The First German Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, New York, was organized in 1853 as the German Evangelical Mission Church by the Presbytery of New York. Services were held at 15 Maujer Street until a brick church at Leonard and Stagg Streets in Brooklyn was dedicated on October 14, 1855. The first minister was Rev. John Neander, who served the congregation from 1853 to 1885. In the 1850s, Williamsburg was a small village in Brooklyn. The congregation moved out of Williamsburg as the village grew and its demographics changed, and relocated to a new section called Ridgewood, which would later become part of Queens. The congregation changed its name to the Ridgewood Presbyterian Church, Ridgewood, Queens, New York, in 1918.

A search of our catalogs does not show any records of the First German Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, New York, deposited in our holdings. According to the FamilySearch website at www.familysearch.org, the original records of the German Evangelical Mission Church are housed at the Reformed Church Archives at the New Brunswick Theological Seminary in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Reformed Church Archives
21 Seminary Place
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
Phone: (732) 246-1779
Email: archives@rca.org
Website: https://www.rca.org/archives

Sources:

Hucke, Robert. One Hundredth Anniversary: Ridgewood Presbyterian Church. Ridgewood, NY: The Church, 1953. (Call number: PAM FOL. BX 9211 .N1385 R505 1953).

Inventory of the Church Archives of New York City, prepared by the Historical Records Survey, Work Projects Administration, 1940. (Call number: Ref Folio CD 3409 .N5 P7)

Updated 10/2021.