Lars Paul Esbjörn was a Swedish-American Lutheran clergyman, academic and church leader. Esbjörn was a founder of the Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church and of Augustana College. He served as the first president of Augustana College from 1860 until his resignation in 1863.
Esbjörn and a group of 146 Swedish immigrants sailed from Gävle to New York City in 1849. Only Pastor Esbjörn and handful of his followers arrived in Andover, Illinois. Together they built Jenny Lind Chapel, which became the center of the Swedish-American 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 where he organized First Lutheran Church. Esbjörn divided his time between Andover and Moline. For a decade, Esbjörn ministered to the Swedish Lutheran community within the Synod of Northern Illinois. Esbjörn was a Professor of Theology at Illinois State University in Springfield, Illinois from 1858 to 1860. After serving two years as Scandinavian professor at this German-dominated Synod school, where he disagreed over doctrinal issues with many of the faculty, Esbjörn resigned and moved to Chicago. Esbjörn and other church leaders determined that it was time to form a new synod. They organized the independent Augustana Synod of the Lutheran church at Jefferson Prairie Settlement in Wisconsin during 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. Esbjörn served as the first president of Augustana College and Theological Seminary from 1860 to 1863, when it was based in Chicago. He opposed its move to rural Paxton, and the move, combined with an appointment in the Church of Sweden in his home diocese of Uppsala led Esbjörn to tender his resignation from the college. 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 listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
