Warren Township's bicentennial year (2006) will also mark the 160th anniversary of Trinity United Church, located on King George Road in Coontown. Founded in 1846 by members of Warren's newly-arrived German community, Trinity United has been associated over the years with a number of mainstream Protestant denominations, including Evangelical, Lutheran, Reformed, Congregational, Methodist and Presbyterian. In 1968 the congregation underwent its most recent transformation, becoming the first church in New Jersey to join the combined United Church of Christ-United Presbyterian Church USA. Trinity's initial ties were German, the language of church services during its first 50 years. The Rev. Friedrich Besel, a missionary graduate of Switzerland's Basel Seminary brought to America on the recommendation of the German American Society, had begun his work in this area about 1845, preaching in German at the Long Hill School House, an effort that soon led to the formation of a German Evangelical congregation in Meyersville. Besel turned to Warren about 1846, organizing the German families that had been settling in Coontown and vicinity since the early 1840s. Besel's work in Warren bore fruit on November 2, 1846, when a small but enthusiastic congregation was constituted as an Evangelical Lutheran church subscribing to the Augsburg Confession of 1530. At about the same time Rev. Besel organized a third group of families in Plainfield, although with less success. The Warren congregation was incorporated as the German Lutheran Church on January 29, 1847, electing George Freiday and George Klein as trustees. The following day the congregation bought a two-acre parcel adjoining lands of Reuben Coon, George Friday and William B. Coddington from Joseph and Christiana Kraining for $22. On December 27, 1847, the congregation borrowed $175 from Augustus Rosa, funds earmarked to build its first house of worship. The Rosa mortgage, signed on behalf of the church by George Friday and George Kline, was not to be paid off until 1872, 25 years later. Completed in 1849 by carpenter John Kirch, then a member of the German Evangelical Church of Long Hill in Meyersville, the building was later described as "a small square wooden building in back of the present one…" Although no photo or further description of the first church is known to exist, most likely it resembled the one Kirch also built in Meyersville in 1848. Rev. Besel appears to have left both the Meyersville and Warren congregations in June 1849. His replacement in Warren (and probably Meyersville as well) was John C. Wirz, a native of Switzerland, who remained until early 1855. Otley's 1850 map of Somerset County shows a number of church members living near Coontown, including G. Friday in the brick and stone house just south of the church, G. Cline (Klein) and Mueller on Mt. Horeb Road, A. Wells on Mt. Bethel Road, and A. Bender, J. Fisher and J. Bowers on King George Road, north of the church. Johan Bauer's home was the former residence of Benjamin Coon, a veteran of the Revolution. A. Munts (Muntz), another member, lived in Dock Watch Hollow. Additional church members no doubt lived in the vicinity of Coontown as tenant farmers, still too poor to own their own property. The epicenter of Warren's small German community, the Coontown church thrived. Two additional acres of land were acquired in 1853 from Benjamin and Elizabeth Waldon for $30. The "Dutch Church of the Township of Warren" was the purchaser, Dutch being an anglicized version of Deutsch, or German. Rev. Henry A. Friedel succeeded Wirz in 1855. Friedel, who styled himself as an "Independent Lutheran clergyman," led an effort to take the Coontown church into the Dutch Reformed Classis of New Brunswick, a move prompted by the Reformed Church's ability to supply German-speaking clergy. A formal membership application to the Classis made by Friedel and three elders, George Freiday, John Bauer and Adam Herlich, certified that the congregation had voted unanimously to join the Reformed Church. Incorporation papers were signed on December 26, 1855, and on February 5, 1856, a committee of the Classis traveled to Warren to examine, confirm and receive each of the charter members. The 1846 Evangelical Lutheran constitution was surrender and is still on file in the archives of the New Brunswick Theological Seminary. Nineteen charter members of the German Reformed Dutch Protestant Church of Warren were received that day: Michael Albert, Adam Bender, Joh. Bauer, Peter Bauer, Gottlieb Fritz, Georg Klein, Joh. Miller, Jacob Hanzinger, Georg Becker, Georg Freitag, Joh. Klomp Jammerthal, Justus Gimbel, Jacob Kegel, Heinrich Konig, Sebastian Zimmermann, Christoph Zimmermann, Ferdinand Thums, Franz Zwonada and Wm. Molter. The Warren congregation was one of 22 Reformed Dutch churches organized in New Jersey during this period. Rev. John Henry Oerter followed Friedel in 1856, coming to Warren Township directly upon his graduation from the New Brunswick Seminary. Oerter also served as a supply and missionary pastor in surrounding communities, and before he left Warren in 1858 he helped organize the First German Reformed Church of Plainfield as a branch of the Warren church. Over 30 residents of Plainfield and New Market were received into the Coontown church on February 22, 1858, then dismissed on June 24 of the same year after the Plainfield church was officially organized. Oerter's successor was the Rev. Jacob F. Neef, who also served the German churches in Meyersville and Plainfield. Neef ministered to all three congregations until 1864, when he left for Albany, NY, serving there until his death in 1888. Neef's departure was due to his political views, according to an 1887 article in the Plainfield Evening News. "He was retired from the charge here