Jacob Franck started work in "Culpeper County" in the fall of 1775. He baptized Aaron Breil (Broyles) on 5 Nov 1775. The same day he baptized Mose Carpenter. At some time after 28 October of this same year, he held a Communion Service for which he started a new feature. He recorded the names of the people who partook of Communion (this was sometimes done in Germany). At this time, the Lutheran church in the Robinson River Valley would only serve Communion to confirmed Lutherans. Though Reformed or other religious affiliations might attend church, they could not partake in the Communion Services. Because the Lutherans had a prescribed way of serving the congregation, the order of people in the Communion Lists approximates the seating order.
Rev. Franck was popular in the community. He apparently was an organizer, for not only did he keep good records of his ministerial acts (baptisms and communions) but led the church in writing a Constitution in May of 1776 and in sending a petition in October of that year to the President and Delegates of the Virginia Commonwealth requesting relief from supporting the established church which still had the force of law.
When Franck’s three years were up, according to his agreement with Muhlenberg, he resigned from the German Evangelische-Lutheran church in Culpeper County and returned to Philadelphia where he returned to secular work. Thus, his three-year stint in the Robinson River Valley was his only work as a pastor.
The elders of the church were very frustrated and apparently taken by surprise. They thought they had been doing everything that Franck wanted and his decision to leave them was a blow.
A very dark period of ten years in the church followed after 1778. For four years there is no evidence that any pastor was in regular attendance. In 1782, for about three years, J. Michael Schmidt was the preacher. I am inclined to think that this J. Michael Schmidt was the son of Michael Schmidt who came in 1717. (My arguments are in Beyond Germanna on page 862f.)
He was divisive and of dubious ability. Certainly the record keeping was very poor. It was necessary to expel him in 1785. For about four years, Rev. Christian Streit was a supply minister. During this period William Carpenter began his religious studies and in 1789 he was appointed the pastor with very limited powers; however, he was not ordained until 1792 (in Pennsylvania).
Rev. Carpenter was unfortunate in that his pastorate was during a period of turmoil in the church. Was the church German or English? Many people in the congregation spoke only German while others had made the shift to English.
(18 Mar 06)
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.