Various religious sects occupy region

Among the first religious groups arriving in the region were members of the Mormon church from Nauvoo, Ill. These men cut logs on the Black River for a temple being built at Nauvoo. At one time there were 150 of them working in the Black River Falls area. After the death of Joseph Smith, the Mormons left. The temple built with timber from this region was destroyed by fire.

     Christian religion came closely behind the first white men into the region.
     Given credit for conducting the first services is Father Louis Hennepin, a French priest traveling with Michael Accau and Antoine Auguel up the Chippewa River in the late 1680's.
     Father Hennepin is believed to have said a Catholic mass on the hill overlooking Chippewa Falls.
     The first organized church came with the arrival of the Rev. Alfred Brunson in 1835 at Prairie du Chien. he had the first Methodist congregation which extended from Rock Island, Ill. to St. Paul. Because of his work he was also appointed a special Indian agent and traveled to LaPointe on Madeline Island, and Indian trading post.

Mormons came to Black River

     There has been a number of sects in the area throughout the years.
     Among the first to come as an organized body were Mormons who were early loggers on the Black River.
      In May 1841 a delegation of Mormons left Nauvoo, Ill., for the pineries along the Black River in Jackson and Clark counties to obtain lumber for construction of the Nauvoo Temple and Nauvoo House.
     The Mormons clashed with logging interests of Jacob Spaulding when they started to cut timber on his claim.
     A confrontation between Spaulding's crew and the Mormons was averted and the Mormons moved off Spaulding's claim.

Writes of first log shipments

     Bishop George Miller, one of the 12 Apostles of the Mormon Church who was with he logging crews, wrote in a pamphlet published in 1855:
     "A raft containing 92,000 feet of boards and 32,000 cubic feet of logs arrived in Nauvoo from Wisconsin, Oct. 12, 1842."
     It was one of the first known shipments of logs rafted out of the Black River.
     In spring of 1843, the Mormons purchased Spaulding mill and interests at the Falls for $12,000. payable in lumber. During summer of 1843 there were 150 Mormons working in the pineries and many brought their families.
     Spaulding was on business in Warsaw, Ill., when Joseph Smith, the Mormon leader, and his brother, Hyrum Smith, were killed by a mob June 27, 1844, at Carthage, Ill. Spaulding on his return informed the Saints of Smith's death.
     All business was stopped, the property resold to Spaulding and a speedy exodus arranged. The Mormons rafted the lumber they had on hand and returned to Nauvoo.

Vie for Mormon leadership

     At Nauvoo, Brigham Young and some others, including James Jessie Strang, bide for leadership of the Mormon church. There were hostilities among dissenting members as well s neighboring Gentiles.
     Mormons were plagued with another adversity Oct. 9, 1848, when fire, presumably of incendiary origin, destroyed the Nauvoo Temple.
     The sect following Strang settled at Voree in Racine County. To avoid further persecution, the Strangites moved to Beaver Island, a wilderness island near the northern end of Lake Michigan, giving the Mormons much needed ready cash.

Dislike for Strang policies

     All was harmonious on Beaver Island for the first few years until the followers learned Strang was practicing polygamy, a policy this group vigorously denounced and one of the reasons they were disassociated with the Brighamites who went to Utah.
     About 20 followers of Prophet Strang adopted his polygamous practices. Strang had five wives at the time of his death, but the other followers acquired only two or three wives.
     From the diary of J.O. McNutt, a follower who later moved to Jackson County, is found: "On June 16, 1856, James J. Strang was shot down in cold blood, murdered by Alex Wentworth and Tom Bedford."
     They were disenchanted Mormons

Mob lands to oust Mormons

     "In a couple of days (10) a boat pulled into the dock at Beaver Island and mob of men landed, led by one Sheriff Newton.
     The mob, McNutt wrote, went to every house and ordered the people to leave. There were about 2,500 Mormons on the island.
     Strang died July 9, 1856, and three of his wives, Betsy McNutt, Sara and Phoebe Wright, moved to Jackson County. The Wrights family was relatives of Lyman Wright who had been in Jackson County with logging crews in the 1840s. They settled on Hall's Creek in 1856 and started a grist mill and several sawmills at Wrightsville, named in honor of Benjamin Wright, and Elder of the Strangite church. The town was of the present community of Merrillan.
     The group at Wrightsville denounced the Strangite sect. The latter group continued to follow the Strang doctrine but was unsuccessful in finding a leader.
     While The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints continues in this area, another sect came and left within the last 100 years.

Dunkards come and depart

     This group, numbering as high as 60 families, was the Dunkard Fraternity which established itself west of Irvington and north of Weston in Dunn County.
     Dunkards, whose beliefs and customs put them between conventional Baptists and the Amish, were original old German Baptists from regions of Ohio and Indiana. About 1865, the first group walked to Dunn County from their former homes. They had been called Dunkards by neighbors because of their beliefs.
     For 33 years the Dunkards worshipped in the home of members of the sect before they were in a position to consider building their own church.

Select site for first church

     In 1898, they selected a scenic hillside called "Gypsy Hill" to build an unpretentious white frame church near Beaver Creek. The church was build by members of the congregation. Because of the "strict" beliefs of the Dunkards, the inside was simply designed with wooden benches on each side and wood stoves for heat.
     The women sat on one side and the men on the other. Children accompanied parents to services.
     First preacher was Elder Levi Stanton who served a short time before being replaced by J.B. Flora who served the fraternity most of his life.

