A Snapshot of the Nation . . .

The mid-1800s were a period of national growth, politics, conflict, and inflation. The population of the United States was 23 million, with thirty-one states. Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter, and the first YMCA came to the United States. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony met at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848 for the most important convention on women’s rights in U.S. history. The state of Wisconsin and Ripon College were formed. The Republican party was established, and Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation set the stage for the Civil War. Birth control became a concern, and over $1 billion was put into circulation to pay for the war. An economic downturn in 1857 brought hardship to many.

. . . and Oshkosh
+ The Fox Valley had been the home to various native peoples for thousands of years, and to the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) Indians since around 1550. Jean Nicolet passed through here in 1634, and a trading post at Butte des Morts was established in 1818. In 1836 Webster Stanley built the first house in Oshkosh, a log cabin.
+ Three years later the first sawmill was built; by 1863 there would be seventeen.
+ Winnebago County was organized in 1842, and the first census (1846) records that there were 782 people living in the county.
+ Wisconsin became a state in 1848, and Oshkosh received its charter in 1853.
+ Chief Oshkosh died five years later, in 1858.
+ The first of many Oshkosh fires took place in 1859.
+ The membership of First Congregational Church in 1861 was 265 (83 men, 182 women).

A Love Story Kay Sanders

Around the first of March 1838, nineteen-year-old William W. Wright set out from Green Bay to bring a load of goods to a brand-new settlement at the mouth of the Fox River. It was a long, hard journey, with no roads and the path not clearly marked. Wright stopped overnight at a backwoods cabin that served as the only inn in the area. He had just gone to bed about midnight when the innkeeper woke him, saying there was a man outside who had to get to Webster Stanley’s settlement right away and needed a guide. The innkeeper knew that Wright had made the trip several times and was familiar with the way.
Wright got up, dressed, and went out to find none other than his friend Joseph Jackson. Jackson wouldn’t say what urgent business required him to proceed through the wilderness in the middle of the night, but Wright climbed into the wagon with him and away they went through the woods and alongside the lake. They reached the settlement about dawn, and Wright soon found out what cause had seized Jackson. It was Wright’s own sister, Emeline.
Born in County Monaghan on September 2, 1812, Joseph Jackson had immigrated at the age of four with his parents, Robert and Anna (Stuart) Jackson, to Lewis County, New York. His father, who’d been a farmer in Ireland and a mason in America, died a few years later, and Joseph was adopted by Stephen Leonard, an uncle of Morgan Martin, who was in a similar situation. Jackson’s mother was still alive, as was his sister, Jane, but Leonard was allowed to adopt Jackson, perhaps because he could provide an education for him. Martin and Jackson grew up and went to school together.
In the spring of 1837 Joseph Jackson met Emeline Wright in the territory of Wisconsin. He had recently come, by way of Ohio, from the state of New York to the settlement of Navarino, later called Green Bay. He had followed his foster brother, Morgan Martin, who would become a prominent Green Bay judge. Emeline, who was twenty-one at the time, had made the trek west from Auburn, New York, with her parents, George and Electa (Whitney) Wright. Her father had served in the War of 1812 and was a millwright, building flour and grist mills in the area. The Wrights brought with them three daughters and one son; another daughter and two sons would follow later. Frequently working alongside the Wrights, Jackson practiced his trade as a carpenter while the region around Green Bay rapidly filled with new settlers.
In the fall of 1837 George Wright and his son William left the rest of the family in Green Bay while they investigated an area to the south for a place to settle permanently. They found to their liking a stretch of land along the Fox River, near where it emptied into Lake Winnebago. The Stanleys and the Gallups had already established residence, and the Evanses and the Fords would soon join them at the place Chester Gallup called Athens. In February of 1838 Wright moved his family from Green Bay to what would become the city of Oshkosh.
The family was surprised early on the morning of March 2 to hear a wagon drive up and see their son William disembark. They had expected him to arrive soon with a load of provisions, but they certainly hadn’t expected him to travel through the night. They were even more surprised when he brought in a visitor, Joseph Jackson, whom they had known and worked with in Green Bay.
Jackson lost no time in asking Emeline to marry him. After she had agreed, Jackson headed back to Green Bay. Two days later, March 4, he returned with a minister and wedding gifts of clothing, wine, and a colorful rug. The Reverend Stephen Peet, a Presbyterian minister who would later found Beloit College, married the couple at the Gallup home in the presence of the entire population of the settlement—twelve people.
The following notice, the first officially recorded marriage in what would become Winnebago County, appeared in the Wisconsin Democrat of Green Bay:

JACKSON-WRIGHT.—At Athens, March, 1838, at the house of Chester Gallup, Esq., by the Reverend S. Peet, Mr. Joseph Jackson and Miss Emeline Wright, daughter of Geo. Wright, Esq., all of that place.

The couple left right away, after a wedding feast and so much merry-making that the Indians of the area wondered what was going on. They boarded in Green Bay for a year, then moved to Oshkosh (still called Athens), went on to Kenosha (called Southport at that time), and finally returned permanently to Oshkosh in 1840/41.
It seems appropriate that the founding of First Congregational Church begins with a love story. The pioneer spirit that would lead people to plunge into the wilderness, to seek a guide when needed, to bind themselves together in love in the face of extreme difficulty, to rejoice and feast together—this is, in short, the story of our congregation. And it began with this couple, Joseph and Emeline Jackson, who opened their home in the 1840s for church services with like-minded people. When there was no minister, Jackson read the Scripture, led the singing, prayed, even preached on occasion. And together, the two of them ministered to the poor and needy of the area, loading a sleigh on winter days and driving far into the countryside to deliver food and medicine.

