Pastor Heinrich Merz

 Pastor Henry Merz was the sixth minister of Zion Lutheran Church in Fredericksburg, TX.

According to some records, Heinrich Merz was born in Switzerland on  🔸 September 25, 1842 (1). The christening record of Heinrich Marz, the son of Hans Conrad Marz and Anna Stenz, says the boy was born on September 20, 1842. The christening ceremony took place on September 24, 1842, in Neffenbach, Zürich, Switzerland (2). Was Heinrich Marz and Heinrich Merz the same person? Possibly, but we do not know for sure.

Heinrich Merz received his ministerial training at St. Chrischona Pilgermission Institute in Bassel, Switzerland (1864-1866). The man came to Galveston as a missionary on November 26, 1866.

Rev. Merz was ordained in 1869. 

⛪ His first parish was Zion Lutheran Church in Castroville.

👉 In 1871, Pastor Merz came to Fredericksburg and started his service in Zion Lutheran Church. In the same year, the Texas Synod convention took place in Fredericksburg/was hosted by Zion.
Rev. Merz served at Zion until 1872. During that time, he officiated 52 baptisms, 35 confirmations, 4 weddings, and 2 funerals.

In 1872, the Synod called Rev. Merz to Ruttersville, where he took the position of house father at the German-American Lutheran College. The man also helped to organize St. John Lutheran Church in Warrenton, TX.

His next call place was Salem Lutheran Church in Welcome, TX. Afterward, Heinrich Merz worked as a missionary in the Temple and Austin area, where he founded quite a few churches.

The folloeing place of Rev. Merz's ministerial work was St. Martin's Lutheran Church in Austin, Texas, and later, St. John Lutheran Church in Bartlett, Texas.

 

Pastor Heinrich Merz was also the president of the Synod and worked as an itinerary pastor of the congregations at Rockdale, New Baden, Bushdale, Greenvine, Ulmen Creek, Richland, and High Prairie.

His further mission took him to Illinois, where he was the administrator of a hospital in Chicago, and worked at the Mission in Lake View (Chicago).
 ⚭ On 24 September 1891, in Chicago, Henry Merz married Miss Auguste Falkenthal, born in 1861 in Brandenburg (3).

 

Rev. Merz helped build a congregation, a chapel, and a home on the grounds that became the Evangelical Lutheran Seminary in Chicago, where he served as one of its directors.

Next, the parson worked at the Evangelical Lutheran Orphanage, St. John, in Buffalo, New York.
Thereafter, Rev. Merz was in charge of a mission for the homeless and jobless in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Later, the Pastor started a mission for the homeless and jobless in Chicago, Illinois.

 

 

He was then (for ten years) the superintendent and house father for an orphanage in Addison, Illinois.

1910, the census found Rev. Henry (age 58), his wife Auguste Falkenthal (house mother, age 48), their two sons (Walter - age 17, and Paul, age 15), 11 staff members, and 104 orphans, kids from the age 1 to 17 at the said orphanage in Addison, DuPage, Illinois (4).

After his retirement, H Merz lived as Pastor Emeritus at Melrose Park in Chicago.

 

🏡 1920 census record - the family members who lived in the household of Henry Merz (age 77), besides him, were his wife Augusta (age 58), their sons Walter (age 25), and Paul, their daughter-in-law Theresa (age 19), grandson Harold (age 3 months), and two adopted sons Walter Weber (age 17), and Harry Giesecking (age 15). The family was recorded in Melrose Park, Cook, Illinois (5).

♦ Rev. Henry Merz passed eight years later, on November 19. He was buried at Concordia Cemetery in Forest Park, Cook, Illinois.

 

Sources:

1. findagrave.com
2. "Schweiz, Katholische und Reformiert Kirchenbücher, 1418-1996", database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6F8X-RG83 : 5 April 2023), Heinrich Marz, 1842.
3. "Illinois, Cook County Marriages, 1871-1968", database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N7XR-4LZ : 25 January 2023), Henry Merz and Augusta Falkenthal, 1891.
4. "United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MK8T-XPQ : accessed 23 May 2023), Henry Merz, Addison, DuPage, Illinois, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 1, sheet 15A, family 176, NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1982), roll 285; FHL microfilm 1,374,298.
5. "United States Census, 1920", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MJWF-SXZ : 1 February 2021), Henry Marz, 1920. 

• "150 Years of God's Grace 1852-2002", Zion Lutheran Church, Fredericksburg, TX
  
• ELCA Region 4, South Archives

Photos taken on 5 August 2020.