“God writes the Gospel not in the
Bible alone, but also on the trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.”
~ Martin Luther
~ 1843-1546
Steeped in history and faith, St.
Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church stands majestically in downtown Allentown,
Pennsylvania on an early November afternoon.
As Allentown’s first Lutheran
Church, it was founded in 1762.
St. Paul’s was one of two original
churches in Allentown, first founded in a log structure in the 1760s. The
current location was donated by the Allen family in the 1790s.
The remains of Margaret Elizabeth
Allen Tilghman (April 21, 1772 - September 9, 1798), who died in childbirth,
are in a special crypt located underneath the church tower of St. Paul’s. It
was written that when the remains of Margaret were exhumed in 1903, after 105
years of interment, strands of her auburn hair that charmed the beaus of
Philadelphia were still recognizable.
A plaque located near the crypt honoring
her reads: “Endowed with warm affection and an excellent understanding, she
enjoyed the flattering prospect of a useful and happy life, but it pleased
Almighty God Whose Providence tho' unsearchable is all wise, that she should be
cut off, in the flower of her youth from this transitory world. She died surrounded
by friends.”
Margaret’s grandfather William Allen and her husband William
Tilghman were both Chief Justices of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The
Tilghman Family is a famous Maryland family. According to a WFMZ article, “No
less a figure than John Adams’s wife Abigail had hailed the three Allen girls
as part of the “constellation of beauty” that brightened the national capital
of Philadelphia. But now an early death had darkened one of those beautiful
auburn-haired stars.”
