View of the Sunday School Bible Wagon with the Reverend Devoe seated in the wagon. Reverend Devoe was the first pastor of the Lanesboro Methodist Episcopal Church.
Interior view of the First Lutheran Church in St. Peter that was located on the northwest corner of the intersection of Fourth and Elm streets, facing Fourth street.
Congregation standing in front of church; address of Jacoby's Artistic studio listed as 252 Nicollet Ave; donor identified church as First Free Baptist Church which was erected in 1871 and taken down 1891; it was located on Washington Ave near 1st Ave. N (not located on 1887 city atlas); cannot verify that any churches listed on verso of card were the church on the stereographic card.
Contributing Institution:
Hennepin County Library, James K. Hosmer Special Collections Library
This is a photograph of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in St. Peter, also called the German Lutheran Church. This church was dedicated in 1870, and was located on the northeast corner of the intersection of Fifth and Mulberry streets, facing Mulberry. A new church on the same site was dedicated in 1923.
Exterior view of the Methodist Church in Beaver Falls, which was organized in 1869. No date on the building but it was before 1880. The church lasted until 1890 at which time a chrurch was built in Morton, Minnesota.
Early years in St. Joseph, Minnesota (1863-1880). Soon after Mother Antonia (Margarethe) Hermann was born in Baden, Germany, her family immigrated to America. In 1857, Margarethe joined the Benedictine Convent in Erie, Pennsylvania. Four years later, 1861, she was sent to found a new convent in Chicago and was appointed prioress there in 1862. In 1868 Abbot Rupert Seidenbusch, without consulting the sisters in St. Joseph, brought Mother Antonia to St. Benedict's Convent and appointed her as prioress of that community. However, after the completion of her first term as prioress, she was elected by the community in St. Joseph for a second term. Mother Antonia, an able leader, helped the community face the challenges of the early years in St. Joseph. She introduced record and bookkeeping practices which are included in the community's archival collection. Mother Antonia lost the favor of Abbot Alexius Edelbrock when she negotiated to have the sisters discontinue doing the laundry and sewing for the monks at St. John's Abbey. She chose to resign as prioress and returned to her former community in Chicago. Later, she transferred to the Benedictine community in Yankton, SD, where she volunteered her services in the Dakota missions (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives; McDonald, pages 65-73).
Rabbi Wechsler (pronounced Wexler) lead the congregation's sponsoring a Jewish farming settlement in the Dakota Territories. The settlement attempted to help Russian Jewish immigrants find livelihoods working the land in the American West. Though the farm colony ultimately failed, he was considered an innovator and modernizer. Late in his career, after leaving Minnesota, he worked to improve educational opportunities in Mississippi for blacks. He served at Temple Mount Zion from 1878-1886.
Contributing Institution:
University of Minnesota Libraries, Nathan and Theresa Berman Upper Midwest Jewish Archives
Studio portrait of Reverend Peter S. Reque (July 15, 1842-October 4, 1879). Reque served in the Civil War. He graduated from Concordia Theological Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri in 1869. He was called to "Vor Frelsers Menighet" and was the first resident Lutheran pastor in Pope and Stevens counties.
This is a photograph of Rev. and Mrs. Michael Sandell. Rev. Sandell was the minister at the First Lutheran Church in St. Peter from 1871 to 1874 and from 1892 until 1902.
This stereo photograph shows the interior of the Church of the Holy Communion in St. Peter. The church is located on the west side of Minnesota Avenue between Broadway and Chestnut street.
Exterior view of the East Sveadahl Lutheran Church in the winter of about 1872. This church building blew down in a wind storm before the summer of 1879.
Schools in north-central Minnesota (1871-1909). Father Francis Pierz invited the Benedictine sisters from St. Joseph to teach in Pierz where he and his parishioners had begun building a school in 1869. The school had not been completed by the time the sisters came in 1871, so they lived with some of the parishioners until the upstairs of the log school house was completed as the sisters' convent. The school on the first floor accommodated 100 pupils. For the sisters, this was a first experience of staffing a rural school and living at such a distance from the motherhouse. However, rural schools mushroomed quickly throughout the Northwest Territory. By 1910, the sisters staffed over 40 such schools outside St. Cloud and the Twin Cities area. Needless to say, the teachers endured many hardships in these rural areas. If they were lucky, equipment consisted of desks and a piece of blackboard. Attendance was variable and classrooms were overcrowded (sometimes 80 in one small room). At times there were no classrooms other than the church, the church basement or sacristy. Cold and hunger prevailed and the ever-present hostile controversy of public versus parochial schools affected school discipline. Salaries were sparse or even non-existent (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives ; McDonald, pages 68-69).