History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men, Part 153

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts
Number of Pages: 1358

USA > Missouri > St Louis County > St Louis City > History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men > Part 153

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Ludwig S. Jacoby, D.D., was born on the 21st of October, 1813, in Old Strelitz, Mecklenburg, Ger- many, and died in St. Louis on the 21st of June, 1874. He received a good education, especially in the ancient languages, and in 1835 was baptized by a Lutheran clergyman. In 1839 he emigrated to America, and located in Cincinnati as a physician. He also devoted himself to teaching. While at- tending the religious services held by Dr. Nast on Christmas-day his interest in religion was awakened, and he was converted on the following watch-night. In August, 1841, he was sent to St. Louis by Bishop Morris to start the first German mission in that city, and his labors were rewarded with great success. In 1849, owing to his desire for the conversion of his native countrymen, Bishop Morris, with the co-opera- tion of the Missionary Board, sent him to Germany to begin evangelistic work in Bremen. His labors there resulted in the formation of a Methodist Epis- copal Society. In his work in Germany he labored faithfully as presiding elder, pastor, editor, book agent, and superintendent. Having spent- twenty-two years in that work he returned to the United States, and was transferred to the Southwestern German Con- ference, and stationed at the Eighth Street German Church, St. Louis. He was a delegate from the Germany and Switzerland Conference to the General Conference of 1872.

In 1864 three German Conferences were established, called the Central, Northwestern, and Southwestern,

St. Louis District being included in the Southwestern. In 1879 the St. Louis Conference was organized, com- prising St. Louis, Belleville, and Quincy, Ill., and Burlington, Iowa, Districts. It reported 8344 mem- bers, 130 churches, 112 local preachers, 67 parsonages, 157 Sunday-schools, with 1555 officers and teachers and 8471 scholars. The value of the church property was estimated at $400,000. The presiding bishops of the Southwestern Conference were: Edmund S. Jancs, 1864, 1868, 1871 ; Edward R. Ames, 1865, 1875; Matthew Simpson, 1866, 1870 ; Levi Scott, 1867, 1874; Edward Thompson, 1869; Gilbert Haven, 1872; Thomas Bowman, 1873; Isaac W. Wiley, 1876; Jesse T. Peck, 1877 ; Stephen M. Merrill, 1878; of St. Louis Conference, Thomas Bowman, 1879; Edward G. Andrews, 1880; John F. Hurst, 1881. The presiding elders of St. Louis District since 1864 have been Revs. Philip Kuhl, 1864; John Kost, 1865; Gerhard Timkin, 1866; Frederick Stoffregen, 1867-70 ; Henry Pfaff, 1871- 72; L. S. Jacoby, 1873; Wm. Schwind, 1874-77 ; J. M. De Wein, 1878-81.

First German Church .- The First German Meth- odist Episcopal Church, situated at the southwest corner of Sixteenth and Wash Streets, Rev. Charles Holtkamp, pastor, was organized in 1841 by Rev. L. S. Jacoby, who was its pastor during the first two years of its existence. His successors since 1864 . have been Revs. John Schlagenhauf, 1864-65 ; Henry Pfaff, 1866-68; Charles Heidel, 1869-71; supply, 1872; Henry Pfaff, 1873-75 ; Charles Hei- del, 1876; Henry Schuetz, 1877-79; Charles Holt- kamp, 1880-82. The church is in a prosperous condition, the average attendance being about seven hundred. The first place of worship built by the congregation stands on Wash Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Streets. It was sold to the colored Methodists, and is now occupied and known as Wesley Chapel. It is a two-story brick building, forty by seventy feet, and seats about two hundred and fifty persons. The present church building was erected in 1872. It is a two-story structure, sixty by one hundred and ten feet, with lecture- and class-rooms on the first floor. The main audi- torium, including the gallery, will seat eight hun- dred persons. The church lot measures seventy-five by one hundred and fifty feet. The cost of the prop- erty was for lot, sixteen thousand dollars ; for church, fifty thousand dollars ; and for parsonage, uine thou- sand dollars.

Benton Street German Church .- This church was organized in 1854, and since 1864 has had for pastors Revs. Henry Waumann, 1864-66; Aug. Korf-

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hage, 1867-68; Henry Ellenbeck, 1869-71; Henry Schuetz, 1872-74; George Buehner, 1875-77 ; H. Lahrmann, 1878-80; and Charles Rodenberg, 1881 -82. The church building is situated at the south- west corner of Thirteenth and Benton Streets. It was erected in 1850, and seats about two hundred persons. There are seventy-five families and two hundred and twenty members connected with the congregation, and twenty-six teachers with over two hundred pupils in the Sunday-school.

