Excerpt from Fifty Years in the Lutheran Ministry

The origin of the Lutheran Church in America was in an emigration from Holland, which dates hack nearly to the first settlement of the Dutch in New Amsterdam, in 1621. So long as the territory belonged to Holland, the Lutherans were obliged to hold their religions services in private: but from 1664, when British rule commenced, they were permitted to conduct their worship publicly - a privilege which was continued to them under all the successive Governors. Their first minister was Jacob Fabricius, who arrived in this country in 1669, but after having served them for eight years, withdrew and look charge of the Swedish Church at Wicaco, now Southwark, Philadelphia. Here, after having labored fourteen years, during nine of which lie was blind, he died in 1692.

The next Lutheran settlement was that of the Swedes on the Delaware, in 1636. This Colony was first contemplated during the reign of Gustavus Adolphus, and with his hearty concurrence, but, being delayed by the Thirty Years' War, the plan subsequently took effect under the auspices of his illustrious Prime Minister, Oxenstiern. The Colony prospered for some time, but, not receiving any accessions from the parent country, it came gradually to languish until the Swedish language was entirely abandoned, and the congregations, three or four in number, became incorporated with the Episcopal Church.

The third settlement of Lutherans was that of the Germans, which, beginning in Pennsylvania, extended to Maryland, Virginia, the interior of New York and the Western States. In 1710 about three thousand Germans, chiefly Lutherans, came to New York, by way of England, having been driven from their native land by Romish persecution, and settled on the Hudson River. In 1713 one hundred and fifty families of these settled in Schoharie, and in 1717, and again in 1727, large numbers more planted themselves in different parts of Pennsylvania.

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