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The "old cattle shed" on the southwest corner of Broadway and Rector Street was torn down and a stone building erected which was dedicated in 1729 and named Trinity church. The parish which Berkenmeyer inherited from Falckner, extending from New York to Albany, and including many Dutch and German settlements on both sides of the river, proved to be a larger field than he could cultivate.
Its first and only convention of which we have record was held at Raritan, August 20, 1735; nine congregations were represented by delegates. Peace was restored, but temporarily only. Berkenmeyer continued his ministry in Loonenburg for twenty years. Like other Lutheran divines of his day, the Swedes and Salzburgers not excepted, he kept two slaves, whom he himself united in marriage in 1744.
At Schoharie, Berkenmeyer had to preach in the Reformed church; but that did not prevent him from testifying against joint services. Germans versus Dutch. About 1742 the language question became acute in New York. Dutch immigration had ceased, while Germans arrived in ever increasing numbers. As a result the German communicants in New York outnumbered the Dutch about 8 to 1.
In 1734 the Lutheran clergy received an addition in the person of Magister Wolff, who succeeded the aged and infirm Daniel Falckner at Raritan and five other congregations in New Jersey. In the same year the three Lutheran pastors and a number of congregations organized the first Lutheran Synod in America, with Berkenmeyer as chairman.
While a learned man, a hard worker, a man of great influence, a man also who sought to familiarize not only the German, but also the English element of his church with the doctrines of the Catechism, Kunze was not a sound and staunch Lutheran on the order of Berkenmeyer or Falckner. He had no adequate appreciation for the doctrinal differences which separate the Lutherans and the Reformed.
While en route to his new charge, he was informed that a vagabond preacher by the name of J. B. von Dieren, a former tailor, had succeeded in ingratiating himself with the New York Lutherans, and had been accepted as their preacher. Nothing daunted, Berkenmeyer continued his journey, landing at New York in 1725.
Berkenmeyer was born in the duchy of Lueneburg and had studied theology at Altorf under Dr. Sontag, a theologian whose maxim was, "Quo propius Luthero, eo melior theologus, The closer to Luther, the better a theologian." Upon request of the New York congregation the Lutheran Consistory of Amsterdam, in 1724, called him to serve the Dutch congregations in the Hudson Valley.
Pastor Christian Knoll of Holstein was called to take charge of the southern congregations in and about New York. Berkenmeyer delivered his farewell sermon November 26, 1732, and sixteen days later Knoll preached his first sermon.
Also during his declining years Berkenmeyer experienced much sorrow. His end came on August 26, 1751. The closing words of his epitaph are: "He has elected us in Christ before the foundation of the world; there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus."
It is the original source of the constitution of the Savoy Church in London, which claims to be a simple translation of it, with some modifications. The Amsterdam constitution was, therefore, the immediate basis of the congregations in New York City, Albany, Loonenburg, Hackensack, on the Raritan, and of other congregations in New York founded by Falckner, Berkenmeyer and Knoll.
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