Advocate Archives Northeast Regional Archives Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Vol. 2 No. 16, ADVENT 2013 Metropolitan New York Synod Joins Northeast Archives by John E. Peterson The reception of the Metropolitan New York Synod of the ELCA as an affiliated organization of the Lutheran Archives Center at Philadelphia was the highlight of the fall meeting of the Board of Directors on September 17. The Board adjusted the bylaws to include the Metro Synod as an affilate and was pleased to to recognize the Synod s John Daggan, Archivist, Metropolitan New York Synod apppointment of long time Synod Archivist John Daggan, as its affiliated director. The Board then elected Jack Martz, Metro Synod Archives Advisory Committee member as a new nonaffiliated director. Both of these individuals have been associated with our work for many years and it was a joy to bring them into the regular membership of the Board. The Metropolitan New York Synod, (along with the Upstate New York Synod) can trace its history back to the second oldest Lutheran synod in America, the Ministerium of New York (1786). Henry Melchior Muhlenberg s son-in-law, Dr John Christopher Kunze was its first President. Since that founding date there have been fourteen synodical organizations in New York state preceeding the two ELCA synods of today. For many decades the Metro Synod archives has been located at Wagner College, Staten Island, New York and in recent years has been named the Sutter Memorial Archives. It has now outgrown the space available in continued on page 5 Jim Ziebell putting the first box on a new shelf. FROM THE EDITOR In this issue of the Advocate we annouce the expansion of the depository at the Archives to make room for the Metropolitan New York Synod collections. While the space was prepared for such an expansion it sverely cramps our available space for processing. We now have only 50% of the previous working area. It would be a great advantage for us if synodical officials could "pre-process" materials before they arrive at Philadelphia. Synod Archivists are available to suggest how selective weeding, and the use of acid-free files and boxes might be best acomplished in every area. In a time of diminished financial resources this would be a very much appreciated contribution to the work of properly storing congregational archives and personal papers. We now conclude the series on Lutherans In Maine by Pastor Roger Rotvig. If you missed Parts I and II, let us know, send us a modest donation and we will send you the missing portions from Advent 2012 and Easter 2013. We have heard many positive comments about Pastor Rotvig's contributions to the little recognized Lutheran history of the geographically large "downeast" state. We have also discovered that he is a long lost cousin to our Curator, John Peterson. We are often more connected than we imagine. continued on page 5
Lutherans in Maine - Part III by Roger Rotvig Henry N. Pohlman was pastor of the historic First Lutheran Church in Albany, NY and was a three-time President of the General Synod. He was a long-time President of the Ministerium of New York and led a group to form a break away synod because of his support of revivals and a watered down version of the Augsburg Confession. He wrote a 20 page report of his sense of what went wrong at the German Lutheran congregation in Waldoboro according to his on-site visit in 1850. This was an early document discovered by this writer. He had convinced me that language was the primary cause of their failure after 109 years of trying. However, the more I learned of the life of the congregation, the more credence I gave to the issues of timing and location. The first 40 years in the life of the congregation led up the Revolutionary War. What we now call Maine was the extreme northern fringe of Massachusetts, the northernmost of the thirteen colonies. It was easy for the Colonies to ignore the festering French and Indian War carnage in the area as a low profile issue. This issue, along with the remoteness of Waldoboro, caused them to be beholden to continuing resources from Germany (even prisoners of war) to meet their pastoral needs. Only two references are found to indicate any contact with other Lutherans in America and they were both in the nature of sending requests for help from the Ministeriums of Pennsylvania and New York. Only the latter resulted in an on-site visit by a Lutheran official. As a result of these facts, the congregation had a horrible record of leadership. Issues of location and timing kept seemingly good pastoral candidates from coming or staying very long. Their vulnerability to colorful hucksters, posing as ordained Lutheran pastors, was great. In the prior sections, three European nations had been mentioned as sponsors of Lutheranism in Colonial America. Many Dutch, Swedes and Germans had already left their homelands and settled in the new world. As the eighteenth century drew to a close, these and other northern European groups would begin the second great growth of the Lutheran churches in America through immigration. The next half century of Lutheran church growth in Maine was all Scandinavian and all except for far northern New Sweden, occurred with 60 or 70 miles of Maine s major city, Portland. The New Sweden, Maine story has virtually no equal any place in the United States. In a post civil war move to welcome immigrants and open virgin farmlands and woodlands, a native Maine Ambassador to Sweden, W. W. Thomas, recruited settlers to come to America. The 