Eighth Street German Church was organized about 1864, since when the pastors have been Revs. J. M. Winkler, 1864-65; R. Havighorst, 1866; Jacob Feisel, 1867-68; Henry Pfaff, 1869-70 ; supply, 1871; L. S. Jacoby, 1872; Charles Heidel, 1873- 75; Henry Pfaff, 1876; J. P. Miller, 1877-78; Fred- erick Stoffragen, 1879 ; Henry Schuetz, 1880-82. The membership numbers two hundred, and the morning Sunday-school is attended by nine teachers and about eighty scholars. The building, situated at the south- west corner of Eighth and Soulard Streets, is a two- story brick, with lecture- and class-rooms on the first floor. St. Paul's Church, on Sophia Street, between Pestalozzi and Arsenal Streets, which was established in 1874, and had Rev. J. Louis Kessler for pastor in 1876-78, is now used exclusively as the afternoon Sunday-school of the Eighth Street Church, under the supervision of Henry Meyer, with ten teachers and an average attendance of one hundred scholars.

AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCHES.

Up to 1816 the colored Methodists had no separate organization, but in April, 1816, a convention of col- ored delegates was held in Philadelphia, and the African Methodist Episcopal Church was formed. Richard Allen, the first colored minister ordained in the United States (ordained by Bishop Asbury in 1799), was consecrated bishop of the new church on the 11th of April, 1816. The General Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church is now divided into nine Episcopal districts, the fourth of which includes the Missouri, North Missouri, Kansas, and Illinois Conferences, and is presided over by Bishop T. M. D. Ward, D.D., who was elected and consecrated to that office at the General Conference sitting at Washington, D. C., in May, 1868. In 1866 the General Conference of the Methodist Epis- copal Church South established several colored Annual Conferences, which organized a colored General Con- ference, which first met at Nashville, Tenn., Dec. 16, 1870. There were at the time some colored churches in St. Louis in connection with this General Confer- ence South, but they have dwindled away, and now

all the colored Methodist Churches in the city (with one exception) belong either to the African Confer- ence above named or to what is known as the Zion Conference.

Wesley Chapel (Colored), 1008 Wash Street, Rev. J. W. Hughes, pastor, was organized in 1858 with seventy-five members, and its pastors since 1866 (up to which time it depended on supplies) have been Revs. E. W. S. Peck, 1867-69; E. Pitts, 1871-72; F. H. Sinall, 1873-75 ; R. H. Smith, 1876-78; E. Pitts, 1879; J. W. Hughes, 1880-82. This is the only colored church in St. Louis that is connected with the St. Louis Methodist Episcopal Conference (white). It reports four hundred and thirty members, one hun- dred and four probationers, fifteen teachers, and one hundred and eighty children in the Sunday-schools, and a church and parsonage valued at about three thousand dollars.

St. Peter's Church .- The corner-stone of St. Peter's African Methodist Episcopal Church, situated at the corner of Elliott Avenue and Montgomery. Street, was laid on the 18th of May, 1874, and the building, a one-story brick structure, was completed in 1865. On the 29th of October, 1882, the corner- stone of a large building to occupy the same lot was laid. The church is well attended, and attached to it is a flourishing Sunday-school. The pastor is the Rev. J. I. Lowe.

St. Paul's Church, situated at the corner of Eleventh Street and Christy Avenue, is the largest colored Methodist congregation in the city, and wor- ships in a large and handsome brick building which was erected in 1872, under the pastorate of Rev. John Turner. It is of St. Louis brick, ninety-seven by fifty-eight feet, and reflects great credit on the architect, A. T. Berthe, a colored man. The building, which cost twenty-eight thousand dollars, was dedi- cated on the 4th of August, 1872. The congregation embraces five hundred families, with two thousand two hundred names enrolled on the church. list and twelve hundred communicants. There arc thirty-two teachers and four hundred scholars in the Sunday- school, and the pastor is the Rev. T. M. Henderson.

Quinn Chapel, Market and Third Streets, Caron- delet, Rev. B. W. Stewart, pastor, has an average congregation of about one hundred and fifty.

Washington Zion Chapel .- This congregation, situated at 2627 Morgan Street (Rev. A. J. Warner, pastor), has in its connection three hundred and fifty families, about one thousand attendants, and one hun- dred and fifty communicants. There are twenty-five teachers and nearly two hundred scholars in the Sun- day-school.

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HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.