The Founding Pastor: Hiram Freeman (1849-1856)
We Are the Product of Missionaries
How did the spirit of Scrooby Manor, England, brought here by the Pilgrims in 1620, find its way in 1849 to the western frontier, the “Old Northwest,” that is, to Wisconsin and a settlement first called Athens, and now known as Oshkosh? It came by way of the American Home Missionary Society, founded in 1826, with its purpose to be sure that the religion of New England—freshly revived in the early 1800s by the Second Great Awakening— would impact the settlements of the West. Through contributions of faithful people “back east,” the American Home Missionary Society provided funding to the newborn churches of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and of course Wisconsin. Our church records of October 1853 note with gratitude the help of the Society: “The church is now encouraged to hope that after another year, the congregation will be competent to support the ordinances of divine worship without aid from the American Home Missionary Society from which source, it has derived timely and continued assistance.”
But more important than financial aid was the Society’s sending of missionary/pastors—often newly minted graduates of eastern seminaries like Gilmanton and Andover Seminaries—who were “enthusiastic emissaries of eastern culture, education, and above all, the Christian gospel.”¹
It was under the auspices of the Missionary Society that the Reverend O.P. Clinton, the first Congregational minister to serve the village of Oshkosh, in 1845 began to ride the circuit of Oshkosh, Rosendale, Waukau, Berlin, Neenah, and Fond du Lac.²

Our Roots in the “Live Free or Die” State
The first minister of our church was thirty-eight-year-old Reverend Hiram Freeman. He was one of the fourteen men and women who on July 11 “assembled in the school house³ in the village of Oshkosh . . . for the purpose of organizing a Congregational or Presbyterian church.” So read the minutes of that fateful meeting, recorded by Reverend Freeman serving as Scribe. Reverend Freeman, born in Vermont and a graduate of Gilmanton Theological Seminary in New Hampshire just five years before coming to Oshkosh, served the church for over six years, until 1856. To have an idea of the sort of pastor Reverend Freeman was—and his successor, Reverend Marble, as well—we need to know a little about the seminary they attended and the theological beliefs current at that time in New England.

The Story of Gilmanton Seminary
In the early 1800s, all of New England was experiencing the enthusiasm of the Second Great Awakening, marked by lengthy revival services, the conversion of many to new faith, and a deep commitment to church life and especially missionary work. Many pastors and their new converts embraced a belief that they were living in “the last days” that had begun with the violence of the French Revolution, and that their missionary efforts would hasten the day of Christ’s return. As the Israelites had conquered “the wilderness,” so now the church must enter “the wilderness” of the western United States and claim it for God.⁴
The opening of the West created a great need for preachers, many of whom (quite possibly Freeman and Marble among them) had been converted in revival services in New England. For example, in the little town of Gilmanton, New Hampshire, in the years 1827 and 1831, revival services at First Church brought about the conversion of no less than eighty people. As a result of such enthusiastic religion, a seminary was added to the academy already established in Gilmanton.
Gilmanton Seminary attracted its professors from Andover Seminary— a school begun earlier in the century to stand against the more liberal leanings of places like Harvard Divinity School. It lasted for only eleven years (1835-1846), and its largest graduating class numbered ten in 1841. Gilmanton stood for “Orthodox or Evangelical Christianity,” as expressed in the (Congregational) Cambridge Platform and the Westminster Confession, with minor changes.⁵
While the school was born of evangelical, revivalistic fervor, it would be a mistake to think that Gilmanton was an anti-intellectual school by any means. One of its professors, Isaac Bird, was a founder of the American University in Beirut, Lebanon, had spent fourteen years in the Middle East, and knew nine languages! Courses in the three-year curriculum included Hebrew and Greek, as well as Bible and Theology, “sacred rhetoric” (voice, prayer, and sermons), church history, and pastoral care. Gilmanton had rigorous standards of scholarship—higher, one could argue, than standards of seminaries today—and it attracted students who had earned undergraduate degrees from Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth. Lectures on Wednesday evenings dealt with the “how-to’s” of revivals, and included such details as the proper posture of the pastor while praying: “eyes firmly shut but with head slightly tilted back.”
This was the educational background of the two pastors who led our church during the first thirteen years of its existence. Sons of New England (the first of many who would lead our church through the decades), they brought with them the culture of the East, the rugged individualism of New Hampshire, mixed with revivalistic fire and a belief that they were part of the great evangelization of “the western wilderness” that would usher in the Kingdom of God on earth. Their scholarship was deep, their theology was orthodox, and their commitment was from the heart.
150 years after Hiram Freeman began his pastorate at our church, two other pastors - Ralph and Carol DiBiasio-Snyder - made a pilgrimage to the sight of Gilmanton Seminary. All there is left of that institution is a single, unmarked stone, and even that is being gradually but surely overtaken by a venerable pine. Within sight of that stone stands First Church, built in 1826. This perhaps was the real birthing room of our church—the place where we can imagine a young Hiram Freeman first coming to faith, and then growing in that faith as he worshiped there in his seminary years.

Our Covenant: Orthodox and Demanding
To find out specifically how this Gilmanton theology was expressed here in the Oshkosh church we need look no farther than the Covenant of 1849:

You viewing yourselves subjects of special divine grace and under obligation to confess Christ before men, do now, in the presence of God, angels and men, acknowledge your obligations to be the Lord’s and do here solemnly consecrate yourselves and all that you have, forever to God through Jesus Christ. You renounce the ways of sin and choose the Lord Jehovah to be your God and eternal portion; the Lord Jesus Christ to be your only Savior, and the Holy Ghost to be your Sanctifier and Comforter. You take God’s Holy Word to be your rule of faith and practice, and you engage, by the help of his grace, to conform to it in all your conduct.