1870 arrival of the first 51 settlers grew to 553 by the end of 1871 and the growth continued for years. Swedish Lutherans, Swedish Baptists and Swedish Covenant church members still thrive in northernmost Maine today with a great amount of Swedish culture and language mixed in. From 1870 to 1970, eighteen pastors served the New Sweden Lutheran congregation. Their first pastor, Andrew Wiren served them for ten years, as did one other starting in 1911. The remaining 16 served from 2 to 7 years each. The important issue is that their longest vacancies were under 3 years and they were often served by interims during those periods. An important element in the immigrant language issue in the survival of the church is that the New Sweden Church went to English only services during the time of Pastor Mallard Nelson, 1937-1944 when the congregation was nearly 75 years old. No records can be found to indicate how long they may have had worship services in both languages. Be sure you carefully note the time lag between the Waldoboro German settlers in 1740 and the New Sweden settlers in 1870. That s a 130 year gap between the first and second wave of Lutherans in Maine. It is certain that the times were more favorable for the isolated New Sweden congregation. No wars. Their isolated location obviously was more accessible to the rest of Maine and New England, even though it was very much further away from the growing part of the state. The issue of language, often an obstacle to longevity, was obviously overcome by some unique mix of cultural celebration and bilingual activity that still exists to this day. A further study appears to be called for about how New Sweden Maine survived and thrived. It may be more important than the study of why Waldoboro died. The rest of New England did not fare much better when it came to timing, location and language. The recognized first Lutheran church in New England after Waldoboro was First Lutheran Church of Boston, established in 1839 (now a member of the Missouri Synod) and the first Augustana (Swedish) 2
Lutheran church in New England was First Lutheran in Brockton, Mass, organized in 1867. A section of the history of First Lutheran Church in Portland, organized in 1874, reads as follows: In 1872, records show that of the approximately 700 people of Scandinavian birth then living in the Portland area, 57 met to form a Scandinavian Society.... The group was made up of people of Danish, Swedish and Norwegian birth with a common faith in God and a strong belief in the tenants of the Lutheran Church. So it was that Mads N. Bruns wrote to the Bishop of Ribe in Denmark asking that a pastor be sent to lead the new church. Getting no response, Theodor H. Johnson then wrote to the Rev. Ole Juul in New York, a pastor of the Norwegian Synod, asking him to aid in the organizing of a church. Pastor Juul came to Portland, and on Aug. 24, 1874 at a meeting in Scandinavian Hall located at the corner of Middle and Plumb streets, First Lutheran Church of Portland had its birth with 53 people joining that day. The Swedes and Danes and Finns who lived in the area, seemed just waiting until enough of their countrymen were around and then they split off to form their own Lutheran churches. Again, a section of the history of the 40th anniversary of First Lutheran, the real mother church of the time, reads as follows: Of the 448 confirmed persons, 135 are now active members. A large number have joined and are members of the Danish Lutheran Church in Falmouth, the Danish Lutheran Church in Westbrook, the Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church in Portland, the Swedish Lutheran Church of Portland, and a few are members of the Scandinavian Congregational Church of Portland. The National Lutheran Council, (organized in 1918) recorded that in 1955, 2/10th of one percent of Maine citizens belong to the Lutheran faith, some 2,000 members in all. Augustana (Swedes) had 4 congregations; Suomi (Finns) had 4 congregations; the ELC (Norwegians) had 2 congregations; the UELC (Danes) had 1 congregation; and LCMS (German) had 1 congregation. Until the mid 1950s when Lutheran merger was in the air, a competitive system prevailed in New England and to a lesser degree in other parts of the United States. The ethnic synod that was ready and able to respond usually got to organize and enroll the locals in a congregation. Supporting synodical structures and loyalties were generally to some far off place where the majority of that ethnic group had settled. Norwegians looked to Minnesota, Finns to Hancock, Michigan and Danes to either Blair, Nebraska or DesMoines, Iowa, depending on cultural issues. One group was nicknamed the Sad Danes and the other Happy Danes. None of these above named national groups had a District or Conference devoted solely to their member churches in New England. The New England Swedes were a little more fortunate. Their Augustana Synod, formed in 1860, had a Conference located on the territory of New England from 1912, with full time workers to aid existing churches and potential developing ministries from 1945 on. As a result of this, the Augustana Synod became the dominant Lutheran church The Congregational Church, founded 1807, constructed 1820. This church absorbed the Waldoboro German Lutherans. 3
