In Pursuit of Religious Freedom: Bishop Martin Stephan's Journey

by Stephan, Philip

  On Sunday, January 20, at 5 p.m. the Olbers weighed anchor in New Orleans, and the stormy voyage was finally completed. Four days later, F. W. Barthel was elected treasurer of the Credit Fund, replacing Eduard Vehse who was thought to be doing a poor job. It is not clear whether it was known at the time that there was some question of Vehse “cooking the books.” Later Missouri Synod historians stated that Vehse changed his own account in the Credit Fund by writing off 4,636 Thaler, seven-and-one-half Groschen. Apparently he credited himself with a deposit to the Credit Fund before the voyage when he was elected treasurer. Some speculated that he expected the community to collapse after Marbach’s clash with Stephan. He paid only 100 Thaler against an expense of 432 Thaler. When he finally left the community, he owed the Society 351 Thaler or US$242.50. Some weeks later, Vehse would accuse Bishop Stephan of stealing about the same amount from the fund that he, Vehse, was in arrears.7

  NOTES

  1 William Koepchen, “Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838” (unpublished ms., Stephan Family Archives and Concordia Historical Institute, 1935), 115–16.

  2 Koepchen, “Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838,” 116.

  3 Koepchen, “Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838,” 61. Koepchen quotes J. F. Koestering’s book Die Auswanderung der sachischen Lutheraner im Jahr 1838. The title translates as the “Emigration of the Saxon Lutheran in the Year 1838.” This reference was not checked due to the unavailability of this book.

  4 Koepchen, “Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838,” 109.

  5 Koepchen, “Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838,” 108.

  6 Koepchen, “Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838,” 110.

  7 Koepchen, “Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838,” 111.

  Town of Stramberg, Czech Republic, ca. 1830

  Martin Stephan, Saxon Emigration leader

  Martin Stephan Jr., architect and pastor

  Theophilus Stephan, son of Martin Jr., brother of Theodore M. Stephan

  Paul G. Stephan, pastor and Lutheran Hour Speaker

  Artist’s reproduction of the Stephan family home ca. 1923, Stramberg, Czech Republic, near Novy Jicin in northeast Moravia near the Polish border.

  Notes written on the reverse side of photo of artist’s rendition of the Stephan house. These notes were researched and written by Theodore M. Stephan.

  Theodore M. Stephan, 1893 in Anneberg, Germany. Theo is referred to as the one who supplied a great deal of research material to the Rev. William Koepchen, author of the unpublished 1953 manuscript, “Pastor Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838.”

  Town Square of Stramberg in the summer of 2005. Taken by Dr. Naomi Stephan.

  An early layout of Stramberg, Czech Republic, founded 1359. The notes attached to the bottom of the map were translated from the Czech by Ivan and Yarke Prikryl. Note the castle and tower that served as a lookout for the observation of soldiers entering the valley. Stramberg was the protector of several other villages.

  Museum description: The city of Novy Jicin supported the uprising of the Czech Nobles against King Ferdinand II (1619–1620). So King Ferdinand confiscated the land surrounding Novy Jicin and gave it to the Jesuit order in Lookout. They converted the formerly Protestant town of Stramberg into a pilgrimage destination. There on Mt. Kotouc they constructed two churches, one in 1669 and one in 1688. There was a “way of sorrows” and a God’s (Christ’s) tomb for the pilgrims to walk.

  Martin Stephan from the inside cover page of his book of sermons “The Christian Faith.” In the picture, Martin points to the text which was the anchor of his preaching ministry from the German translation of Romans 1:16, “1 am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ because it is the power of God.”

  The subscript at the bottom of the photo reads “Martin Stephan, Bohemian and German Preacher at St. John’s in Dresden, his installation was 13 April, 1810. He was born in Stramberg in Moravia on 13 August, 1777.”

  St. Johannis Lutheran Church, Dresden, Germany, located outside the city walls of Dresden at the time. The chapel of the cemetery was supposedly donated by Count von Zinzendorf, a leader of the pietistic movement in the 1700s. The count gave this land to the United Brethren and Lutherans who fled Bohemia after the Thirty Years’ War.

  Bishop Stephan’s seal used in sealing letters and documents. The inscriptions in the seal contain emblems representing the Stephan family motto. The motto was taken from Revelation 2:10, ‘Be Thou faithful unto death and I will give you a crown of life.” It was said that Luther translated the original word for “crown” as that of a wreath, thus the evergreen wreath boughs at the bottom of the seal. The cross at the center of the Seal represented the Biblical passage from Romans 1:16 which was the heart of Martin’s ministry. The bishop’s hat and tassels represent the symbols of his office. The tassels are formed in the shape of the infinity symbol, noting the eternal promise of faithfulness to the Gospel.

  Stephan’s gravesite and marker at Trinity Cemetery

  The memorial stone dedicated to Martin Stephan by Trinity Lutheran Church at Prairie, Illinois, with love and respect as their first resident pastor and the first Lutheran bishop in North America.

