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HIS
GASTONIA - MAIN
ERSARY 5050 9100 258 822 0
of
Union ngelical Lutheran Church
of
Salisbury, North Carolina
284. 1
LIP
NCC
1774-1974
٠٠
HIS
GASTONIA - MAIN
ERSARY 5050 9100 258 822 0
of
Union ngelical Lutheran Church
of
Salisbury, North Carolina
284. 1 LIP NCC
1774-1974
4/15/1978 " 2.0
Vertie R. Kinley 622 South Main Street Stanley, north Carolina 28164
388888888888888886
GASTON COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY GASTONIA, NORTH CAROLINA
DONATED BY
GASTON-LINCOLN GENEALOGY SOCIETY
88388888888888888888
HISTORY AND 200th ANNIVERSARY
of
Union Evangelical Lutheran Church
of
Salisbury, North Carolina
1774-1974
by
L. Aaron Lippard
Publication Date - August, 1974 Printed By
UNION PRINT SHOP ROUTE 10, BOX 610 SALISBURY, N. C. 28144 OWNERS MARVIN CROMER & WILLIE CAUBLE BOGER
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Background and Early Beginnings ( - 1793)
1
The Land and the Deed
8
The Old Pine Church
10
Newness in a New Century (1788 - 1831)
11
The Rothrock Decade (1833 - 1844)
17
Thirty Middling Years (1842 - 1873) 21
Union's First Constitution
26
Oldest Financial Statement
.28
The Brown Decade (1874 - 1884)
29
Union - Christiana Parish (1871 - 1909)
32
Union School
37
School Picture
39
Church Without and With Tower
40
Parsonage Before 1900 and in 1909
41
Basics (1909 - 1923)
42
Newness at an Old Church (1923 - 1949)
45
Parsonage and Cemetery
47
The Last Twenty-Five Years (1949 - 1974)
51
Church at Dedication Service
53
Pond and Shelter
56
Interior of Church and Tennis Court
60
Church and Other Buildings
62
Sons of the Gospel Ministry
63
Index of Pastors at Union
65
Illustration of Floor Plans of Church, Showing Additions
66
Bibliography
68
PREFACE
Over the years there have been historical sketches of Union Lutheran Church. Perhaps the earliest of all appears in the 1902 HISTORY OF THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN SYNOD AND MINISTERIUM OF NORTH CAROLINA by Bernheim and Cox. In later years, the HISTORY OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN NORTH CAROLINA, edited by Morgan, Brown, and Hall, also furnishes a historical sketch of Union. In 1928 and 1929 two members of Union, Misses Mary Barringer and Ella Mae Lyerly, prepared a historical sketch which was printed in the Salisbury Post. The late William D. Kizziah, who had served as Register of Deeds of Rowan County, also prepared a sketch for the congregation.
This then is not the earliest history. Rather as we approached the cele- bration of our 200th Anniversary, it seemed good to draw as many sepa- rate threads as we could find together and endeavor to weave a more com- plete history of our congregation. There have been and there are still many unanswered questions. The absence of written records makes it so. The work which appears here is an attempt to take what we have and present the story of Union Congregation in an orderly manner.
It is hoped that in doing so we might be more appreciative of those per- sons who have meant so much to our congregation in the past, and that, as we trace the past into the present, we might be more aware of God's love and goodness - and in this awareness that we may be more useful in- struments of His in His Vineyard.
J. Aaron Lippard
Pastor L. Aaron Líppard
Pastor L. Aaron Lippard
SPECIAL NOTE OF THANKS
It seems expedient that a special notation of thanks and appreciation be issued on behalf of Union Congregation. Pastor Aaron Lippard has exhausted many tasking, uncountable, and, what probably seemed like, endless hours in researching and compiling this history. His efforts and obvious success, and most of all his interest, are to be so greatly com- mended. We are exceedingly grateful for this "treasure" of information about our founding and growth and for the preserving of our history for the sake of posterity.
So for us and for future generations, Pastor Lippard, we thank God for you and this lasting remembrance you have gifted to us at Union Lutheran Church.
