Christ Luth. Ch.

Methodist Ch.

View on the Codorus

Zion's Luth. Ch.

YORK IN 1850, SHOWING THE TOWN AS A WHOLE, VARIOUS LUTHERAN CHURCHES, AND THE CODORUS CREEK. (From the Annals of the Spengler Families with permission of the author, E. W. Spangler, Esq.)

CHAPTER XIV.

THE LUTHERANS ON THE CODORUS413 AND THE CONEWAGO.
SCHOOLMASTER BARTHEL MAUL, REV. JOHN HELFRICH
SCHAUM, REV. JACOB GOERING, REV. DAVID CAND-
LER, REV. Valentine KraFT, REV. J. G.
BAGER, REV. J. F. WILDBAHN,

A

S far west of the broad Susquehanna as Lancaster lies east, is the city of York. As in England, so in Pennsylvania, the two adjoining counties of Lancaster and York are rich, well-watered, and substantial. Toward the Lancaster boundary in the territory of York, Kreitz Creek, running north and east, and the Codorus Creek, running east and north, both emptying into the Susquehanna, mark the territory of the first German settlements.414

413 The Lutheran Church in York, Pa., by Beale M. Schmucker, D.D., an historical discourse delivered September 23, 1883, at the one hundred and fiftieth Anniversary of the Establishment of Christ's Church. Gettysburg, 1888. See also Hall. Nachrr., I., 563-575.

414 Glossbrenner and Carter's History of York County states that the first authorized settlement in the county was made in 1729, on Kreutz Creek, by John and James Hendricks. But G. R. Prowell informs us that there were no authorized settlements in the valley between York and the Susquehanna before the treaty with the Indians at Albany, N. Y., in 1736. All persons who appeared in the county before that date were squatters. What is known as Blunston permits to make surveys west of the river were issued first in 1733. These were given to prospective settlers in the northern and central sections of the county. There were settlers in the lower end of the county under Maryland

Of the earliest members of the definitely recognized Lutheran church on the Codorus, four arrived at Philadelphia before 1731, six arrived in the fall of 1731, and six in the fall of 1732.415

In the month of September, 1733, after the Rev. John Caspar Stoever had been ordained, and had come back to New Holland, he visited the Lutherans in the neighborhood of the Codorus and gathered them into a congregation under the name of "Die Evangelisch-Lutherische Gemeinde an der Kathores." As in the case of the other congregations organized by Stoever, a church record was purchased, on the fly-leaf of which the names of twentyfour persons are recorded who contributed to the purchase of the book.416 The congregation had a book but no church. It worshipped in private houses for eleven years.

What led Stoever to go as far west as York, was possibly his acquaintance with two of the early settlers in York County, Sebastian Eberle and George Schuhmacher. Here now was the first little congregation west of the Susgrants as early as 1732. The first authorized settlement in York County by the Germans was made around the present site of Hanover in 1730. It was that year that Adam Fahrney Forney and other Germans obtained a bond of agreement to make the settlement on "Digges Choice," which was a tract of ten thousand acres granted John Digges, a petty Irish nobleman, by Lord Baltimore. As a temporary line between Pennsylvania and Maryland did not decide in what province this land was situated, this fact was not determined until after 1763.

415 Compare Stoever's records with the list of entries into Philadelphia. Of the forty-nine heads of families in Stoever's baptismal register, five came in 1727, two in 1728, one in 1730, eleven in 1731, twenty-two in 1732, six in 1733 and two in 1734. (B. M. Schmucker's Lutheran Church in York, Pa., p. 4.)

+16 The record contains Stoever's baptisms and marriages. There is no record of burials prior to those entered in 1748 by Pastor Schaum, nor any record of confirmations or communions. This original Stoever book is still in existence, and is in the possession of Rev. Dr. G. W. Enders, the present pastor of Christ Lutheran Church. We very much regret that neither the fly leaf, containing the names of the original members in Stoever's handwriting, nor the second page, containing the first baptisms would reproduce well by photographic process.