St. John's Lutheran Church

St. John’s Lutheran Church was organized in 1866. Its first pastor was a Dutch Reformed minister named Reidenbach. The congregation met here and there in neighborhood churches until they could raise money to buy three lots on Prospect Avenue, which at the time was called Middle Street. In 1868, they built a small wood framed church. By 1898, they needed a larger church, and raised more money to build it. The cornerstone was laid in 1898, and it was consecrated in 1899. The church officially changed its name to the Evangelical Lutheran St. John’s Congregation of Brooklyn.

In the inset in the upper left of the postcard image below, you can see the original wood framed building that functioned as a church until the new one was built in 1899. Longinus Leier married Emilie Nowasky there in 1883. The new church built in 1899 is in the center.

The image below is from the Brooklyn Citizen Almanac of 1897. Pastor J. H. Sommer is the pastor (J. Helmuth Sommer) who presided over the marriage of Longinus and Emilie.