body in all of New England as the mid- 20th century approached. The 1960s were finally a time for merger and consolidation without regard to ethnic heritage. It took two steps, 25 years apart to bring about the present Synodical organization. The first merger in 1960 included the Norwegian background Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELC), the German ethnic American Lutheran Church (Old ALC of 1930) and the sad Danes of the United Evangelcial Lutheran Church (UELC). The new denomination was enlarged by the Lutheran Free Church in 1963 and the group was known as The American Lutheran Church. It was headquarterd in Minneapolis, MN. The second merger in 1962 involved the Eastern-based United Lutheran Chruch in America (ULCA), the Augustana Evangelcial Luheran Church (Swedish), the happy Danes of the American Evangelical Lutheran Church (AELC) and the Finnish background Suomi Synod. It was named the Lutheran Church in America and had its headquarters in New York City. Our current national church body, including all of the above mentioned members of the Lutheran Church in America and The American Lutheran Church, plus a group that had removed themselves from the Missouri Synod, known as the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches, (AELC), came into being in 1987 with the formation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The Lutherans in America that did not go through this extreme ethnic transforming scenario, are the predominantly German background churches known as The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. Two congregations and one mission of the Missouri Synod and one now closed congregation of the Wisconsin Synod represent this part of Lutheranism in Maine. It is interesting to realize that at least 10 of the existing 20 Lutheran churches that now exist in Maine have their beginnings in the period between 1950 and 2002. The strong ethnic factor of that past half century has obviously come to an end. Dr. Benjamin Lawson, the President of the now closed Lutheran Upsala College in East Gustaf Adolph, Evangelical Luthern Church, New Sweden, Maine Orange, NJ, himself a native of Brockton, Mass., gives a compelling argument as to the slow Lutheran growth in his Brief History of the New England Conference of the Augustana Lutheran Church in its 1962 publication 50 Years In New England: When our people settled in the East they came to established communities in which the work of the church had been going on for two centuries or more. We were really newcomers foreigners. It was not a case of our people growing up from the beginning with the settlements, and having a part in fashioning the life of those settlements, as was so often the case on the plains of the West. This fact must be borne in mind in writing the history of our Church, and especially in evaluating our work in the East. This principle can be seen as operative in areas of heavy Lutheran migration as the nation expanded. The Germans in Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey were there in the 18th century as that section grew. They also were present in huge numbers in the Gulf area of Texas in the mid 19th century as it became an integral part of the United States. Other Germans, by traveling up the Mississippi to St. Louis, helped populate that section of the United States as it was being opened up just before the Civil War. By far the most significant Lutheran expansion took place in the 50 year period after the Civil War when the Midwest was being opened and settled. The Scandinavians poured into Minnesota, Wisconsin, Upper Michigan, Iowa, the Dakotas, Kansas, Nebraska and other nearby territories. They were there as ground was broken for farms and towns were formed to serve the people. They were well established when major city centers were being built. They built colleges and seminaries.they became a dominant force in their place and time. In most of New England, Lutheran immigrants came to semi-urban settled communities and had to compete with long established groups. The planting of new congregations that were not the result of immigration had to wait until the middle of the Twentieth Century. 4
From the Editor from page 1 This summer our denomination turned a new page in its history by electing Bishop Elizabeth Eaton as our new Presiding Bishop. Some in New York, New Jersey or Pennsylvania may have a slip of the tongue and call her Mother Elizabeth, recalling the pioneer work of the first American saint, Elizabeth Seton (1774-1821). Like Mother Seton, our own Mother Elizabeth has a love for the whole church, an apostolic sensitivity for service and spirituality, education and a love for the Eucharist. These are all qualities that we value and in which we can grow. May the coming decades be ones that open new doors for mission in congregational life and vitality. Kim-Eric Williams mtairyarchives@ltsp.edu Augustana Update The Augustana Institute announces its Inaugural Lecture for Saturday March 22, 2014 at the Brossman Center of the Lutheran Seminary in Philadelpia.The featured speaker will be the Rt. Rev Dr. Jonas Jonson, Bishop Emeritus of the Strängnäs Diocese of the Church of Sweden. Bishop Jonson will speak on Archbishop Nathan Söderblom: Ambassador for World Peace and Christian Unity. Bishop Jonson served on the staff of the Lutheran World Federation and the World Council of Churches. He is an expert on the Lutheran Mission in China and next year will publish a new book about Archbishop Söderblom. Söderblom received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1930 and had made a celebrated trip to America in 1923 during which he dedicated the present First Lutheran Church in Brocton, MA. and visited among other places, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Rock