A Happy New Year to All

             Forty-one members and guests of the Friends of the Library and the Cass City Area Historical and Genealogy Society enjoyed an evening of Christmas Music and a Sing-along on December 21, 2009. The singing was led by Scott Mills and Ray and Bonnie Ferris with Don Greenleaf at the organ and Pastor Paul Donelson on the trumpet. It was a pleasant time for all.

Our trivia for this newsletter, and several to follow, will be on the history of churches of Cass City and the surrounding area. This information was prepared in 1996 for “The Way It Was”, a history of Cass City, but perhaps it is time to up-date that information. Any congregation in the area that would like to participate should contact Katie Jackson. We will try and present the churches in the order in which they were organized.

                                    Katie Jackson, President

The Churches of the 

Cass City Area

      Shown above are five early churches in Cass City.

Top row: Catholic Church, Presbyterian Church,

Methodist Church

Bottom row: Baptist Church, Evangelical Church

      It was in 1837 that Michigan, having proved that its population had reached the figure of 60,000, was made the 26^th State of the Union. Michigan is a peninsula, washed on two sides by lakes Huron and Michigan, with an eastern peninsula area known as the “Thumb”. 

        When Hugh Seed arrived in this area in 1854 there was no trace of even a small group of houses much less a town on the Cass River in the “Thumb” of Michigan. Hugh was born and bred in Mourne, County Down, in Northern Ireland. Having worked his way west, he first came to what is now, Oakland County, and made his way north to Tuscola County. He spent a couple of years in the lumber camps that were beginning to spring up in this region of virgin forest. After two years in the logging camps of Cooper and Wright he thought it was time to settle down and set about the work he knew best - farming. In May, 1855, (Section 27 is that land bounded by M-81 (Main Street) on the south, Schwegler Road on the east, Milligan Road on the north and North Seeger on the west) at five dollars an acre. He started clearing it and so became the founder of Cass City. 

       He had no sooner built his log cabin than another Mourne man, Andrew Walmsley, whose home in Mourne was not many fields away from the Seed place, decided that he would join his

riend and neighbor in this isolated part of Michigan. Thus, Andrew Walmsley qualified in the history books as the second citizen of Cass City. They were soon followed by names such as Edgar, Bird,  Leach, Seeger, Striffler, Benkelman, Lenzner. 

        In this very mixed community there was no dissension on the score of social standing, nationality or religion. All were now Americans and determined to make their little settlement as prosperous and as peaceful as possible.   

        For the new Americans, in addition to survival in this wilderness, there were two priorities - the education of their children and the importance of religion.   

       From the beginning churches have been an integral part of the village of Cass City, and they have given a unity and stability to the town that would have been lacking without their influence.

       The history of the churches dates back to the earliest settlers. On a Sunday evening in 1860 the Rev. John Baker of the Watrousville Circuit of the Methodist Episcopal Church held a preaching service in the log cabin home of Andrew Walmsley located on, what is now, Schwegler Road  This is believed to have been the first such service in Elkland Township. Settlers came from as far as seven miles and the Walmsley home was filled. The Rev. Baker continued to make the trip from Watrousville every two weeks, holding services first at Mr. Walmsley’s and then at John Striffler’s and later in the log school house. 

       Concerned mainly with the need for religious training, the early pioneers attended whatever church services were available, regardless of denomination. However, as other  settlers arrived, the desire grew to affiliate with the church of their heritage and by the year 1865 “The Evangelical Association” became the first religious denomination organized in Elkland Township.   

            The Evangelical Association  was the first organized church in Elkland Township. In 1865 the Rev. Stephen Henne of the Sebewaing Mission came to Cass City to bring ministry to the German settlers. They continued to meet in the Walmsley School, which was located 1½ miles north on Schwegler Road until 1883 when a frame church was built on the corner of Ale and Pine Streets in Cass City. During the eighteen years that services were held in the small schoolhouse, watch night services and prayer meetings were held in homes, and there were hymn sings on Sunday afternoons in the John Striffler home, where there was an organ. When the church was finished in 1884 under the pastorate of the Reverend B.F. Wade, there was a membership of about fifty. During the early years the services were held in the German language, but by the end of the nineteenth century English was being used for at least a portion of the service.   

       The church was heated by two wood burning stoves and at that time the men and women sat on opposite sides of the church. There were sheds built in the back to protect the horses and rigs (the main means of transportation in those days).    

       The church was remodeled in 1919 and brick veneered, rooms were added and a number of changes made. Since the 1960’s several physical changes have occurred in the building and grounds. In 1967, the auditorium was changed to face south, rather than east. Ten years later a large choir room, a new enclosed entrance and an additional basement classroom were added to the east side of the building. In 1988 a new entrance and restrooms were constructed on the east side of the building. Finally in 1991 a new fiberglass steeple was added to the bell tower to replace the one removed earlier.

      In 1990 this church celebrated it’s 125^th anniversary but  in  1995 The Salem United Methodist Church ceased to exist as it united with the Trinity United Methodist Church to create the Cass City United Methodist Church with a new edifice located on north Cemetery Rd., just north of Milligan Road.  The old church on Ale St. is now home to the Calvary Bible Fellowship a member of the Independent Baptist Assn.