You promise to maintain and constantly attend all the institutions and ordinances of the Gospel, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, public worship, and the strict observance of God’s Holy Sabbath.

You promise daily to maintain secret prayer, to encourage family worship and the seasonable dedication of children to God in Baptism, and to instruct, govern and restrain from vicious practices and company all who may be under your care. You promise not to conform to the world or indulge in vain conversation or amusement, and totally to abstain from the use and traffic of all intoxicating drinks as a beverage. You promise to promote the edification, purity, and peace of the church, to watch over its members in Christian meekness and brotherly love, and to submit to its discipline until you are regularly dismissed therefrom, endeavoring in all things to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called. Relying on divine grace, thus you covenant with God and this church.

By any standard, this Covenant is a demanding one. It is clearly traditional (which is to say “orthodox”) in its theology, and pietistic in its practice. Not only is “strict observance of God’s Holy Sabbath” demanded, but also abstention from “the use and traffic of all intoxicating drinks” and “vain conversation or amusement.” In the 1860s and 1870s, trials held by the church show that they indeed were prepared to enforce these covenantal obligations. And this note by Reverend Freeman dated January 15, 1851, shows the sort of worship that was taking place: “During several weeks past there has been more than ordinary attention to the word preached, and the Sabbath congregations are not only larger than usual, but more solemn. Some appear to be awakened, and an increased spirit of prayer is manifested in our evening prayer meetings.”
What then did these first members of First Congregational Church believe? Their faith was firmly within the bounds of Reformed orthodoxy, as expressed in the Articles of Faith of the General Convention (Congregational) of Wisconsin, and adopted at the founding meeting of the church in 1849: “Different Confessions of Faith were proposed, but after the merits of each had been discussed, on motion, voted that the confession of Faith adopted by the General Convention of Wisconsin, be adopted as our Confession of faith.”
The entire Articles are included in Appendix A. Suffice it to say here that the Articles affirm the Trinity; the depravity of humanity, thus in need of salvation which was accessible only through the atoning death of Christ, received by repentance and faith; the inspiration of the Bible—“a complete and harmonious system of divine truth and the only perfect rule of religious faith and practice”; the reality of heaven and hell; and the necessity of living a holy life—“the law of God as a rule of duty remains in full force, and all men are under obligations perfectly to obey it”—especially the law of the Sabbath!
The theologically minded among us will find it interesting that in 1857 the Article concerning predestination was altered to specifically state that “God has not fixed the future state of mankind by any unconditional decree” (our emphasis). Such matters were much talked about in churches in those days. Early on, First Congregational Church took its stand on the “free will” side of the debate, showing that even in a context of traditional orthodox belief it was on the “progressive” edge and felt free to depart from the beliefs formally held by the wider association of Congregational churches. We later exercised that freedom quite boldly, to say the least.

Every Church Needs a Place to Meet: From the Courthouse to the Sanctuary
The church grew rapidly under Reverend Freeman’s ministry. They outgrew the courthouse meeting space and began work on their own place of worship in the summer of 1850. Funds were scarce, so they built a sanctuary only twenty-five feet by fifty feet in size. In the records of May 1, 1851, we read:

At length the demand for a larger house to afford room for all who were disposed to meet with us to worship God, became so urgent that a vigorous effort was made to build a small cheap church 25 feet by 50. The materials were collected for enclosing the house and the work on it commenced in the Summer of 1850, but owing to a variety of embarrassments, the building was not ready for use till June 1851. The slips were rented the first week in July, and it was found that the church was not sufficiently commodious to supply the applicants for seats.

By June 1851 when they first worshiped in their new sanctuary, we find the church full—some two hundred souls—on “the Lord’s Day.” This building was on Ferry Street (now North Main Street), where the Kitz & Pfeil Power Center is now located. Just two years later, it was enlarged by adding two side wings, making the church in the form of a cross, with seating for four hundred! This addition cost $400, to be paid for in part by the “rental” of pews and also with help from the Church Building Society. The best slips (pews) rented for $12 and the cheapest for $5 annually.⁶
After leading the church for nearly seven years, Reverend Freeman “discontinued his labors on account of ill health.” He lived in Ripon for three years, and then served a church in Kewaunee and other places until he died of “dropsy” at the age of eighty-five.

William Horace Marble (1856-1862)
In the church record of 1856 we read, “Reverend W. H. Marble of Columbus, Ohio having been invited to preach to this church, arrived in Oshkosh, and preached his first discourse the first Sabbath in April 1856. The church and congregation became immediately interested in his discourses and arrangements were soon made to secure his labors in the ministry for the ensuing year.”
Like his predecessor, the Reverend William Marble received his training at Gilmanton Seminary, in New Hampshire, but he also graduated from New York’s Union Theological Seminary. He came to Oshkosh from a Presbyterian church in Columbus, Ohio, at a salary of $800. Only thirty-four years old when he began his ministry, Reverend Marble’s time saw a good deal of controversy as the congregation sought to live out the strict standards and beliefs they had set out for themselves in 1849.
The evangelical, revivalistic flavor of the church continued: “January 13, 1857. Winnebago District Convention met at our church this evening, and was continued three days: Awakening sermons were preached and many were anxiously inquiring the way of Salvation: Meetings were held every evening and many had found hope, and February 10th Reverend Parker of Michigan commenced a protracted meeting, and preached twice a day until March 9th. Over a hundred were hopefully converted and more than fifty backsliders reclaimed.”
“Hopefully converted” is faint praise for those who listened to a preacher hold forth twice a day for nearly a month! Well over one hundred people “who had come out from the world during the past three months and declared themselves on the Lord’s side” were added to the church! (Four of those “hopefully converted”—the Parkinsons—were to figure prominently in a controversy soon to surface.)
The Oshkosh Daily Courier noted this revival with skepticism and downright self- righteousness: “Under Mr. Parker’s ministrations a large number of persons have professed themselves converted—among them some pretty hard nuts. We hope those who imagine they have experienced a change of heart, will never find themselves deceived, that they will continue to persevere to the end, and not as many do—when the excitement of the revival season is past, back down from their engagements with the church and be lost in the great crowd of backsliders who have preceded them.”⁷

