Colonial America Biographies | Henry Melchior Mühlenberg Biography

September 11, 1711

Hanover (a former state of Germany)

October 7, 1787

Trappe, Pennsylvania

Founder of the American Lutheran Church

"Let the Church be Planted."

Henry Melchior Mühlenberg.

Henry Melchior Mühlenberg is known as the "father of the American Lutheran Church." (The Lutheran Church is a Christian religious organization founded by Martin Luther in opposition to the Roman Catholic Church.) He is credited with almost single-handedly uniting the scattered and directionless Lutheran churches in the American colonies. He was later instrumental in organizing the Pennsylvania Ministerium, a central church organization that served the massive numbers of German immigrants (people who move from one country and settle in another) who arrived during the latter part of the eighteenth century.