First Congregational Church of Zumbrota

About this property

The First Congregational Church of Zumbrota is an historic congregational church in Zumbrota, Minnesota, United States. It was built in 1862 in the form of a colonial meeting house. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for being one of Southeast Minnesota's oldest standing churches and a reflection of New Englander settlement in many of its towns. Josiah and Nancy W. Thompson, Charles and Harriet E. Ward, and Thomas P. Kellett, all of Lowell, Massachusetts; Charles C. and Elizabeth D. Webster of Canaan, New Hampshire; George and Abby R. Sanderson of Red Wing, Minnesota; Albert and Lucy Ann Barrett of Staffordville, Connecticut; D. Berkley and Susan H. Goddard of Worcester, Massachusetts; and Nathaniel Mullihan of Brookline, Massachusetts. A hall on the second floor of T.P. Kellett's store (on the corner where the downtown Bank of Zumbrota now stands) was used for a church service for the first time on Thanksgiving Day of 1857. By 1860, the members began to seriously consider building a church, but because of the poor harvests in 1857-59, people had very little cash, and so one of the members was authorized to go back to Massachusetts to ask for donations. He collected $1,000, which made it possible to begin construction in the fall of 1861. The lumber was purchased in Red Wing and hauled to the site by teams of oxen, because railroads had not yet come to Zumbrota. Each trip took two days. The lime was hauled from Lake City. One member had a stone quarry on his farm northwest of the town; this provided stone for the foundation. The stove pipe was donated by a Detroit hardware firm. John Willard of New York donated fifty hymnals. The first service in the new sanctuary was held in 1862. A bell, donated by the Ladies’ Society at a cost of $640, was hung in the belfry in 1868. The bell weighs 1,202 pounds and is still in use. Formerly it served as a school bell and a fire bell, as well as the church bell. The back section of the church was added in 1880 as a social room and Sunday school area. A furnace was also added, along with chandeliers which held kerosene lamps. Old photos show wallpaper in the sanctuary, probably part of this same redecoration. Later, however, the walls were returned to their original New England white. The first musical instrument in the church was a melodeon. After that, a reed organ was used until 1885 when the current organ was purchased from the Winona Congregational Church for $700. The organ was built in 1867 by the Steere and Turner Company. For many years the organ was pumped by hand. A complete record of the boys who pumped is carried in the initials carved during dull moments. Payment for this task was $6/year for many years, but was later raised to twenty-five cents per Sunday. The organ is believed to be the oldest pipe organ in Minnesota in regular use.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

More in Goodhue County

Historic places, battles, and census history across Goodhue County.

More historic places in Minnesota

Browse all historic places in Minnesota.

Conflict records

Explore 19,000+ military engagements across American history.

Minnesota history

Colonial settlement, territorial period, and statehood narrative.