USA > Indiana > Northwestern Indiana from 1800 to 1900; or, A view of our region through the nineteenth century > Part 15
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RELIGIOUS HISTORY.
tended, and soon the use of Cheshire Hall, now Music Hall, in the center of town, was secured; and in that hall meetings were held day after day, night after night, not only for weeks but for months, making the most singular series of meetings connected with Lake County history. The order of exercises need not here be detailed. A record can be found in Lake County, 1884, page 216. The winter was quite cold, the sleigh- ing was usually good, and from the country those who resided many miles distant would come each night, devoting their time during that winter largely to re- ligious interests. All classes of citizens attended. The meetings would not fully close often until eleven o'clock at night. The record is that for some three months these meetings thus continued at Crown Point. Some strange influence seemed to bring to- gether and to hold the people. Quite a large number professed conversion, and many were afterwards bap- tized. The baptisms were usually immersions, the ad- ministrator evangelist Martin.
Similar meetings, but not of so long continuance, were held at Lowell and Hobart in Lake County, and at Blachley's Corners and at Hebron in Porter County. Although at first and through the series of meetings disavowing any denominational plans or ef- forts, it was found by the leaders, when the results of the meetings appeared in the several congregations that were naturally formed, that something of church work must be undertaken. And so they organized churches in 1877 at Crown Point, at Ross; at Ho- bart, probably the same year ; at the Handley school- house and at Hebron, having at Hebron eighty mem- bers.
The name proposed for each was, the Union Mis-
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NORTHWESTERN INDIANA.
sion Church. Some church buildings were erected. A general superintendent or presiding officer was ap- pointed, and for a few years systematic work was car- ried on. But the leaders separated. One became a Congregationalist, one an Epsicopal Methodist; one a Free Methodist, and the new denomination of Band Mission churches was suffered to go down. The "Union Mission Church" at Crown Point became Free Methodist in 1881. As a result of that Band movement about one hundred and fifty were baptized in Lake County, quite a number in Porter, and four church buildings were erected, one at Ross, one at Hobart, one at Hebron, these at length becoming in name Congregational, and the one at Crown Point which became Free Methodist.
As early as 1882 the church, which had been or- ganized with eighty members and which in 1878 had erected a building costing two thousand dollars, had lost its visibility, and in its place was organized in April of that year, a Congregational church of forty members. This church maintained an existence for some little time, but that has also disappeared and the two thousand dollar church building is now tenant- less. At Ross, where the Band movement com- menced, and where a good brick building was erected, the congregation is in part, denominationally, Con- gregational and in part Free Methodist.
At Hobart the Band Church is fully Congrega- tional.
18. United Brethren.
The Christians that bear this noble name, kindred they would seem to be to the noted Moravians, are not very numerous in these counties. In Starke
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RELIGIOUS HISTORY.
County are three United Brethren churches, at Round Lake one, at North Judson and at Grovertown.
In Newton County, at Morocco, there is a strong, prosperous congregation. There the "Brethren" built in 1898 a brick church, a more than ordinarily excel- lent house for any of our towns. Years ago there were individuals and congregations of this denomina- tion in other counties, but no other church organiza- tion, besides these four, seems to be in existence in these counties now. Professor Jameson, in his Dic- tionary says of the "United Brethren in Christ," as a body, "Its membership lies principally in rural dis- tricts and numbered in 1890, 225,000."
19. The Believers.
In 1878 there came to Crown Point a preacher who not long before left Scotland, where he had for sev- eral years been holding religious meetings in hamlets and villages and forming congregations of a somewhat new variety. He held some meetings in the Presby- terian Church. In 1879 he came again with a tent, and for a number of days and evenings held tent meet- ings on Sherman Street. As a result of these meet- ings a congregation was gathered from the then lately formed "Band" congregation, and from the Metho- dist, Presbyterian, and Baptist churches. This con- gregation, not large in number, and having lost some of the original members, has been holding regular meetings ever since.
It is not needful to endeavor to give here their pe- culiar views, any further than to place on record this statement, that they endeavor "to copy the simplicity of primitive Christianity."
A congregation of the same kind was some years later formed at Lowell, and these of late have held
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their meetings in the unoccupied Baptist church build- ing. Both of these congregations maintain Sunday- schools.
