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Encyclopedia Dubuque

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Affiliated with the Local History Network of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Iowa Museum Association.




SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

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c. 1905

SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. On August 26, 1855 seventeen persons - seven men and ten women - were formed Second Presbyterian Church. (1)

Second Church held service for several weeks in the Methodist church on Locust Street. (2) An upper hall was then rented on Main Street until June, 1856 when the congregation moved to a building on 9th Street. The congregation continued to grow primarily through immigrants from Europe. (3)

A brick building was erected at 13th and Locust and dedicated in on the first Sunday in December 1859, shortly before the CIVIL WAR. (4) Only the first floor was finished. (5) On November 28, 1865 the bell for the church arrived in Dubuque. Weighing 2,800 pounds, it was the largest in the city at the time. (6) The sanctuary was completed in 1869. (7)

In 1879 the Eagle Point Mission, begun in 1861 by the [[YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION (Y.M.C.A.), came under the control of the church. The average attendance was 130. The Ladies Aid Society in 1880 held sixteen meetings and sold 20 of the 36 garments it made. The Women's Foreign Mission received and distributed $231.55. The Young Ladies' Missionary Society, organized in 1879, had as its goal the improvement of home missions especially the condition of Chinese women in this country. The society was pledged to contribute each year an amount sufficient to support and educate a native teacher for a year. (8)

The commemoration of the first twenty-five years of the church was held on August 26, 1880. (9)

On December 31, 1903, First and Second Presbyterian churches merged to establish WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. (10)

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Source:

1. (Information was received from a compilation of history by Wayne A. Norman)

2. "The Second Church," Dubuque Herald, February 13, 1880, p. 4. Online: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=uh8FjILnQOkC&dat=18800213&printsec=frontpage&hl=en

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. (Information...)

6. "New Bell," Dubuque Herald, November 29, 1865, p. 4. Online: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=uh8FjILnQOkC&dat=18651129&printsec=frontpage&hl=en

7. (Information...)

8. "The Second Church..."

9. (Information...)

10. Ibid.