Our Sister Congregation St Paul Flatrock is celebrating its 175 Anniversary on August 23rd, 2026. I thought it would be nice to share some of that history! So, every Friday I am going to share some of the History of that congregation.
"It was in the year 1851, August the 25th, that the evangelical Lutheran pastor, Adam Detzer, came into this settlement in order to baptize three children. At this occasion the settlers in these parts consulted with Detzer that he would, if possible, preach God's Word to them. In answer to this request, he preached several years, and because of great lack of time, every four weeks, on a week day." So, we read in the opening words of the oldest historical account of our congregation on record
A hundred and 75 years ago Henry County was a swamp. Maumee valley was not too healthful a place. The traveler beheld the towering trees above, as he made his way through the mud and mire beneath. Millard Fillmore was the President of the United States. It was fifty-seven years after The Battle of Fallen Timbers. Those were considered days of progress, too, when one could reach Fort Wayne from Toledo in twenty-six hours by canal boat.
Into the forbidding wilderness of Flatrock Township, Henry County came this zealous missionary of the Lutheran Church, Adam Detzer. Coming to America in June, 1845, he had succeeded in organizing three congregations, including Zion near Edgerton, and St. James, near Burlington in the year 1846. Pastor Detzer was also the founder of St. John, Defiance, which celebrated its centennial in 1951. Even if he had been able to read in the original language the serial and best seller, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," which appeared in 1851, the swamp preacher hardly would have had the time to do so. Today there are about a dozen and a half congregations of the Missouri Synod in the four northwestern counties of Ohio which are a living testimony to that which God wrought through the unselfish efforts of our Church's first circuit rider in northwestern Ohio. When our Synod was formed in 1847, Detzer was one of the ten advisory pastors who were charter members of our Synod. To this man St Paul owes much.
As long as Pastor Detzer resided in Williams County, he made St. James, Bryan, his home. In 1853 our first pastor moved to Defiance, but he continued to serve his entire field until August, when another pastor came into this territory.
The address for the St Paul Lutheran church in Flatrock in Ohio is 12-868 County Road K Napoleon OH, 43545.