BACKGROUND AND EARLY BEGINNINGS
There is so much history behind Union Lutheran Church. It would be nice to know it all, or even a small part. Ninety years ago there was a great deal behind the church, including the mystery. The author wondered who that kindred spirit was who put this article in the Carolina Watchman on November 29, 1883:
" "Piny Meeting House' was well known in the eastern part of the coun- ty a good many years ago, as a Lutheran Church five miles from this place on the Bringle Ferry Road. The land on which it was located was deeded in trust to Fredrick Fisher and Michael Brown. The original building was of hewn logs, subsequently twice weather boarded and painted. New floors were laid on top of the old ones. Within the last 5 or 6 years the congrega- tion worshipping there have built a fine brick church, 40 by 60 feet. But it goes by the name of 'Union Church,' and the object of this notice is two fold; to find out when, why, and by what authority it took the name of 'Union'; and whether or not the church records as far back as 1810 are still in existance."
We wonder if that person ever received the information which was wan- ted! Evidently not, but it is good to know that there was interest and a searching for information way back then. Now let us begin by getting back behind 1810. One thing is certain - our history is tied up with the settling of Rowan County and the heritage which our forefathers brought with them.
In the HISTORY OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN NORTH CARO- LINA, we are told that the first known German to enter our state was a man called JOHN LEDERER. In the years 1669 to 1670, he was sent by the Governor of Virginia to explore the lands lying south and west of the James River. His explorations carried him as far south as the Santee River and as far west as Trading Ford, north of what is now Salisbury. Although we do not know his religious affiliation, no doubt his maps and descrip- tions of this new land were circulated among other Germans who were Lutherans and looking for a place to make their homes.
The first German settlers in North Carolina were a group of 700 who joined with a Swiss Immigration company and settled near what is now New Bern. An Indian Massacre the following year, and the failure of the leader of this company to live up to his agreement caused a great deal of distress, and there is no record left of what happened to this group which came to North Carolina in 1710.
1
The group on which we concentrate is the pioneers who were the back- bone of our Piedmont Section and our Lutheran Church in North Carolina. The year 1743 has been chosen as the date of the beginning of the migra- tion to North Carolina. So we shall call them the 1743'ers. But they did not just land on the shores of North Carolina. Their route from Germany was not so direct!
Perhaps the real start of it was in 1682 as thousands of German Luther- ans came into the port of Philadelphia. There was a steady stream of them over the next fifty years, flooding what was called "Penn's Woords.", And of course as more and more came, and as the children grew up and started families of their own, land became more scarce and expensive. They look- ed for a way out, to greener pastures - where good land was more abun- dant and less expensive. Perhaps they had heard of their fellow country- .nan, JOHN LEDERER, who had looked south of Virginia. At any rate, there is in the Library of Congress at Washington an old map of Fry and Hefferson dated 1751 (HISTORY OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN N.C.). It is interesting to us because it shows an old wagon road starting in Berks County, Pa., fifty miles west of Philadelphia, and running south 440 miles. As that map shows, it came into North Carolina into what is now Guilford and Alamance Counties and joined the TRADING PATH from eastern Virginia and North Carolina. (A marker of this TRADING PATH is on North Main Street near the old car Barn.) This TRADING PATH continued in a south-westerly direction and crossed the Yadkin River at Trading Ford. This is one path, a path which leads to our area! There is yet another path, a path which leads through what we now call Old Salem which joined the TRADING PATH near Salisbury. Still another path branched off near what is now Roanoke, Va. and went in a south-westerly direction into East Tennessee.
So with two of those three paths coming to where we now live, it is not too difficult to imagine our forefathers on their horses making the trip in a week - or being on this trail up to a month as they walked with their wag- ons carrying their household goods and their families. It must have been a rough trip from Berks County, Pa. to Rowan County, N.C. But it would not have been nearly as rough as the journey which had sent them from the Palatinate in Germany and the conditions from which they were being evacuated. Most of us who are of German Lutheran background can trace our forefathers' path from Philadelphia to Berks County, down a wagon trail to a place called the Trading Path, from which they branched out seeking a home place. As they crossed the Trading Ford, our immediate area was the first of the areas which these German settlers by way of Penn- sylvania had an opportunity to settle.
2
Now we leave you to your imagination and what you know about your forefathers as to how they picked their land and cleared it. Our attention will be directed to the church life, or perhaps we should say the religious life of these German settlers of Piedmont North Carolina by way of Berks County, Pa.
