Church: History: Hill Reformed Church, Annville Charge: North Annville Twp, Lebanon Co, PA Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Linnea T Miller ltmiller@geocities.com USGENWEB NOTICE: Printing this file by non-commercial individuals and libraries is encouraged, as long as all notices and submitter information is included. Any other use, including copying files to other sites requires permission from the submitters PRIOR to uploading to any other sites. We encourage links to the state and county table of contents. ____________________________________________________________ Centennial History of Lebanon Classes of the Reformed Church in the U.S., 1820 - 1920, Compiled by Prof. Thos. S. Stein, Lebanon PA: Sowers Printing Company. Excerpts from Chapter VI: "Sketches of Congregations" Hill Reformed Church, Annville Charge. The Location. There are a number of Hill Churches in Pennsylvania. The one here referred to is situated in North Annville township, Lebanon county, on a ridge known as the Gravel Hill, which has its rise in Dauphin county and extends eastward through Dauphin, Lebanon and Berks counties. At a point about midway between the City of Lebanon to the east and the town of Annville to the west, the one about five miles distant from the other, seated on an elevation, the church is plainly in view from the beautiful Lebanon Valley below, with its fertile farms, thriving villages and towns, busy railroads, highways, trolley, telegraph and telephone lines. Through the entire extent of the Valley flows the historical Quittapahilla. The church and cemetery, however, are so far removed from these modern improvements as to leave undisturbed their quietude and pristine charms as they existed one hundred and eighty-six years ago, at a time when hill and valley were in their virgin state, untouched by the hand of man, except by the Indian predecessors of the white man of that period. The Early Settlers. Prior to 1732 there were few white settlers in this section. But in that year the purchase known as the "1732 Purchase" was made from the Indians. This included the present Lebanon and adjoining counties. Into this section white settlers began to come after 1732. This section in the earlier period was mostly known as the Quittapahilla region, from the stream of that name flowing, as said above, through this territory. The settlers were of the Reformed, Lutheran, Moravian, Mennonite and Dunker faiths, and some of the Catholic church, and were most exclusively of German birth and training. Following the beginning of the immigration of the Germans, which may be put at about 1710, amongst whom were also some Scotch-Irish Presbyterian, the settlements in this section rapidly increased in number and in population. The Pioneer Church Period. According to a private record started in 1733 by the Rev. John Caspar Stoever, a minister of the Lutheran church, who at that time resided in New Holland, Lancaster county, from whence he itinerated to the Quittapahilla section, he gathered into a body the Lutheran settlers in that section and organized them into what afterwards became the Lutheran congregation of the Hill Church. Ten years later, namely, 1743, he transferred this record into what came to be known as the Lutheran Hill Church Book, which is still in existence, and is well preserved. Tradition says that these people erected, at about where afterwards was erected the Hill Church, a stockade, closed on four sides, but without a roof, in which they sought refuge from the Indian Marauders, and also used it for religious services. As already shown, there was an equal number of the Reformed faith amongst the early settlers of the Hill Church section. That they engaged in some for of united religious service is to be assumed, but that they had a congregational organization there is no authentic record earlier than 1739, six years later than the organization effected by the Lutheran people. In pursuance of a commission issued by the Classis of Amsterdam, Holland, to the Rev. John Philip BOEHM, a minister of the Reformed church, ordained November 23, 1729, and who at the time of his great missionary journey, resided in Whitpain township, Bucks, now Montgomery, county, he visited all the Reformed churches in the Province of Pennsylvania during the winter of 1739 - 1740, and reported the facts to the Amsterdam Classis, dated April 26, 1740. He speaks in that report of a Quittapahilla Reformed congregation, (the early name of the Hill Church), as of considerable strength, and as being under the care of a man named John BLUM as its "Vorleser" (a