Henry Muhlenberg was a German-born Lutheran theologian and missionary who played a foundational role in the American Lutheran Church. Born in Einbeck in 1711, he immigrated to the Pennsylvania colony in 1742 to serve German-speaking settlers. He is widely recognized as the patriarch of Lutheranism in the United States due to his work organizing congregations and establishing formal ecclesiastical structures. Throughout his extensive ministry, which lasted over four decades, he traveled widely to provide spiritual leadership to diverse colonial populations.