First of all, I have to issue an apology to today’s guest blogger. At some point in time yesterday, I realized that Fred Eggers had sent me the blog post you will read today in an e-mail, and his post was written to be published yesterday. That is because the main character in Fred’s post was born on January 24th. I got my days wrong and wrote my own post yesterday. So, you are getting this post a day later than Fred intended to have it published. My bad. I am extremely grateful that Fred has written this well-researched article for your edification. He is a real treasure to our museum.

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Jonathan Krimminger was born on January 24, 1818, so today would be his 228th birthday. He was likely baptized at Saint John’s Lutheran Church a few miles east of Concord, North Carolina. That congregation was founded in 1745 and is one of the oldest in the entire state. I found a history of the Krimmingers of Cabarrus County through a google search that contains many records for his family. That church has a Heritage Center that “offers a fully accessible, museum-quality space where documents, genealogies, artifacts, and recordings are preserved, studied, and shared, ensuring that the story we inherited can be discovered anew by families, students, and researchers for generations to come” Sounds familiar, does it not!

Another Krimminger family website gives its theory on the immigration of Jonathan’s grandfather, Frederick Krimminger Sr. in 1754.

Like many other immigrants of that time, the Krimmingers traveled down the “Great Philadelphia Wagon Road” to the Carolina Piedmont. Jonathan’s father, Christopher, purchased a farm that was located where the Hamby Branch ran into the Rocky River near present day Highway 200 a little southeast of Concord. Christopher and his brother Frederick Jr. were both veterans of the Revolutionary War. Jonathan grew up on the Hamby Branch farm and was trained as a blacksmith. On April 11, 1839, Jonathan married Elizabeth Plott. A transcript of their marriage bonds is available.

Their first two sons, William Benjamin, born March 1,1840, and Jonathan Christopher, born April 29,1842, were probably baptized at Saint John’s. Jonathan and Elizabeth were among the organizing members of Saint James Lutheran Church in the town of Concord in 1843. Their third son Peter Frederick, born February 4,1845, was baptized at Saint James. Their fourth son, James Harter, was born on April 13, 1848. Census and other later records indicate that he was born in Illinois, but I could not find any birth records. I also could not find the family in the 1850 United States Census. Their only daughter, Margaret A M E, was born Septemb15, 1851 and was baptized at Luther Chapel in Perry County, Missouri. Their sixth child, Luther Melancthon, was born July 30, 1854. Their seventh child, David Lewis, was born November 2, 1856. They were both also baptized at Luther Chapel and were have excerpts of the transcription of those events from the records of Luther Chapel. Family and later records tell us that their eighth child, Pervis Abner, was born on January 18, 1859, at Dongola, Union County, Illinois, but I could not find any documentation for that birth.

The family history states that family tradition says that Jonathan was a Lutheran Minister and circuit rider. That history also tells us that he traveled to the Pilot Grove Church in Carroll County, Tennessee where he was ordained as a Minister on September 20, 1851. It stated that the President of the Synod of the Southwest had received a letter from Jonathan in July of that year giving his account of forming a small congregation in Perry County, Missouri. The Synod of the Southwest was formed in 1846 when the Synod of the West was divided into three synods. It also states that he later formed congregations in neighboring Bollinger and Madison counties. I cannot find any records for this meeting or for that church, but I can provide the records that I could
find. “On May 11, 1851, the constitution of “Luthers Chapel Evangelical Lutheran Church” was adopted and Luther Chapel became a reality. Its first church leaders were Rev. Jonathan Krimminger (pastor), Henry Eddleman (elder), and Joel Rhyne (deacon).” This statement comes from A Genealogical History of Luther Chapel of Perry County, Missouri by Larry Hoehn. This article was published in Volume X, Number 3 of the St. Louis Genealogical Society Quarterly in September 1977. This article includes additional information on the history of the congregation, a list of surnames of the members and pastors, and a list of the tombstone inscriptions in the cemetery of Luther Chapel. That church was located between Longtown and Biehle at the intersection of PCR 510 and PCR 520 and the cemetery is located there now.

A second article submitted by Hoehn was published in the Spring 1979 issue of that same publication that provides a list of 79 of the earliest members of the congregation and approximately 175 children’s baptisms from 1851 through 1883, and some records of adult baptisms, marriages, and deaths. Dr. Larry Hoehn, a Perry County native, is an emeritus department chair and professor of mathematics at Austin Peay University in Clarksville, Tennessee. We are fortunate that he published these records which will be added to our reference library.

Pastor Krimminger purchased 40 acres of land from the government on December 1. That land was located just south of where I-55 and a little north of where Highway F are now located about one- and one-half miles northwest of Biehle. That land remained in the Krimminger family until his son, Jonathan, sold it in 1875.

