Elk Grove, Cook Co., IL

From "The Lutheran Trail" by Louis J. Schwartzkopf
Published 1950 by Concordia Publishing House
St. Louis, Missouri  pages 48-50

In the Lutheraner August 12, 1856, Pastor Sallman writes thus: About
eight years ago the congregation at Elk Grove, the membership of which was
very small, had the courage to erect a small frame chapel (Kirchlein), in
which services were hitherto conducted.  Deducting eight from 1856 leaves
1848, the year of the founding of a Lutheran congregation in the community
referred to by Pastor Sallmann -- Elk Grove, for which no census figure is
given.

The arrival of several new families from Hanover, Germany prompted
the Elk Grove Lutherans to organize Saint Johns Congregation.  A
constitution was submitted and discussed and then signed by thirty-two
men.

 Conrad Roehler            	J.C. Niedert		Heinrich Thies
 Christian Linnemann     	Christoph Tuernau	Heinrich Behrens
 Christoph Senne		Heinrich Busse		Henrich Senne
 Heinrich Thake			Johann Stege		Heinrich Wustenfeld
 Friedrich Busse		Friedrich Katz		Conrad Rehling
 Christian Busse		Heinrich Roehler	Phillip Ostmann
 Heinrich Breuscher		Heinrich Decke		Conrad Moehling
 Christoph Mensching		Phillip Steege		Heinrich Moeller
 Wilhelm Kleinhans		Friedrich Ahrens	Carl Kiesel
 H. Christoph Senne		Carl Dohme		Conrad Schwake
 Ferdinand Kummer		Heinrich Biesterfeld

It was Pastor Hoffmann who in the year prior to the congregation's
founding  came at more or less regular intervals from Schaumburg (Sarah's
Grove) to  Elk Grove, a distance of about eight miles, to conduct worship
services, at first in the home of Henry Wuestenfeld.  In those early days
(1848 to about 1855) the Elk Grovers found it difficult to support
themselves and their families.  There was no market for their farm produce;
Chicago was a city of about 32,000 inhabitants, but the roads leading to the
Big City were well-nigh impassable.  For reasons such as these, many
would-be settlers, after a brief sojourn at Elk Grove, shook its dust off
their feet and went elsewhere.

Proverty compelled the members themselves to undertake the
construction of a church building in the year 1848.  The stately oaks of
Elk Grove, as it were, proudly and heroically offered themselves as
essential material for the project, and the men promptly responded by
cutting some of these giants down and, amid showers of flying chips and
shavings, reduced them to the desired shapes and proportions. The knottier
the beams and the uprights, the weaker and breezier were the walls and the
roof.  Sidings were nailed on the sturdy but rough logs, and homemade
shingles were fastened to the rafters.  Concerning the dedication of this
first crude church in 1848, the Rev. Francis A. Hoffmann some years later
wrote: The first church building, though poor and small, was a temple of
the bounteous, omnipotent God.... The day of dedication was a festival! On
either side of the church door there was a long pole decorated with pumpkins
and prairie flowers.The poles were connected at the top with a white clothe
bearing the legend: Gott allein die Ehre (To God alone the glory). My pony,
which had only the one fault, that it was not ascertainable as to whether it
was lame in one  foot or in all four feet, brought me close to the church.
There the entire congregation formally welcomed me.

This little church stood on the congregation's property which at that
time comprised forty acres and which had been purchased at $1.25 per acre.
Later, fifty per cent of this property was sold and at the present time
(1949) the congregation's real estate possession comprises only the
remaining twenty acres.