Sattazahn Lutheran Church
Pennsylvania
German immigrants began settling this part of Pennsylvania as early as seventeen twenty-nine, bringing their Lutheran faith with them into a colony that promised religious tolerance. For decades the congregation here had no permanent building, relying instead on traveling missionaries, including John Caspar Stoever Junior, the first Lutheran pastor to visit this area on a regular circuit. A log meetinghouse finally went up around seventeen fifty-six, a rough but serviceable structure in the wilderness.
The brick church standing here today was erected in eighteen seventy-two, a more permanent statement of a community that had put down deep roots. The congregation named the church in honor of Peter Sattazahn, a Revolutionary War soldier buried in the churchyard, linking the congregation's faith and its patriotism in a single name. The graveyard beside it holds nearly three centuries of local history.