Island. Official full communion between the Church of England and the Church of Sweden was accomplished in 1920. A panel discussion composed Dr. Norman Hjelm, Dr. Maria Erling, Dr. William Rush and Dr. Daniell Hamby will respond to the lecture and a Buffet dinner will follow in Benbow Hall. On Sunday morning March 23 at a 10:00 Eucharist Bishop Jonson will preach at the Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral at 38th and Chestnut Sts. The lectureship is also being sponsored by the Philadelphia Theological Institute of the Diocese of Pennsylvania. A brouchere with full details will be sent to all pastoral leaders in the Northeast Region. Recent historical book donations from Pastors Ernie Ryden, Ralph Peterson, and John Cochran are gratefully received for our growing collection. Metropolitan New York Synod Joins Northeast Archives (continued from page 1) the Horrmann Library at Wagner. Fortunately however the Sutter Memorial Archives will be able to continue operating from its present location, but more space there is needed for reception and processing of new collections and staffing operations. Therefore, a significant number of collections will be moved to Philadelphia in order to create more space at the current site. In order to facilate all of this the Metro Synod has agreed to fund an expansion of the Lutheran Archives Center s compact shelving system by 25%. The additional shelving was installed on November 12-14. With the addition of the Metro Synod, all of the geographic synods of the Northeast Region (7) of the ELCA are now affiliated with Lutheran Archives Center. We have been hoping for this development over many years and it is a pleasure to anounce its accomplishment. 5 New compact shelving under construction
Lutheran Archives Center at Philadelphia 7301 Germantown Avenue Philadelphia, PA 19119-1794 Phone: 215-248-6383 Fax: 215-248-6327 E-mail: mtairyarchives@ltsp.edu Non Profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Horsham, PA Permit No. 90 Newsletter of the Lutheran Archives Centers of the Northeast Region Vol. 2 No. 16, ADVENT 2013 LUTHERAN ARCHIVES CENTER AT PHILADELPHIA BOARD OF DIRECTORS Rev. Dr. J. Francis Watson, President Rev. George E. Handley, President Emeritus Rev. Carl D. Shankweiler, Vice President John E. Peterson, Secretary Rev. Dr. L. George Detweiler, Treasurer Martin J. Schwab, Assistant Treasurer AFFILIATED DIRECTORS Charlene Wright, New England Synod Karen Kolb, Upstate NY Synod Dr. Jon Pahl, LTS at Philadelphia Rev. Carl D. Shankweiler, Northeastern PA Synod Rev. Dr. J. Francis Watson, NJ Synod Dr. Kim-Eric Williams, Southeastern PA Synod John Daggan, Metro NY Synod NON-AFFILIATED DIRECTORS Rev. Richard Baumann Rev. Virginia M. Biniek Rev. Dr. L. George Detweiler Rev. Dr. Karl Krueger Jack Martz LIAISON REPRESENTATIVES Rev. Peggy Wuertele, Northeast Region, ELCA Rev. Dr. Herbert H. Michel, Lutheran Historical Society of Eastern PA STAFF John E. Peterson, Curator Dr. Kim-Eric Williams, Archivist Research Assistants: James Otto Ziebell, Byron Wesley Smith III President s Letter Dear Friends, I recently moved to a new home (after recently getting married) and my wife and I have spent the last several months going through boxes that we had temporarily stored in our garage. We unpacked boxes containing dishes and clothing and books But I had looked for one box in particular for several weeks. As the nights where getting colder I wanted to get that box unpacked. Inside were some old pieces of correspondence from my great grandfather and his work on the railroad back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This was archival material that touched on my own personal family history which I want to preserve for the next generation. And so, with some freezing nights forecast in the next week, I wanted to find that box and get it unpacked so that I could remove its contents inside away from the extremes of temperature in the garage that might wreak havoc upon it. Thus, one Sunday night after dinner, I waded through the remaining boxes in my garage until I found the right one. As I went from box to box it was like playing a game of Stratego, except there weren t any bombs or spies lurking around. Finally, I found the box with the letters in it, and they are now stored safely away from the extremes that the winter weather may have inflicted on them. As I unpacked that box I reflected on several things. First, I thought about how blessed we are to be able to preserve our Lutheran heritage in our state-of-the-art Lutheran Archives Center at Philadelphia. We have a facility that is second-to-none, and within its walls are all sorts of archival treasures that speak to our own history as Lutheran Christians in the northeast, from the colonial period to the present day. Second, I thought about another move this time, it was a move affecting the Lutheran Archives Center. You will have read elsewhere in this newsletter about the new developments at LACAP that the Metropolitan New York Synod is now an Affiliated Synod of our regional Center. The move of the Metro Archives to LACAP is a very exciting development that now allows us to house all the archives of Northeastern Lutheranism under one roof. We thank God for this move, and we thank God for our partnership with the Metropolitan New York Synod, as well as all the Synods of our Region Seven. We thank you for your support, as we ask your continued prayers as we preserve our common heritage. Sincerely in Christ, J. Francis Watson President, LACAP Board of Directors