Congregations

Catholics were the first to arrive in St. Louis, coming early with the Spanish and French explorers in the late eighteenth century. The Catholic church was well established in St. Louis by the time Protestant Americans began migrating from the east. In the early 1800s, many Protestants and Jews arrived in the Louisiana Purchase Territory as Missouri became a state. As numbers grew, each denomination formed congregations.

Baptists were the first Protestants to establish a congregation at Fee Fee Road in St. Louis County in 1807. On our website for Baptists and Anabaptists, you will find primarily membership lists. This reflects their practice of baptizing at the time the individual chooses to join the church, hence generating membership, rather than baptism, records.

Reformed congregations arrived in St. Louis after 1811. But, due to a “Plan of Union” agreement then in effect in the U.S. between two reformed groups—Congregational and Presbyterian—initially only Presbyterian churches were established here because the plan allowed the Presbyterians to claim all reformed churches west of the Hudson River and the Congregationalists to claim those in New England. In 1811, when Stephen Hempstead, a hero of the Revolutionary War, moved to St. Louis, he found no reformed churches, only Catholics and Baptists. Due to his persistent pleas to the Congregational Missionary Society of Connecticut, the society sent Rev. Salmon Giddings to St. Louis in 1816. Dr. Giddings founded twelve churches in Missouri and Illinois, but because of the plan, all Giddings’s early churches became Presbyterian.

In the 1820s, St. Louis’s population began exploding exponentially with immigrants, including Irish Catholics. That led the already established Catholic churches to designate some congregations as Irish. This practice continued as other nationalities arrived.

By the 1830s, large numbers of Germans began arriving, first Evangelical Germans, then Lutheran Germans. Their congregations are easily confused. The confusion arrived because at that time in Germany, there were then two different Protestant churches—Lutheran and Evangelical, the latter a reformed church. Then from 1817 through the 1830s, the then thirty-nine independent German nations gradually began re-establishing a single religion in each nation/state by merging these two Protestant churches together as one Evangelical-Lutheran church. However, many Germans of that time so strongly objected to this church union, they began emigrating to St. Louis, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and Midwestern U.S. states, hoping to maintain their separate Evangelical or Lutheran congregations in the U.S. Hence, in the U.S. we have three groups—Evangelical churches, which later merged with other reformed congregations and are now UCC; traditional Lutheran churches with separate Synods, such as the Missouri Lutheran Synod; and United Evangelical Lutherans, the majority of today’s Lutherans.

After 1840, migrants and immigrants formed still more religious congregations in St. Louis, including Orthodox, Reformed, and Conservative Jewish congregations and Episcopal, Methodist, Congregational, Christian, and Orthodox churches. Over time, still more religions were added until by the end of the twentieth century, St. Louis had a congregation for virtually every known religion. As of this time, we have no records of those newer congregations, but if/when we obtain any, we will add them to our website.

Major religions, such as Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, were founded centuries before the common era (BCE). The rise of Christianity began the common era (CE), and Islam emerged in 610 CE. In 1054, Christianity split between Roman Catholics and Orthodox.

In 1517, Martin Luther in Germany is credited with beginning the Protestant Reformation. Other religious thinkers of the time throughout Europe, such as Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin, Menno Symes, and Thomas Cranmer, also founded Protestant denominations. Then there was Henry VIII, who although not a theologian, solved his re-marriage problem by renouncing the Pope’s control of the church in England and proclaiming himself head of the English church without changing it much until others led this church to Protestantism.

All Protestants believe in salvation by God’s grace should one choose to accept it, rejecting Catholic indulgences. Each Protestant denomination’s additional modifications on Catholicism differ slightly. It is easiest to distinguish the Protestants by thinking of them in five separate groups, each of which shares modifications with others in the group. The exception is group five, in which each denomination was founded by unique leaders with unique beliefs.

1. Anglican, with Bishop organization and infant baptism and the above-mentioned unusual founding—the Church of England, Episcopal, and Methodist
2. Lutheran, with Bishop organization and infant baptism—the Lutheran Church
3. Reformed, with “democratic” organization and infant baptism—Huguenot, Reformed, Evangelical, Presbyterian, Congregational (Puritan), and Church of God
4. Baptists and Anabaptists, with adult-choice baptism—Baptist, Brethren, Christian, Mennonite, and Amish
5. Unique—Hussite, Moravian, Unitarian, Friends (Quaker), Latter-Day-Saints (Mormon), Seventh Day Adventist, Jehovah Witness, Pentecostal, Christian Science, and many newer independent Protestants

Protestants, Catholics, and Jews arrived in the colonial United States and largely remained segregated in different colonies during the colonial period. Puritans (reformed) spread throughout New England. New York was founded by the Dutch Reformed and welcomed the first Jews. Rhode Island saw the first Baptists, New Jersey the first Lutherans, and Maryland the first Catholics. Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia began as Anglican. Methodists came later to several states.

Because of its welcoming policies, Quaker Pennsylvania quickly absorbed numerous Protestant groups: Presbyterians, Lutherans, Evangelicals, Brethren, Moravians, Mennonites, and Amish, all of which migrated down the valley between the mountains into Virginia, the Carolinas, and beyond. As the U.S. expanded in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, immigrants greatly increased the number of Catholics, Lutherans, Evangelicals, and Orthodox.

Because the multiple Protestant denominations in the U.S. can be confusing, researchers need to learn more about the congregations in their area and time period. For example, in early Pennsylvania, researchers learn to distinguish the various types of Brethren churches. In St. Louis and other Midwestern states, researchers of German descent pay particular attention to the distinction between Lutherans and Evangelicals.