Salem Congregational Church, Cambria, Minnesota. Records, 1855-1956

Collection — Multiple Containers

Identifier: SMHC Collection 1206

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This collection is made up of the various records of the Salem Congregational Church. Included in the collection are: the minutes and records of the church from 1866-1941, the pastor’s record book, which covers membership and ministerial acts from 1903 until 1908, the Sunday school record book 1879-89, and the treasurer’s records from 1911-42. Also included in the collection is the semicentennial scrapbook. This records the history of the church from 1855 until 1905, and includes photographs, newspaper clippings, and handwritten reminisces and stories. Some portions of the scrapbook are in Welsh.

All records included in this collection are also available in a microfilm format.

Dates

1855-1956

Biographical / Historical

The Salem (Welsh) Congregational Church was founded in the town of Eureka (Judson), Minnesota in 1855. Reverend Jenkin Jenkins, who came to Minnesota from Big Rock, Illinois, helped organize the church and was its first pastor. Services were held in various homes until 1871 when the first church building was built in Cambria.

In the early 1940s the Salem Church, the Horeb Church (a Presbyterian church founded in 1856), and the Cambria Church united and services were held in the Cambria Church building. Reverend Forrest R. Grimm was the Federated Church’s first pastor.

A combined centennial of the founding of the Salem and Horeb churches and dedication ceremony of a newly constructed Cambria Federated Church building was held in 1956.

Extent

3.00 Cubic Feet

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

This collection contains the records of the Salem (Welsh) Congregational Church, also known as the Butternut Valley Congregational Church. These records cover the history of the church, from its founding in 1855 until the dedication of the Cambria Federated Church in 1956, which the Salem Church had become a part of in 1942.

The collection is made up of membership lists, financial records, subscription lists, meeting minutes, and a scrapbook made up of photographs, historical accounts, and newspaper clippings about the church. This scrapbook was assembled in 1905, to celebrate the semicentennial of the church. Some of the records contained in the collection are in Welsh. The bulk of the historical information is on the early years of the church, and there is little information on the period following the formation of the Federated Church.

A microfilm copy of all of the records is also available.