Recent notes dealing with the record of baptisms at the German Lutheran Church, now known as Hebron, have prompted questions such as, "Where are the rest of the kids?" and, "Why weren't my people recorded?" We saw a good example of the first question in the case of John Gaar and his wife Margaret Willheit.
Until about 1739, twenty-two years after they came, the Second Colony had had the services of their own pastor for only about a year and a half. When Rev. Stöver died on the return home from the trip to Germany to raise funds, his place was taken by George Samuel Klug. Rev. Klug served for twenty-four years in the new church building. He was followed by John Schwarbach who served until about 1775. Both of these men served the community well.
The next pastor, who came as a provisional pastor, was Jacob Franck, a layman turned cleric. He served a little less than three years starting in November of 1775. He was a hard worker and a good salesman for the church and the congregation was pleased with him. In his short term, the number of baptisms averaged more than ten times the numbers for 1750 to 1775 when computed on an annual basis. The length of the communicant lists grew. In short, the church was revitalized in his three years but he resigned and went to silversmithing in Philadelphia.
For a period of nine years following his resignation, the church history is murky. There was no regular pastor, but a succession of supply or temporary ministers. Some say John Michael Schmidt, from within the congregation, attempted to lead the church for a few years, but with disastrous results. In the church register of births and baptisms, the record keeping became very poor. It appears that people stayed away from the Hebron church.
At the same time, old ways were being subverted. The power of the state church (tied to England) was weakening during these Revolutionary years. More tolerance was being shown to other religious groups such as the Baptists. Many of the Lutherans started attending that church. Other Lutherans just opted out of the religious picture. The net result is that people such as John and Margaret Gaar brought no children for baptism after 1778.
It wasn't until 1787, when William Carpenter, Jr., became the pastor, that record keeping in the church was returned to normalcy. His pastorate was honorable, though not without some disagreements with the elders and the congregation. By then, many of the members were beginning to use English as a working language while the church remained solidly German in its outlook. So cultural change took its toll also.
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.