Mount Zion Lutheran Church Rededication

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Ken Boonie

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Sunday, June 30, the Mount Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church will mark
nearly 120 years of existence with a festive Service of Redidication.
Concluding a year-long remodeling project, members and friends of Mt.
Zion will gather at 2:30 p.m in the old church atop Stone Creek Ridge. 

Officiating at the redidication will be Dr. Russell B. Norris, pastor of
the Mount Union Lutheran parish. Delivering the sermon for the afternoon
will be the Rev. Gerald E. Miller, special assistant to the president of
the Central PA Synod of the Lutheran Church in America. Also assisting
in the service will be Dr. Marlin Bottiger, staff assistant to the synod
president. 

As part of the dedicatory service, a newly purchased Allen electric
organ will be blessed and used to lead the congregation in a number of
favorite hymns. 

Folllowing the worship service, a reception will take place at the old
Union Schoolhouse near the church. The public is invited to attend. 

The campaign to refurbish the interior of the church began in the summer
of 1973. The old building has not been repaired for years. The plaster
had cracked and was peeling from the walls; the shades were torn and
ragged; the windows so deteriorated as to hardly hold the glass plates
and the floor was beginning to sink at the walls. 

Today, the church represents a marked difference. Wood paneling now
covers the walls and new carpeting brightens the front of the sanctuary.
The windows are painted and repaired, the floor stained, and new pews
added to give the church the appearance it might have had when new. 

In addition, a new electrical system has been installed, electric heat
has replaced the space heaters and additional closet and storage space
has been designed into the walls. 

The small, but determined congregation at Mount Zion undertook this
impressive and difficult project out of respect for the long tradition
of the church on the ridge. It's history extends back to 1853 when the
first meeting house in Henderson township was built near Union schoolhouse
by a congregation of Presbyterians.

In time, the Presbyterians became so few in number that the church was 
closed. After remaining unoccupied for some time, it became the 
property of the Mount Zion Evangelical Lutheran Congregation, according
to James Africa's "History of Huntingdon and Blair Counties."

The congregation was formed about 1858 by a group of families whose names
are still known in Huntingdon county; Joseph Camp and his wife; Jacob
Hetrick and his wife; John and Rosina Rhodes; Samuel Hetrick and wife;
Rachel, Catherine and Elizabeth Hess.

The church had the same pastors as Huntingdon until 1874, when in connection
with Mill Creek and McAlevys Fort, a new pastoral charge was constituted with
the Rev. A. A. Kerlin as pastor. After Pastor Kerlin, The Rev. S. Croft 
began his ministry in 1881, at which time there were ninety communing
members and a Sunday School of over a hundred.

Mount Zion Church today occupies the same ground as it did more than a
century ago. Now part of the Mount Union Lutheran Parish and united
with sister churches in Mount Union and Cassville, it continues to
provide a place where the Word of God can be preached and the Sacraments
of the administered to the people of Stone Creek Ridge.