Temperance Finds a Home Here, and a Leader
Reverend Marble was very active in the Temperance movement in Oshkosh. One evening he gave a Temperance address down on the docks, drawing a crowd of four hundred “listening very attentively to the remarks of the speaker,” noted a visitor from Milwaukee. In June of 1857 at a Temperance meeting at the church, Reverend Marble proposed to organize a Temperance Society that would bring together all the various Temperance groups in the city “to make a combined movement in favor of temperance . . . by public meetings . . . and by the circulation of a pledge to total abstinence from all that can intoxicate.” Thus Reverend Marble did what many a Congregational minister has often done here in Oshkosh and elsewhere: seek to bridge denominational barriers and to work in good faith with others for the common good. The Temperance Society was in fact organized that day, with a Mr. Daniel Tyler elected president.

But There’s Trouble in the Flock
While addressing the evils of alcohol in the larger society, Reverend Marble had his hands full keeping his own flock safe and in line. There was, for example, the matter of Brother Voorhees and his questionable behavior:

On Motion of Brother Knapp, “Resolved that Brother Voorhees be cited to appear before the church for trial on Wednesday evening September 16th, 1857, to answer to the following charges:
First, The drinking of intoxicating liquors.
Second, The use of profane language.
Third, The keeping of improper company
and that Brothers Hunter and Jackson be a Committee to notify Brother Voorhees of the trial.
After the adjournment of the church, the Pastor immersed Miss Mary Gripp in the Lake.

We Outgrow the First Sanctuary, Such as It Is . . .
Thankfully, more were taken into the fellowship than were being suspended, and in fact the church took on a building program to replace its first structure. Land was purchased for $3,100 at the corner of what is now Algoma and Brown Streets—the sight of our present Educational Building. The local paper voiced its disapproval of building so near the Episcopal church, and Charles Goff, writing in 1975 about the incident, wondered tongue-in-cheek if the editor perhaps had been himself Episcopalian. From the article: “it seems to us to be in very poor taste to erect two elegant structures in such close proximity.”
We also learn something about the first building (built just a few years earlier) in this note in the newspaper: “That architectural curiosity known as the Old Congregational Church on Ferry Street is undergoing a razing operation which must result in improving its appearance, some . . . If the owners would keep on reducing its unsightly proportions, and not stop until the entire edifice was used up, the improvement would be still greater.”

Congregationalists Begin a Second Sanctuary, and Go Underground
Just exactly what this “cheap edifice,” as the church’s own records called it, may have looked like, we are not sure. But for whatever reason—aesthetic or otherwise—our first church building was sold (to be used to house the high school until 1867), and a beautiful new sanctuary was built—or we should more accurately say begun—in 1857. We read in the record dated November 7, 1858:

Through the Mercy of our God, we have to record today that our church is enclosed, and the basement finished for Divine worship. We have commodious sittings for nearly five hundred persons.
We hope that the good gifts of our God may be so poured out upon us that we may be able before many seasons roll around to arise and complete our church building, but we pray that while we remain in this room God will pour out his Spirit and shower down blessings upon us until there shall not be room to receive them. Our beloved Pastor, William H. Marble still remains with us and we hope that as he is permitted to be with us in our darkest hours, he may rejoice with us in our happier and more prosperous hours.

The financial depression of 1857, followed by the Civil War, disrupted many things in Oshkosh, and the building of the church was one of them. Seven years after it was begun, we read in the paper that “the church edifice of the Congregational Church, which has had the appearance of a large barn for several years, is being finished up in good style. . . .The outside brick and the steeple above . . . are completed and an ornament to the city.”⁸

The First Black Preacher in Oshkosh? And Outreach Beyond Our City
Two other items of interest are recorded for us in these years. While Reverend Marble was gone for six weeks, visiting his ailing mother back in New Hampshire, the records note the presence of a black preacher in the pulpit on August 22, 1858: “Reverend William E. Walker (colored) a student of Western Theological Seminary, Pennsylvania, preached for us today. A collection was taken up for his benefit, to the amount of $8.25.”
One wonders who this Reverend Walker was who opened the Word of God to us that hot summer Sunday morning! What brought him to this frontier town in the years just preceding the Civil War? What did he say to the congregation? We can only guess, of course. But it is important that we were open to having a black man preach to our church—an openness of mind and spirit that has in our best times always marked our church.
The second item is the concern of the church for a pastor in Oconto, some eighty miles north of here:

January 30, 1859
After the morning sermon Deacon Knapp read a letter from Brother L.H. Foster of Styles, Oconto County, Wisconsin, giving an account of the misfortune that befell Reverend Mr. Donaldson of Styles. He was taking a load of household goods to Styles and in crossing the ice, his horse got into the water and was drowned, and Mr. Donaldson’s feet, ear, etc. were frozen and in that condition he walked eight miles with the thermometer eight degrees below zero.
Our pastor then proposed that we take up a collection for the benefit of Brother Donaldson, and that it should take the place of our “Home Missionary” collection this year, but that it should be a free gift to Mr. Donaldson (and not to be deducted from his salary from the Home Missionary Society) from this church and congregation.
The amount realized from the collection and from a subscription circulated was $37.00 in cash and about $8.00 in goods, which was forwarded by Brother Foster.

