Church History

Himmel’s Church was organized in 1773 by the first German Lutheran and Reformed settlers along the Schwaben Creek in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania just four years after the Tulpehocken Road had been completed from Reading to the south side of Mahanoy Mountain. In 1774, a land grant was issued by the state of Pennsylvania and a log school house is still standing about 200 yards north of the present church building.

Karl Henry Kauffman served as the first schoolmaster. The log school was used until 1870 when the public school system was adopted in Washington Township. Sometime before 1891 it was enlarged and modernized, the old logs were covered with clapboards, and it became the residence of the organist who officiated for both the Lutheran and Reformed congregations, and received all the products of the church farm and the use of the house in compensation for his services.

The official church records were lost in the 1959 fire but a copy in the archives of the Northumberland County Historical Society in Sunbury indicates that it is the oldest church record in existence in Pennsylvania outside of Philadelphia. It was begun in 1776 by the Rev. John Michael Enterline and consists largely of baptismal and communicants’ records. The first Lutheran Church Council consisted of J. Nicholas Brosius and Peter Ferster, deacons and Daniel Kobel and George Heim, elders.

In 1780, the names of Andrew Ketterli and Peter Schmidt appear as officers of the Reformed congregation. The first baptisms were those of Johannes and Maria Kobel on June 7, 1774, children of Henry and Catherine Kobel. The first communion was administered on June 30, 1776, to 64 persons, four days before the signing of the Declaration of Independence.