  Trinity Lutheran Cemetery ca. 1992

  18

  Dissension Grows

  While the passengers of the Olbers waited for a steamer to take them to St. Louis, they were confined to the ship until Saturday morning, January 26, 1839, when the paddle wheeler Selma came alongside the Olbers. It took on the passengers and their baggage, a process that lasted another four days, during which time the passengers visited the city of New Orleans.

  Before the steamboat was to leave New Orleans, another alarming incident took place. On Thursday, January 31, just as the Selma was ready to sail up the Mississippi to St. Louis, Dr. Schnabel, the ship’s physician, appeared at the ship with a city constable. It was Schnabel’s son who was caught stealing watches and punished by a public whipping a few days earlier. With court order in hand, Schnabel demanded 1,014 Thaler or US$700 for services he performed for the passengers. Schnabel did not pay into the Credit Fund and had no plans to reimburse the fund for his or his family’s passage. Treasurer Barthel was unwilling to pay the money, but he was forced by court order to pay double the amount Schnabel requested into escrow, and held by the court until the bill was settled. Six months later Attorney Marbach returned to New Orleans to try the case, but he lost. The cost for Marbach’s travel and trial added another 1,182 Thaler to the 2,187 already spent on the case. The Schnabel family cost the Society 3,369 plus the 1,791 Thaler for their unpaid ship passage, a very expensive eight public lashes.

  Gustav Droessel, a Houston, Texas, businessman who had visited New Orleans at the time described the Schnabel family story differently. Droessel said that he accompanied Schnabel to the Saxon consulate in New Orleans and assisted him in getting a suit filed, because the doctor was so dissatisfied with the trip and the accommodations. Droessel met Pastor Stephan and noted that Stephan lived in the best quarters on the ship. Droessel wrote, in a letter now preserved in the Library of Congress, that “Stephan lived in luxury at the expense of his people.” Quite critical of Stephan, he said that Stephan, not treasurer Barthel, paid Schnabel US$700 from an “iron coffer.” After the Schnabels were refunded their passage they left the ship with the constable. However, Droessel never wrote about the Schnabel’s son being whipped eight times in public for stealing as a contributing factor to the Schnabel departure from the Society. There is no record available that the family stayed in America or returned to Germany.

  Other disgruntled passengers followed Dr. Schnabel’s tactics. The physician for the Copernicus also demanded payment for his services to the passengers. The families Schneider and Tennstaedt sued the Society for return of their passage money for reasons unknown. Mr. Georg Gube, a farmer by trade and a member of the land-purchasing group, had deposited 3,078 Thaler into the Credit Fund and withdrew 2
,652 Thaler. Clearly they were a discontented group of investors, because the Credit Fund was draining fast.

  Many other emigrants, now immigrants, were stressed and weary from the long trip. They were unhappy about the earlier agreed upon rules and regulations of the Credit Fund. Their dissatisfaction pointed toward the Society leadership. Their complaints reflected disagreement with taking so many expenses out of the Credit Fund, for the clergy and for the doctor’s salary for caring for the sick during the journey. They were worried about those who left the Society without paying for their voyage. There was general concern by those who invested in the fund that they were losing not only their interest on their money but their principal as well.

  Not only was there general unrest and fatigue among the Society members, there was a whole new challenge facing the new immigrants in this new country. They were far from the niceties of Dresden, their own beds and rooms, and comfort. On top of that they faced another 1,300 miles of sailing up the Mississippi.1 Even then, they would not yet be settled.

  After satisfying the court ruling and paying the Schnabel claim, Treasurer Barthel returned to the Selma and the sternwheeler was permitted to weigh anchor and head for St. Louis. The trip took nineteen days instead of the usual eight because of river conditions. The water level was so low that the captain of the Selma ran aground on a sand bar right at the confluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers. The stranded boat waited ten days for the river to rise. Finally, after the captain left to seek help, the crew ordered all passengers forward, stoked the boilers to full steam, and forced the boat free to continue on to St. Louis. The Selma’s grounding is a perfect image for Emigration Society running aground over their declining balance in the Credit Fund.

  During the trip up the Mississippi, Society members continued complaining about the drain on the Credit Fund. The Schnabel lawsuit with the court had triggered anxieties that led other creditors to withdraw their money from the fund. This crisis was more intense and difficult for Stephan to handle than the complaints on the Olbers. This time the members of the Society were concerned about their money. Stephan asked O. H. Walther for his help to solve this crisis.

  The situation was addressed by a two-part written document that instructed the congregation to take a look at their attitudes and behavior. Authored by O. H. Walther and named by him the “Selma Declaration,”2 it was introduced in his fiery sermon during the trip to St. Louis. This document signed by all pastors, candidates, and deputies after arriving in St. Louis, proposed that the Society members admit their discontent and unhappiness about the whole emigration. They were to restate confidence in the leadership of their bishop. They were asked to confess their faith again and resolve to abide by the Word of God and the Confessions of the Lutheran Church. In addition to the above, members promised to submit to the ecclesiastical and civil code by signing paragraph 3 of the Brief Outline of the Emigration Code a second time. Members on the Selma were to repeat and confirm the pledge given in paragraph 7 of the Brief Outline, which stated that they pledged to contribute to the building and maintenance of church and school, and to the support of their pastors and teachers. Finally, they were asked to declare that they would not tolerate nor participate in slander against the clergy or any other members of the Society.