Reader), and designated him as being a very worthy man. A "Vorleser" is defined by Boehm as a man who "met with a small gathering in private houses here and there, with the reading of a sermon, with singing and prayer, according to the German Reformed Church order, on all Sundays and holidays, but, on account of the lack of a minister, without the administration of Holy Baptism and the Lord's Supper." It was a necessity or procedure of that period, on account of the scarcity of ordained ministers, for congregations to appoint some one of their number to act as their religious leader, and to act as above described by Boehm. The administrations of these readers came to be acknowledged by the Holland Church as fully valid, that church having exercised a benevolent jurisdiction over the Reformed congregations in Pennsylvania from the year 1747 up to the time of the organization of the Reformed Synod in 1793, which latter action, rendered the Reformed Church in Pennsylvania independent of the Dutch Church in Holland. How long previous to Boehm's discovery in 1739 of a Quittapahilla Reformed congregation, that congregation had existed, and had been ministered to by Blum, is not fully established, but circumstantial evidence pertaining to the matter is to the effect that it had organized a number of years earlier, as early as 1735. The Beginning of the Hill Reformed Congregation. We can, therefore, safely start with that year as the beginning of the Hill Reformed congregation, and with John BLUM as its ministerial head. By-facts show that he served as the congregation's leader until some time in the year, 1742, when the Rev. John LISCHY, a minister of the Reformed church, succeeded Blum, and had the Hill Reformed congregation as one of the many he served in Pennsylvania. Lischy served here until some time in the year 1743. In that year, 1743, John Conrad TEMPELMAN, a tailor by trade, and an immigrant to this country in 1722, resided in Canastoka (Conestoga), Lancaster county, where, besides working at his trade, also served as vorleser to a number of Reformed congregations in that section. He itinerated at periods for ministerial purposes from these into the Quittapahilla, and Swatara sections of Lebanon county, left Lancaster county in the year 1743 and moved on a tract of 200 acres of land situated in what is now South Lebanon township, which he had patented to him in that year. About or near the close of that year he superseded Rev. Lischy, and became the third pastor of the Hill Reformed congregation. The Tempelman homestead was erected on this land patented to him in 1743, and the house was still standing in 1876 on the farm then owned by Rev. George BUCHER, located about a mile east of Cornwall, Lebanon county. A good photograph of this interesting building, a wooden structure of one and one-half stories, was taken in the year just named, 1876, and is in possession of the writer. Here Tempelman resided until the day of his death, which was in the year 1761, aged about 69 years. For some years prior to his death Tempelman was "stone blind," although even in that condition he frequently officiated in public services and in his own house, until too feeble even to do that. During almost his entire ministerial period his position was that of a vorleser, his ordination as a clergyman having come to him only about five years previous to his death. He was everywhere known and recorded as a man of sterling worth and strong and active in his work as a minister of the Gospel. Much as one would desire to do so, space does not permit writing more at length of this worthy man of pioneer days. The First Church. Things now (1743) moved rapidly at Hill Church. Rev. STOEVER, residing near Sunny Side since 1740, concentrated his energy on his Hill Church Lutheran flock and with Rev. Tempelman, the pastor of the Reformed congregation, near at hand, the two congregations united to erect a Union Church, to be known as the Berg Kirche, or Hill Church. This church, a log building, was dedicated Sunday, August 12, 1744, the 12th Sunday after Trinity. But before dedicating their long-hoped-for, and now realized church, the two congregations held a joint meeting on Saturday the day before, namely, August 11, and there and then drew up an agreement, consisting of 12 articles, afterwards called the "Rules of 1744," wherein and whereby was declared by whom, and in what manner, the house of worship, and the burial ground around the church, shall be used. This agreement was made in duplicate, one copy signed by the Reformed minister, John Conrad Tempelman, and 24 of the Reformed