Augustus Lutheran Church, built during 1743-1745 in Trappe, Pennsylvania, is the oldest unchanged Lutheran church building in the United States in continuous use by the same congregation.
The church, which cost 200 pounds sterling, was designed by Heinrich Melchior Mühlenberg. All of the interior fittings, except for the English-made pulpit, were fabricated from local materials. The building is built of local sandstone faced with stucco; the east...
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Augustus Lutheran Church, built during 1743-1745 in Trappe, Pennsylvania, is the oldest unchanged Lutheran church building in the United States in continuous use by the same congregation.
The church, which cost 200 pounds sterling, was designed by Heinrich Melchior Mühlenberg. All of the interior fittings, except for the English-made pulpit, were fabricated from local materials. The building is built of local sandstone faced with stucco; the east end of the building is formed into a half-hexagon. The roof is framed with local timber and covered in wooden shakes. It replaced a nearby frame barn, and later, a stone schoolhouse, as the local house of worship. The cemetery at the rear of the building contains stones dating from 1736 and earlier, as well as the grave of Mühlenberg, his wife Anna Maria Weiser, and son Peter Muhlenberg. A monument at the west end of the church commemorates unknown soldiers buried in the cemetery.
Though the shell of the building was finished during 1743, the...
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