Holy Trinity Lutheran Church
Lancaster, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Founded in 1730. A session for an Indian treaty was held in the original church building in 1762. The present edifice was dedicated in 1766. Here are interred the remains of Thomas Wharton (1778) and Gov. Thomas Mifflin (1800).
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Founded in 1730, this Lancaster congregation stood at the heart of a bustling colonial town where the Pennsylvania frontier met the settled east. Its early building even hosted a 1762 Indian treaty council, a reminder that diplomacy with Native nations often unfolded in the plainest of civic spaces. The stone church dedicated in 1766 still guards the graves of two Pennsylvania statesmen of the Revolutionary era, Thomas Wharton and Governor Thomas Mifflin.
Why it matters
The church ties together three strands of early Pennsylvania—German religious settlement, treaty diplomacy with Indigenous peoples, and the political leadership that carried the state through the Revolution and into the new republic.
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Related people
- · Thomas Wharton
- · Thomas Mifflin
Related events
- · 1762 Indian treaty council
Themes & tags
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