The Church with No Name
Even while the church was concerned about the needs of others, matters of church discipline kept forcing themselves to center stage. The Parkinson family—who you will remember was “hopefully converted” in the revival meetings of 1857—was to become the main players. They were found to hold beliefs contrary to the Articles of Faith and the Covenant. Refusing to submit to the authority of the church, they asked for a trial. This forced the church to decide how a trial should be handled, and so they researched and adopted portions of the Church Manual of Plymouth Congregational Church in Milwaukee—but not without discussion: “After an hour and a half of warm discussion the church adjourned.”
It was probably because of this process of defining their church government that it was discovered that the church had no formal name: “The clerk then read the history of the formation of this church from which it appears that this church has no distinctive name. Brother Jackson then moved that this church be called the ‘First Congregational Church of Oshkosh.’ Motion carried” (March 7, 1859).

The First Heresy Trial
The trials of Chloe and Daniel Parkinson and Chloe’s mother, Hannah Norton, are included in the records in great detail. It appears that the Parkinsons had doubts about the inspiration of the Bible, and were Unitarian in their view of Christ, denying his unique divinity. They sound rather “New Age” to us today, (they were called “Spiritualists” at the time), when they spoke about the divinity in all people—“every one who has the love and Spirit of God in his heart is divine to that degree in which he possesses that love and spirit; that in this way alone Christ is divine,” stated part of the charges.
The church could not tolerate this departure from orthodox belief, and the whole Parkinson family, including two young sons, Morris (later to be the organist and choir director of the church!) and David was expelled. At the close of the worship service the following Sunday, “Dan’l Parkinson . . . gave notice that all who wished to hear his ‘justification’ should come to McCourt’s Hall at 2 p.m.” We do not know if any came to hear him.
Thus we have in these years a picture of a young church born in the western frontier, flourishing in a revivalistic, orthodox theology, and struggling to deal with the rapid changes in its membership. Holding to the rigidity of a closely defined theology and a demanding Covenant, yet inviting new converts into the fold—converts who might or might not share all the views of the founding membership—First Congregational Church of Oshkosh (at least they had a real name now!) was growing up and inevitably changing with the city. This clash between the “orthodox” and more open-minded members would culminate in 1889, with the trial of the Reverend Edward Smith.
Lest we get too dreary a picture of the life of the church in these days—as if they had nothing but accusations and heresy trials going on and no charity in their hearts—here is a glimpse of a more charitable sentiment: “Deacon Knapp then stated the cases of Mrs. Lloyd, her son and daughter. They all had general church letters of recent date from the Welsh Congregational Church of this city. The letter of the mother and daughter had been mislaid and could not be found. The letter of the son was in his summer coat pocket, and the coat was sent to be washed, and the letter was destroyed. Moved and carried, that this church receive them into its fellowship on a profession of faith.” Grace won out over legalism, at least for the Lloyds!

We Forget our own Tenth Anniversary
In the early 1860s, even though names were being added to the membership, now numbering around 270, attendance at congregational meetings was not nearly that number. At the meeting to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the church, it was hoped that there would be a time of reminiscing, but there were not enough people to do so! At the annual meeting of July 9, 1860, there were only five members present. That year Reverend Marble reported, “There is at present no special religious interest, but only a healthy, wholesome state of things; with great need of the special work of the Spirit. We are generally united and our prayer meeting well attended. We hope for good in the future, encouraged by favorable omens in the Sabbath School, the congregation and the communion. The audience does not often exceed three hundred.” That same report lists the Sabbath School membership at 250, and “Stated Hearers” at 600!

Sexual Harassment, and Reverend Marble Goes to War
Another difficult and protracted trial took place that year over alleged sexual assaults against two women in the church, a Mrs. Allen and a Mrs. Clark, by another member, Nathan Sage. Sage had previously been charged with not attending church regularly, but after being “labored with” by the church he had repented and returned to fellowship. But then more serious matters emerged. One section of the lengthy record of his church trial reflects the sort of situation it was: “[Mrs. Allen] told me that on one occasion, when she was alone in the house, Mr. Sage came into the house, apparently very sick, and called her up. He wanted to get her on the bed with him. He quoted Scripture to her to induce her to do so. He insulted her three times in all, once in the barn and once I think in the cellar.” Mr. and Mrs. Clark were living in Sage’s home, as hired hands. In addition to the sexual allegations, there were questions of pay involved.
Reverend Marble was deeply involved in this trial, supporting the women’s allegations. Deacon Knapp was on Mr. Sage’s side, and there are some biting exchanges between pastor and parishioner recorded. In the end, the church voted in favor of Mr. Sage, not believing the two women and their advocate, Reverend Marble. He never preached again in the Oshkosh church—a sad leaving for him after six years of ministry. By August 1862 he had left the church, and was appointed chaplain of the 20th Wisconsin Regiment, then at Rolla, Missouri. In 1863 he took a pastorate in Waupun. He served several churches in Wisconsin and Iowa before moving to Boulder, Colorado, where he died at the age of eighty-one.
Our church was next served briefly by Walter Thorp, who was not an ordained minister, and then by the Reverend Henry G. McArthur.