members, together with nine witnesses, and the other copy signed by the Lutheran minister, John Caspar Stoever and 26 of the Lutheran members, together with 12 witnesses. Exchange was then made of the two copies. This agreement between the two congregations stands undisturbed to this day (1919) 175 years after it was made. The next day they dedicated their church. These people who had come from foreign lands, where they had worshiped in stately cathedrals and finely built churches, now communed with their Maker in a new and strange land, amidst forest surroundings and in uncouth habitations! Can we measure their joy, even under such untoward circumstances, in having acquired a home of worship, although but a rude structure, a little log church, without a floor in it other than the one of baked clay, and seats of logs hewn on two sides. Yet they were happy even with this, and the more so in having s their leaders and spiritual counselors two strong and sturdy men as Tempelman and Stoever are known to have been. They were the first church organizers in all of what is now Lebanon county, long before Lebanon (Steitztown), east of them, was founded, or Annville (Millerstown) west of them, or Jonestown (Williamsburg) north of them, and contemporaneous only with Schaefferstown south of them. It was a Union church of Reformed and Lutheran people, so frequent in earlier periods, and which have maintained themselves in many places in our state even to this day. It was a Union and remained a Union church for 159 years, and even now (1919) is a Union church as to buildings and burial ground, except that since 1904 the Reformed congregation worships in a building erected in 1903 on a site about 500 yards north of the old church site. John Adam HEILMAN, the writer's great-great-grandfather, was the Baumeister (Building Master) of that 1744 church on behalf of the Reformed congregation and John Peter HEILMAN the same for the Lutheran congregation. The Church Land. Prior to 1752 the land held by the two congregations was held by the mere right of occupation, but in that year 65 acres and 94 perches were surveyed to them by the State Surveyor, according to a warrant dated June 16, 1752, and issued to Michael UMBERGER in trust for the Calvinist (Reformed), and to John SHWOB in trust for the Lutheran congregation. In 1837, by right of a special Act of the Pennsylvania Assembly, 59 acres and 94 perches of the original 65 acres and 94 perches were sold at public sale, the money realized in that way, as conditioned by said Act of Assembly, to be used in erecting a new church, leaving six acres that could not be disposed of, and had to be reserved for the church premises and burial purposes. In 1858 the church yard fence was placed further outwards to the north, and the new ground thus enclosed was laid out into burial lots which then could be sold, but only to members of one or the other congregations. In 1868 the burial ground was again enlarged so as to include the entire six acres, and the whole converted into a public cemetery, known as the Hill Church Cemetery, open to any and all buyers. The Church Books. The Lutheran Church Book was opened in 1743, and the Reformed Church Book in 1745, but beyond entries of births, baptisms, marriages, communion lists and death records, they contain very little bearing on circumstances and events in either of the congregations, and we must, therefore, deal with a condition of meagerness of details along lines of congregational history, so meager as to make a connected account of either of the congregations absolutely impossible. Only in a few instances, and at long intervals, does anything along these lines appear in those books which would enable a sort of a connected historical record to be made, except as they may appear in the published lives of the ministers who served at the Hill Church, which for obvious reasons cannot be given here. At the same time the history of the one congregation is so interwoven with the history of the other as to make it impossible to write of either one without alluding to the other. The 1789 Enlargement. One such fact appearing on the record is that in the year 1789 the congregations united in repairing the building of 1744, a very much needed action. They also enlarged it somewhat, At this time Rev. Ludwig LUPP was the minister of the Reformed congregation and the Rev. John Caspar HOERNER of the Lutheran congregation. The congregations had grown larger in numbers but this increase was constantly drawn upon by the near-by settlements that had come into existence, Lebanon, Annville, and other