Pastor Krimminger may have also organized the Mount Pisgah (later Mount Zion) Lutheran Church at Yount in southwestern Perry County in 1852, but I have not located early records of that congregation. We do know that he founded the Shiloh Evangelical Lutheran Church, about three miles east of Farrar, on February 2, 1857. This is the first page of the church record book of that congregation. The Shiloh Church building was built in the fall of 1857.

A complete transcription of all the available records of that congregation along with the history were published by the Perry County Historical Society in the 1980 publication Lutheran Churches of Bois Brule and Salem Township.

Both Luther Chapel and Shiloh Lutheran Church, as well as other area English speaking Lutheran churches became part of the Southern Illinois Synod when it was organized at St. John’s Lutheran Church (near Jonesboro, Illinois – probably at Dongola) on November 7, 1856. A page in the history of Sargent’s Chapel in northwest Cape Girardeau County documents that Krimminger was Secretary of that synod in 1856 and President of the synod when it met in Shiloh in 1858.

Pastor Krimminger moved from Perry County, Missouri to Union County, Illinois sometime before his youngest son was born in January 1859. He died on March 7, 1859, in Union County. I suspect that he had become the Pastor at Saint John’s Lutheran Church which is located 5 miles northwest of Dongola. This church was founded in 1816 by people who had also migrated from the Carolina Piedmont. One of the witnesses to his last will and testament was Jacob Eddleman and one of the executors or his estate was Caleb Lyerly. Two Eddlemans were among the founders of Saint John’s and the name is also prominent in the records of Luther Chapel so there are likely connections among the families. Krimminger’s grandmother’s maiden name was Lyerly and C. C. Lyerly was a later Pastor at both Luther Chapel and Shiloh so again there are likely connections.

On March 16, 1860, Pastor Krimminger’s widow married Frederick J. Yount, a widower with several young children, in Perry County, Missouri. In the 1860 U S Census the blended family is living in German Township of Bollinger County including 13 children all with the surname of Yount. Here is the census listing. I have added the names of the seven Krimminger children including the nicknames that two of them went by later in life. Some of those children have interesting life stories; however, time does not allow me to share them with you now.

Although I called Reverand Krimminger an “English” Lutheran Pastor, he and most of the members of these early congregations were descendants of ancestors that came from what was to become Germany. Like the Krimminger family they had migrated from Pennsylvania south to the Carolinas, then across Kentucky and/or Tennessee until they settled in Illinois and Missouri. Later, many of them continued to move farther west. Most of those in Perry County had followed the earlier settlers along the Whitewater River (I know that it is now officially a creek, but it has been a river for many years) that were first led to the area by George Frederick Bollinger. I found a great article on those settlers in a Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly published in 1952 entitled First Lutherans in Missouri written by Reverand Martin F. Kuegele, a former Pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Tilset. I will be adding a binder with this article to the Museum reference library.

Just a bit more on the history of the church in Shiloh. Through the years from its founding until 1921 it went through several reorganizations and many pastors. The last official acts in that period were four baptisms in 1921 that were performed by Rev. E. C. Dolbeer who was a Field Missionary working in St. Louis for the Illinois Synod of the United Lutheran Church. Newspaper articles tell of several funerals between 1921 and 1938. In May 1938, the area was canvassed by Reverend W. F. Dommer of Salem Church of Farrar, Missouri, assisted by members of the August Klaus family. Response to the prospect of organizing a Sunday School were encouraging and classes began with half of the teaching staff from Salem School and the Klaus family. Since there was also interest to again hold church services, the Perry County Pastoral Conference voted to aid the Shiloh Mission project, and area pastors assisted Pastor Dommer by alternating with the services, which were held twice a month, beginning in November 1938. In the Fall of 1939, Royden Frese, a ministerial candidate from Concordia Seminary, was engaged by the Circuit to take over the work at Shiloh. He took up residency near Seventy-Six and established instruction classes for adults. In 1940, thirty-seven adults were confirmed by Pastor Dommer. Sunday school attendance and church services reached an average of sixty. Thirty children and adults received baptism during the years of concentrated effort. In 1941, Mr. Frese was ordained and installed as a full- time assistant to Reverend Dommer at the Shiloh church. Reverend Frese accepted a call to another state in 1942. The circuit pastors continued to assist Pastor Dommer with services until 1948 when the membership had declined due to members moving away. There were only seven communicant members remaining when services were suspended. The remaining communicants from Shiloh were encouraged to attend Salem, Farrar or the church nearest to them. An anniversary service and member roll call were held in November 1948 with Reverend Frese as guest speaker, a proper conclusion to this chapter of a “Venture of Faith”.