Lutheran services in Newport were first recorded as early as 1830, when the Rev. John W. Heim held them in homes and schoolhouses. Preaching was done in German until 1842, when the pastor was requested to speak English also. The congregation was formally organized in 1844 under the leadership of the Rev. Levi T. Williams, with services held at the brick school on 2nd St. From 1847 to 1874, members shared the Union Church, the town’s first formal religious edifice, with the Presbyterian and Reformed congregations. The Reformed Church built its own facility in 1868, and St. Paul’s sold its one-third interest in the Union Church to the Presbyterians in 1877. St. Paul’s Romanesque-style church was constructed in 1874 by builder Joshua Sweger for $15.000, including land and furnishings, and its auditorium seated approximately 500 persons, probably the largest indoor space in Perry County at the time. St. Paul’s was the first church in the Synod of Central Pennsylvania to have a pipe organ, installed about 1885; the current organ dates from 1912, and Maas chimes were installed in 1947. A windstorm damaged the steeple in 1884, and during World War II the decaying timbered steeple was removed; by the late 1940s the present belfry was capped. The sanctuary contains a nativity fresco by J.H. Froehlich completed during the 1907 remodeling.