on account of his politics," reported the paper. "He was an ardent Republican, and his sermons gave offense to German Democrats of Warren township, whose church was one of the three Mr. Neef had charge of." Three more pastors served the yoked churches after Neef's departure, including the controversial William Wolff, who became pastor of the Warren church, the Meyersville German Evangelical Church and Plainfield's First German Reformed Church in the spring of 1865 after service in the Union Army. Rev. Wolff had been ordained in 1853, the year he arrived from Germany, and had served in several Dutch Reformed pulpits in New York and New Jersey. Wolff spent two years in uniform, first as chaplain and then as first lieutenant of Co. F, 178th New York Volunteer Infantry. The Plainfield paper's article is worth quoting at length as it furnishes the only glimpse we have into the turmoil that must have gripped the Coontown church during the Civil War years: "Mr. Wolff preached his first sermon here the Sunday morning following the assassination of President Lincoln. The sermon was preached in the First German Reformed church in Coontown, Warren township, seven miles southwest of Plainfield, over the mountain. The members of the church were almost to a man Democrats, and so bitter in their hatred of Abraham Lincoln that they would not allow the slightest [mourning] drapery on the church. Mr. Wolff had brought the first news of Mr. Lincoln's death, and upon telling it to one of the most prominent officers [of the church], the latter remarked: 'He was glad the old rascal was dead.' As Mr. Wolff had come fresh from the seat of war he was in doubt whether or not to preach at all, upon learning of the existence of such a disloyal feeling. He had served [with] the 178th New York Volunteers, resigning after nearly two years service on account of an accident while on the picket line…whereby he lost the sight of his left eye…. [He] was [also] wounded by a bayonet thrust, the terrible scar from which he still carries…. It may be imagined how astonished such a man was to find such a feeling existing as he found in Coontown…. But he preached the sermon as a minister of the Gospel, with charity to all. He told the people that they did not understand the character of Lincoln, and the time would come when the scales would fall from their eyes, and when they learned his true character they would be among the foremost to appreciate him. The sermon calmed the hearers but they could not be readily changed. In the afternoon Mr. Wolff preached in the First German church in Plainfield. The church was heavily draped in mourning, outside and inside, and a large portrait of Abraham Lincoln was placed behind the pulpit and also draped. The Germans of the 5th Street church were intensely loyal to the Union. They were almost to a man Republican…." The Warren church's anti-Lincoln sentiment was atypical of New Jersey's Protestant German-Americans, most of whom tended toward support of the Republican Party and the Union war effort. That one pastor was chased from the pulpit and another hesitated to praise the martyred president the week of his death is evidence that the Warren congregation marched to a different drummer. The years before the war began were difficult ones for most Protestant denominations, which, except for the Lutherans and Dutch Reformed, ultimately split into northern and southern branches over the issue of slavery. The North's debate over slavery generally ended with the outbreak of war; many Presbyterian, Methodist and Dutch Reformed pastors energetically supported the war effort. In particular, the Dutch Reformed Seminary in New Brunswick vigorously championed Lincoln's anti-slavery actions. But so contrary were the views of the Coontown church that even some of its founding families - the Millers, Bowers and Kraineys among them - left to join the Methodists. Church doctrine as well as politics embroiled the Coontown church during these years. During the second year of his pastorate Rev. Wolff attempted for reasons unknown to take the three yoked churches into the Presbyterian denomination. Only the church in Meyersville agreed, and in November 1866 Rev. Wolff assumed the pastorate of the newly minted Meyersville Presbyterian Church, a post he held until 1870. Rev. Wolff was followed to the Coontown pulpit by Rev. Adolph Schabehorn, who served in 1867 and 1868. The Albany pulpit that Rev. Neef had gone to fill had been vacated by a minister who had left for duty as a chaplain in the Northern army. In 1868 the Rev. Herman F. F. Schnellendruessler was invited to become pastor of the Warren and Plainfield churches, succeeding Rev. Schabehorn, who had fallen into disagreement with his Plainfield congregation. The Plainfield congregation also had philosophical differences with Schnellendruessler, notifying him in December 1869 that his services were no longer desired. Rev. Schnellendruessler, the last Dutch Reformed minister to serve the Coontown church, retired to Plainfield where he taught for many years, passing away on September 20, 1898. After Schnellendruessler's departure the Coontown pulpit was filled by a number of supply ministers, including J. Geyer, William Wolff, Mr. Windmutz and perhaps Rev. Wirz. Doctrinal disputes flared up again in the years after Rev. Schnellendruessler's departure. In April 1870 the Plainfield Church threatened the Classis that it would seek other affiliation unless the Classis contributed to the payment of its minister's salary. In November Plainfield hired Rev. Edward Scheveizer but in November the Warren church refused for reasons unknown to allow him to preach to them. Shortly thereafter the yoked Plainfield and Warren churches separated, again for reasons unknown, and in January 1872 the Warren church transferred