Church: Saint Johns United Church of Christ Orwigsburg, Schuylkill County, PA Church Records: 1831-1920 (Record Book I) This copy contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Leanne Kimmel Toth 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. ______________________________________________________________________ Saint Johns United Church of Christ Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania Church Records: 1831-1920 (Record Book I) INTRODUCTION St. John's Church of Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania, was founded in 1831 by members of Zion's (Red) Church of West Brunswick Township who resided in Orwigsburg and wanted a more convenient place to worship. The original building was located at the corner of Tammany and Washington Streets and was used from inception until 1908, when the present church on East Market Street was erected. From 1831 until approximately 1843, the "Old White Church" (as the former edifice was called) was home to both the Lutheran and Reformed congregations of Orwigsburg. After the union was dissolved, the Reformed group kept this original building. The "Old White Church" was the congregation's house of worship until 1908. The structure remained in use by various other groups of the community until June 22, 1911. On this night, lightning struck the church, and it was destroyed by the ensuing fire. The current church building was dedicated on June 7, 1908. Although German singing had been discontinued in the church in 1894, preaching in German was practiced until 1911. The Evangelical and Reformed Church was organized on June 26, 1934, by the union of the Evangelical Synod of America and the Reformed Church of the United States. St. John's continued to be known as an "Evangelical and Reformed" church until June 25, 1957, when the United Church of Christ was formed through a union with the Congregational Christian churches. At the present time, the congregation is called "St. John's United Church of Christ of Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania". While searching for my own family roots at St. John's in January 1995, I discovered that the original church record books, rather than copies of them, were being used to research church data. With information dating back to the 1830's, continual access and use of these original documents would eventually damage and perhaps even permanently destroy them. Already visible deterioration could be seen in the first of the books. The time had come for this information to be computerized so that the records could be viewed by everyone and yet the integrity of the books could be preserved. In December 1997 I began the laborious task of entering the data into my computer. Because of the delicate nature of the earliest volume of records I gave this top priority; also, because of the time period involved, this set of data would be the most requested by people doing genealogical research. In February 1999 the printout of the first volume was finally ready for presentation to the church. The data contained in this work consists of the baptismal, marriage, and burial records of St. John's Church from its founding in 1831 to approximately 1920. In each section, the data is listed in the order it was entered, i.e., for the most part, the items appear chronologically. Occasionally, for example, between pastors, the records are out of sequence. Behind each set of data is an alphabetical index which should be helpful in identifying if a particular individual is contained in the section. Hopefully, between these two different orderings of the same data, future researchers should be able to ascertain if an individual had a baptism, marriage, or burial at St. John's Church. Baptismal information includes first and last name of the child, sex of the child, the father's first name, the mother's first name, the mother's "last" name (if the last name is different from that of the child; this may represent the mother's maiden name, the fact that the mother and father were not married, or, as in one case, the mother was married and had the child out of wedlock with another man), the birth and baptismal dates for the child, the baptismal sponsors, the pastor who performed the rite, and a "notes" column containing additional comments and information about the child. Normally the record lists the mother as the "wife of" the father; when the data fails to specifically mention this fact, I "note" it as "mother not listed as wife of" and the father's name. Also, in the "sponsors" column, to conserve space I listed husband and wife without mentioning the woman specifically as "wife" (e.g., John and Mary Smith, as opposed to John Smith and his wife, Mary). If the relationship between a man and a woman sponsor is not clear, I repeat the last name of the woman, even if it is the same as that of the man. It is important to note that while St. John's has most of its baptismal data, there are NO entries for the years 1868-1888; this corresponds to the pastorates of Rev. C.A. Rittenhouse and Rev. Henry Leisse. I am currently in search of the pastoral acts of these two ministers; if and when I locate their records, I will update this data to more completely reflect the records of the church. The marriage records list the first and last name of the groom, the first and last name of the bride, the marriage date, the pastor who performed the ceremony, and a "miscellaneous" column containing additional comments and information about the entry. Unfortunately, there is a small gap in the records from late 1868 to late 1872; this corresponds to the pastorate of Rev. C.A. Rittenhouse. For some reason, and unlike the baptisms, Rev. Henry Leisse DID enter a good portion of his marriage records; only the years 1880-1889 are missing. In some cases, the complete name of the bride or groom is not recorded; also, some marriage dates are missing. By looking at the surrounding records one can make a generalization about an approximate time for the event. Please note that there are TWO sets of indices for the marriages; one is an alphabetical listing by the groom's name, and the other orders the data by the bride's name. Burial information includes the first and last name of the deceased, the date of birth (if given), the date of death, the age at death (years/months/days format), the pastor(s) who performed the service, and a "miscellaneous" column containing additional information and comments about the record. In particular it shows any parental information recorded for a child, the text for the sermon, or a final resting place other than St. John's Cemetery. As with the baptismal and marriage data, there is a gap in the burials between 1868 and 1889. Also, in some cases the specific "date of death" is not recorded, but rather must be inferred from the surrounding information. For the convenience of future researchers, I am including a roll of the various pastors of St. John's from the time period 1831-1921, with a list of the years they served the Orwigsburg congregation. Philip Mayer 1831-1833 Daniel Hassinger 1833-1841 J. A. Reubelt 1841-1845 J. W. Hoffmeier 1845-1855 H. Wagner 1856-1865 D. S. Albright 1866-1868 C. A. Rittenhouse 1870-1871 Henry Leisse 1872-1888 G. B. Walbert 1888-1893 Edward S. Bromer 1894-1898 George W. Hartman 1898-1911 James B. Musser 1911-1914 Arthur King 1915-1917 W. A. Korn 1919-1921 I would like to dedicate this work to my parents, LeRoy and Laura (Gerhard) Kimmel, without whose love and support this project would not have been able to be completed. Through their parenting skills they gave me good, strong roots from which to branch. In addition, I would like to thank my husband, Craig David Toth, and my son, Nicholas Henry Toth, for their patience and understanding as I spent many long hours "holed away" in our computer room inputting data. My son was named for his two great-grandfathers, Nicholas Popadinecz and Ralph Henry Gerhard; I hope that he will grow to honor and respect his lineage and someday appreciate all the work I tried to do to preserve that heritage. It is my sincere hope that by computerizing these records, the information contained in them will be more accessible and easier for researchers to use. With these printouts, no longer will the beautiful, old church books have to be handled to locate information; this should help assure that the "originals" will be in existence for future generations to admire. I pray that this information will be of help to other genealogists, and that as many people as possible may find their "roots" through the records of St. John's Church. "How do we know where we are going if we don't know from whence we came?" God Bless, Leanne Kimmel Toth February 1, 1999