Henry Gilderoy McArthur (1862-1865)
Born in New York in 1834, Reverend McArthur was only twenty-eight years old when he began his ministry here. He was a graduate of Chicago Theological Seminary (the first of many of our pastors trained there, including Nels Nordstrom), and also had studied at Union in New York.
In January of 1863 we see seventy-five people attending the Preparatory lecture, and then on Thursday, February 5, 1863, we find this entry: “According to notice last Sunday, the church observed today as a day of fasting and prayer. Service commenced at 11 a.m. and continued to 2 p.m. Remarks by the Pastor and by different brethren and sisters. It was a profitable day to all. A prayer meeting was continued till 3 p.m. After which N. Sage and Sister Clark met with their Pastor to reconcile their differences. It is hoped that much good will result from this meeting and day’s devotion.”
In less than a year after the allegations which led to Reverend Marble’s leaving, Mr. Sage and Mrs. Clark apparently came to some forgiveness. Was it a genuine misunderstanding in the first place? Had Mr. Sage been guilty, sought and found forgiveness? Or had Mrs. Clark given in to pressure to pretend the incidents had never happened? We will never know. We do know that thirteen years later when another pastor, Thomas Grassie, was telling the story of how the 1857 sanctuary had been built, he said that it was done “under the lead of a certain indefatigable Brother Nathan Sage, who undertook to see the thing through—honor to his memory!”⁹

The War, and a Much-Loved Pastor
Under McArthur’s leadership prayer services and revival services continued to be part of the life of the church. For instance, an entry in the minutes dated January 8, 1865, reads, “The Reverend John D. Potter commenced a series of meetings continuing four days. Much interest was manifested, and sinners were converted.” Reverend McArthur, like his predecessor, spoke in favor of the Temperance movement.
The Civil War, of course, was a great concern for the church, and for Reverend McArthur. The Weekly Northwestern reported on January 22, 1863, that “on Sunday evening a meeting was held in the Congregational Church to raise subscriptions for the relief of the soldiers of the 21st [Wisconsin Regiment]. A very excellent discourse was delivered by the Reverend Mr. McArthur. A collection was taken up in order to supply in some measure the 21st Wisconsin for the loss which they sustained by the capture of their baggage at Murfreesboro.” One wonders if the pastor spoke on the Providence of God in such an affair! See the Social Concerns section below for more information about Reverend McArthur and the war.
Reverend McArthur, according to the Weekly Northwestern, submitted his resignation in July 1864, but the Society did not accept it, and in fact moved to give him a raise of $200—a vote of confidence that kept him there for just under a year. In March 1865, as the Civil War ended, so did the pastorate of the Reverend McArthur, who tendered his resignation on the advice of his doctors. The church passed a resolution saying they “heartily commend the spirit and interest manifested by Brother McArthur in our spiritual and temporal advancement. . . . We therefore, commend him to any people where God in his providence shall be pleased to send him as an agent in winning souls to Christ.” He later served churches in Illinois and Wisconsin, and in 1880 he received an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Whitman College. He died in 1895, at the age of sixty.

The Music of Our Church
The main sources of information dealing with the founding and formative years of the First Congregational Church are the records of the church and the church society, still preserved in the original long hand of the church clerks and stored in the church archives. Contained there are facts concerning membership, baptisms, marriages, deaths, and ministers. They reveal little, however, about the content and structure of the actual religious services.
One is left to wonder what took place in those church meetings aside from preaching and prayer. In a few instances the clerk recorded that “after singing the meeting adjourned.” What kind of singing might it have been? Were there hymnals? Was there an accompaniment of any sort? A choir, or a song leader? Although it is impossible to answer these questions specifically in regard to this particular congregation, it is a safe assumption that most musical practices being observed in other churches were also being followed here.

Music in Early American Churches
In the earliest days of American churches, only the text of the Psalms was used for singing; thus the term psalmody, meaning singing, evolved. Until later years there were no hymnals, and no instruments to accompany the singing. Most often the congregation depended on the song leader, who would first sing the beginning line of the hymn, and they would repeat it in response. This would continue line by line until the entire hymn had been sung. This method of congregational singing was known as “deaconing” or “lining out.” It was a slow and disjointed effort at best. Also, because there were very few melodies to use, often the text of the Psalm did not fit the melody chosen, resulting in confusion and decidedly discordant singing.
Singing schools emerged as a remedy for the poor quality of Psalm singing. Irving Sablosky in his book American Music notes that, “The singing school signaled deep belief that music was intended to be more than entertainment, that it was intended to edify.” The schools were predominantly in the West and were conducted by traveling teachers, who soon began to provide tune books and manuals of their own making. Singing schools were the forerunners of our modern choirs. The people who attended them became more skillful in their vocal efforts and able to lead the others of the congregation.

The Wesleys Revive Congregational Singing
It was the influence of Charles and John Wesley’s contributions to the music of the church in America as well as England that eventually led to remarkable improvement in congregational singing. On a missionary voyage from England to Savannah, Georgia, in 1735 with a group of Moravians, the two brothers had been inspired by the Moravians’ dedication to the highest quality of religious and sacred music. The hymn singing of the twenty-six Moravians on board greatly impressed the two, and John immediately determined to learn German. His translation of five hymns was his direct contribution to American hymnody.
However, it was Charles, a prolific poet, who by his death had written as many as 6,500 hymns. John and Charles Wesley’s works were jointly issued, but it is generally assumed that the original hymns were written by Charles and translated by John. Hymns and Sacred Poems by John and Charles was brought to the colonies in 1739 by the celebrated evangelist, George Whitefield. After the organization of the Methodists in 1766, the hymns of the Wesleys were immediately accepted because of their musical authenticity and the emotional quality of their texts. The Wesley brothers can be credited with raising congregational singing to the level of dignity and respect it deserved within the church service, and their great hymns still survive as some of the most moving, beautiful, and beloved of all time.
In 1851 Reverend Stephen Peet—who you will remember had married Joseph and Emeline Jackson—compiled a history of the churches and ministers of the Presbyterian and Congregational churches in Wisconsin. (At this time the Presbyterians and Congregationalists in “the West” were cooperating in the “Plan of Union,” and so acted together in matters.) Peet records that in 1844 a resolution was made by these two groups “that this convention regard the Church Psalmist as a very judicious and excellent collection of Psalmody, and recommend it to be used in all congregations.” It is probable, therefore, that the Church Psalmist was the first songbook used by the First Congregational Church of Oshkosh, although there is no record to substantiate that assumption.

