Altona     (p. 13) 

The Mennonite Church in Altona dates back to 1601 when Graf Ernst von Schauenburg 1569 - 1622 came to power in Pinneburg. Schauenburg made an agreement with his business agent Francois Noe II, an Anabaptist, whose parents had fled from Antwerp about twenty years earlier. In return for Noe’s services he and a limited number of families of his faith could live on a parcel of land north of the Grosse Heerstrasse (later the Reichenstrasse, now the Konigstrasse) where they could graze their cattle, develop industries that were not controlled by trade guilds and conduct worship services in a quiet manner. The worship services were held in a warehouse till they built their first church on the Grossefreiheit in 1674. The church was burnt down by the Swedes in 1713 and rebuilt in 1717. In 1915 the Mennonites built a new church at 20 Mennonitenstrasse. The church on the Grossefreiheit was destroyed in 1944.