Lars Paul Esbjörn (October 16, 1808 – July 2, 1870) was a Swedish-American Lutheran clergyman, academic and church leader. Esbjörn was a founder of Augustana College and of the Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church.
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Esbjörn was born in Delsbo and schooled in Hudiksvall, both in Hälsingland, Sweden. He was educated in Gävle and studied theology at Uppsala University. He was ordained at Uppsala Cathedral, became assistant pastor at Östervåla, Heby Municipality in Uppsala County then pastor in the Swedish factory town of Oslättfors.[1]
Esbjörn and a group of 146 Swedish immigrants sailed from Gävle to New York in 1849. Only Pastor Esbjörn and handful of his faithful followers arrived in Andover, Illinois. Together they built Jenny Lind Chapel, which became the "mother church" of the Swedish Lutheran community. The church was built with funding provided mainly by Jenny Lind, while she was at that time on a concert tour in the eastern United States.
Esbjörn would be Andover’s pastor from 1850 to 1856. Esbjörn followed some of the immigrants to Moline, Illinois during 1850 were he organized First Lutheran Church. Esbjörn divided his time between Andover and Moline.[2]
For a decade, Esbjörn struggled to minister to the Swedish Lutheran community within the Synod of Northern Illinois. Esbjörn was a Professor of Theology at Illinois State Normal University in Springfield, Illinois from 1858 to 1860. After serving two years as Scandinavian professor at this German-dominated Synod school, where he disagreed with the doctrinal looseness of many of the faculty, Esbjörn resigned and moved to Chicago where he and other Scandinavian church leaders felt that it was time to form their own synod.[3] They organized the independent Augustana Synod of the Lutheran church in the Jefferson Prairie Settlement in 1860. He was also fundamental in the beginnings of Augustana College. The college and seminary started in Chicago during 1860, moved to Paxton, Illinois in 1863, and finally to Rock Island, Illinois in 1875.[4]
Esbjörn returned to Sweden where he died on July 2, 1870 and was buried in the cemetery of the Lutheran Church in Östervåla. On June 13, 1948, after remodeling, Jenny Lind Chapel was dedicated as a shrine of the Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church. In 1975, Jenny Lind Chapel was declared to be a national historic site.[5]