No doubt as they came, they brought with them their Bibles and their Catechisms. Lutherans who had been raised in the tradition of the impor- tance of the "Means of Grace" (the Word and the Sacraments) would not have left these either in Pennsylvania or in Germany. But as they came, they had no place to worship. And as they came, there journeyed with them other Germans, not just Lutherans, but those of the Reformed Faith as well. If we set the day of the beginning of their arrival at 1743, and ac- cept the date of 1745 as the organization of both Organ Lutheran and Lo- werstone Reformed congregations, we begin to get a picture of what hap- pened.
In a graveyard of St. Peter's Lutheran Church in our area, there is a marker which depicts the site of the "Hickory church." According to Dr. Bernheim in an earlier history of the Lutheran Church in North Carolina, this Hickory Church was built of hickory logs on land which the members did not own - either those of the Reformed or Lutheran groups. These two groups later became Organ and Lowerstone Congregations, and built elsewhere. We don't have anything to go on here, but the chances are pret- ty good that it was at this place that those who helped found Union Church first worshipped!
During this time there was no Lutheran Minister in North Carolina. In 1772 a Christopher Rintleman and a Christopher Layerly volunteered to make the journey to Germany at their own expense and obtain the ser- vices of a Lutheran pastor and school teacher. They went by horseback to Charleston, S.C. where they caught a ship to London. Here they went to the Missionary Society which endorsed their cause, and they were helped in the amount of more than $800 by the king, members of the court, and St. James Lutheran Chapel. Then they went to Hanover, Germany. Here the Rev. Adolph Nussman was called as pastor, and Mr. John Gottfried Arends as school teacher. Bibles, hymn books, catechisms, other books, and a communion set were provided. They returned by way of London and arrived in North Carolina in 1773. Pastor Nussman began preaching at the "Hickory Church" - just about half way between Union and the pres- ent site of Organ. So we have the backbone of the Lutheran Ministry in North Carolina. In 1774 Pastor Nussman moved to Cabarrus County, and in 1775, the school teacher Arends was ordained. Neither of these men was content to serve just the area in which he lived, but reached out to other areas.
3
All of this is a portion of our background - the port of Philadelphia, Berks County, Pa., and the road south, the "Hickory Church," and the arrival of Nussman and Arends - for it is out of all of this that we spring! Now as the birthing day approaches and we try to date this day, we run in- to difficulty. In fact we are not even sure of the year! There are questions which we can answer to some degree. We examine chronologically what we can find out about (1) The Building, (2) The Organization, and (3) The Land.
1 - THE BUILDING
The late William D. Kizziah, Register of Deeds in Rowan County from 1930 to 1949, prepared a sketch of our congregation. In this sketch he draws from the "Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions of Rowan County." We now quote from this sketch of Mr. Kizziah's con- cerning the dating of the building which first stood here.
"The earliest reference made by the Rowan Court Minutes to what is now 'Union Lutheran Church' is found under the date of May Term of Court, 1771. This is the earliest reference that these minutes make to any church in Eastern Rowan County. I quote this reference as follows: 'The Road from Salisbury by the Dutch Meeting House to Henry Brooner's (Bruner's) Ford on the Yadkin River.' We know the exact location of Henry Bruner's plantation which would be near the end of the present Bringle Ferry Road that leads by Union Lutheran Church. We know that this road passed right by the plantation of the land that joined Union Lu- theran Church, and therefore we have established fact that this church was there and had a road leading by it from Salisbury to Henry Bruner's Ford on the Yadkin River.
"On August 8th, 1771, three months later, the Court Minutes again pro- vide written evidence that Union Lutheran Church was in existence at that date. The Minutes mention 'The Road that leads from the Dutch Meeting House to Edward Moore's store on the Yadkin River.' The old deeds show that the road forked after passing the church and took a southwestard di- rection to Moore's Ferry from the Bringle Ferry Road. We know that Moore's Ferry was down the Yadkin from Henry Bruner's Ford and on a fork of the present Bringle Ferry Road."
