After the Selma docked in St. Louis, the document of recommitment known among the Society as the “Selma Declaration” was signed by the entire Society with the exception of H. F. Fischer and C. F. W. Walther.9 In spite of Loeber and Stephan’s attempt to have the members of the community confront their negative attitude and fighting about the Credit Fund, the murmuring about finances continued. The criticism about the money, which then turned against all the leaders including the pastors, was sometimes hidden and done behind closed doors. Few historians of this Saxon emigration commented on what was happening to the spirit and unity of this dedicated group of people. On the surface they were restless and unhappy. Even though true, it doesn’t seem quite adequate to explain away the members’ complaints by saying they were tired from a long journey, strangers in a new land, and longing for the families they left behind.
In some ways the Saxon Emigration Society’s situation was similar to the people of Israel after the exodus from oppressive slavery in Egypt. In the desert they complained bitterly about their lack of food and water and blamed Moses for the shortage. When food and water were found, they begged for the fleshpots of Egypt. There are many such instances of complaint and rebellion by sailors who rebelled against their captains because of maltreatment. There were a number of instances of other emigration communities from Germany from 1830 to 1850 who rebelled against their leaders in similar fashion.
In fact, a clinical study of emigration societies who came to America in the 1830s was done by Dr. Salomon Koepfli, a contemporary of Bishop Stephan. One of the groups he observed was the Giessener Emigration Society, which was organized only five years earlier, in 1833, in Giessen, Hessen, Germany. This particular society was organized by Pastor Frederick Muench with his friend attorney Paul Follenius. They led their society to America in 1834 for the purpose of setting up a colony. Keopfli discovered in his investigation of the Giessener group that “[Q]uarreling, wrangling and great discord usually began among the group a few days after their arrival in America. The leader of the party always gets the blame for whatever is not working right. He who sows painstakingly reaps but the basest ingratitude. The leader is usually blackmailed and degraded at every opportunity.” Pastor Frederick Muench, the leader of the group, expressed his experience of the group rebellion by saying succinctly, “It is impossible to start a colony in America with ‘green Germans.’ None of them cared to submit themselves to any kind of leadership or restriction.” As the Saxon colony members continued to withdraw their investment monies from the Credit Fund out of fear they would lose interest, the fund was in danger of bankruptcy.10
Similar situations, like the Giessener group, existed in other colonies of immigrants. The Rhineheissiche Society members just dispersed when they reached New Orleans. The Hannoverian Society led by Mr. Ernst, who had invested his entire fortune on the trip, found he was penniless when his followers deserted after their arrival in the United States. Those under the leadership of a Mr. Bruehl separated themselves from their leader in St. Louis while their leader was selecting a place to settle.11
From a psychological viewpoint, it seems that people who have given up much to immigrate to a new country they know little about become frustrated, upset, tired, lonely, and hungry. They have few outlets to express their frustrations. They have little or no means of coping with or controlling new situations they know nothing about. When their complaining is ruled unacceptable, they begin to project their troubles, miseries, and frustrations on their leaders. In the case of the emigration groups mentioned above, each group found ways to let it be known they were unhappy about their situation by blaming it all on their leaders.
Among the Saxons, their complaining and perceived punishment for whining started already on the Olbers on December 31 when Pastor Stephan delivered an angry sermon about his disappointment over the group’s negative attitude toward the pastors, each other, and the Society leaders. When the Olbers landed, some of the passengers left the ship and the Society. They demanded their money back. Other passengers complained that the attempted power play of Marbach and Vehse against Stephan aboard the Selma would destroy their community and they would lose all their investments. In addition, these weary travelers had no outlet by which to grieve the loss of their fatherland, the people they had left behind, and the companions they had lost at sea.
The operative group psychology was like a juggernaut in the Saxon colony. This negative energy would drive the Saxon Society for months after it landed in Missouri and well into their settlement in Perry County. No declarations, sermons, or confessions were able to stop what would become a violent hurricane ready to tear the Society apart. Stephan would find himself deep in the eye of this storm. Ultimately, a scant three months after landing in St. Louis, the leadership of the Society and Stephan would be severely challenged.
NOTES
1 William Koepchen, “Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838” (unpublished ms., Stephan Family Archives and Concordia Historical Institute, 1935), 112–13.
2 Koepchen, “Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838,” 113. The titles to the “Declaration” were changed by various writers over time as it suited their theme of Stephan ruling in an autocratic manner. It was Eduard Vehse who first gave this document the name “Declaration of Subjection.” Koepchen remarked that this name does not do justice to its contents nor to its purpose.
3 Koepchen, “Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838,” 114.
4 Walter O. Forster, Zion on the Mississippi (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1953), 294. See Zion on the Mississippi for a full text of the ”Selma Declaration” or “Pledge of Subjection” as Forster called it.
5 Forster, Zion on the Mississippi, 295.
6 Koepchen, “Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838,” 115.
7 J. F. Koestering, Die Auswanderung der Sachsischen Lutheraner im Jahr 1838 (St. Louis: n.p., 1867), 16.
8 Koepchen, “Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838,” 116.
9 Forster, Zion on the Mississippi, 296–99. Forster claimed that Walther stated later that he had not signed the ”Selma Declaration.”
10 Koepchen, “Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838,” 113.
11 Koepchen, “Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838,” 115.
19
Settling In
This group on the first of the three ships that left Bremerhaven in early November arrived in St. Louis under Pastor Loeber’s leadership. They proceeded to rent four or five houses in town. As each of the succeeding groups of passengers arrived, they too established housing. The Credit Fund paid the cost of food and lodging. Rentals ranged from $17 to $34 per month. The families and single people found quarters in these residences, which included spaces for community gatherings and a place for instruction of the children.
