Trinity Lutheran Church
                            Sugar Grove, OH

 
 Trinity Lutheran Church is located on highway 33, 3 miles off the
 highway, 45 miles south of Columbus. 
 
 No early records survive. Many of them were lost during the fire of 
 1927, some may have never been written, some simply did not 
 survive the ravages of time. The existing information has been 
 made available through Jesse and Emma Shull.
 This area had its beginnings during the 1820s when the Lutherans 
 of this area were served by circuit riders. Looking at birth 
 certificates we see these names between 1826-1843, Paret, Werner, 
 Wagenhals, Konrad, Spielman, Lohman, Pence, Uhlhorn and 
 Schmidt.
 
 Worship was conducted regularly  in 1839 and this also seems to 
 be the year when the congregation was organized.
 The first resident pastor, F. W. Rickmann, served Trinity, also St. 
 James (a sister congregation organized in 1834, disbanded in 1934) 
 and also Emmanuel, Lancaster from 1843-1856. He was a charter, 
 advisory member of the Missouri Synod, although Trinity did not 
 join the Synod until about 1870.
 
 The first church was a log structure with log pews. It served as a 
 parish school for several years, children attending three days a 
 week. Classes were conducted in German as were worship services 
 and business. As an official language, however, German was 
 phased out earlier than in many German Lutheran areas, having 
 ceased almost completely by 1910.
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     This text was converted to ascii format for Project Wittenberg
     by Debbie Harris and is in the public domain by permission 
     of Rev. Manfred K. Rembold. You may freely distribute, copy or
     print this text. Please direct any comments or suggestions to: 
                      Rev. Robert E. Smith of the 
           Walther Library at Concordia Theological Seminary.
                                       
                       E-mail: bob_smith@ctsfw.edu
                                       
       Surface Mail: 6600 N. Clinton St., Ft. Wayne, IN 46825 USA
          Phone: (219) 452-2148             Fax: (219) 452-2126
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