The First Instrument of the Church Still Exists
Still in existence and lovingly protected, Milton and Margaret Seefeld’s melodeon is said to be the first instrument ever used in the church. This beautiful antique has passed through five generations of Mrs. Seefeld’s family, and church records confirm that it was the instrument used for church services preceding the installation of the first organ. The Congregational Church celebrated the golden jubilee of the laying of the cornerstone on March 24, 1923. Present at a dinner marking the event was Mrs. Isabella Webster Knapp, then ninety-six years of age and the oldest living member of the church. Mrs. Knapp gave a short talk, and after her remarks Auld Lang Syne was played on the melodeon, the owner of which, at that time, was Mrs. H.B. Mallery (mother of Margaret Seefeld), who supplied the information that evening that the instrument had come to her through her great-grandfather, D.B. Knapp.
The specific years in which the melodeon may have been used in the worship services are unknown, but the instrument has stood the test of time well, thanks to the loving care given it by Margaret and her ancestors. Its handsome rosewood case has been wonderfully preserved, and most of the keys still speak when the pedals are pumped, forcing air from the bellows through metal reeds. Except for its abbreviated keyboard, it resembles the modern spinet piano, but its sound is more closely akin to the parlor pump organ that was so popular in the Victorian era.

The Music of the World, and of Oshkosh
The mid-1800s were years of tremendous musical growth in Europe. Composers of this great period of Romanticism were producing prodigious amounts of some of the finest music of all time. America, particularly in the East, was developing academies of music, oratorio societies, symphony orchestras, and opera companies. Fledgling American composers were going to Europe to be trained by the great masters there. Culture was thriving in the eastern states.
By contrast, the lumber industry was booming in the new state of Wisconsin, and the names of many of the famous barons of the industry can be found on the early membership rolls of First Congregational Church of Oshkosh. These were people of means and culture who had migrated from the East to seek even greater fortunes in this promising new area of business. They were well educated in the arts, and brought with them an earnest desire to encourage cultural growth in their newly adopted state. It would eventually be such names as Paine, Jackson, Radford, Josslyn, and Dagget leading the cause of music and the other arts in Oshkosh. But that would be a matter of time. Obviously there were priorities outranking music during the beginning years of the church.
The local newspapers were far more generous in their remarks about the church’s musical activities than the church records were. As early as 1852 (three years after the church’s founding) a “choir” was reported to have sung at a meeting of the Friends of Temperance held in the church. In early times the connotation of the word “choir” frequently meant “quartet.” The first quartet choir consisted of Mrs. W.A. Gordon, soprano; Mrs. Ira Griffith, contralto; W.B. Felker, tenor; and Schuyler Wright, bass.

The Ministry of Women
It is important to begin with an understanding of the status of women in the days of the founding of the church. In 1849, when First Congregational Church was organized, married women could not own property, and no woman—single or married—was allowed to vote. The women’s suffrage movement was just coming into being. Women were organizing and speaking out, and the first women’s rights convention was held in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York. It was not until 1850 that a law was passed that gave married women the right to own property. Genevieve McBride, in On Wisconsin Women, enlightens us on the status of women in those early days of the church: “Wisconsin statehood was held up two years, until 1848, because of divisive debates on reform including women’s rights. One of the many statements made at this time was made by Edward J. Ryan, of Milwaukee. He declaimed, ‘Women’s property rights would destroy the character of a wife and were contrary usages of society and the commands of the Bible.’ ” ¹⁰

Women Organize Early and Get to Sewing!
Given this background, what was the status and ministry of women at First Congregational Church? The Ladies Society (as the women’s group was called until it merged with the Young Ladies Society in 1911) was formed almost immediately, but did not keep minutes of their meetings. Fortunately, the minutes of the church and Just a Resume, written in June of 1936 by Hattie Carrier Horton, clearly tell us that the women were active and served in many ways. Why did they quietly meet in their homes? Why didn’t they keep records?
We do know that at their meetings they read Scripture, sang hymns, prayed, and sewed for the poor. One record says they sewed for the poor of the village. And they sewed for the needs of the church. The record of May 1, 1851, reads, “The Ladies Sewing Society cushioned the Pulpit, and supplied carpeting, lamps, and other furniture for the church and paid Twenty dollars towards the inside painting. The church, though a small cheap Edifice, was neatly finished, and was so inviting as to be thoroughly filled upon the Sabbath..” Hattie Horton tells us that the church members, and not just the women, knew how to raise money. They had strawberry festivals in the summer, New England dinners in the fall (at which the ladies were attractively attired in New England costume), and oyster suppers in the winter.
Was the Ladies Sewing Society actually the Ladies Society, or was it an entirely different group? Since the sewing machine had only just been invented, all their work was done by hand. Had they had a sewing machine, they could have made a man’s shirt in less than two hours rather than almost fifteen hours.

Let’s See Now . . . Who Can We Get to Organize a Church Dinner?
The women were involved in church dinners in those early days. The December 31, 1858, church minutes tell us that the ladies of the church served a dinner to two hundred people! They prepared and baked the food in their homes. Remember that in 1849 baking was done in a wood stove. When they did work at church they wore overshoes, because the floor was so cold and damp. How often and what type of meals they served is not recorded.
Ten years after the founding of the church, the Reverend Marble asked the men to appoint ten women to call on newcomers and strangers so as to extend to them a personal invitation to join First Congregational Church. The ten women reported monthly and continued to visit for a year. (One today wonders why the minister had to ask the men to appoint women to such a task!) During the same year, the women held an evening social event to raise funds to purchase “non-sectarian books.” The admission for the evening was 25 cents, and they advertised in the Oshkosh Weekly Courier newspaper. The books were kept at the church so that members could borrow them.

