Settling Down

Both Jacob and George return from their respective adventuring (searching for gold and fighting in the Civil War) no doubt older and wiser. They both marry and settle in Pittsburgh, PA.

George Orth’s Marriage. George marries a woman named Anna “Annie” Mary Wilhelm (born 1849 in Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany), sometime after 1864, when he is released from the army, and before 1868 (a year before their first child is born). It’s not clear where George met Annie and when she came to America.

Jacob Orth’s Marriage. From the Orth Family bible:

Married May 4, 1865 by Pastor Carl Walther:

Jacob Orth to Margret C. Lauffer

Margret/Margaret was born 14 Oct 1843 in Pittsburgh, PA. She was the oldest daughter of John (b: abt 1817 in Wurtemburg, Germany) and Elizabeth Laufffer (b: abt 1825 in Germany).

Since no other marriage in the family makes reference to the pastor, I decided to try and find out who Pastor Carl Walther was. Apparently, Carl Walther (actually Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther 1811-1887), was a major figure in the American Lutheran religious scene. Dissatisfied with the form of Lutheranism being practiced in his native Saxony (Germany), Walther led a Lutheran religious community from Germany to St. Louis, where he established a form of Lutheran practice that was truer to the original structures and strictures intended by Martin Luther. He was the first president of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (which I believe was the first Lutheran Synod in America) and its most influential theologian.  Walther served as the first president of the Missouri Synod from 1847-1850 and then again from 1864-1878.

In 1865, when Pastor Carl Walther married Jacob and Margaret, he would have been at the beginning of his second term as president of the Missouri Synod.  Jacob was most likely a member of the First German Evangelical-Lutheran Congregation of Pittsburgh. In 1856, the Church Council voted to unite with the Missouri Synod. Perhaps Walther was visiting Pittsburgh? (This congregation still exists, though it has moved location multiple times since then and in 1930 the congregation’s name changed to First Trinity Evangelical-Lutheran Church.)

Pastor Carl Walther was known for his fire and his vigorous opposition to the theologies of non-Lutheran denominations in America. Jacob Orth (who was the one to write in the family Bible) must have admired him.  Check out the two depictions of Walther, below.