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Church of the Brethren
in Southern Illinois
From the library of
Adelle Frank.com
Church of the Brethren in Southern Illinois
Church of the Brethren
BACKGROUND
CONGREGATIONS
THE DISTRICT
BIOGRAPHIES
STATISTICS
Brethren Publishing House,
in Southern Illinois
Minnie S. Buckingham, Ph. D. HISTORICAL EDITOR
IN CO-OPERATION WITH THE
DISTRICT HISTORICAL COMMITTEE
D. J. Blickenstaff Dow A. Ridgely Ida E. Buckingham
Elgin, Illinois, 1950
Published for the District of Southern Illinois Church of the Brethren August 1950. Brethren Publishing House
£
Printed in the United States of America
Dedication
To all those who have helped to establish the Church of the Brethren in the District of Southern Illinois and have helped to make the history which we herein record.
Introduction
If it is true that we cannot properly evaluate the present and cannot plan the future wisely unless we know our past, then the recording of history obviously needs no attempt at justification.
Granting the validity of the general assertion, we as a church do well to take time to consider "the rock from which we have been hewn." A number of the districts of the Church of the Brethren have published histories of the movements, congregations, institutions and personalities which have made those districts what they are. A number of others are giving thought to the production of district histories; others should do so. Already much valuable his- torical information, for the possession of which our church life would be the richer, has been lost, and consequently much that we would like to know will never be known.
It is then with gratification that we accept as another unit in the recorded history of the Church of the Brethren this account of one of the brotherhood's aggressive and pro- gressive districts, Southern Illinois. Those persons author- ized by the district to undertake this work of compiling and editing have labored lovingly and painstakingly for a period of years to discover the most significant facts about the past and to embody them in such form that Brethren of the present and the future may have them at hand for both enjoyment and profit. The scantiness of some of the needed records has complicated the search but has not deterred the searchers. It has doubtless caused some inaccuracies of statement also. But the historically minded among our
10
CHURCH OF THE BRETHREN IN SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
fellowship will understand the difficulties encountered and will welcome this volume for what its compilers intended it to be-a faithful attempt to throw light on the church's for- ward path by capturing relevant rays from the path over which it has already traveled.
Ora W. Garber Book Editor, Brethren Publishing House Elgin, Illinois
Preface
A short history of the congregations of the Southern District of Illinois, with the compiled minutes of the dis- trict, was published as authorized by the district meeting of 1907.
Interest in the history of the churches of Southern Illinois was revived in connection with the plans for the observance of the centennial of the organization of the first Church of the Brethren in the Northern District of Illinois in 1942. At the 1940 district meeting of Southern Illinois, John Heckman suggested that the District of Southern Illi- nois make a study of her early history and share any ma- terial that would be of interest to both districts. D. J. Blickenstaff and I. D. Heckman were appointed to gather information. The district meeting of 1942 decided that the historical committee should be continued, and Dow A. Ridgely was added to it. Questionnaires were sent to the churches in 1943, requesting historical information and data. Following the death of I. D. Heckman in 1943, John B. Wie- and was appointed by the board of administration to fill his unexpired term. At the district meeting of 1944 Ida Buck- ingham was elected a member of the committee.
In January 1948 the committee asked the undersigned to prepare the material for publication. To make the records more nearly complete, the summer of 1948 was spent reading the publications of the Brethren in the historical library at Elgin and classifying what was already collected. This ma- terial, together with data from an additional questionnaire, was edited and arranged in narrative form.
12
CHURCH OF THE BRETHREN IN SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
It is obviously impossible to give recognition to all who have had some part in supplying the information on which this history is based. Sincere thanks are extended to them. There have been, however, a number whose help has been quite extensive; in gratitude to them their names are listed: Charles Alley, Lenore Ames, L. M. Baldwin, Annie Blick- enstaff, G. G. Canfield, S. E. Caster, Angeline Caylor, Ber- nice Childress, Mrs. H. P. Clannin, Mary Dooly, Lester Fike, I. J. Harshbarger, Eunice Heckman, John Heckman, W. T. Heckman, Adam Jellison, Meda Jellison, Clyde Lewis, Mrs. Clyde Lewis, Oma McCauley, J. W. Metzger, Anetta Mow, Leland Nelson, Laura Plunkett, Maranda Ridgely, Dolar Ritchey, Pearl Rohrer, J. E. Small, W. Harlan Smith, Mrs. S. J. Snell, George Snoke, Hannah Sollis, Ausby Swinger, Mrs. John Ulrey, Mrs. Irvin Van Dyke, Lyle Webb, R. C. Wenger, Mrs. M. A. Whisler, J. J. Winger, Fred Wolfe, and the late Jacob Wyne.
