language. During his pastorate, the church was physically enlarged and the organ was procured.
On assuming his duties, Rev. Carpenter found that the Register of baptisms was full and no more space was available. Probably by then the data had overflowed to temporary records. At some time after the start of his ministry, the church purchased another book of eighty odd pages in which to keep the records. This book was setup using a family orientation. One page was assigned to each family even though some families had only one entry. In setting this book up, older data that had been in the first book or on temporary pages was organized anew. Apparently an attempt was made to have the story for each family as complete as possible.
At some point, it not certain when, book one of about 50 pages was bound together with book two of about 80 pages into one volume. During this binding a couple of unusual things took place. In the original book one, pages 1 and 2 which are one sheet, were reversed with pages 3 and 4 which were another sheet. This may have been deliberate as the first page of a reference book often gets the heaviest wear. It may have been an accident.
In the original book one, a few pages at the back of the book were used for special purposes. Two natural births (unwed parents) and baptisms are recorded here. In one, Susanna was the daughter of Ephraim Klug and the mother (Maria?) Rossel. Sara was the daughter of Catharina Marbes who was not living with her husband. The pastor, Jacob Franck, added the note, "As she herself admitted her husband was not the father. Nevertheless, the child's birth is recorded." From the dates, we know this would have been recorded in book one.
Another page was used for the baptism of slave children. Five were performed by Rev. Franck and one is by Rev. Carpenter. These records give the child's mother and owner. Very often the owner was the sponsor of the child.
When book one and book two were bound into one volume, the two sheets at the back of book one were removed from their location there and placed at the back of the combined volume. Thus, the information was still relegated to the back of the book.
Another volume contains lists of communicants, confirmations, minutes of meetings, financial records, etc. Before discussing this volume two, the value of the volume one to genealogists will be discussed.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.