Deutsche Evangelisch-Lutherische und Reformierte Kirche
The families of brothers Carl Friedrich Bleeke (1794-1853) and Johann Heinrich Philip Bleeke (1797-1883) were members of the Deutsche Evangelisch-Lutherische und Reformierte Kirche von Cincinnati (German Evangelical Lutheran and Reformed Church of Cincinnati). When the church split on December 17, 1838, the Bleekes—or at least the Johann Heinrich Bleeke family—joined those forming a new church, the Norddeutsche Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche (the North German Lutheran Church of Cincinnati), which later built a new church building at ????[footnote Rau].
Discovery of Bleekes Cincinnati Church
Two pieces of information link the Johann Heinrich Philip Bleeke family that settled in Adams County to the name of their church in Cincinnati Ohio. First, the name of their pastor in Cincinnati is mentioned in the Immaunel Lutheran, Decatur, Indiana, biography of Johann Heinrich Philip Bleeke, who was one of its founders. This pastor was Möllmann, and he appears in a article on the Hamilton County, Ohio, Genealogical Society’s website entitled Genealogy of Some German Evangelical Churches in Cincinnati, Ohio written by Robert C. Rau:
in 1837, after a heated vote, Wilhehn Moellmann, from Osnabrück, was elected to fill the preacher’s office. He immediately discovered the great difficulties in the congregation, and wanted to resign. However, in the year 1838 a solution was finally achieved. After several meetings it was decided to separate into two different congregations, with the one group now being the South Germans, who would keep the old church building, and the other group being the North Germans, who would receive a sum of money. Pastor Moellmann went with the North Germans, and this group, the third German congregation in Cincinnati, took the name North German Lutheran Church. As early as 1839-40 they erected a church on Walnut Street between 8th and 9th Streets. The South German group, who now called F. M. Raschig as pastor, took the name German Protestant St. John’s Church.
Genealogy of Some German Evangelical Churches in Cincinnati
The aforementioned biography of Johann Heinrich Philip Bleeke mentions the names of two pastors in Cincinnati, Möllmann and Lauer:
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his son Carl Fridrich Wilhelm, born 30 November 1825, was: "confirmiert um Ostern 1840 on Past. Möllmann in Cincinati[sic] (confirmed at Easter 1840 by pastor Möllmann in Cincinnati".
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his daughter Emilie, born on 11 March 1837 was: "Getauft von Past. Lauer. (baptized by pastor Lauer)".
Digial Records
PDFs of the church registers of theGerman Evangelical Lutheran and Reformed Church and the North German Lutheran Church are part of the Third German Protestant Church Records of the German Americana Collection of the Archives and Rare Books Library at University of Cincinnati.
An important repository listed on the Records Repositories page of the Hamiliton County Genealogical Society’s website is the Archives and Rare Books Library at University of Cincinnati. It has a German Americana Collection that includes digitized records (in the form of PDFs) of the Third German Protestant Church Records, the erstwhile North German Lutheran Church:
In 1879 the North German Lutheran Church had changed its name to the "Third German Protestant Church," and again in 1927 to the "Third Protestant Memorial Church." Today it is the Third Protestant Memorial United Church of Christ in Clifton.
Genealogy of Some German Evangelical Churches in Cincinnati