Sunday morning, May 3d, 1868, just as his congregation was entering a
larger house of worship at the corner of Broome and Elizabeth Streets.

Dr. Geissenhainer, Jr., retired from the English work of St. Matthew's
Church in 1840 and organized a German congregation, St. Paul's, on the
west side, which he served as pastor until his death in 1879 in the 82d
year of his age.

On the East Side, Trinity was organized in 1843, St. Mark's in 1847, St.
Peter's in 1862, Immanuel, in Yorkville, in 1863, and St. John's in
Harlem in 1864. On the West Side St. Luke's was established in 1850, St.
John's in 1855 and St. Paul's in Harlem in 1864. The first Swedish
congregation, Gustavus Adolphus, was organized in 1865.

Within the present limits of Brooklyn six German and one English
churches were established during this period. On the territory of each
of the other boroughs, Bronx, Queens and Richmond, two German churches
came into being.

After the Revolution of 1848 in Germany, immigration to America
increased by leaps and bounds, and within the time under review New York
was referred to as the fourth German city in the world. But the Germans,
as we have seen, did not all go to church. The existing churches, it is
true, were well filled, but a large proportion of the population, torn
from the stable environment of their homeland life, and transplanted
into the new conditions of a crowded city, failed to respond to the
claims of their ancestral religion.

In our church polity there was no adequate provision for the needs of
such an immense and ever expanding population. Now and then a