Supporting the Civil War Effort
During the Civil War, women filled many jobs left vacant in shops and factories. Genevieve McBride reports that “Only two weeks into the war, women in the North and South formed 20,000 aid societies to provide supplies for wounded soldiers and support for war widows, and to found orphanages and soldiers’ hospitals.” The women of our church also reached out to the community and beyond during the Civil War. The following invitation was found in the Oshkosh Public Library historical file:

The Ladies of Oshkosh and vicinity having offered to give the soldiers of the 21st Regiment entertainment before they leave camp here, Col. Sweet appreciates their kindness - but suggest that they put forth their energies and furnish as large a quantity of lint and bandage as possible for the Regiment - in accordance with the recent order of the President.

They are all requested to meet at the

this afternoon (Saturday) at 2'clock punctually. Come one come all and bring such material as you can. This is an earnest call. Let every woman respond.
—Per order of Mrs. Jewell, President of Ladies Society,
Oshkosh, Sept. 6, 1862

The women also sent other boxes of supplies to the soldiers. One group of boxes of cash and goods was valued at $250. Reverend Marble, commissioned by the Christian Commission, delivered the boxes to the soldiers.
The women’s homes reflected the beliefs and faith of their time. They prayed together as a family. The Sabbath was a holy day, so no games were played on Sunday. Checkers, backgammon, and authors were allowed on other days. A deck of cards was not allowed in their homes. The women lived the Christian doctrine of their day.

The Church and Social Concerns
The 1850s saw the building of the new state of Wisconsin, as well as the community of Oshkosh. While this was the main concern of the people, there was still interest in social issues debated nationally. According to University of Wisconsin historian R.C. Nesbit, “It is probably fair to say that slavery and temperance were the paramount issues in Wisconsin politics in the early years of statehood.”¹¹ The records of this formative time of the Congregational Church indicate that the issues of slavery and temperance did indeed concern the members.

We Will Be Temperate . . . or Else
The temperance movement advocated both personal abstinence from intoxicating drink and laws to control the sale of liquor. An account of the history of Presbyterian and Congregational churches in Wisconsin (mentioned above in the Music section) written in 1851 states, “Our churches are all organized upon the temperance principle.” Also included is an 1844 resolution calling “traffic and use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage . . . a practice wholly inconsistent with Christian character and . . . a barrier to Christian fellowship.” Furthermore, churches and ministers were to “debar those who are guilty of such practice from the communion.” These temperance demands were part of the Covenant of our church, and members were in fact cut off from the church because of their pattern of drunkenness without repentance. Additionally, the church was part of the temperance movement in the Oshkosh community. A notice in the December 31, 1852, Oshkosh Democrat reports on “. . . a Large Meeting of the Friends of Temperance, held at the Congregational Church, for the purpose of Forwarding the Cause, and especially to devise measures for the circulating, and procuring signatures to a Mammoth Petition, praying the Senate and Legislature of this State, to enact a Law prohibiting the sale of Intoxicating Liquors.”

Slavery Condemned
Slavery is discussed in the 1851 and 1861 editions of the History of the Congregational and Presbyterian Churches and Ministers in Wisconsin. The earlier edition regards the antislavery movement as in accordance with the Gospel and opposes slave-holding. The 1861 edition includes resolutions passed by the state convention during the 1850s that regard slave-holding as sin, urge church agencies to educate against slavery, and express concern for the nation as long as the slave trade continues. The tone of the later edition echoes the reports in the Oshkosh newspapers, which reported on visiting lecturers and national debates on slavery. In September 1861, when the debate had become a civil war, Reverend Marble reported, “There is no special interest in religious matters. The war interest has almost taken the place of all other interests. Hope to see good out of the present evil times.”
The minister during the war years, Reverend McArthur, presented his views on slavery and the righteousness of the Northern cause in sermons forwarded to the Northwestern for publication. (The sermons were printed in entirety on the front page of the weekly paper!) In an August 1863 sermon following Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, McArthur spoke of slavery as an evil that needed to be eliminated; for him the war was a way in which “God’s purposes” were made known:

Yes, my hearers, we needed this war, this baptism of blood . All these national afflictions have been to purify us, to soften our hearts and thus to bring us to repentance. Indeed the fruits of this war are richly repaying us for all the sacrifice. It is showing us what we really are, and what we ought to be, is freeing 4,000,000 slaves; is putting us on a righteous basis, and thus exalt ing us in the estimation of nations, and what is better still in the estimation of God.

Christian Education and Youth
In the Memorial Room of our church there are records and files containing a wide variety of information about the development of programs for the young people. Early church minutes seem to dwell on the adult issues of membership qualifications, character references, and building plans, but one can logically assume that children were being born and raised within the community of Oshkosh settlers and they were to become the first members of the Sunday School.
The church school, often called the Sabbath School, not only served the children of the congregation but also acted as “an agency” for the young members of the church who would be the teachers. This blending of purpose seemed to stimulate interest and increased attendance. As a result, a competition for an even greater attendance was held. The class with the best final pupil percentage won the silk “Banner Award” and was noted as the Banner Class. Competition was born!
Since many area boys and girls were not affiliated with any local church, the teachers decided to recruit “missionaries,” and so they offered prizes to all pupils who brought in four or more new pupils in a two-month period, and a Grand Prize for the one with the largest number of all.
One can well imagine the enthusiasm created by this challenge, and a spirit of competition prevailed as pupils vied for “new church friends.” One of those recruited may have been a girl named Kate Strong whose fragile Sunday School certificate of March 1, 1863, lies in an envelope in the archives of our church.