Bringing good cheer

    Scarcely had the first claims been staked off and the first towns laid out, before missionaries and ministers from the home states of the pioneers began to form congregations of Methodists, Presbyterian, Catholics, Baptists and others.

    Because so many congregations were small and most of the members poor, one minister often had to serve several, and sometimes many congregations. In getting to the different places, the minister might have to walk, but usually he rode or drove a horse, and was therefore often called a circuit rider. He not only preached and taught Sunday school, but visited the sick and brought good cheer to many a lonely farmstead and town family.

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Sunday schools and Sunday school libraries

     The ministers were just as much interested in the Sunday school as in the church services, and Sunday schools usually appeared at the same time that congregations were formed. To get books for the children, Sunday school libraries were placed in the churches; and to arouse more interest in Sunday schools, picnics and conventions were held, attended by both children and grown-ups.

    In the country the different congregations often had to use the school house for their Sunday meetings. Where there were several congregations in the same school district, each congregation was given one or two Sundays a month for its services.

    Just as the first schools were log cabins, so were some of the first churches. In a few years, however, the log churches gave way to edifices of sawed lumber or bricks. A few of these structures were so well built that they are still standing.

Quiet Sundays

     The churches wished to have quiet Sundays, and partly through their influence the Legislative Assembly in 1843 passed a law forbidding noisy demonstrations of Sundays, especially if they were of such a nature as to interfere with church services. The churches were also anxious to further the cause of temperance. For this purpose they organized temperance societies whose members pledged themselves not to drink intoxicating liquors. Children, too, were encouraged to take this pledge.

    Some of the strongest supporters of elementary schools were members of the churches. Being so determined in this matter, they sometimes organized schools before public schools could be formed. Some pf these church schools in time became public schools, while others continued to be managed by the churches.

A big brother of the churches

     The churches were not financially supported by the Territorial State, or National governments. But the churches in the home states of the pioneers acted as big brother towards the young churches of the West by sending them trained ministers and sometimes also money for buildings.

    The churches or denominations having the greatest number of members in 1860 were the Methodists, the Presbyterian, the Catholic and the Baptist. Among the churches with smaller membership were....

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....The United Brethren, the Congregational, the Christian, the Reformed, the Quaker, the Episcopal, and the Lutheran.

Questions and Exercises: Which denominations formed congregations in early Iowa? What was a circuit rider? How was more interest aroused in Sunday schools? Where did the congregations without church buildings have their services? What building materials were used for the early churches? How was the work of the churches financed?