bigpigeon.us webpage St. Paul's > St. Paul's Roots, added by RAC 24 Dec ’17.
Beginning in the late 1860s, over a hundred Danish immigrants took up farming in rural northwestern Pottawattamie County, Iowa north of Council Bluffs, in what I call the Big Pigeon area.
Back in Denmark, these immigrants had been raised as members of the state-supported Lutheran Church. However, the official Danish Lutheran Church at the time was not a dynamic organization, and did little to send pastors to the United States to meet the religious needs of those who had emigrated.
It appears that St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, founded in this area in 1881, was due to a chance encounter in 1880 between a young theology student and a Danish farmer in the area. In his memoir published posthoumusly, the Rev. G. B. Christiansen recalled this 1880 meeting:
"One late afternoon in the fall of 1880, an hour or so before I was to take the train to Minneapolis to resume my studies at the seminary, a farmer from somewhere northeast of Council Bluffs came to the home where I stayed. .... He took a chair and remained seated in silence for a while, saying not a word. Finally he broke the silence, and explained with tears streaming down his face: ‘I am in a miserable strait, and so are all the rest of them out where I live. Can’t you come out and bring us the Word of God?’ ... I told him that I was just on the point of leaving for another year at school. I promised that when I returned, if the Lord permitted, and would open a way for me, I would come out into his community.”
In her family history, Ruth (Hansen) Nielsen identified the farmer as Niels Nielsen of Norwalk Township.
Rev. G. B. Christiansen recounts the religious environment he encountered in the rural midwest in 1881:
"We came to Council Bluffs in 1881. As soon as I could I kept my promise. But the field into which I came was a sorry sight! There were many Danes. But such a Babel of worldliness and religious turmoil! Some were Adventists, some were Baptists, the majority were Josephites and there were prophets and prophetesses everywhere. About 20 or 25 families confessed adherence to the Lutheran Church. We met with these people in the little schoolhouses, and sometimes in the homes, about the Word of God."
Reverend Christiansen was correct in his assessment of the religious competition in the Big Pigeon area in 1881.
Thus, with the motivation provided by old Niels Nielsen, young G. B. Christiansen met with farmers in the area and in 1881 the St. Paul's congregation was established.
The congregation's charter members chose a central location for their church and cemetery, on high ground in southern Boomer Township overlooking Pigeon Creek to the north. They initially purchased two acres of land from my great-grandfather, Lars Christian Rasmussen, a recent arrival who lived just to the west. On these two acres a cemetery was established, and a small church built in the middle of the cemetery.
Church records and family stories suggest that Lars Christian Rasmussen volunteered his five daughters to provide janitorial services for the princely sum of $10 per year.
Beginning in the late 1860s, over a hundred Danish immigrants took up farming in rural northwestern Pottawattamie County, Iowa north of Council Bluffs, in what I call the Big Pigeon area.
Back in Denmark, these immigrants had been raised as members of the state-supported Lutheran Church. However, the official Danish Lutheran Church at the time was not a dynamic organization, and did little to send pastors to the United States to meet the religious needs of those who had emigrated.
It appears that St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, founded in this area in 1881, was due to a chance encounter in 1880 between a young theology student and a Danish farmer in the area. In his memoir published posthoumusly, the Rev. G. B. Christiansen recalled this 1880 meeting:
"One late afternoon in the fall of 1880, an hour or so before I was to take the train to Minneapolis to resume my studies at the seminary, a farmer from somewhere northeast of Council Bluffs came to the home where I stayed. .... He took a chair and remained seated in silence for a while, saying not a word. Finally he broke the silence, and explained with tears streaming down his face: ‘I am in a miserable strait, and so are all the rest of them out where I live. Can’t you come out and bring us the Word of God?’ ... I told him that I was just on the point of leaving for another year at school. I promised that when I returned, if the Lord permitted, and would open a way for me, I would come out into his community.”
In her family history, Ruth (Hansen) Nielsen identified the farmer as Niels Nielsen of Norwalk Township.
Rev. G. B. Christiansen recounts the religious environment he encountered in the rural midwest in 1881:
"We came to Council Bluffs in 1881. As soon as I could I kept my promise. But the field into which I came was a sorry sight! There were many Danes. But such a Babel of worldliness and religious turmoil! Some were Adventists, some were Baptists, the majority were Josephites and there were prophets and prophetesses everywhere. About 20 or 25 families confessed adherence to the Lutheran Church. We met with these people in the little schoolhouses, and sometimes in the homes, about the Word of God."
Reverend Christiansen was correct in his assessment of the religious competition in the Big Pigeon area in 1881.
- The Weston 7th Day Adventist congregation was about to build a chapel on my great-grandparents’ Rasmussen’s farm in southern Boomer Township. It appears that most members of this short-lived congregation were Danish. Children in the Bondo family, prominent in the history of St. Paul's Lutheran Church and in the later history of the Blair branch of the Danish Lutheran Church in America, were attending Adventist religious school.
- Living in the Big Pigeon area were several hundered Josephites, members of the Reorganized Latter Day Saints (RLDS), the largest splinter group of Mormons. They were called Josephites because they accepted the religious leadership of Joseph Smith III, rather than Brigham Young. Soon a RLDS chapel for Danish immigrants would be established in Hazel Dell Township, about five miles south of St. Paul’s.
- Baptists - There was a Scandinavian Baptist Church in Council Bluffs for many years, attended by a number of Danish families. Earlier, in 1865 the Altamont Baptist Church had been established southeast of Harlan abut thirty miles to the northeast. Some Danish Baptist publications were produced in Harlan.
Thus, with the motivation provided by old Niels Nielsen, young G. B. Christiansen met with farmers in the area and in 1881 the St. Paul's congregation was established.
The congregation's charter members chose a central location for their church and cemetery, on high ground in southern Boomer Township overlooking Pigeon Creek to the north. They initially purchased two acres of land from my great-grandfather, Lars Christian Rasmussen, a recent arrival who lived just to the west. On these two acres a cemetery was established, and a small church built in the middle of the cemetery.
Church records and family stories suggest that Lars Christian Rasmussen volunteered his five daughters to provide janitorial services for the princely sum of $10 per year.