Washington Zion, St. Mark's Branch, Morgan Street, between Eighteenth and Nineteenth Streets, Rev. Anthony Bunch, pastor, has a membership of fifty families, sixty communicants, and seven teachers and fifty scholars in the Sunday-school.

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES.

Early History .- Among the American Protestants who emigrated to St. Louis after the cession of the territory to the United States was Stephen Hemp- stead, of New London, Conn. He arrived in St. Louis on the 12th of June, 1811, with his family, and settled on a farm which is now part of Belle- fontaine cemetery. He was in his fifty-eighth year, and had been a soldier in the war of the Revolution, and a member of the Presbyterian Church for twenty- four years. The first sermon heard by him in his new home was preached, seven months after his ar- rival, by a Baptist minister. In 1812, Revs. S. J. Mills and J. F. Schermerhorn were sent out by the missionary societies of Massachusetts and Connecticut on an exploring expedition to the South and West, and from Fort Massac, near Shawneetown, Ill., they wrote to Mr. Hempstead, who, in reply, spoke so con- fidently of the prospect for ministerial labor, that in 1814 Mr. Mills, with Rev. Daniel Smith, repaired to St. Louis as agents of the Philadelphia Bible and Missionary Societies, They remained a short time, during which they preached frequently. They or- ganized a Bible society, and collected some three hundred dollars for it, and their labors marked the beginning of Presbyterianisın in Missouri. Hemp- stead soon after wrote to Dr. Channing, of Boston, earnestly entreating that ministers be sent to Mis- souri. "I think," he says, " the number of families in the Territory which removed from the States that have been born and educated in the Presbyterian Church is not less than one thousand, and not a Presbyterian minister or society in the country." In the autumn of 1816, Dr. Gideon Blackburn visited St. Louis, and remained a short time, preaching in the theatre on Main Street below Market. But the real pioneer of Presbyterianism in Missouri was Salmon Giddings, who was induced by the re- ports of Mills and others to choose Missouri as his field of missionary labor. He was commissioned for this work by the Connecticut Home Missionary So- ciety, and left Hartford in December, 1815. He made the journey of twelve hundred miles on horse- back in the winter, and on April 6, 1816, reached St. Louis, where he found no Protestant Church of any kind in existence. He administered the Lord's Supper, July 21, 1816, to Stephen Hempstead and

his wife and daughter, and probably to Thomas Os- borne, as the latter and Hempstead were in the follow- ing year made elders of the first church organized in the city. This was the first time the rite had been administered by Presbyterian hands west of the Mis- sissippi. At Bellevue settlement, Washington Co., about eighty miles from St. Louis, four Presbyterian elders from North Carolina had maintained religious service since 1807, and here Mr. Giddings organized, Aug. 2, 1816, the first Presbyterian congregation in Missouri. It was called Concord Church, and num- bered thirty members. To this little congregation, and a large concourse of persons who did not belong to it, he preached in the open air on Sunday, August 4th. In two years the communicants had increased in number to forty-eight. In the autumn of 1817 the Rev. Thomas Donnell removed to the Territory from Kentucky, and received a call from the church to become the pastor. On the 25th of April, 1818, he was installed, with the understanding that he was to divide his time in ministering to this congregation and to adjacent settlements. During his ministry many additions to the church were made. Mr. Don- nell died on the 8th of February, 1843. Owing to frequent removals of members to other portions of the Territory, the congregation in 1823 numbered only forty-five persons.

On the 16th of October, 1876, Mr. Giddings or- ganized a church of seventeen members at Bonhomme, St. Louis Co. One of the constituent members was Stephen Hempstead, Sr. For some years the church was without a regular pastor, receiving only occasional visits from different ministers. Among these the most frequent in attendance was the Rev. Mr. Giddings. Meetings were usually held in the log cabins of the settlers, and, owing to the unsettled state of the country, the early growth of the congre- gation was not encouraging. In two years four per- sons were received on profession of faith, and five were dismissed, owing to their removal. Up to 1824 ten persons had been received, yet owing to deaths and removals only ten remained. During 1824 and 1825, Rev. John Ball prcached occasionally for the congregation.

Rev. Timothy Flint, the second Presbyterian min- ister who settled in Missouri, arrived at St. Charles Sept. 10, 1816, and remained there several years. Rev. John Matthews was the next, who arrived in May, 1817. He established himself near the site of the present city of Louisiana, and organized the Buf- falo Church.

Mr. Matthews had previously been a resident of Erie County, Pa. With his duties as minister of the

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church he combined those of an itinerant missionary, under the patronage of the Connecticut Missonary Society (Congregationalist) and the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. In 1821 the church had increased to thirty members. In March, 1825, Mr. Matthews removed from that region to Cape Girardeau County, and from thence to Illinois. Subsequently he became pastor of the church in Bonhomme settlement.

