A history lesson from Joan Kroening Geske, daughter and member of the Moravian Church at Lake Auburn. The early Moravians of Carver County a little over 150 years ago some members of the Hopedale, Pennsylvania Moravian congregation migrated to Carver County, Minnesota. Land was cheap and opportunities seemed to present themselves. After a year or two, these people appealed to the Home Mission Board of the Moravian Church for a resident pastor. At first this appeal was not granted because of the shortage of ministers. Later, an American Bible Society pastor was sent. His name was Martin Erdmann. He arrived in Prairie du Chein, Wisconsin, on the Mississippi River in late November, 1857. His family remained there because of the harsh winter, and he proceeded alone by stage coach, arriving in Chaska later that December of that year. On January 1, 1858, the Chaska congregation was organized. The year 1858 was a busy one for Pastor Erdmann (also, for the founding of our State of Minnesota). He established preaching places, in homes, at Zoar, Lake Auburn (Laketown), Shakopee, Henderson, Hamburg and Bongard’s. The pastor hoped to organize congregations in all of these places. Only Chaska and Lake Auburn remain today. The preaching places at Zoar and Lake Auburn (Laketown) had developed sufficiently by this time to have their own churches. In 1863 land was donated by John Holtmeier at Lake Auburn for this purpose. That very same year a log church building was erected on the hill of our present cemetery. The move from the log church to our present building was in 1878. In the moving of furniture to our present church, Ed Walter, one of the members, and a relative of current member Ruth Stahlke, carried the Bible.