CHAPTER XXXV
The Northern End of the State
[p. 117]
The leading Baptist in Chicago in 1833 was Dr. John T. Temple, a son-in-law of Rev. William Staughton, of Philadelphia. He was a government mail contractor, and January 4, 1833, drove the first mail wagon from Chicago to Ottawa. There was only a weekly mail, and the postoffice was in one end of a log store building. In the spring of 1833 many new settlers flocked to the marshy trading post by the lake, and Dr. Temple wrote to Jonathan B. Going, of the newly organized Baptist Home Mission Society, for a Baptist preacher, offering to be himself responsible for his support. The choice fell on Allen B. Freeman, one of the graduating class at Hamilton, and a classmate of William Dean. These two were ordained together, and went one to Siam and the other to Chicago.
Bro. Freeman and wife reached Chicago in August, and October 5 he aided in organizing the Hadley church, Will county; then called O'Plain. Chicago First church was organized October 19, with fifteen members. In 1834 three new churches were formed; Dupage, afterwards Warrenville, in August; Plainfield in October; and Long Grove, now Pavilion, in December. In April, 1834, Elder Freeman administered the ordinance of baptism for the first time on the western shore of lake Michigan. In December he baptized David Matlock; afterwards a well known Baptist preacher; the first baptism in Fox river. This was the last service rendered by brother Freeman. While returning to Chicago; about forty miles, his horse gave out, he was overtaken by a storm on the open prairie, caught cold, and died December 15, of pneumonia. The site of his grave is lost; Milwaukee avenue probably runs over it, near the river.
There were now churches enough to form an Association, and September 15, 1835, delegates from four churches met with the Dupage church, Dupage county, and organized the "Northern Baptist Association of Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin Tertitory." The ministers present were I. T. Hinton, of Chicago; A. B. Hubbard, of Dupage; J. E. Ambrose, of Plainfield; J. G. Porter, of Hadley; William Southwood, of Michigan. Long Grove was not represented as the pastor, Eld. J. F. Tolman, had gone east to seek medical treatment. He was
[p. 118]
a great sufferer for the larger part of his life. Yet he was an eminently useful man and preacher. He was born in Needham, Mass., in 1784, and died in Sandwich, Ill., in 1872.
I. T. Hinton was born in Oxford, Eng., in 1799, and died in New Orleans of yellow fever in 1847. His pastorate of six years at Chicago, followed by three years each in St. Louis and New Orleans, was unusually successful. He was a man of ability and energy and prayer. He brought with him his English tendency to open communion, and had many a friendly argument with his brethren, but as they were uniformly against him he good naturedly accepted the situation and went right on with his work.
Joshua E. Ambrose was born in Sutton, N. H., in 1810, and came to northern Illinois in 1834. Like Bailey, and Bartlett, and Freeman, he was married, ordained, and immediately set for the west, coming part of the way in a lumber wagon. A few weeks after his arrival his young wife died. He organized a large number of churches in Illinois and Wisconsin. When the American Baptist Free Mission Society was organized, in 1843, on the principle of receiving no contributions from slaveholders, he was one of the promoters of the movement. He died at Lagrange, Ill., in 1895.
