Painesville Chapel

The Painesville Chapel is a historic meeting hall built in 1852 by German immigrant Freethinkers in Franklin, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. In the 1830s and 40s, immigrants from Wittenberg, Germany were among the settlers near Franklin. They attended St. John's Lutheran in Oak Creek until 1851, when a dispute over doctrine caused the congregation to split, with half following Pastor Carl Gustav Rausch to form a Freie Gemeinde, a Free Congregation, whose priorities were independence of the congregation and freedom of thought for individuals. The congregation as a whole endorsed no creed, and members included Christians, agnostics and atheists. This paralleled similar splits back in Germany at that time. This Free Congregation at Franklin initially numbered 35 members, and met in a log school a half mile south of Ryan Road. They were the first of thirty such Free Congregations in Wisconsin. In 1851 the congregation hired carpenter Henry Roethe to construct the modest building pictured, one story with clapboard siding, originally sitting on four large fieldstones. The style is simple Greek Revival, with returns on the eaves and small pediments on the doors and windows. Inside stand the original pews, pulpit, and stove. On the walls hang portraits of Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Humboldt, and Thomas Paine, just as des

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