St. Michael's Evangelical Lutheran Church, Historic Lutheran church in Mount Airy, Philadelphia, United States.
St. Michael's Evangelical Lutheran Church is a Gothic Revival church building in Mount Airy located along Germantown Avenue. The structure displays ornate architectural details, stained glass windows, and features a tower alongside a historic cemetery on the grounds.
The congregation is first recorded in 1728, when its first pastor, Anthony Jacob Henckel, died and was buried in the cemetery. A stone church may have stood on the site by 1730; it was enlarged in 1746 and fitted with a bell tower and pipe organ in the 1750s. During the 1777 Battle of Germantown the church was occupied and its organ and pews were destroyed. The congregation was officially incorporated by an Act of Assembly of Pennsylvania in 1785.
The church reflects the German Lutheran heritage of Philadelphia through its architectural elements and cemetery that contains graves of early German settlers.
The church closed in 2016 and no longer holds services. The building and the cemetery sit along Germantown Avenue in Mount Airy, just north of Germantown; the grounds are not open to casual visitors, so arrange any access in advance. The cemetery holds graves of Revolutionary War veterans.
The cemetery holds burial sites from the early 18th century, including that of Anthony Jacob Henckel, the congregation's first pastor. These graves document the founding and growth of the community across multiple generations.
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