Jordan Lutheran Church
Orefield, South Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania

The Jordan Lutheran Church is located in South Whitehall Twp in Lehigh County near the village of Guthsville.  If Realtors saw it they would say it is worth a million.   In other words . . . location, location, location! The spire is about 200 feet high by my husband's estimate.  I doubt that the pictures we took can do it justice and certainly my feeble words cannot tell you what a glorious church it is.

Like in the case of nearly all colonial churches, the early history of Jordan is vague.  In 1959 a history of the church was attempted.  They thought that maybe 1734 was the beginning date of the church.  They said this because of a couple of baptisms by Rev. Casper Stoever.  The names were Lintenbuchler and Lichtenwalner.   A historian at the Lehigh County Historical Society has since found that Stoever never ventured north to the Lehigh and that these baptisms took place at the Trappe Church in Montgomery County which is nearer Philadelphia.

Moreover, this part of Lehigh County lying between the south and the Blue Mountain was not open for settlement until after the purchase of this land from the Indians in October 1736.  It is true some of this land had been   taken up by land warrants dated as early as 1730, by Casper Wistar and several others, including the Penns who took it up for speculative purposes, but no one settled on it that early.  The earliest land warrants taken up by any persons who actually settled near this church were Nicholas Kern (who shows up later in connection with our family) and Godfried Knauss in 1737.  (This information I extracted from David Williams' The Lower Jordan Valley in Volume 18 of the Lehigh County Historical Society.)  So, a more realistic starting date for this church is probably between 1737 and 1740.  The church possesses two old books of church records.  (The church was locked up and no one was around on a Saturday evening . . . which means a trip back.)

The oldest book is a small leather-bound volume 9 1/2 inches by 8 inches and contains 130 pages completely filled.  The book lacks a title page and has one page missing.  A minister of the church wrote in 1845 that the first baptism was recorded February 25, 1739.  Today the oldest baptism translated by Rev. Leiby is dated April 20, 1740.  So no doubt the first page had some baptisms at least as early as 1739.

The second volume is a much bigger book with 372 pages; about half are blank.   It contains some 1,710 baptisms, with lists of communicants and persons confirmed.   There is no list of marriages.  A burial record was started but discontinued on the second page.  Still, I would like to see those early communicants as well as those confirmed.

We have traversed Route 309 to the mountains many times in pre-turnpike days.   We never realized that we were passing so close to this hallowed spot.  Our immigrant ancestor came in 1738 and family tradition has it that he stayed with others in Germantown, Pennsylvania.  Back in the late 1730s and early 40s, this was a German enclave north of Philadelphia.  (Today it is a seedy section of that teaming city.)

There is no evidence that the family ever settled on the Lehigh near this church.   But they were a family on the move and many of the citizens of  Germantown moved up the Lehigh as land became available.  It is said that this area resembled the Rhineland from whence they came.  The first land warrant was not obtained by our forefather for another four years and it was land beyond the Blue Mountains some distance from the Jordan Lutheran Church.

They have two services, several very large additions, and well-maintained property which means it must be a thriving congregation. 

Judy Bedford, 9/2001