places, which drew part of their membership from the original and first church established at the Hill in 1744. The Second Church. Another fact appearing in the Hill Church record is the erection in 1837, again by joint action of the two congregations, of a new church building, a brick structure, erected very closely to where stood the old but dilapidated church of 1744. This building is still standing (1919), and is in a good state of preservation. Its cornerstone was laid on August 26, 1837, with Rev. Henry WAGNER as the Reformed minister and Rev. Jonathan RUTHRAUFF, the Lutheran. The church was dedicated September 16, 1838, during the pastorates of the above named clergymen. The Hill Church Trial of 1842. In 1842 occurred an unfortunate difficulty in the Lutheran congregation in an attempt on the part of its pastor, Rev. Mr. Ruthrauff, to carry the congregation over to the new Lutheran Synod of Pennsylvania, which had been organized that year in the City of Lancaster. This action was the cause of much bitterness and strife, and was not closed short of a trial for assault and battery in the Lebanon County court, charged against certain ones in the Lutheran congregation. Thus it came to be known and recorded as the "Hill Church Trial." In this whole affair the Reformed people are nothing more than lookers-on of an involuntary kind, because the strife had led to so much bitterness in the Lutheran congregation itself, and to some feeling of unfriendliness between the two congregations, which up to this time had been on the friendliest terms. In time this unfriendliness wore off and a better inter-congregational spirit resumed sway. The affair is referred to here only as a necessary and unavoidable part of this Hill Church sketch. Charge Relationships. Prior to 1760 the Hill Reformed congregation was served, in connection with others in what is now Lebanon and Lancaster counties, by different ministers and readers, among whom were BLUM, LISCHY, TEMPELMAN and DECKER. In 1760 the Lebanon Tabor congregation was organized, and from that year until 1864 the Hill Church formed part of the Lebanon Charge, composed of the church at Lebanon and neighboring town and country congregations. In 1747, when the Coetus was organized, the Hill Church was served by Rev. Conrad TEMPELMAN; in 1793 when the Synod as formed, by Rev. Ludwig LUPP; in 1820, when Lebanon Classis was organized, the Hill Church, together with Lebanon, Jonestown, Schaefferstown, Millerstown (Annville), Campbelltown, Kimmerling's, Walmer's and Bindnagel's was served by Rev. Wm. HIESTER. In 1864 the Hill Reformed congregation by action of Lebanon Classis, was detached from what had been the Lebanon Charge, and attached to the Annville Charge, making that change then to consist of the Annville, Palmyra, Campbelltown and Hill Church Reformed congregations, of which the Rev. J.E. HIESTER, D.D., was the pastor, at the same time that the Rev. F.W. KREMER, D.D., was the pastor of the Lebanon Reformed congregation. The Hill Reformed congregation at present (1919) is a part of the Annville Charge, composed now (1919) and since 1902, only of the Annville and Hill congregations, the former Annville Charge, consisting of the four congregations named above, having been by action of Lebanon Classis in 1902, divided into two charges, the one, called the Annville Charge, consisting, as already shown, of the Annville and Hill congregations, and the other, called the Campbelltown Charge, consisting of the Palmyra and Campbelltown congregations. This division of the Annville Charge as it was constituted in 1864, was incident, and subsequent, to the death of the Rev. Dr. HEISTER, which occurred January 7, 1901, following which there was a vacancy in the newly constituted Annville Charge for a period of about five months, at the end of which period Rev. Wm. F. DeLONG, the present pastor (1919) was called, and on June 16, 1901, inducted as pastor of the Annville Charge - Annville and Hill Church. The Church of 1904. In the year 1902 the Hill Reformed congregation undertook to act in conjunction with the Hill Lutheran congregation to repair and renovate the jointly held church building erected by them in 1837. Not succeeding in this, the Reformed congregation secured a tract of two acres of land, situated about 500 yards farther north and away from the 1837 building, along a main road, called the Gravel Hill Road, and proceeded to erect thereon a church building of its own, not, however, by this action surrendering, or ceding, in any way its half right in the old church building and in the Hill Church Cemetery. This