Wooster's German Legacy
by Elisabeth Abell
As many as 75,000 Germans immigrated to the British colonies between 1770 and 1776. Many of them settled in Pennsylvania, later immigrating into Ohio.1 They built their homes, their businesses, and their lives around the square downtown. Like many other ethnic groups that came to Wooster, the German immigrants formed their own community based on their shared language and religious beliefs. While there is a significant difference between German Reformed and Lutheran practices, most Germans in the community shared the same church building, if not the same reverend, for over fifty years.
1 Jon Butler, Grant Wacker, and Randall Balmer, Religion in American Life: a Short History, (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 76.