Adrian Wewer

(April 14, 1836 – March 15, 1914), was a German-born Franciscan lay brother who was the architect of more than 100 churches, college buildings, seminaries, schools, friaries, convents, and hospitals throughout the United States.

He was born Antonius Wewer in 1836 in Harsewinkel, in the Prussian state of Westphalia, and as a teenager was trained as a carpenter.

In 1858 he was admitted to the novitiate of the Friars Minor of the Province of the Holy Cross located in Warendorf in the Kingdom of Saxony, at which time he was given his religious name of Adrian.

That same year the friars received a request from Henry Damian Juncker, the Bishop of Alton in Illinois, to help to care for the large German Catholic population which had settled in the region.

He also participated in the design of the interior altars and furnishings of the first St. Francis Solanus Church in Quincy, Illinois.