[6] The first historical record of the St. Michael's congregation is in 1728 on the death of its first pastor, Anthony Jacob Henckel, who is buried in the cemetery.

[2] Sometime after 1731 John Christian Schulz may have briefly served the Germantown congregation before returning to Germany seeking support for Pennsylvania Lutherans.

[1] Beggarstown School is a small adjacent building built c. 1740, which was used to teach basic reading, writing, and arithmetic to local students.

[11] Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, the patriarch of the Lutheran Church in America, was an early pastor after arriving in Pennsylvania in 1742.

[14] In 1745 Muhlenberg assigned the Germantown and Philadelphia churches to Peter Brunnholz, an ordained minister newly arrived from Germany.

A small part of the congregation supporting Muhlenberg formed a new church, calling their own pastor, J. Nicholas Kurtz.

The parsonage, now known as the Michael Billmeyer House, is located near the corner of Germantown Avenue and Upsal Street, where an attack on Cliveden was directed.

[2] Germantown's residents had begun assimilating into American culture and religion during the eighteenth century as German-speakers intermarried with English-speakers and some of their children spoke mainly English.

[2] The church's Sunday school, one of the first in the United States, was begun in 1817 to teach underprivileged children on a day when they were off from work.

The Sunday school program later started branches in Chestnut Hill, Nicetown, Rising Sun, and other nearby neighborhoods.

Charles W. was the grandson of Frederick David Schaeffer and the author of Early History of the Lutheran Church in America.

[20][13] He helped organize the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, near St. Michael's, and served there as Professor of Ecclesiastical History.

She worked to raise the role of women in the church and was the founder and first director of the Lutheran Home at Germantown for orphans.

The Gothic Revival church currently on the site was designed by Philadelphia architect T. Frank Miller and built 1896-1897.

As part of the Great Migration of African-Americans from the south, the ethnic character of the neighborhood changed by the mid 20th century.

Under her guidance the church worked with local charities, reaching out to the diverse Germantown community, including the poor, the sick, and the hungry.

Bishop Claire Schenot Burkat of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod presided at the final service, assisted by the Rev.

Dr. Philip D.W. Krey, a former member of the congregation and the retired president of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.