A third congregation was formed in Valparaiso about the same time that the one was formed in Crown Point.
These are not called churches, yet they seem to have some kind of fellowship with others of the same variety of Christians in Illinois, and some of them unite in an annual meeting in Chicago each fall or early winter. Their historic record is that they have proved to be very quiet, peaceful, pious, useful citi- zens. These three congregations number about
20. The German Evangelicals.
In 1855 an organization of Christian workers called The Evangelical Association, commenced missionary work in Hanover Township of Lake County. A church was organized and a building erected; but church life soon ceased.
In 1867 mission work was commenced by Rev. L. Willman at Crown Point. In 1874 a church was or- ganized and a building erected. A congregation was gathered east of Crown Point at Deer Creek. Since 1856 about thirty different missionary and resident pastors have labored in Lake County, faithful and diligent workers all, but the membership has not in- creased for the last sixteen years, continuing to be about forty.
Again and again, in the records of this chapter, the same lesson appears : that there seems to be no need in every place or in every county for every variety of Christians to be represented. There are too many small interests. There is not enough hearty good will and fellowship among the different companies of the
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Christian army, to enable them to march on, as some of them seem confidently to expect, to the conquest of the world.
Not counted in with any of the twenty varieties of Christian denominations that have been named, not numbered with these thousands, yet helping to form with these a little part of the great Church Militant, is a small congregation at Dyer in Lake County, consti- tuting a Protestant Union Church. This church was organized September 20, 1891. A good house of wor- ship was soon built and well furnished, and for now nearly nine years an interesting Sunday school has been kept up and Protestant worship has been main- tained. For several months a student from a Metho- dist seminary at Chicago will be the "supply" for the pulpit, and then for several months a student from a Baptist seminary. But the church is Union, those who had been brought up Lutheran or Reformed, or Methodist, or Congregationalist, or Episcopal, or Baptist, or Universalist, all agreeing to worship and work together as Protestant Christians. The town of Dyer is almost entirely Roman Catholic, and they must as Protestants be a peaceful and compact body.
There are in Lake County two other undenomina- tional church buildings, but no other Union organiza- tion, and at Kouts in Porter County there is an unde- nominational church house.
CHAPTER XVI.
SUNDAY SCHOOLS AND MISSIONARIES.
To a large extent the men and women who settled this region came from centers of cultivation and in- telligence in older states, and brought with them the results of their early training. There were some fam- ilies who had lived on frontiers before, and had en- joyed few advantages for education and improvement ; but they were not the founders of institutions here.
It was but natural that those men and women with firm religious principle and with their strength of character, realizing almost intuitively that they were here to lay foundations for coming generations, should soon commence studying and teaching the Scriptures, and should have soon in active development what are called Sunday schools. They had brought with them their Bibles and their hymn books, and although the world was not sixty-five and seventy years ago as it is now, human nature was the same, the deep human needs were the same, and no book was so well adapted as was the Bible to meet these needs in the wilderness. The religious history and the beginning of church life have been given, so far as these records are concerned, and it remains now to look over some of the school records of sixty or more years. But the material for minute details has not been generally preserved, and a general survey of the beginnings in most of these counties is all that can be attempted here to be given. As prayer meetings were held, first in La Porte
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County as the first that was really settled, and then in White, and in a few years in Jasper and Pulaski, and in Porter and Lake, so in these counties the children were invited to meet on Sundays in the log school houses, and to bring their Testaments, and to spend an hour or more-there was not so much hurry then as now-in reading and in reciting verses learned at home, and in singing some of the good, old church hymns, and in prayer. Those who have searched early records and conversed with the first settlers do not seem to have secured the dates of many schools or the names of the first teachers.
Incidentally, in General Packard's account of La Porte, it is mentioned that a Sabbath school was there organized in 1837, "in which A. and J. B. Fravel took a deep interest." And it is further mentioned, Rev. G. M. Boyd is the narrator now, that there was then no barber in La Porte and so J. B. Fravel cut the hair of the men, charging each man a dime, and ap- propriated the money to purchase a Sunday-school library. Also it is stated that on the Fourth of July of that year, "the little school was out in patriotic procession, "and that Daniel Webster, then in La Porte, "standing in his carriage addressing the citi- zens," said of the children as they came in sight, "There, fellow citizens, is the hope of our country." Perhaps this is the record of the first school and first library and first procession of Sunday-school children in this region. It may be that among the Presbyte- rians on Rolling Prairie there was an earlier school. Let him, who can so do, produce the record.