Appreciation is here expressed to Ora W. Garber, book editor of the Brethren Publishing House, for his helpful work on the manuscript.
Minnie S. Buckingham Historical Editor Oakley, Illinois
1
Plan of Presentation
Page
Introduction
9
Preface 11
BACKGROUND
Beginnings of the Church of the Brethren
15
Movements Among the Brethren in Southern Illinois .. 19
CHURCHES IN SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Congregations 23
Institutions and Organizations 147
PERSONALITIES
Biographies 165
STATISTICS
Appendix 315
Bibliography 335
Index .339
-
Beginnings of the Church of the Brethren
The Church of the Brethren had its beginnings at Schwarzenau, Germany, in 1708. Long before that time the Reformation was far reaching in its effect, but it did not bring deepened religious piety to the masses of the people, as Luther had intended. Generally it meant that politically Germany was not subject to the Italian Pope and was free from heavy taxes to the Vatican. Late in the seventeenth century there arose, throughout Germany, a Pietistic movement, with emphasis on Bible study. Bibles were very scarce, probably not being owned by one in a thousand persons, although ministers used a small book containing Bible passages and had a hymnal. The Pietistic movement resulted in an increase of deepened piety. The Pietists found the services of the established churches cold and ritualistic; they stayed away from them, and conse- quently were persecuted.
Freedom from religious persecution was found in the province of Wittgenstein, under the protection of Count Henry, where many took refuge. They called one another brothers.
Of these people, a group of eight earnest seekers de- cided to discard all previous opinions and to follow what- ever truth they could find through prayerful study of the New Testament.
They became convinced of the necessity of obedience in faith, and that baptism by trine immersion was the necessary door into the Christian fellowship for which they longed. They desired such baptism at the hands of Alexan-
16
CHURCH OF THE BRETHREN IN SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
der Mack, their leader; but he refused on the grounds that he himself had not been baptized in that manner.
Alexander Mack, Jr., has given the following account of the first baptism by the Brethren:
Being thus prepared, the Eight went out together one morning, in solitude, to a stream called Eder, and the brother, who desired to be baptized by the church of Christ, and when he was baptized, he baptized him, by whom he had been baptized, and the remaining three brothers and three sisters. Thus these Eight were all baptized at an early hour of the morning.1
The same story is related by Friedrich Nieper, a modern German historian.
One morning, just as the sun rose, they went to the Eder River. Lot determined the brother who for the first time was to administer baptism in the flowing water. After that, the one [Alexander Mack] who was first baptized, administered the same rite to his baptizer, (literally, dipped him under and baptized him) and likewise the other three brethren and three sisters.2
D. W. Kurtz has written:
I have read several letters by one of them [daughters of Count Henry] to her father in which she describes minutely the daily life of these people, especially about the "Taufers" whose lives were full of "good works, of prayers and Bible study," and "much kindness and charity."3
The first principles with them were a living practical faith, repentance and baptism followed by the practice of peace, self-denial, and an implicit obedience to all the teachings and examples of Jesus. They continued their Bible study, told others of their beliefs and gained in num- bers. So began the church later called German Baptist Brethren, now know as the Church of the Brethren.
Their quiet, peaceful life at Schwarzenau was disrupted by persecution and they took refuge in other communities; some fled to Westervain in Friesland and some went to Hol-
1 Alexander Mack, Jr., in the introduction to Rites and Ordinances and Ground Searching Questions. Page 15
2 Friedrich Nieper. Die Ersten Deutschen Auswandern von Krefeld nach Pennsylvanien, 1940. Page 125
3 D. W. Kurtz. "Origin of the Church of the Brethren," Brethren Family Almanac, 1911. Page 21
17
BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH OF THE BRETHREN
land. In 1719 Peter Becker with twenty families sailed for America and settled near Germantown, Pennsylvania, where they established the first congregation of the Brethren in America. Owing to the promising outlook in America, most of those in Germany later joined the group in Pennsylvania. In 1729 thirty families, including that of Alexander Mack, chartered the ship Allen at Rotterdam and sailed for Amer- ica on July 7; they landed at Philadelphia on September 15. Locating in eastern Pennsylvania, they soon were widely scattered. Congregations grew up at Germantown, Cone- stoga, Skippack, and Oley in Pennsylvania and later spread throughout the United States.
