Pastor Ludwig Hermann Gerndt A complete account of the attraction of suitable German immigrants to the Ottawa Valley can be found in Peter Hessel’s book “Destination: Ottawa Valley.” For our purposes, we may note that the majority of settlers came from the northeastern portion of the German Confederation: Saxony, Silesia,..Read More

The earliest photograph of the current church, probably taken in the first decade of the 20th century. The small building to the left is the original log church, built in 1875 It did not take too long for the congregation to decide that their log church was not quite what..Read More

Pastor J. C. Jannau For many years, the language of the congregation had been German, for very good  reasons. All of the teaching and all of the services had been conducted in German since the earliest gatherings. However, over the years, the use of English had slowly gained momentum and..Read More

Mrs. George Hampel, our First Historian 1967 marked the 100th Anniversary of  both St. John’s Petawawa and Canada. Mrs. George Hampel, our first Historian, wrote the first version of the History of St. Johns that year. The first history of St. John’s, by Mrs. George Hampel From 1963 to 1966,..Read More

Bishop Sartison and Pastor Ehrhardt with the Time Capsule, just before it was buried on church property 1997 was a focal point of celebration at St. John’s. In the one year, the members of the church could celebrate both the 130th anniversary of the founding of the congregation, and the..Read More

We formed our 150th Anniversary Committee several years before 2017. The Committee initially generated, accepted, reviewed and monitored nineteen projects and activities to commemorate our 150th anniversary in 2017. These included renovations, celebration services, a commemorative stamp application, cookbooks, photo directories, this website and several other ideas. The original list..Read More