In 1843 Rev. G. M. Boyd says, "As the church in- creased, the interest in the Sunday-school cause in- creased. The returns show an aggregate of three
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hundred and five scholars in the county." The schools continued to increase, and in 1876 there were reported fifteen Methodist schools and one thousand four hun- dred and eighty-two scholars.
Other denominations were not remiss in estab- lishing and carrying on schools. The county of La Porte for sixty-three years has a good, but largely un- vritten, Sunday-school record.
In Porter County, the first record of a Sunday school found, is in the history of "Porter and Lake," where it is stated that in 1838 or 1839 a school was organized by Benson Harris and Ira G. Harris, (who were sons of Elder Harris, a Baptist minister), and George Bronson. This school was near the present town of Wheeler. It is further stated that this school soon had an average attendance of eighty members and that sometimes more than one hundred were present. Some of the statements in regard to this school are such as to cast a doubt upon the accuracy of the record. A year or two later in date would probably be more accurate. The next record, and this comes from the pen of Rev. R. Beer, is of a Union school of eighteen pupils, organized by Mrs. Brown and Hugh A. Brown, wife and brother of Rev. J. C. Brown, in the fall of 1840 or in the winter. This was in what became the city of Valparaiso, and this school of eighteen members is said to have included "every child of suitable age in the neighborhood." It was held in the court house until the spring of 1841.
The children increased in number and school after school followed this one in various parts of the county.
The same course of events took place south of the Kankakee River. Some one started a pioneer Sun- day school, and year by year other schools were added
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to the number; but the names of those first earnest men and women are not at hand to be placed upon this page.
White and Jasper are the leading Sunday-school counties now, so far as the number of schools is con- sidered, and it is a matter for regret that their earliest Sunday-school history cannot be given here. There may be yet living those who know it, or there may be some who have access to it. Next in the number of schools to Jasper is La Porte, and then Pulaski and Lake, which are in number the same. Whatever may have been its early history, Pulaski is a good Sunday- school county now. And Starke and Newton, with later beginnings, have worked nobly up. In Starke, in that part of the county where is now North Jud- son, the first school was organized in 1866, a Union school, William Palmore, Superintendent. Succeed- ing superintendents were Dr. Quick, and brethren Strong, Lightcap, and Jones. Another Union school, W. Palmore, Superintendent, was also organized in 1866, about four miles west of North Judson. This must have been about the beginning of school work, in Starke. In the same year the United Brethren or- ganized in North Judson with seven members, and about ten years later, an organization having been previously effected, the Methodists erected a church building in North Judson. In 1884 the "Brethren" also built a church, and then the Union school was divided, and two denominational schools formed, one meeting in the morning, the other in the afternoon, some of the children attending both schools.
In 1886 twenty schools were found in Starke, as reported in "Our Banner," a Sunday-school paper, called more fully North-Western Indiana Sunday
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School Banner, published in 1886 in the interest of tlie "22d District," which included then as now the coun- ties of Lake, Porter, La Porte, and Starke. Probably the oldest Superintendent in Starke County, that is, the one longest in office, is W. Lightcap of North Jud- son. He was in office in 1886 and it is understood that he is Superintendent of the United Brethren school still. He is a nephew of the earlier one of the same name.
Lake County has its Sunday school history for fifty years, from about 1840 to 1890, in a volume of two hundred pages, published in 1891, called "The Sunday Schools of Lake." In that work it is stated : "Wednesday, August 27, 1890, the 25th anniversary of the Lake County Sunday-school Convention was observed, as also the 50th anniversary of Sunday- school work in Lake County. To the observance of this double anniversary this memorial volume owes its existence." As in that volume the Sunday-school history of Lake County is so fully given, but little need be given here; only such statements seem needful here as will give some general idea of Lake County Sun- day schools in connection with the schools in the other counties.
