UPDATE: GERMANIA’S ‘GILBERT LUTHERAN CHURCH’ CELEBRATING 150 YEARS OF GERMAN HERITAGE SUNDAY IN ORIGINAL LOG CABIN WITH ‘MOUSE-PROOF’ ORGAN
Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com
GERMANIA — A 150th anniversary of the Lutheran Church here Sunday, July 19, will be as much a family reunion as a service of celebration.
Each year, families in Germania gather twice in the summer to keep alive the original tiny Nazareth Lutheran Church — known in the small west Muskoka community as the “Gilbert Lutheran Church.”
It’s been that way for 150 years. Only more often in the beginning when it was built in 1876.
Godfrey and Jeanette Cook are among many family members who regularly attend and will definitely be there. Her mother was a Speicher, one of the many pioneer families still living in the community and whose descendents will definitely be out for cake and refreshments.
“We don’t know how many will be there,” he said this week. “But we’re expecting a few more this year with it being the 150 anniversary.”
A second service will take place Aug. 23. Both are at 2 p.m.
The church used to be full every Sunday. It was very important to the lives of the community.
Germania began back in early 1870s, when brothers George and William Gilbert, who hailed from Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, took up land in this corner of Draper Township west of Gravenhurst and Bracebridge.
They were among the first to settle here, but others, almost all German families, some 15 or 20 in all, soon joined them in carving farms out of the dense forest.
Germania was born.
According to church history in last year’s July 20 program, William Gilbert donated land for a community church, and so while it’s officially called Germania, Nazareth, Evangelical, Lutheran Church, officially, it’s referred to locally as the Gilbert Lutheran Church.
William Gilbert wasn’t alone in his generosity.
However, Herman Weissmuller donated the wood. Villagers came together to provide the labour. And every parishioner was required to supply a quarter cord of wood per year for heating.
Well tended, the interior has not been altered since the day it was built and the whole atmosphere breathes the spirit of a bygone era. The pews, altar, baptismal font, and oil lamps are all original.
A unique historical artefact is a copy of the lot’s original land grant issued February 1, 1875, which is encased in glass and holding a place of prominence along the church’s rear wall.
A “mouse-proof” organ was gifted to the church in 1921.
At one time, services were held in both German and English. But eventually, English only.
Germania had its own minister, who lived in a parsonage across the road, but that building burned and they then shared a minister with Gravenhurst.
Stepping outside and into the small cemetery, filled with the souls of bygone, only then one can truly begin to comprehend how tight-knit the community would have been. Neighbours weren’t just friends. They were quite literally family, either through blood or marriage.
And so it serves as a tribute to the brave and hard-working German families who established a house of worship for the members of their community.
“Today, we are in awe of this beautiful, yet simple building dedicated to God, for those who came to worship,” said the program written and edited by Andrew Hind and Maria da Silva.
This is the first of the two annual summer services, which was presided over in 2025 by Pastor Ann Krueger.
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