FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. The history of Presbyterian churches in Dubuque began in 1830. Seven members of this congregation later changed their affiliation to the Congregational church. This group organized the First Congregational Church which became the FIRST CONGREGATIONAL UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST. (1)

The German Presbyterian Church, also known as the GERMAN EVANGELICAL CHURCH of Dubuque was organized in 1847. This made it the second oldest church associated with the presbytery in Dubuque and the oldest in which services were conducted in English. At the organizational meeting, twenty people brought their letters from other churches. Lincoln CLARK was elected and installed as the ruling elder. Services were first held in the GLOBE BUILDING. Property was soon purchased on the northeast corner of Main and 12th Street and a brick building was constructed. The congregation moved into the new church in 1852. Rev. Joshua Phelps, D.D. was installed as the first pastor on June 19th, 1853 and remained there until 1859. (2)

In the summer of 1839, Rev. Peter FLURY and his wife Sophie arrived from Switzerland to minister to German-speaking immigrants. The Flurys lived in a house on Seventh Street between Bluff and Locust STREETS. Children were invited into their parlor to learn German and English, writing and singing, and the Christian faith. Adults were invited into their home in the evening for similar instruction.

The German Evangelical Church, in name only, was organized on December 25, 1847 with 35 members, including Rev. Flury as the pastor. He hoped that this ‘evangelical” church, as it was called at the time, would unite immigrants of both the Lutheran and the reformed traditions. Services were held in the GLOBE BUILDING with a lot soon purchased on the northeast corner of Main and 12th.

In the summer of 1848, the congregation began construction of the German Evangelical Church, a brick church, on which work was finished in 1852. (3) Since Rev. Flury came from Switzerland, and many of the original members were Swiss immigrants, the church was commonly known as the “Swiss Church.”

Sophie Flury became ill and died on November 25, 1848. After a short stay in Milwaukee, Rev. Flury returned to Switzerland. He was succeeded by Rev. Jean Baptiste Madoulet, who served for two years. There is no evidence that he continued the informal school begun by the Flurys, but he did tutor Johannes Bantly, a Swiss immigrant, in preparation for the ministry.

Meanwhile, Adrain VAN VLIET, a Dutch immigrant traveling from New York to St. Louis to Galena, pursued his vocation as a tailor and cap maker. His wife died in Galena and, after her death, the grief stricken Van Vliet walked to Platteville where Johannes Bantly was a pastor. Van Vliet and Bantly may have become acquainted when they lived in Galena. Impressed with Van Vliet's teaching from the Scriptures, Bantly encouraged him to prepare for the ministry. Van Vliet was tutored by Bantly and Rev. John Lewis and ordained by the Congregational Association at Mineral Point in 1851. He became the third pastor of the German Evangelical Church in Dubuque in the spring of 1852.

Van Vliet began tutoring young men to minister to German-speaking immigrants in the autumn of 1852. In 1854, Van Vliet persuaded many members of the German Evangelical Church to join the Presbytery of Cedar Valley. Van Vliet's new church became the First German Presbyterian Church. (4) Two years later, the church property was sold for $4,500, and land at the corner of Seventeenth and Iowa Street was acquired on June 21, 1856 for $2,000. The remaining funds were used to construct a church.

The church was a two-level stone building, measuring 40’ x 60’, with the interior and exterior walls covered with plaster and painted blue, reflecting the Dutch background of Van Vliet. (5) The church was commonly known as “Die Blaue Kirch” or “The Blue Church.” The upper level was the sanctuary while the lower level accommodated the pastor's apartment and classrooms. This lower level became the setting for the expanding tutoring and apprentice program informally known as “Van Vliet's School”. The congregation purchased two houses next to the church as living quarters for the growing number of young men wishing to study with Van Vliet.

“Van Vliet’s School” was organized as the German Theological School of the Northwest in 1864. Adrian Van Vliet died on May 9, 1871, and was succeeded as pastor and professor by his fourth student, Rev. Jacob Conzett. Under Conzett’s leadership, the school expanded and obtained property on the hill across from the church in 1871, and the close connection between the school and the church continued.

On March 4, 1894, Rev. Ernest Kudobe, the pastor, led fifty-one members to withdraw to form an Independent Presbyterian Church. His successor, Rev. E. Schuette, encouraged the remaining 71 members to seek new members and another 17 members were added to the congregation within a short period. In 1894, the congregation assumed responsibility for building a new church at a cost of $6,320 to replace the small and deteriorated “Blue Church.”