THE EDER RIVER
Movements Among the Brethren in Southern Illinois
THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT
Well in the vanguard of the westward movement in American history, the Brethren pioneered into the North- west Territory, using waterways as routes for transporta- tion. George Wolfe is thought to have been one of the first elders to settle west of the Alleghanies; in 1787 he had moved from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to Fayette County, in the western part of that state. He and his sons built a flatboat and in April 1800 started down the Monon- gahela River, with Kentucky as their destination. Elder J. H. Moore has very interestingly told the story of such a boat trip in Some Brethren Pathfinders.
The Wolfe family settled near Muhlenberg, Kentucky, where there was already a settlement of Brethren people, who had come from North Carolina. It was from this place that the two sons of George Wolfe, Jacob and George, Jr., went north and in 1808 settled about forty miles north of Cairo, in what was later Union County, Illinois. Then a part of Indiana Territory, Illinois did not become a state until ten years later.
THE FAR WESTERN BRETHREN
The Northwest Territory seemed so far distant from the main center of Brethren activities in the eastern part of the country that the Brethren who had pioneered into that territory were sometimes called the Far Western Breth-
20
CHURCH OF THE BRETHREN IN SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
ren. To those who lived east of the Alleghanies, all who lived west of the mountains were thought of as Western Brethren. The term Far Western Brethren originated from a query in the minutes of the Annual Meeting of 1850, which mentioned them as a body of Brethren in the "Far West." It was then used merely to distinguish them from the Western Brethren, who maintained full union and fellow- ship with those in the East.
The Far Western Brethren were from ten churches: six in Kentucky, one in Cape Girardeau County, Missouri, and three in southern Illinois: the Union County church (organized in 1812), the Sugar Creek church in Sangamon County (1830), and the Mill Creek church in Adams Coun- ty (1831). Among these churches were three strong leaders: George Wolfe of Adams County, Isham Gibson of Macoupin County, and D. B. Sturgis of Bond County.
It was difficult for the Far Western Brethren to keep in touch with the main body of the church in the East, on account of the great distances between them and the lack of good means of transportation and communication. With the passing of years some differences developed in the man- ner of observing communion services. The main points of difference were concerned with the order of proceedings in observance of the communion and with the mode of feet- washing. Although there was communication between the two groups, the issues caused serious concern for many years.
Before the Annual Meeting of 1856 a committee of elders met with the Mill Creek church in Adams County. They were so favorably impressed with the spirit and ability of Elder George Wolfe that they almost entirely lost the prejudice or unfavorable opinion which had existed; Elder Wolfe had thoroughly manifested a Christian spirit in hu- mility and in ability to meet every point at issue. "Elder Samuel Lehman, a member of the committee, said that he
MOVEMENTS AMONG THE BRETHREN IN SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 21
never before saw a man who could better manifest the spirit of Christ in his general deportment than did Elder George Wolfe."1 The differences were amiably settled at the An- nual Meeting of 1856, which was held at Lena, Illinois.
RELATED ORGANIZATIONS
Old German Baptist Brethren
There grew up within the church a group dissatisfied with what they termed innovations within it; such senti- ment seemed strongest in the Miami Valley in Ohio. Some of the disturbing factors were high schools, revivals, Sun- day schools and conventions, missionary boards, the paid ministry, musical instruments, and the single mode of feet- washing. These matters were a grievance to them for a period of years and several petitions were sent to Annual Meeting-the first in 1869. The petition sent in 1880 was re-sent in 1881 in the form of resolutions and became known as the Miami Platform. It was urged that these innovations be removed from the church. The Annual Meeting made some concessions but these were not satisfactory to the group, which called a meeting in 1881 and withdrew as a separate church organization. Resolutions of the 1881 meet- ing were circulated in various churches and those individu- als who accepted them thereby became members of the Old German Baptist Brethren Church. A number of congrega- tions in Southern Illinois were affected by this movement. First Brethren-now Brethren
Some within the church favored more progressive ac- tion along some of the lines in which the Old Order group considered the church to be already far too progressive. This group, under the leadership of Elder H. R. Holsinger, withdrew from the church in 1882 and organized the First
1 From an unpublished account written by John Heckman of Polo, Illinois
22
CHURCH OF THE BRETHREN IN SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Brethren Church-now known as the Brethren Church. Dunkard Brethren
The Dunkard Brethren represent a movement slightly affecting a few congregations in our district. Their funda- mental beliefs are the same as those of the Church of the Brethren, but the Dunkard Brethren wish to hold more closely to the regulations of the fathers in matters of dress and the simple life. They do not have a separate publishing house. They are now almost extinct in our district.