The first schools in the county were commenced about 1840 and some of them have been kept up through all these sixty years, while to most of the earlier schools changes came, and year after year new ones were opened.
The Lake County Sunday School Convention was organized at Crown Point in 1865. It held its "First Anniversary" in 1866, and its twenty-fifth in 1890 ;. while the State Convention, organized the same year, in 1865, counted its twenty-fifth annual meeting in
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SUNDAY SCHOOLS AND MISSIONARIES.
1889. As in the year of this writing (1899) the "35th Annual State Convention" was held at Columbus, the State organization would seem to be one year older than the Lake County organization, which could call this only its 34th annual meeting. The difference of a year in numbering is only a different method of count- ing. Whether a child born in 1865 would be twenty- five years old in 1889 or in 1890 is not a hard question to settle ; but of course an organization may call the day of its organization its first annual meeting, if it so chooses. It does not make it one year old on that day.
The Lake County organization, claiming to be as old in years as the State organization, held its second anniversary in 1867. Two days were devoted to the exercises. On the first day was held a teachers' con- vention. There were present by invitation, from Chi- cago, Rev. O. Adams, brother M. W. Smith, a de- voted infant class teacher, and Rev. N. D. William- son. Questions were investigated, How can the churches be more effectually enlisted in the Sabbath school work? What are the duties of superintend- ents and teachers? An address was given by Rev. O. Adams on "The Art of Teaching," the subject of "Teachers' Meetings" was taken up, and written questions were answered by brother Williamson.
In the evening an address was given by Rev. N. D. Williamson on "Claims of the Sabbath School on the Whole Community."
The next day, which was Wednesday, August 21, 1867, most of the schools of the county met at the Fair Ground. Addresses to the children were de- livered by brothers Williamson and Smith. Rev. Mr. Clarke, of La Porte, spoke on "the best means of
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reaching the destitution of the county," the Secre- tary reported the schools of the county, and seven resolutions were presented by Judge Turner, of Crown Point, and adopted. Also two were offered by Rev. T. C. Stringer, Methodist pastor at Crown Point. As showing what the county organization proposed to do, the fifth of Judge Turner's resolutions is here quoted : "That the work of the Lake County Sun- day School Union is, the establishment in every school district in the county, of a Sabbath school, for winter as well as summer, furnished with blackboards and all suitable requisites."
The sixth resolution had reference to township or- ganizations, and the seventh to sending out a Sunday- school missionary. In adopting these resolutions, and in undertaking this work, it is evident that the Sun- day-school workers of Lake County had, as early as 1867, some fair ideas in regard to Sunday-school work.
The presidents of the convention for twenty-five years were Judge Hervey Ball, who lived to be about seventy-five years of age, Rev. H. Wason, who lived more than eighty-three years, Rev. R. B. Young, seventy-five years of age, Rev. Dr. Fleming, age at death unknown, Judge David Turner, seventy-three years of age, Hugh Boyd, of South East Grove, still living, between eighty and ninety years of age, J. L. Worley of Lowell, still living, seventy-nine years of age, A. A. Winslow, now American Consul in Bel- gium, and Cyrus F. Dickinson, of Lowell. First Sec- retary, Rev. J. L. Lower; second, Rev. T. H. Ball, from 1866 to 1877; third, Professor O. J. Andrews ; fourth, Rev. T. H. Ball, from 1879 to 1890; in all twenty-two years.
Besides the regular convention meetings each year,
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institutes have been held along the lines of these years by the county secretary, aided by others, at the Butler School, at Ross, Merrillville, Hammond, Hobart, Lake Station, Hurlburt Corners, Le Roy, Eagle Creek, Plum Grove, Orchard Grove, South East Grove, Lowell, Pine Grove, Creston, and Crown Point.
In 1890, when the work of organizing schools was about completed, there were reported forty-five "schools of the present," also forty-five "schools of the past," and twenty-two schools not connected with the County convention, Catholic, Lutheran, and Unita- rian.