new church is a handsome structure, its walls of red sandstone, its interior in line with modern church furnishings, erected at a cost of about $10,000. The cornerstone was laid Sunday, August 9, 1903, and the church dedicated Sunday, July 24, 1904. The church has a main room with a seating capacity of about 300, and a Sunday School annex of about 150 capacity. The windows of the building are all of finely stained glass, and the main room is supplied with a $1200 pipe organ. The congregation numbers 112 "communicant" members, and the Sunday School 139 members. Parochial and Sunday Schools, and Missionary Societies. About the year 1800 a number of the members of the Hill Church Reformed and Lutheran congregations united themselves into a body, called "Trustees," to provide for a Hill Church parochial school. To this end they purchased from Jacob KELLER, a son of Valentine KELLER, who as the earliest of the KELLERs in that section, had taken up (1749) 140 acres of land adjoining the Hill Church land, a tract on-half acre in size, about one-half mile northwest of the church, and erected thereon a two-story building, the lower story of which was used for dwelling purposes and the second floor for a school room, the latter accessible only by an outside stairway. In this upper room was opened a day school, the patrons of which were "subscribers." It was, therefore, a subscription, or pay, school, and in it were taught secular studies, or the common branches as these were taught at that time. Although the subscribers held membership in the Reformed and Lutheran congregations, the school had no property relation to the Hill Church other than the one noted above, and, therefore, was not under the jurisdiction of that church, although regarded as a parochial school of the church. It was the first school of its kind in all that section, and as an undertaking most creditable in that early period. It was continued until the introduction of Free Schools in Pennsylvania, (1834). Afterwards (1850) the land and buildings were sold to John KELLER by right of a special Act of the Pennsylvania Assembly, authorizing Tobias KREIDER to make the sale, and distribute the proceeds amongst the original subscribers of contributors, or to their successors. On April 29, 1832, a Union Sunday School was opened in the old 1744 church building (in the improved and enlarged building of 1789.) This was the third Sunday School in Lebanon county, the one prior to it (that is, the second Sunday School) having been opened in20the Reformed church in Lebanon in the year 1830, and the one prior to that (the first Sunday School) opened in the year 1828 in a stone building that stood where now stands the Lebanon National Bank, corner of Ninth and Cumberland streets, Lebanon. This first Sunday School was continued then for some years, and then transferred to "Beneficial Hall" on North Tenth street. Following this, other churches in Lebanon, one by one, established Sunday Schools of their own and the Beneficial Hall Sunday School ceased to exist. In 1832 the Hill Church Sunday School was, as already shown, a Union School, open to all people in that and near-by vicinities, but consisted mainly of Reformed and Lutheran scholars. It was fostered by two vigorous pastors of the two congregations at that time, Rev. Henry KROH, Reformed, and Rev. William G. ERNST, Lutheran. It opened with six male and five female teachers and 33 male and 25 female scholars, and with two superintendents, Henry HEILMAN, Jr., Reformed, and David HEILMAN, Lutheran. At the end of its second year, December 1, 1833, the school was closed for reasons that "the scholars were widely scattered, it being a school in the country, and the house was not comfortable." On Sunday, May 2, 1841, this school was reopened as the "Union Sunday School of the Hill Church" in a new building erected for that purpose at a point about two miles from the Hill Church, down in what came later to be known a Heilman Dale, near the line of the Union Canal, (opened in 1827). In the erection of this building the HEILMANs, Henry, Sr., and Jr. John (H.S.) and John (P.S.), Samuel, George G. and Joseph, were almost the sole participants, and, though a union School in name, it was controlled and conducted by members of the Hill Reformed congregation. The school was continued there until the Fall of 1884. After an interim of two years it was reopened in January, 1886, in the Hill Church, the church of 1837, but reopened not as a Union School, but as a Reformed Church Sunday School, and was so held and continued there until the year 1904, when it as