£
Congregations
The first Brethren church in southern Illinois was estab- lished in Union County by George Wolfe and others from Kentucky. After working in Union County for twenty years with a number of other families, he moved to Adams Coun- ty, where the Mill Creek congregation was organized. In the meantime, through the leadership of Isham Gibson, the Sugar Creek church began. About fifteen years later a church was established in Fulton County. Some time later Brethren from the East settled in Macon and Piatt counties. From each of these early churches groups of congregations grew. Through the tireless efforts of pioneer ministers preaching in adjoining territories, churches were established throughout southern Illinois.
In pioneer days the Brethren felt the need of a church in each community where they settled, as they could travel but a short distance with horses. The church was the social as well as the spiritual center of the community-everyone went to church. Often dinner was provided and a service followed in the afternoon.
With the country sparsely settled, the distance between the churches is indicated by some of the churches taking their names from the counties-as Union County, Cumber- land County, Shelby County and Edgar County.
At first the churches were entirely rural, often taking their names from near-by rivers or creeks, showing the dependence of the early settlers upon a good water supply. There were Sugar Creek, Mill Creek, Hurricane Creek, Panther Creek, Bear Creek, Pigeon Creek, Otter Creek, Big
24
CHURCH OF THE BRETHREN IN SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Creek, Macoupin Creek, Camp Creek, Clear Creek, Hadley Creek, Martins Creek, Pike Creek and Spring Run. Okaw, Vermillion and Kaskaskia were named from near-by rivers. Farming interests were reflected in the naming of Allison Prairie and La Motte Prairie.
When people began moving from the farms and retired in small towns, sometimes the church was also moved from the country to the towns; so often the disorganization of a church or the change of the church name meant that the church house had been moved: Coal Creek became Canton; Vermillion, Cornell; Pike Creek, Chenoa; Hadley Creek, Barry; and Pleasant Hill, Virden and Girard. With the de-
CHURCHES OF THE DISTRICT OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
(See the map on the opposite page.)
1. Allison Prairie
2. Astoria
29. Mount Vernon -- Pleasant Grove
3. Bear Creek, Christian County 30. Mulberry Grove
4. Bear Creek, Hancock County
5. Bement
6. Big Creek-Walnut Grove
7. Blue Ridge-Mansfield
8. Bushnell
34. Peoria
9. Camp Creek
10. Cerro Gordo, Piatt County
36.
Pike Creek-Chenoa
12. Clear Creek
37. Pleasant Hill
13. Concord
38. Romine
14. Cumberland County
39. Salem
15. Decatur
40. Shelby County
16. Edgar County
41. South Fork
17. Girard
42. Springfield
18. Hadley Creek
43. Spring Run
19. Hudson
44. St. Louis
20. Hurricane Creek
45. Sugar Creek
21. Kaskaskia
46. Union County
22. La Motte Prairie
47. Upper Fulton-Coal Creek-Canton
23. Litchfield
48. Urbana
24. Loraine
49. Vermillion-Cornell
25. Macoupin Creek
50. Virden
26. Martins Creek
51. West Otter Creek
52. Woodland
27. Mill Creek-Liberty
28. Milmine
31. Oakley (Cerro Gordo, Macon County)
32. Okaw-La Place
33. Panther Creek
11. Champaign
35. Pigeon Creek-Oak Grove
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26
CHURCH OF THE BRETHREN IN SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
velopment of the country came better roads and later the use of the automobile, which resulted in the merging of some adjoining congregations.
The city churches were established some time later with the movement away from the farm, as young people went to the cities for employment: Decatur, Champaign, Springfield and Peoria.
The churches usually grew and prospered where there was adequate ministry and leadership. Financial prosper- ity, however, has not always resulted in deeper spirituality.
A history of each congregation follows, as complete as possible with the information that has been found.