The fourth Presbyterian Church established west of the Mississippi was the First Presbybertian Church of St. Louis, which was organized on the 15th of No- vember, 1817, by the Rev. Salmon Giddings. The congregation consisted of nine members, of whom the ruling elders were Stephen Hempstead and Thomas Osborne. The church at St. Charles was established Aug. 29, 1818, by Rev. S. Giddings and Rev. John Matthews. On the 18th of December, 1817, the Presbytery of Missouri (organized by the Synod of Tennessee), consisting of the four ministers and four churches just named, held its first mecting in St. Louis. Its territory comprised all that portion of Illinois west of a meridian drawn through the mouth of Cumber- land River and running north, nearly the whole State, together with all Missouri. The first sermon printed in Missouri was preached by Mr. Giddings, on the death of Edward Hempstead, Territorial rep- resentative in Congress, and son of Stephen Hemp- stead. The second was by the same minister, on the first installation west of the river, that of Thomas Donnell as pastor of Concord Church, April 25, 1818. During the nine years that followed, Pres- byterian ministers labored industriously and organ- ized churches throughout the State as far north as Louisiana, as far west as Chariton, and as far south as Apple Creek, while Giddings continued his work of organizing churches throughout Missouri and Illi- nois. On the 7th of December, 1818, he installed as pastor of the church at St. Charles the Rev. C. S. Robinson, who had come from Massachusetts as a missionary in 1816, and of whom it is related that he was at one time " entirely out of money and out of food for his family, but just when his need was great- est he found a silver dollar imbedded in the earth, which sufficed for all his wants until a more perma- nent supply came,"-a picture of the trials and diffi- culties of the pioneer preachers of those days. Dur- ing the same year the Territory was visited by two young missionaries, Nicholas Patterson and a Mr. Alexander, who had been sent out under the patron- age of the Board of Missions of the General Assem- bly of the Presbyterian Church. They traveled ex- tensively in the counties along the Missouri River. Union Church of Richwoods, Jefferson Co., was or-

ganized by Mr. Giddings on the 17th of April, 1818, but in a few ycars became extinct. The church at Dardenne was constituted Sept. 19, 1819, by the Rev. Charles S. Robinson.

An interesting episode in the denominational his- tory of this period is the organization of a mission to the Osage Indians, which was established in 1820 at Harmony, near the line of Vernon and Bates Coun- ties. The company, consisting of three ministers, a physician, farmers, mechanics, a schoolmaster, and twelve ladies, had to ascend the Arkansas River and pass through the Cherokee country to reach their destination. Two of the ladies died on the way. Two years later a church was organized with twenty members, to which only two others were added in ten years. In April, 1821, the Rev. Edward Hollister organized a church at Franklin, opposite Boonville, which survived only a few years. The church of Apple Creek, in Girardeau County, was constituted May 21, 1821, by the Rev. Salmon Giddings. In 1825 the congregation had increased from forty-one (the original number) to fifty-four members, and the Rev. John Matthews became the pastor.

The first ordination in Missouri was that of the Rev. W. S. Lacy, March, 1824, by the presbytery, which held its sessions in the Baptist Church in St. Louis, the Rev. Messrs. Charles S. Robinson, Jessc Townsend, Salmon Giddings, and Thomas Donnell taking part in the exercises. The second ordination was that of Jolin S. Ball, a State senator, who, liaving been converted, resigned his position, received instruc- tion from Mr. Giddings, and was licensed in 1824 and ordained June 12, 1825, being then fifty-two years of age. The officiating ministers at the ordination were Rev. John Matthews, of Pike County, Rev. Salmon Giddings, and Rev. W. S. Lacy.

Mr. Giddings died Feb. 1, 1827, in the forty-fifth year of his age. Salmon Giddings, as we have seen, was the pioncer of Presbyterianism in Missouri, and for many years a conspicuous minister and educator in St. Louis. He was born in Hartford, Conn., on the 2d of March, 1782. His parents were Congregational- ists by education and habit, though not regular mem- bers of the church. In January, 1807, he united with the Congregational Church in his native parish, and soon afterwards entered Williams College. After graduating he remained for some time at that institu- tion in the capacity of tutor, and then repaired to Andover Theological Seminary for the purpose of completing his theological studies. He left the semi- nary in September, 1814, and was ordained to the ministry on the 20th of December following. During 1815 he served as an itinerant minister in Massachu-

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setts and Connecticut, and in December of that year received a commission from the Missionary Society of Connecticut to labor in the Western country, but more particularly in St. Louis and its vicinity. He arrived in St. Louis on the 6th of April, 1816, and, as previously stated, was the first Presbyterian minis- ter who established himself west of the Mississippi. Two Presbyterian ministers had visited the country and had preached six times, but neither of them had remained permanently.