transferred to the new Reformed Church building up the Hill, dedicated July 24, of that year, where it has flourished since and is flourishing now, (1919). In this plain and unpretentious building of 1841, was also organized in 1845 the Hill Reformed Missionary Society, where it held its home for many years. On January 18, 1874, the society was revived in the same building, the school house of 1841, with Rev. J.E. HIESTER as its president, and S.P. HEILMAN, M.D., secretary. After another lapse of years the society was again revived as the Hill Church Reformed Home and Missionary Society, Rev. J.E. HIESTER, president, this time, however, in the church itself, the church of 1837. But like the congregation and its Sunday School it was transferred in 1904 to the congregations new church, the church of 1904, Rev. Wm. F. DeLONG, pastor. In the same 1841 school house was also conducted for many years Sunday evening Prayer-meetings. In the foregoing it is shown how fully the congregation has been, and is, in touch with, and in active performance of, progressive congregational, Sunday School, educational and missionary activities, and that it has been energetic in all things conducive to material and spiritual growth. Reverting to the Sunday School opened in 1841, as above outlined, and the subsequent period of 43 years to its close in 1884, it furnishes a bright and long chapter of Christian uplift and training for that community's life and people, whereby the evil tendencies of the day were held in check, and a high standard of morality was inculcated. It was the community's centre of Christian Endeavor, and it imparted to that section a distinctly religious atmosphere - that little country Sunday School! And the men and women who wrought there, and gave the best they had to give, the consistency and completeness of devotion - they are held in abiding remembrance by the few yet left over from that period, and "their works do follow them." It was the writer's privilege to20have been trained in that school of years ago, and in turn to train others. There were spent the happiest years of his life. Could one exceed the limitations put to this sketch it would indeed be a "labor of love" to write at length of the now sainted pastors, the venerable fathers and mothers, the faithful sons and daughters whose lives adorned, and whose labors made sacred, that little Church on the Hill. They rest in the bosom of their Redeemer. We shall see them again, and commune with them face to face. In this sketch only the essential and leading facts of the Hill Reformed Church are set forth. The limitations put upon the writer compelled a story abbreviated in length, from which had to be left out much that would have given it a brighter coloring and a completer historical background. The following have been the pastors of the congregation: John BLUM, 1735 - 1743. Rev. Jacob LISCHY, 1743. Rev. John Conrad TEMPELMAN, 1744 - 1756. Rev. FREDERICK, 1757. Vacancy Rev. John Henry DECKER, 1759 (as supply). Rev. John WALDSCHMIDT, 1760. Rev. Frederick Casimer MUELLER, 1761 - 1766. Vacancy, 1766 - 1768. Historical Note. - It formerly was represented that Henry William STOY (Stoey), M.D., was the regular pastor of the charge (Lebanon and Hill Church) during this "vacancy" period. At that time Dr. Stoy resided at Lebanon, where he practiced medicine, and at the same time was a minister of the Reformed church. In both of these vocations he is known to have been a man of great ability, and was widely known. As a minister of the Gospel he served in a number of charges in the Reformed church, and whilst it is true that he frequently preached both in the Lebanon and Hill Reformed churches, it has, by recently discovered evidence, been entirely disproved that he at any time was the regular, or settled, pastor of the charge (Lebanon and Hill Church). Rev. John Conrad BUCHER, 1768 - 1780. Rev. John William RUNKEL, 1780 - 1784. Rev. Andrew LORETZ, 1785 - 1786. Rev. Ludwig LUPP, 1787 - 1798. Supplies, one of them Rev. Jacob HOFFMAN, 1798 - 1800. Rev. Wilhelm HIESTER, June 1800, to February, 1828. Rev. Henry KROH, June, 1828 - 1835. Rev. Franklin W. KREMER, D.D., 1837 - 1864. Rev. Jonathan E. HIESTER, D.D., 1864 - 1901. Vacancy, 5 months. Rev. William F. DeLONG, June 1901. - Assistant, Rev. James C. DENGLER, October 1, 1919. - NOTE. - In Rev. Dr. Harbaugh's "Lives of the Fathers," and in Rev. Dr. Dubbs' "History of the Reformed Church in Pennsylvania" (vol. Pa. Ger. Soc. publications) are given biographical sketches of many of the ministers named in the foregoing list. Lebanon, Pa., August 28, 1919