  Koepchen compared this pledge or agreement to the Mayflower Compact in which, under similar circumstances, the pilgrims were asked to give their assent to mutual government and to submit to their governors.3 He believed that some of the discontent in the Society especially came from those who paid nothing into the fund. The investors put pressure on borrowers to pay their loans. Now, when the community was so near its goal, the members seemed to forget that the Traveling Regulations were still in effect. The people of the Society had sailed a long way, and as they neared their destination, they turned sour and discouraged. They went aground in their negativity and rebellion. It took an act of strong leadership to free this new colony of Christians and set a fresh course of renewed order and cooperation.

  The “Selma Declaration” was divided in two parts. The first part was a general reminder of the pledge that the emigrants had already made to the Emigrations regulations. The second part consisted of a personal, individual pledge by all passengers on the Selma to renew their pledge to live by the community regulations. This promise was witnessed by candidate Brohm, E. Wege, and O. H. Walther. It was indeed a commitment by each person to “give reverence to Stephan’s leadership and to be obedient to His Reverence and to all ordinances made by him, and live and conduct themselves as it becomes a member of the Gesellschaft which emigrated for the sake of its most holy faith.”4

  The document includes a personal confession and request for forgiveness. This part of the declaration reads,

  However, I have not faithfully and honestly kept this promise and have frequently betrayed the confidence placed in me. I also have participated to a greater or lesser degree in the grievous sins named in the previous declaration. I should have to recognize it as a just and well-deserved measure if I were completely excluded from the Christian community. But, I confess that I am heartily sorry for these my transgressions, and approach His Reverence with the humble and urgent pleas to tolerate me in his Gesellschaft still in the future.

  This signed personal commitment of each person on the Selma was a pledge by the individual to seek repentance for previous sins and, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to abstain from such sins and to conduct their lives toward other members of the community according to the Word of God.5

  When describing this action in his book, Forster labeled Bishop Stephan an authoritarian leader. He was particularly alarmed by Stephan’s apparent use of the “Selma Declaration” to bring the people into submission to his authority.

  O. H. Walther believed that the “Selma Declaration” was based on the Society’s Travel Regulations of the Code, long ago ratified by the free vote of all the Society with the exception of H. F. Fischer.6 J. F. Koestering wrote that, after the Selma group recommitted to these codes, all the passengers of the three other ships subsequently signed the Declaration, because they believed it wise and beneficial to do so. Few expressed reservation or refused to sign.7

  Koepchen comments that Pastor Stephan used this document to put the final touches on preventing the disintegration of the community. He editorializes the criticisms of too much force being used this way, “It is only superficial or blind malignity [which] can put this [kind of] construction upon Bishop Stephan’s action to check the underhanded and systematic efforts of Marbach, Vehse, Fischer, and Jaeckel who hoped to gain control of the secular affairs of the colony.”8

  This document does sound stern and oppressive by today’s standards. Considering the autocratic civil and ecclesiastical structures to which these people were accustomed, though, such a style is not surprising. However, it is the format of the “Selma Declaration” that deserves attention. It actually follows the Lutheran form of confession and holy absolution. O. H. Walther’s and Stephan’s request for a personal confession of sin and a promise to do better underscored a deep understanding of the sacrament of confession and absolution still in active use by many Lutherans at the time.

  The confession of “sin” included the greedy actions of investors to force those who had borrowed from the Credit Fund to pay back their loans so that investors would get their interest. Investors complained that the lack of funds to pay them interest on their principal was due to poor leadership and handling of the monies. When the “Selma Declaration” was signed by members of the Society, they were involved in confessing their greed and promising that they would amend their lives. Absolution was assured for a repentant life.

  This sacramental rite of confession and absolution seems to have been overlooked by Forster, probably because it had mostly grown out of use in America by the time he published his book in 1953. Above all, the “confession” is a pledge to continue to work toward a Christian life, not necessarily obedience to Stephan persona
lly. It means faithfulness to the Christian community.

  The conflict between Stephan and Marbach was not only about how the Credit Fund should be handled, but about Marbach’s desire to divide the secular and spiritual leadership of the Society. This was a conflict about control. Stephan won that round, but he would rue the day of his victory, because Marbach would eventually make another move to gain control of the financial and secular affairs of the group. Marbach left the Selma on February 13 and boarded another steamboat to St. Louis.

  Finally, after ten days stuck on a sand bar in the Mississippi, the Selma docked at the St. Louis levee on February 19, 1839, almost three weeks later than the other boats. The weary passengers, including Bishop Stephan and his son, finally disembarked at their temporary home. Their long journey to their new homeland was over. They were greeted with cheers by the other members of the Saxon Emigration Party who had arrived earlier. Society members who sailed across the Atlantic on the Copernicus, Johann Georg, and the Republik had voyaged ahead on the steamboats Rienzi, Clyde, and Knickerbocker. The newly built steam driven paddle wheeler Knickerbocker had arrived in St. Louis on January 31,1839, the same day the Selma departed New Orleans for St. Louis.