While construction was taking place, the congregation met in the chapel of the German Presbyterian seminary. (6) The "Blue Church" was razed in early 1896, and the present building was dedicated on November 13, 1896. Its design is GOTHIC REVIVAL ARCHITECTURE, an architectural style developed in England in the eighteenth century, which became popular in America during the nineteenth century. The engraved stone above the main entrance to church indicates:

                     First German Presbyterian Church

                       Organized 1847—Erected 1894

Photo courtesy: Telegraph Herald

The architect was Fridolin HEER, a Swiss immigrant. The contractor was Ulrich WILLY, another Swiss immigrant and member of the First German Presbyterian Church. The building and its furnishings, without the organ, cost $9,613. Except for the additions of the baptismal font and the communion table, the original furniture remains in use today.

Built in "the round," the sanctuary was credited with creating a warm feeling. FARLEY AND LOETSCHER MANUFACTURING COMPANY created the handcarved pulpit at a cost of $29.95. The pews was built by the Richmond Church Furniture Company of Richmond, Indiana and cost $485. The organ was the product of Hinners and Albertson, the premier business in the field. Perhaps the stained glass was the biggest departure from traditional simplistic Presbyterian church. While all the standard colors were displayed, the stained glass contained the color of pink. This color at the time required GOLD to create it.

Photo courtesy: Telegraph Herald

When the stained glass windows were made, five names were etched in the glass.l These included Adrian Van Vliet; Maria Conzett Hoerner, the daughter of David and Agatha Conzett; Fred Schloz, a trustee of the church in the late 1800s; and Christian Sutter, an early settler. Memorials to other important people in the history of the church were painted on the glass in the 1970s. The building and its furnishings which were still in use in 2022 cost $10,599 when it was opened in 1896.

In the fall of 1903 negotiations for the merger of First Presbyterian Church and Second Presbyterian Church began. The combination of the two was complete by December 31, 1903. WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH began with a prayer meeting on New Year's morning, 1904, at 8:00 a.m. in the building of the former Second Presbyterian Church at 13th and Locust. The building left by First Presbyterian was slated to become the home of FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. (7)

The present building was registered by the Presbyterian Historical Society as an “American Presbyterian and Reformed Historical Site” in June 1978.

The First German Presbyterian Church, through students trained in the school closely associated with the church, was directly or indirectly responsible for beginning more than one hundred German-speaking Presbyterian churches in the Upper Mississippi Valley, by the end of the nineteenth century. There was an inseparable connection between the church and the school, located on the hill overlooking Seventeenth and Iowa Streets, 1871-1907. The school moved to a new six-acre campus in 1907, and emerged as the UNIVERSITY OF DUBUQUE in 1920.

The word “German” on the cornerstone was covered with cement, in 1927 because of the reaction against Germans during and after WORLD WAR I. (8) During the pastorate of Dr. William C. LAUBE (1921-1927), the First German Presbyterian Church was renamed the First Presbyterian Church on January 9, 1924. During this same period, the widow of Christian LOETSCHER donated her Victorian mansion at 1005 Lincoln Avenue to establish the BETHANY HOME. Dr. Laube became the second superintendent in late 1927.

The cement covering the word “German” was chiseled out in 1985 as a symbol of the rich heritage of the church. The official church name remained the First United Presbyterian Church. (9)

In the fall of 2002 members of the congregation voted to support a full-time pastor after two decades of part-time ministerial service. (8)

The 1987 through 2014 Dubuque City Directory listed 1684 Iowa.

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Source:

1. "Laid the Corner Stone," Dubuque Daily Herald, September 23, 1894, p. 8. https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=_OG5zn83XeQC&dat=18940923&printsec=frontpage&hl=en

2. Nevans-Pederson, Mary, "First Presbyterian Takes "Leap of Faith," Telegraph Herald, March 29, 2003, p. 1C

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. "Municipal Molecules," Dubuque Daily Herald, July 28, 1894, p. 4

6. "Baptists to Sell," Dubuque Telegraph-Herald, January 4, 1904, p. 5

7. Nepper, Mark, "One Word Returns to First Presbyterian Church," Telegraph Herald, August 2, 1985, p. 5

8. Ibid.

9. Nevans-Pederson

First Presbyterian Church. "Our History." Online: http://www.firstpresdbq.org/about-us/history-of-our-church/