Excerpt from The Lutheran Almanac: For the Year of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, 1870, And, Until the Fourth of July, the Ninety-Fourth Year of the Independence of the United States

Among the Churches of the Reformation, the Lutheran Church occupies an important position. On the continent of Europe, numerically it far exceeds all other Protestant communions. In this Western World, also, it has a history. Although from the beginning it has encountered formi dable obstacles, and, at every step in its progress, has been surrounded by numerous difficulties, it has triumphed over them all, and prospered. It has enjoyed tokens of the Divine favor, whilst it has labored for the ad vancement of that kingdom, which the Great Author of Christianity has established for the general good of mankind.

The first settlement of Lutherans in the United States, of which we have any account, was made by emigrants from Holland, who here sought a home and a place to worship God, soon after the establishment of the Dutch in the province of New Amsterdam, or New York, in 1621, during the period that Holland had possession of the colonies planted at the mouth of the Hudson. These emigrants, for a long time, assembled in private houses for prayer and the reading of the Scriptures by one of their own number, a layman, appointed for the purpose of conducting their socia1 devotions. In the course of time, they had very much increased by acces sions from Germany and France. The first Lutheran minister whose services they enjoyed, was John Earnest Goetwater sent, in 1657, by the Lutheran Consistory in Holland, to labor for the spiritual interests of their suffering brethren in New Amsterdam, and, no doubt, designed to mis sionate among the scattered Lutherans in other parts of the colony. He remained, however, only a few months, in consequence of the religious intolerance and persecution in the administration of the civil government. Jacob Fabritius, so often referred to, did not reach this country till 1669. The first church edifice was erected in 1671.

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