How that building came to be here is another question. There is really no answer. We do not know when it was built, and all we can do is guess. There are at least two possibilities. Remember that we have dated Organ and Lowerstone Congregations at 1745, but first worshipping and sharing the same building, the Hickory Church. This was temporary, and as they
4
were talking of moving to a new location, is it not feasible that during this period some of those adherents to the Lutheran Confessions - finding that they would be further removed from a Meeting House - might have built the structure which is referred to as the Dutch Meeting House in the 1771 Court Minutes? This certainly is one possibility, and probably the most likely. There is another possibility, however, and that is that it was built even earlier than we can imagine. At any rate there was a building here in 1771 - three years before the earliest date given for the organization of the congregation which we now call Union. If Pastor Nussman preached at the Hickory Church for a year, and then erected a log or frame church in 1774 at a new location, the old "pine Church" was standing prior to the church which preceeded the stone structure at Organ - indeed, it was standing not only prior to the arrival of Nussman and Arends, but prior to Rintleman and Layerly's departure for Germany! And if the Salisbury Church, later called St. John's, was built soon after Mr. John Lewis Beard deeded a lot to that congregation in 1768, the "Pine Church" may well have been about the same age, and could not have been but three years younger! It was a landmark three years later according to Court Minutes! So even though the HISTORY OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN NORTH CAROLINA dates the building at 1779, we know that a building was here at least 8 years prior to that - and perhaps a number of years be- fore! Perhaps they began using the building with the dirt floors, but this we do not know either. We only know that over the years a great deal was done to the building. Certainly the oldest written record appears in the 1883 copy of the Carolina Watchman: "The original building was of hewn logs, subsequently twice weather boarded and painted. New floors were laid on top of the old ones." And from the HISTORY OF THE LUTHER- AN CHURCH IN NORTH CAROLINA, we know that the building stood a little north of our present building (perhaps near the drive at the back of the graveyard, at the grave marked Robert O. Watson. The building was ceiled on the inside, and "there was a gallery on three sides, a high pulpit on the north side, a door in the south end and one in the side next to the graveyard." It is too bad that we do not know the dimensions, or the seat- ing capacity, but the building must have been of fairly good size to accom- modate a gallery on three sides!
2 - THE ORGANIZATION
As to the date of the organization of the congregation, we cannot be certain either. Different dates have been used, but that which Dr. Bern- heim gives, and that which is given in the HISTORY OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN NORTH CAROLINA is 1774. This would place the date just three years after we know that a building existed on the property, one
5
year following the arrival of Nussman and Arends from Germany, and one year prior to the ordination of Arends, who is credited with the organiza- tion of the congregation. We do know that according to the Communion Record of Pastor Arends in the Organ Church records he lists the follow- ing from the Pine Church as communing for the first time on September 7, 1778: Catherine Abedshine, Anna Mariah Earnhardt, Elizabeth Brown, Catherine Brown, Eva Earnhardt, Elizabeth Hartman. There is also this communion list, captioned - "In Pine Church, 3 Trinity, 1782." The names of the men appear on the left side, and those of the women on the right, and the spelling is as it appears, even though it may seem wrong!
Daniel Luttell
Christian Ehrig
Jacob Fisher
Mariah Elizabeth Besinger
Henry Brunert
Mariah Elizabeth Keyer
John Egrig
Anna Mariah Brunnert
John Eller
Mariah Eva Fisher
John Hess
Philipena Eigner
Susanna Waller
Eva Hartman
Catherine Waller
Marlena Boland
Susanna Eller
Mariah Closs Kohler
Citherine Bonaker
3 - THE LAND
Once more we can quote from Mr. Kizziah's sketch:
"Entry No. 783, dated May 7, 1778. 'Michael Brown (who built the Old Stone House, and Frederick Fisher enter 200 acres of land adjoining Conrad Brem and Fredrick Fisher, including the Pine Meeting House and Spring.'
"It was not until 1793 that the grant was actually made, which was cus- tomary in those days, and when the transaction was completed, the church took only 118 acres of the Entry. This was also customary, for a person to take only part of an entry or transfer it to some other person. The church had been built on public land originally and then it was decided to have a permanent location, so they took the proper legal course by filing the En- try Claim and securing the grant in due course.
"Grant No. 2202, Dated Nov. 27, 1793, issued to Michael Brown and Fredrick Fisher, (Trustees for the Dutch Pine Meeting House) registered in the Register of Deeds Office, Deed Book 19, page 744-45, for the follow- ing described tract of land:
6
"'To Michael Brown and Fredrick Fisher in Trust for the Dutch Pine Meeting House, a tract of land containing one hundred and eighteen acres, lying and being on the West side of the South Fork of Crane Creek, Begin- ning at the large White Oak near the Meeting House, Conrad Bren's Cor- ner, and running South Sixty-two Degrees West, 50 chains to a Black Oak; then East thirty-seven Chains to a black oak; then North 21 chains to a Hickory; then East 10 chains and 50 links to a Red Oak; then Eight Chains and Seventy Five links to a Post Oak, then to the beginning.'" The cost of the land was 50 shillings per 100 acres, the accustomed rate for govern- ment land.
