Trinity English Lutheran Church

Organized April 1846 — the English-language division

The division: Within a decade of St. Paul's founding, a part of the congregation wanted worship in English rather than German. The separation was made, in the words of Slocum and Robertson's History of the Maumee River Basin, "with the mutual consent of all concerned": preliminary steps were taken on 22 March 1846, and a constitution was adopted on 19 April 1846, with seventeen charter members, not a few of them founders of the 1837 church. The new congregation — the present Trinity English Lutheran Church — began in the original frame building of the First Presbyterian Church on Berry Street, between Lafayette and Barr. Its pastor in 1846, the Rev. Mr. Albach, stood with Sihler among the Fort Wayne clergy who launched the seminary that year. Trinity English stands today at 450 Washington Boulevard in the centre of downtown, and describes its own self-understanding as the city's church — an open community rather than a private club. The building's architecture belongs to the Architecture section; the congregation's schools to the Schools section.

Sources:

1. M. H. Bertram, A Brief History of St. Paul's (1962), quoting Slocum & Robertson, History of the Maumee River Basin — the March–April 1846 organization and the seventeen charter members.
2. ACGSI, "Wayne Township Churches" — the caption recording that Trinity English's first building was the original First Presbyterian frame church on Berry Street.
3. Input Fort Wayne, "More than a 'City of Churches'" (21 March 2018) — the present Washington Boulevard church and its downtown ministry.