We are constantly looking for items
from Salem's past to include in the Salem archives, especially missing photographs
from our 1947 Centennial booklet and confirmation photos prior to 1949.
For more information, contact the Archivist. |
 |
Unlike most Lutheran churches in the Midwest whose founders were immigrants straight from the German States. Salem Lutheran Church was, for the most part, founded by second and third generation Americans - Pennsylvanians to be specific.
Salem was founded on Christmas day 1847; however, we need to go back over two hundred years before this founding to begin our history.
The Thirty Years' War, 1618 - 1648, was the greatest and final military
clash between the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestants (mainly Lutherans)
of Northern Europe. This war was intended to convert all Protestants back
to Catholicism. The war ended with a Lutheran victory, however, the area
what is now Germany and Austria was so devastated by war that it took
over a century to rebuild and repopulate the European countries affected.
The end of the war also did not end the general attacks against the Protestants
especially in the Pfaltz (Palatinate) region of Germany.
This prompted many people from that area to leave the old continent and look for religious freedom in the new world - America. Many German immigrants arrived in Eastern Pennsylvania in the late 1600's and early 1700's. Note: this is before the existence of the United States.
In about 1730, one of the congregation's that was founded by these immigrants was established as Indianfield Lutheran Church in Telford, Franconia Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Which is about 25 miles north of Philadelphia. This congregation was part of a Lutheran and Reformed parish in that area (a Union Church).
In 1748 Heinrich Melchoir Muhlenberg established the first Lutheran Synod on the American Continent -The Pennsylvania Ministerium- so he is therefore known as the patriarch of the Lutheran church in America. Muhlenberg personally visited Indianfield to conduct services in the early years.
In the late 1830's and early 1840's a group of about 40 families, including
several congregation leaders, left Indianfield Lutheran Church and headed
west, in covered wagons, for Granville,1 Milwaukee
County, Wisconsin. In those days Wisconsin Territory was the frontier
of the United States (the far west). They sent several scouts to the Granville
area in the late 1830's to case out the land. One of these scouts was
Abraham Leister, the father of Issac Leister. Abraham is recorded as the
first person buried in what is now West Granville Cemetery in 1845, although
the marker is long gone.
The most prominent name of these Pennsylvania Dutch from Indianfield was
Samuel Wambold who was born in nearby Bucks County Pennsylvania. He was
the leader of this exodus from Pennsylvania, which finally settled in
Granville and Menomonee Falls. He is mentioned several times as the founder
of our congregation. He helped organize the congregation, was elected
as one of the first elders and was one of the "master builders" who constructed
the first church of logs and dedicated it on June 17, 1849. Shortly after
the log church was build, Samuel Wambold died of Cholera. A short note
in our corporate records is here translated and quoted: "Samuel
Wambold - the founder of our church passed away on July 12th 1849 after
he finished almost everything what he wanted to accomplish. God bless
his ashes. He was born in Pennsylvania and immigrated to Wisconsin.
"2
Samuel Wambold owned not only farmland but he also built a wood mill in the 1840's. He built it on the Menomonee River just north of 'Mill Road' near what used to be West Granville. Undoubtedly he used his wood mill to process the logs used in the construction of our first church.
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1 Granville township was bounded by present day roads: on the north by County Line rd., west by 124th street, south by Hampton Ave. and east by 27th street.
2 Corporate Records Salem Lutheran Church - Granville, WI
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