Zion Reformed Church

by Margaret Brown

HIS 201, Fall 2021

Hagerstown has a number of churches within its borders, formed as recently as the last several years and all the way back to the late 18th century. Many of the oldest buildings in Hagerstown are churches that for the most part, have retained a lot of their original structure. The oldest and first of Hagerstown’s church congregations is Zion Reformed United Church of Christ. Located downtown on the corner of North Potomac Street, Zion, while having been updated several times since the initial building, has maintained its historical, original appearance. 

Many of the early settlers in Western Maryland were German immigrants who, like most immigrants at the time, traveled to America to flee religious persecution. The settlers numbered “more than 100,00 people [who] came from the Upper Rhine Valley, the German Palatinate” (ASHUS 4.1.2). A number of different denominations could be found among them and even more were formed in the 1700s. Even though the Protestant Reformation begun by Martin Luther had happened around 200 years before, reform was still rippling through the churches and new congregations were emerging. One of the denominations that emerged in the early 1700s was the German Reformed Church. The first Reformed pastor, Sam Guldin, began preaching in 1710, but the first formal congregations were not formed until the 1720s when John Philip Bohem set up a number of congregations in Pennsylvania. As the communities grew crowded and moved South, so did some of the Reformed church, settling in Frederick County, the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, and Western Maryland.

Hagerstown, founded in Western Maryland in 1762, was formed by a majority of German immigrants and the first church established in the city limits was the Zion German Reformed United Church of Christ. The Church was officially formed in 1770 under Rev. Jacob Weymer after Johnathan Hager gave them a plot of land to build on but the cornerstone that marked the start of the building was not set down until 1774. Hager was not an official member of the congregation, but he was a major contributor and very involved in the building of the church until his death in 1775. After an accident while milling lumber for the church, Hager was crushed by a beam and killed. He was later buried in the church graveyard. Construction on the church was stalled and the interior was left unfinished for a time as the Revolutionary War began and William Heyser, the building-master, “organized a company of German volunteers and led them to support General George Washington” (Zion Hagerstown). In the 1860s and following years, the church was updated and remodeled, but much of its original structure has survived to the current day.

Today, Zion is one of the oldest surviving buildings still in use in Hagerstown and its
history has been carefully preserved and names and dates of baptisms, deaths, marriages and such can be found in the church records dating back almost to Zion’s founding. Zion is a major historical landmark in Hagerstown. There are many churches in Hagerstown, but Zion is one of the strongest ties into the city's past that still exists.