into the Congregational denomination. Plainfield, having won the financial support of the Classis, remained Dutch Reformed. Congregational churches were common in New England but rare elsewhere. For many years there was only one church of this denomination west of the Hudson River, the Congregational Church of Chester, N.J. Gradually, however, the denomination spread: In 1868, the first N.J. Congregational Council was formed. What led the Coontown church into the Congregational denomination is not known, although there may be some connection to the fact that Plainfield's First Central Reformed Church made the switch at about the same time. The Rev. Abraham Messler, a Dutch Reformed minister and Somerset County historian, described the Warren revolt as "violent," but nothing further is known. An accurate historian active in church affairs at the time, Messler was obviously reporting events about which today we have no record. What we do know is that the Coontown church left the Classis first, with approval, but that when the Plainfield church requested dismissal as well, Warren's permission was rescinded accompanied with a demand that it repay $2500 in church aid it had received over the years. Said the Classis: "Since the Congregational Council, with which the Church of Warren is now connected ecclesiastically by its own acknowledgment, is a sort of unorganized, irresponsible body, which deliberately repudiates all obligations of a pecuniary character, we feel that our claim [for reimbursement] holds good as against the Church of Warren itself and that it should solemnly be laid upon the same." Warren responded tartly that since the money had been used to pay the salaries of ministers and missionaries, the Classis should look to them for repayment. There is no record that the $2500 was ever repaid. Apparently some members of the Coontown church objected to leaving the Dutch Reformed Classis. When a new German Lutheran congregation was formed in North Plainfield in 1888, some of Warren's members transferred there. In 1871 construction began on the Warren church's present building. Completed at a cost of $4000 and dedicated on December 3, 1872, the simple frame building seated 450 [albeit in admittedly narrow pews], an optimistic expansion for a congregation that numbered 117. On February 14, 1872, the Coontown church entered a new era when the Rev. George Bowers was installed as pastor. He was the 29-year-old son of John Bowers (Bauer, originally), one of the founding members of the church. Born in Germany, young Bowers came to this country with his family when he was three years old. The family home was at what is now 200 King George Road. Bowers left the pulpit suddenly in 1879, a story that will be told in a future issue of Warren History. His successors - John Schaerer, Henry Vogler, Gustav Neumann, John Tschudi, Theodore Leonhard, Gottfried Badertschen, Arthur Hertel, Samuel Griess and Frederick Osten - were all natives of Germany or Switzerland, and conducted services in German and English. In 1894, after an absence of 15 years, Rev. Bowers returned to the pulpit, faithfully fulfilling the post for a record-setting 38 years, until his death in 1932 at age 89 years. The Rev. Dr. George Hauser, a minister of the Evangelical Reformed Church, who filled the pulpit from 1936 to 1947, had retired as pastor of Plainfield's First German Reformed Church. Dominie Hauser came out of retirement to preach in Warren without salary, carrying the church through the worst years of the Depression and World War II. From 1951 through 1959 the Drew Theological Seminary supplied a number of Methodist graduate students as pastors. In 1953 a new basement was built and the old church building moved onto it. Services were held in the Washington Valley Fire House during the eight months of construction. The nation's Congregational-Christian, Evangelical and Reformed churches joined in 1957 to form the United Church of Christ, thus merging the two great streams of the English and German Reformations. The Warren church approved union with the U.C.C. several years later. The seminary of the Evangelical and Reformed Church in Lancaster, PA, provided the two pastors - Rev. Albert W. Kovacs and Rev. Donald E. Arey - who served during the years 1960-1972. During Arey's tenure the church experienced a burst of growth, so increasing in size that rooms had to be rented at the Mount Horeb Elementary School for Sunday school classes and the auditorium for worship services. The old church building was opened up to the community, becoming home to Warren's new senior citizens club, a nursery school and, for a time, the Mountain Jewish Community. In the summer of 1968 the public learned for the first time that the United Presbyterian Church USA had acquired a 10-acre plot next to the Mount Horeb School that it planned to develop as the site of a new congregation to be known as the United Church of Christ-Presbyterian. Rev. Arey was slated to be organizing pastor of the new congregation, a move that had won the unanimous approval of the Coontown church. The Presbytery, which had acquired the land in 1965 as the site of a future Presbyterian church, first approached the Coontown church in the fall of 1967 to suggest a possible joint ministry in Warren. Organizational efforts continued for several years, culminating on March 15, 1970, when members of the Warren U.C.C. joined with Presbyterian and other families to form Trinity United Church in a special ecumenical service held at the Mount Horeb School. After efforts to erect a new church on the Mount Horeb site were abandoned, the land was sold and later developed as Deerwood Estates. REF: Trinity United Church of Warren, N.J., a Biographical History by George Bebbington. © Warren Township Historical Society |