As we have seen, Mr. Giddings organized on the 2d of August, 1816, the congregation at Bellevue set- tlement, and on the 15th of November, 1817, the First Presbyterian Church of St. Louis. For more than a year previous to this he had conducted a school (opened Oct. 12, 1816) "in the two-story frame (house) on the hill, built by James Sawyer, south side of Market, above Fourth, just opposite the south entrance to the present court-house, subsequently used for long years as the county court and clerk's office." On the 3d of January, 1818, he was also conducting a school for girls, which was situated, ap- parently, on the same location, the south side of Market Strect, above Fourth. In the Republican of Nov. 16, 1816, appeared the announcement that Mr. Giddings would preach at the theatre on the follow- ing day, but it would seem that services were also held at his school-room, for on the 23d of October, 1818, notice was given that the Rev. Green P. Rice would deliver a sermon at the school-room on the fol- lowing Sunday. On the 20th of September, 1818, a meeting was held at the residence of Mr. Giddings, " to take into consideration the expediency of erect- ing a Protestant house for divine worship." The building was dedicated on the 26th of June, 1825, and on the 19th of November following Mr. Gid- dings was installed as pastor. He did not, however, restrict himself to this field of labor, but worked diligently on both sides of the Mississippi, and established twelve churches, six in Missouri and six in Illinois. His longest and most arduous journey was that which he made as the agent of the mission- ary society to the Omaha, Pawnee, and other Indian tribes, and which consumed three months. Mr. Giddings was also an earnest and active agent in the distribution of Bibles and Sunday-school and tract publications. The preliminary meeting to form the first society for the circulation of the Bible west of the Mississippi was held in his school-room on the 8th of December, 1818. Mr. Giddings died on the 15th of February, 1828. He was a man of untiring energy; lofty purity of character, and indomitable zeal in the cause of his religion. He was succeeded

as pastor of the First Church and leader of the Presbyterian movement by William S. Potts, D.D.

In 1830 a band of seven young men, graduates of Auburn Seminary, repaired as missionaries to Mis- souri, and settled at various points. In the same year also Dr. David Nelson, author of "The Cause and Cure of Infidelity," appeared as a worker in the field of Missouri Presbyterianism. Dr. Nelson set- tled in Northeastern Missouri, but owing to his oppo- sition to slavery was compelled by a mob to flee from the State. A similar fate befell Rev. Elijah P. Love- joy, who was ordained by the St. Louis Presbytery in June, 1834. Mr. Lovejoy was for some time pas- tor of the Des Peres Church, and afterwards editor of the St. Louis Observer, the first religious journal started west of the Mississippi. He was a bitter and uncompromising opponent of slavery, and in 1837 his press was destroyed, and himself driven out of the city by a mob. Before the end of the year he was killed by another mob at Alton, Ill. Dr. W. W. Hall, better known as the editor of Hall's Journal of Health, was, about this time, pastor of the St. Charles Church for two years. The colored people received earnest attention from the first missionarics and their successors. Meetings were held, and churches and schools organized especially for them. The schools met with some opposition, but not of a serious nature. The cause of temperance also received its share of attention. The congregation of the Second Church in St. Louis, under Dr. Hatfield, was pledged to entire abstinence, and in a district in Southeast Missouri, where there were forty distilleries, many of the latter were speedily closed, and one of them was transformed into a church. In 1831 the presbytery was divided into three distinct organizations,-Missouri, St. Louis, and St. Charles,-and these in 1832 were erected into a Synod, there being then in the State twenty- three churches and eighteen ministers, of whom thir- teen were in the pay of the American Home Mission- ary Society, although most of them had been sent out by the Presbyterian Board of Missions. The reason for the change was that the former fixed their salaries at four hundred dollars, whereas the board paid its agents one hundred dollars a year, with the understanding that they were to obtain whatever ad- ditional compensation they could from the little mis- sion churches to which they preached.

In April, 1838, Dr. Artemas Bullard arrived in St. Louis to assume the pastorate of the First Church, vice Dr. Potts, then president of Marion College. He at once took a front rank among thie Presbyterian ministers of the West. The contro- versy which led to the division of the church into

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History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men, Part 153

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898 Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts Number of Pages: 1358

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts
Number of Pages: 1358