Selected from within own people

     Dunkards selected their minister from within the group and both men and women were allowed to vote. The men selected went through three degrees, being allowed to preach, baptize and then be an elder.
     Baptism was a major event with the church. It started with reading scripture and singing hymns led by the Elder, but without music accompaniment which was barred from services. Actual baptism took place in a nearby spring and consisted of immersion "three times forward."
     Communion took place in early fall and was a major event, with Dunkards from other congregations often taking part. The celebration, called "love feast" often lasted a weekend, with members donating beef, bread and pies to the common larder.

Dressed in black attire

     The Dunkard men's dress included wide-brimmed, black hats with a low crown, and garments with tight-fitting lack collars and trousers. The men let their whiskers grow, but shaved around their nose and lips, leaving fringes of hair along the jaw bone from ear to ear and down onto the neck.
     Women dressed for modesty, preferring black or dark-colored dresses. The sides and tops of their "pokes", or sun bonnets, arched to eight inches and were nearly always made of the same material as the dresses.
     Modernization was a major factor in dissolution of the area Dunkard congregation. Until the church closed in 1960, families gradually had been returning to Ohio and Indiana. Some left because Dunkard religious affiliations were stronger in Ohio and Indiana. Younger Dunkards sought greater vocational opportunities in the city.
     Dunkards were more liberal than the Amish because they used automobiles and other modern conveniences.

Amish sects reside in area

     Another religious sect adhering to many 19th century ways is relatively new in the area, but has deep convictions going back many years.
     The Amish have settlements in two area locations, one in Taylor County north of Withee and Abbotsford, and one in Fly Creek Valley between Pigeon Falls and Whitehall.
     The groups originally moved to Wisconsin from Kansas, first going to the Medford area then some coming to Fly Creek Valley.
     Some in the past few years departed to Minnesota because farm land in this part of the state became too expensive for new families. Others from Indiana have come into the region.

Had fled to valley area

     The Trempeaueau colony is of the Older Order Amish, sons and daughters of the bygone era of farming lifestyle who fled from Kansas and Missouri and other states.
     Families in the colony farm as any pioneer northern or western Wisconsin farmer of 50 to 75 years ago. He milks his cows by hand because his kind refuses to use electricity. He houses horses in place of tractors because Old Order Amish don't allow use of rubber-tired implements on fields, and he abstains from use of chemical fertilizers.
     The farm wife also puts in long, busy days because she makes most of the family's clothing and does not have electricity for modern homemaking facilities.

Elect own bishop ministers

     The one bishop and two ministers of each Amish community are selected by vote. However, women do not have a vote because "It would be impossible to do and still be scriptural," a community leader said.
     All Amish are bilingual because English and German are household tongues and Bibles and hymnals are in High German.
     Television, newspapers and photographs are forbidden by the Amish. "It is not essential to our way of life and therefore of no value," William Mast, a community leader, said.

Other groups in area

     There are several other sects retaining old customs and ways. For years Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in northwest Dunn County, started in 1917, served farmers of Slovak heritage that converged in the area.
     There are several other sects retaining old customs and ways. For years Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in northwest Dunn County, started in 1917, served farmers of Slovak heritage that converged in the area.
     At Lublin in Taylor County, many traditions of the Orthodox Church are carried on at Holy Assumption Church which serves religious needs of Orthodox Christians, some of whom have ties with the Russian, Yugoslavia and Eastern Church.
     The more "popular" religions were established with coming of settlers. Among the first to establish a church were the Canadian French at Chippewa Falls. With a large percentage of Irish and Germans of the Roman Catholic faith following, the Catholic Church was established at the Falls well before the first Protestant church was build in Eau Claire in 1857.
     At Chippewa, the school fund was divided between Catholic and Protestant populations, but bother were under direction of the public school board.

Face rough start

     While the Catholic Church in Chippewa Falls received solid support from the beginning, most Protestant churches had a rough start.
     Thomas Randall, writing in 1875, said prospects of establishing a Protestant Church in Chippewa in 1856 looked very discouraging. He noted when the Rev. W.W. McNair came up the river in that year, he found only six or eight persons of both sexes who considered themselves even nominal Presbyterians.
     The situation was almost reversed in Eau Claire as the Presbyterian Church was completed in 1857, two years before the first Catholic church was completed, although both groups started at the same time.

Methodist faced struggle

     Another group that struggled to become established in Eau Claire was the Methodists. Randall wrote, "Perhaps no Christian people struggled harder to establish themselves...than the Methodist of this city...they were few in number at first and still more feeble in point of wealth...and their progress at first very slow."
     Doing much better in Eau Claire were the Baptists, Congregationalists headed by the Rev. Alberoni Kidder, German Lutherans and Lutherans from Norway and Sweden. In 1860 the Universalists established a church here.
     Early pioneers valued religion and churches were among the first buildings constructed after homesteads. The log cabin home of Mr. and Mrs. Lars Anderson, built in the Town of Wheaton, Chippewa County, in 1858, served as the early church for Norwegians settling in the Big Elk Creek area.
     Records of Big Elk Creek Church indicate a number of children, including Henry Holm, the first white child born in the community, were baptized in the log cabin home.
     Paul Olson and Elsie Benson were married in the cabin April 1, 1871.
     First church services in Dunn County were conducted in school houses. The school house building in Chippewa Falls provided a site for services by denominations which did not have a church of their own.

Extracted from the Eau Claire Leader Telegram
Special Publication, Our Story 'The Chippewa Valley and Beyond', published 1976
Used with permission.