The fourth Lyme Township church is St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, organized in 1861 under the leadership of Rev. Jacob Dornbirer, just two and a half years later than the church at Hunt’s Corners. There were seventeen charter members most of them whom had come to Lyme from the Hesse-Nassau area in Germany. The new church grew out of mission services which had been held from time to time in the schoolhouse of what was then known as Lyme’s school district no. 6 to which at various times had come Rev. Lang, a pastor from Fremont; Rev. G. S. Schmogrow, who organized a Lutheran church at Pontiac; and later, Rev. Dornbirer. These men at great personal sacrifice had traveled long distances over primitive roads to serve the little community until such time as a permanent church might develop.
A constitution was adopted by the charter members and the following were elected to office:
Elder: Jacob StudtRev. Dornbirer became ex-officio the chairman of the congregation. Other charter members were Philip Bollenbacher, Louis Walter, Jacob Jetter, Charles Heymann, Christian Lepley, Leonard Stoll, John Metz, George Metz, Jacob Bollenbacher, John Korndorfer, and Henry Beiler. This was before the days of “women’s lib.” Note that there were no women among the charter members. (It was to be as late as 1937 before a change in the church constitution gave women the right to vote in church meetings.)
Deacon: Adam Weichel
Trustees: Carl Bollenbacher, William Baur, and Henry Bollenbacher
Secretary and Treasurer: Carl Studt
Plans began almost immediately to erect a church building on land which Philip Bollenbacher donated for this purpose (located on what is now Route 4.) A frame building was put up during the first nine months of the newly-organized group and was dedicated that same year on November 10, 1861. It had cost $500 in cash, much donated material, and the labor of many of the members. The building was a modest one, without a tower or spire until sometime during the pastorate of Henry G. Schuette. Neat hitching posts set north of the church were used through the horse-and-buggy days. (Not until 1921 was it voted to remove the posts in order to make room for automobile parking. Fifteen years later Mrs. Anna Miller and Mrs. Dora Brooks gave land south of the church for additional parking.)
Germans have traditionally loved music; and in this case, an organ was purchased at a “reported cost of $195” in 1871, just ten years after the church had been organized.
On Jan. 7, 1863, when Carl Bollenbacher, one of the charter members, was buried, his brother Henry bought and donated to the church a plot of land which became known as the Bollenbacher cemetery. It is here that many charter members and later members of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church have been buried.
Little did the church members dream at the end of the period covered by this book (1861-1900) that six years after the turn of the century tragedy would strike. During a
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July storm in 1906, lightning struck the 45-year-old building, which became a mass of flames and was totally destroyed. But just as in the case of the Trinity Episcopal Church fire, so this time members of the St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church began plans at once to rebuild. Moreover, the second church was to be bigger and better than the first, ie., a brick building, 34 x 50 feet in size, with a tower surmounting the corner entrance. The corner stone was laid in September and the completed building was dedicated five months later, February 17, 1907! To do all this promptly required the effort and dedication of many of the members. Rev. Lehman, Fred Seel, and Philip Beiler were the planning committee. The financial committee was made up of the pastor, Jacob Studt, William Miller, and Henry Linder. A total of $6000 was needed as well as about $1000 worth of labor which was given freely by members themselves. The building committee for the reconstruction consisted of Fred Seel, William Miller, Jacob Bollenbacher, Charles Jetter, and Jacob Studt.
The first building had had a bell to call worshippers, but no bell was used in the new brick church.
Lightning sometimes does strike twice! Like its predecessor, the new brick church was also struck by lightning, this time in 1923. Damages amounted to $400.00, but the building was saved.
This digression into some of the history of the Lutheran Church beyond 1900 was made because of the unusual coincidence that two of the four churches in Lyme Township should have had their buildings destroyed by fire. We must now return to the affairs of the church in the 1800’s.
TIES WITH THE BELLEVUE LUTHERAN CHURCH
There has long been a close connection between St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Lyme and the Lutheran Church in Bellevue. In fact, until 1915, the rural church was usually served by the pastor of the town church (Later it was to be yoked with St. John’s Lutheran Church in Groton Township, with one minister serving the two congregations.)
The pastors of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church before 1900 were as follows:
1861-1868 Jacob Dornbirer
1869-1881 C. Buechler
1882-1883 Gottfred Sutter
1885-1893 H. G. Sutter
1894-1902 Walter E. Schuette
One of the charter members of this church was still living in 1911. When Henry Beiler died that year, he was mourned as the last surviving charter member of the church he had helped to found, fifty years before.