UNION COUNTY (1812-1884)
Among the first white settlers in what is now Union County, Illinois, were Jacob and George Wolfe, Jr., who came there from Muhlenberg, Kentucky, in 1808. Their father, George Wolfe, Sr., who had lived in Lancaster Coun- ty, Pennsylvania, had moved with his family to Fayette County, Pennsylvania, in 1787. He is thought to have been the first Brethren elder to settle west of the Alleghanies. In 1880, when George, Jr., was twenty years old, the Wolfe family moved farther west; they came down the Ohio River on a flatboat which they had built, and settled in Muhlen- berg County, Kentucky, where there were other Brethren families. It was from Muhlenberg that Jacob and George Wolfe, Jr., Adam Hunsaker and George Davis had migrated into what was later Union County, Illinois, in the year 1808.
At that time southern Illinois was a trackless forest, part of the Northwest Territory and of Indiana Territory, inhabited mostly by Indians. These men traveled some distance by boat, then explored the region and selected a
27
CONGREGATIONS
place to live. They built a log house, in which they spent the winter. The next spring they went back to Kentucky and brought their wives to this new territory. In 1803 George Wolfe, Jr., had married Ann Hunsaker; Adam Hunsaker's wife was George Wolfe's sister. Other families accompanied them and soon there was a thriving pioneer settlement near the present site of Jonesboro, Illinois, about forty miles north of Cairo, and around fifty miles east of the Cape Girardeau settlement on the Mississippi.
In 1809 George Wolfe, Sr., visited his sons in Illinois. While on this preaching tour in southern Illinois and eastern Missouri, he became sick near Kaskaskia. His son George went and cared for him, but he died and was buried there, some fifty miles north of where his sons had settled.
It is significant that an awakened interest in religion followed an earthquake in southern Illinois. Beginning about two o'clock in the morning of December 16, 1811, the central Mississippi Valley was violently disturbed by an earthquake of such severity that it was felt from Canada to New Orleans and even in Boston, eleven hundred miles away.
Early in December 1811 the New Orleans-the first steamboat to attempt a trip from the East to the gulf- was launched at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Just as it reached the mouth of the Ohio it was impossible for the captain to bring the boat to anchor near the shore for the night, on account of the landslides caused by the earthquake. There they lay watching through the long night, listening to the roar of the waters and hearing from time to time the rushing earth slide from the banks and the commotion as the mass of land and trees was plunged into the river. In some places the earth opened and streams of water or sand rose to great heights; at one great upheaval the waters of the Mississippi seemed to run upstream, only to rush
28
CHURCH OF THE BRETHREN IN SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
back again. Islands disappeared; others came into being.
Coming to the Mississippi, the pilot of the New Orleans could not distinguish the channel, so greatly had the course of the river changed. Water flowed over part of the site of New Madrid and later the town was entirely submerged. This region and that of Little Prairie-now Caruthersville -were hard hit; the settlement of a hundred families at Little Prairie was broken up and that of Great Prairie prac- tically destroyed. At New Madrid, on the Missouri side of the river, a large tract of land, with the timber on it, sank to a considerable depth, forming a lake sixty miles long and from three to twenty miles wide. Later, those sailing on this lake could see, far below, gigantic trees in great numbers as a submerged forest.1
The shocks continued during December 16 and 17, and at short intervals until January 23, when there was another shock almost as intense and destructive as the first. After two weeks of quiet, on February 7 there were several alarm- ing and destructive shocks which equaled or surpassed any former disturbance; for several days a constant tremor rocked the earth. Small shocks frequently occurred at in- tervals of a few days for fully a year afterwards.2 So great and numerous were the disturbances that it was regarded as almost miraculous that the New Orleans con- tinued down the Mississippi and reached Natchez.
The disturbance of the earthquake was followed by a
1 J. H. Moore. Some Brethren Pathfinders. Page 63
2 Myron L. Fuller. The New Madrid Earthquake. United States Depart- ment of the Interior, Geological Survey Bulletin No. 494 (1912) Charles Joseph Latrobe. The Rambler in North America. London (1936). Volume 1, pages 107-108
G. C. Broadhead. The American Geologist. Volume 31 (1902)
Lloyds Steamboat Directory. Cincinnati (1856). Page 325
Timothy Flint. Recollections of the Last Ten Years in the Valley of the Mississippi. Boston (1926). Pages 222-228
Samuel Lathan Mitchell. Transactions of the Literary and Philosophical Society. New York (1815). Volume 1, pages 281-307
Sir Charles Llyell. A Second Visit to the United States. London (1849). Volume 2, pages 228-239
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