September 17, 1836, four churches in Edgar county and vicinity, not in sympathy with the Parker spirit, met with the Bloomfield church and organized the Bloomfield Association. Bloomfield was a village that with the coming in of railroads has been lost off the map, but the Association continued to be known by the old name. The other churches were Middle Fork, Sugar Creek and Bruelett's Creek. The last was just over the line in Indiana. There is at that point no river to mark the state boundary, as the Wabash flows away twenty miles below. Sugar Creek church found they had got into the wrong company, and came no more, probably over persuaded by their home enyironment. To a committee of inquiry they reported for their church that "she was disappointed; expecting to get into what some term the General Union of Baptists in the West." The pastor of the Bloomfield church, now Chrisman, was J. W. Riley, a faithful preacher of the gospel from, Ohio, and before that from Kentucky. He settled at Bloomfield with his family in 1833. He died in 1838, and was succeeded as pastor of the church by his son, G. W. Riley. The latter, in 1837, feeling the need of a better preparation for the ministry set out on horseback for Shurtleff College, hoping that the way might be opened for him to get
[p. 119]
there the education he desired: He found however that the expense, small as it was, was greater than his means, and he remained only a few weeks. The next year with his wife he drove across Indiana and into Ohio to enter Granville college, of which Jonathan Going had just become president. But his educational plans were still destined to come to naught. The pressure on him to return to Bloomfield was so strong that he yielded, and continued as their pastor for ten years longer. It was not the salary that attracted him, for during this time he received from the churches to which he ministered altogether no more than $75 a year. He was then pastor of the church at Paris ten years, and at Urbana eleven years, followed second pastorates at both these points. He died at Urbana in 1881.
One of the churches of the Sangamon Association was Pleasant Grove, now at Tremont, Tazewell county. It was organized in 1833 in a farmhouse three miles west of Tremont. In 1835 the Association met with this church, and a resolution was passed requesting the churches to exclude all members holding missionary views. The Tremont church was about equally divided; nevertheless at the next monthly meeting the antimission half proceeded to exclude the missionary half, consisting of seventeen members. Among those excluded was deacon Van Meter, father of Rev. W. C. Van Meter, who with his family was fifteen miles away attending the funeral of his son. This gave the antimission party a majority. The church clerk also was among the excluded, but unlike the Rushville church clerk he surrendered the records for the sake of peace, and the excluders continued business at the old stand. The excluded ones reorganized under the old name and awaited developments.
About the same time when these events were taking place, a few weeks after the organization of the Northern Association, Elder Hinton gathered a little church at Vermillionville, now Tonica, LaSalle county. The following summer of 1836 the Princeton church, Bureau county, was organized. Also Round Prairie, a little church of five members in Marshall county. Crowding close on these the Peoria First church was organized by Eld. A. M. Gardner, August 14, 1836, with ten members. One of them, Henry Headley, was soon ordained by the church and became the first pastor at Princeton. Learning of these new churches the Tremont church agitated for another Association. The call was issued, the messengers met at Peoria, and November 2, 1836, organized the Illinois River, now the Peoria, Baptist Association. There was a total membership of seventy in the five churches. Since that day there
[p. 120]
have been on the rolls of the Association ninety churches. One third of them have fallen on sleep, one third have been dismissed, and one third remain.
The pastor at Tonica was Thomas Powell, a young Welshman just arrived from the east. He came to this country in 1818, when 17 years of age, began preaching in 1822, and in 1836 came with several members of his church from Saratogo county, N. Y., to Illinois. He died in Ottawa, Ill., in 1881.
Another minister present at the associational organization was Gershom Silliman, from near Chillicothe. He removed froin Connecticut to Ohio in 1815, and in 1829 with a part of his church emigrated to Illinois, coming by boat to Peoria. He was one of the earliest pioneers in that part of the state, and was a faithful preacher as he had opportunity. He died at his home in 1856.
W. C. Van Meter was also present, with his fa:ther, at the organization. In 1837 he entered Shurtleff College, and was one of the defenders of Elijah P. Lovejoy and helped to carry him home after he was killed. He followed Dr. Going to Granville College, and there graduated. In 1854 he began his famous work at the Five Points' Mission in New York and in eighteen years he made seventy trips to the west and placed in homes twenty five hundred children. In 1872 he entered on a mission in Rome, Italy; first under the American Baptist Publication Society, and then independent. He died there in 1888. ================= [Edward P. Brand, Illinois Baptists -- A History, 1930, pp. 117-120. -- jrd]
Go to next Chapter
Return to Illinois Baptist Index Page
Return to American Baptist Histories
Return to HOME Page