So there was a building, there was a congregation, and there was the Entry Claim and the Grant. In this period of time it had been called the Dutch Meeting House, the Dutch Pine Meeting House, and the Pine Church - from Court Records, the Deed, and Church Records. Two of those first three names designate the material which was used - pine wood. Two designate the make-up of the founders of the church - Dutch, for so the Germans who came by way of Pennsylvania were called. Not yet was the name Union used, at least as far as we know. It is in the 1810 Minutes of Synod that Union appears for the first time, where as Rev. Storch's pas- torate is listed, among those congregations listed is - "Pine, now Union." That is another story which cannot be told apart from the organization of a Synod, and as we shall see, the Pine Church and her Dutch Members have a part in that also!
7
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Jan. 21-1899
9
10
*
OLD PINE CHURCH (Illustration by Mrs. Vance Mahaley according to the description of Mr. B. Holmes Miller)
NEWNESS IN A NEW CENTURY
It was during the pastorate of Pastor Arends that Michael Brown and Fredrick Fisher had made the entry of 200 acres of land for the Dutch Pine Meeting House, May 7, 1778. Before that grant was ever made, cer- tain things happened. Pastor Arends had moved to Lincoln County in 1785, and the congregations which he had served were without a pastor until 1788.
Following Pastor Arends' move to Lincoln County, Pastor Nussman was in correspondence with a Dr. Velthusen who was a member of the Theological Faculty in Helmstaedt, Germany. It was largely through Dr. Velthusen's interest that literature was provided to meet the needs of Pastor Nussman's people, and that future ministers came from Germany. The Rev. Christian Eberhard Bernhardt came to Georgia in 1786, and then the next year moved to North Carolina to serve parishes in Forsyth and Stokes Counties.
In 1788, the Rev. Carl Augustus Gottlieb Storch arrived in Rowan County. The Rev. Jethro Rumple in his HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY refers to Pastor Storch as the "apostle of the Lutheran Church in Rowan County." Pastor Storch was ordained in Germany and sent out by the Helmstaedt Missionary Society. He was a native of that town and received his education in the schools and the university of that town. Sailing for America, he arrived in Baltimore on June 27th, and then traveled by wa- ter to Charleston, S.C., where he purchased a horse and came by horse- back to Pastor Nussman's home near St. John's, Cabarrus. But how he came to serve Organ, the church in Salisbury, and the Pine Church is an interesting story itself. It wasn't really meant to be - but how fortunate we were that it happened. We quote the following from an account trans- lated from the old German churchbook of Organ:
"In 1788, at the desire and petition of Nussman, a preacher, viz: Charles Augustus Gottlieb Storch, was sent from Germany, who according to Nussman's assignment was to go to Stinking Quarter in Orange Coun- ty. Various circumstances transpired, so that he did not wish to go to Stinking Quarter, but resolved to take charge of the congregation at Organ Church and the one in the town of Salisbury. He entered his services in the former on the 26th day of October, 1788, idest, the 23rd Sunday af- ter Trinity, and in the town the 2nd of November, idest, the 24th Sunday after Trinity of the same year."
So we get a picture of how Pastor Storch came to Rowan County. It would be good to know when he first preached in the Pine Church, but we do not have this information. Dr. Bernheim quotes from Pastor Stor-
11
ch's Journal in which he writes, "Three congregations elected and called me, namely: the one in Salisbury where I first took up my residence, the 2nd, named Organ Church, on 2nd Creek, 10 miles from Salisbury; and the 3rd, Pine Church, which however I had to resign, and now only serve 2 congregations, Salisbury and Organ Church." We cannot be sure how long Pastor Storch served at the Pine Church, nor on how many occasions. We do know that according to the minutes of the Convention of Synod in 1810, "Pine, now Union" is listed as one of the congregations which he served. At that time he was serving seven congregations: "Zion's or Or- gan; Buffalo Creek or St. John's; Irish Settlement, now Luther's Chapel; Pine, now Union; Crooked Creek; and Bear Creek, now Bethel." Also, Dr. Bernheim quotes from Pastor Henkle's Report on the Condition of the Lutheran Church in North Carolina in 1806: "In the vicinity of Salisbury, Rowan County, there are three strong Lutheran Congregations, which have been served by the Rev. Charles Storch for nearly 20 years."
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