On Wednesday, August 29, 1894, "The Lake Coun- ty Sabbath School Convention" was changed to "The Lake County Sunday School Union." "A new consti- tution was adopted and allegiance to the State Associ- ation was pledged. This action marks an epoch in the Sunday School history of Lake County."* It cer- tainly did mark quite a change in some respects. A new name, a new object, a new constitution, and a new time for holding anniversary meetings. The old organization continued for twenty-nine years and then came to a sudden and unexpected close. The new one has not enlisted the interest of many of the schools of the county. What it may do remains to be seen.
* Quoted from the Awakener of Indianapolis.
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NORTHWESTERN INDIANA.
SUNDAY SCHOOL STATISTICS.
Counties.
Schools. Membership.
Lake
46
¥4,500
Porter
39
* 4 000
La Porte
59
7,460
Starke
26
2,027
Pulaski
46
¥4,000
White
66
*6,000
Jasper
64
4,029
Newton
32
¥3,000
Total
378
35,016
The figures here given, as to the membership of the schools, are not all of them in accordance with offi- cial reports, but none are less than the official reports at hand, and are sufficiently accurate for comparison.
MISSIONARIES.
Among those who have gone from Indiana to heathen lands as missionaries Lake County has sent out one.
Mrs. Annie (Turner) Morgan, a member of a pio- neer family, the third daughter of Judge David Tur- ner, was born in Crown Point ; was a member of the Crown Point Presbyterian Sunday School, was edu- cated in Crown Point, and at Oxford in Ohio; was married to the Rev. Freeman E. Morgan of Elgin, Ill., a Baptist minister, who spent some time in Crown Point, and the two, having been appointed as mis- sionaries by the American Baptist Missionary Union, left for India by way of Europe, in October, 1879.
*Estimated.
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SUNDAY SCHOOLS AND MISSIONARIES.
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Mr. Morgan was stationed at Kurnool, a city of 25,000 inhabitants, on the Tungabhadra River, in the Madras presidency of India, his field extending out- ward from twenty to forty miles. Mr. and Mrs. Mor- gan were members of the Telugu mission, fifteen mil- lions of people speaking the Telugu language. The name was formerly written Teloogoo. For seven years valuable labor was performed among the Te- lugus, and missionary life was well learned, when the family were obliged to return to this country on ac- count of Mr. Morgan's health. His affliction termi- nated fatally in a few years. Mrs. Morgan and her children are living near her early home. Twenty full years have passed since she went forth full of hope to do good service in the wide mission field, that "field" which "is the world."
Porter County has also been represented in the foreign field. Miss Carrie Buchanan, daughter of the Rev. J. N. Buchanan of Hebron, for eight years a missionary of the United Presbyterian Church, hav- ing her portion of the field in Egypt, returned to her home in Hebron on account of failing health in the fall of 1899. It is understood that she will soon re- turn to her Egyptian field.
White County has a representative now in Persia as a missionary physician. Miss Emma T. Miller was born in Monon, then called Bradford, received her first school instruction there and then at the high school at Monticello. In September, 1886, she entered the Cook County Nurses' Training School, Chicago, hav- ing some six years before, when fifteen years of age, felt herself called to do mission work. She graduated in 1888, in the spring, and the next fall entered the Womans' Medical College of Chicago, and graduated
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"with high honors" in 1890. In 1891 she sailed from New York and reached Oroomiah, in Persia, where she became matron of the hospital which had been es- tablished there. "Her work consists in attendance on the patients in the hospital, teaching a class in Ma- teria Medica, and answering calls from the people in the surrounding country." Dr. Emma T. Miller is still in active work .*
Presbyterian teachers in what Mrs. Moore calls Home Missions, aiding the colored people of the South. Mrs. Mary E. Allen, born in Indiana, for some years a pastor's wife in the South, established the Mary Allen Seminary at Crockett, in Texas, for the education of "colored girls," which was opened in 1886. Rev. J. B. Smith, then Presbyterian pastor at Monticello, left that church to take charge of the Seminary. The teachers from northwestern Indiana have been: Miss Margaret P. Bolles, from Reming- ton, a teacher there in the public schools, who went to Mary Allen Seminary in 1866, but who returned to Remington in feeble health and died in 1895, and Miss Ella Ferguson, of Monticello, now in the Seminary, "the head teacher, a noble woman and good worker."
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