A house was rented for Bishop Stephan and his son at Mound Street and Broadway near the so-called Indian Mounds, beyond the northern city limits at the time. The three-story building was owned by a Dr. White. The ground floor housed three members of the Society who were servants or attendants to Stephan, a conference room for the many meetings of the theological candidates and the pastors, and a kitchen. Stephan and his son lived on the second floor. The third floor served as living quarters for Mrs. Schneider, house mother for the single women who sometimes served as housemaids: Louise Voelker, Louise Guenther, Pauline Weidlieh, and Maria Schubert, the sixteen-year-old niece of O. H. and C. F. W Walther.
Once all the ships had docked in St. Louis and all members of the group were housed in rentals in the central city, the community began to organize their life together as they had planned. The Society Planning Committee decided earlier in Germany that the government of their new church would be Episcopal in form and democratic in process. Each of the thirty-six delegates from the other ships now confirmed Stephan’s election by the twelve Olbers delegates in New Orleans Bay. The documentation of this act written by G. H. Loeber
is called Confirmation of the Stephan Election as Bishop, although Forster titled it Confirmation of Investiture.
The confirmation document shows Pastor Stephan as respected and revered by the clergy and the Society. In spite of his sermon on board the Olbers reprimanding them for their flagging spirit and complaining, and his bitter battle with Marbach, the community’s respect for the bishop remained strong. The letter of confirmation from the Planning Commission of February 24, 1839, petitions Pastor Stephan to lead them, and the community assured him of their loyalty and intention to follow his guidance:
The more we have come to know of your doctrine, your method, your intention, your faith, your long-suffering, your love, your patience, your persecution, and your tribulations, the more we cannot but give thanks the gracious and merciful God has kept you for His Church until now, and that your paternal, faithful care for the reflorescence of this dear Church did not permit you to refuse at this perilous time the Episcopal office offered to you.
True, after the many storms of your hitherto arduous life we should gladly have seen you spared so grave a burden of office and should have heartily wished for you a period of rest and tranquility free from care; but to whom could the powerful bishop’s staff then have been given at the present time? ...
Our congregations have been instructed in this ecclesiastical matter by us, the subscribed clergymen, and they have given their cheerful consent to the proposed Episcopal form of polity as well as to the selection made by us, which they have herewith expressed through the twelve deputies also subscribed.1
Each group of passengers on the three companion ships was presented copies of the document that had been drafted on the Olbers to verify the election. Now that the vote was unanimous and Stephan had graciously accepted their election, his leadership of this community was confirmed. Although the election was held earlier than stipulated in the codes, the process of the elections followed the code’s protocols and directions. For a time the leadership crisis abated, and the quiet reassurance given to Stephan was peaceful and encouraging. The calm of this time was like the stillness before the revolving opposite side of a swirling hurricane.
The Episcopal election had far-reaching implications. Privately, Pastor Stephan had personal misgivings about accepting this office. He had wondered at times if his own personal battles with the German Church and authorities rendered him ineffective if not out of energy. He did not want to be elected bishop just because he supported Episcopal governance, even though he said that any form of church government would be appropriate. It would seem that Stephan was visibly humbled by this election. However, in spite of some personal misgivings, Stephan accepted this position and decided to wait for his installation as bishop of the Society until a later time, either in St. Louis or when the community was settled on its new land.2
Some historical analysts believed that Stephan forced the community to elect him bishop. However, the forty-eight voting representatives who elected Stephan as bishop clearly understood all along, after discussions in Germany, that the office of bishop was a human and not a divine institution. J. F. Koestering, a Saxon Emigration historian stated, “Stephan had recommended the Episcopal form of government as the most advantageous, but had most emphatically stated that such episcopacy was only a human institution.”3
On the matter of the Episcopal form of government, Koepchen wrote in 1934 that an Episcopal constitution was not incompatible with Lutheranism. Scandinavian Lutheran churches retained the episcopacy after the Reformation. The Society sought advice from Martin Luther’s writings and realized that Luther declared the reformers ready to accept the pope as the highest bishop, if he would allow the freedom of the Gospel and let himself be regarded pope as the highest bishop only according to human rights. This contrasts with the claim that the papacy was theologically and divinely instituted as a successor to Peter the Apostle.4
This Episcopal controversy was stirred further by C. Hochstetter who wrote in his book, The History of the Evangelical Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in North America, that C. F. W. Walther prepared himself to openly oppose Stephan. Hochstetter stated that the moment Stephan claimed that this office of bishop existed by divine right and elevated the bishop higher than other ministers, Walther would oppose Stephan’s move. Apparently Walther expected Stephan to make this claim of Episcopal supremacy. When quoting Hochstetter, Koepchen says that Walther unwittingly darkened his own character with that statement.5
Forster charged that Stephan chose this hierarchical form of government because the episcopacy suited his authoritarian personality. Quite the contrary, the Saxon Planning Committee had carefully organized and managed the details of this entire voyage including the land purchase by consensus. Stephan’s urgency was to resolve the leadership crisis. This was a strong action that was supported by the rest of the clergy; it did lead to anticlerical sentiments on the part of the lay leadership later. Forster did not consider Marbach’s divisive demands and Stephan’s intuitive understanding of the deep threat to the whole emigration mission.
The election of Pastor Martin Stephan on January 16, 1839, aboard the Olbers in the bay of New Orleans, was unanimously confirmed by the entire community upon arrival in St. Louis. It was a momentous occasion in the life of this band of emigrant Christians, and Stephan’s election as bishop would be followed years later by other Lutherans from Scandinavian countries who settled in the eastern and northern sections of the United States.
The Society now sought a place of worship and a site for the bishop’s installation. They petitioned the Rev. Jackson Kemper, the rector of the newly built Christ Episcopal Cathedral, to rent the church for their worship services. The Episcopalians granted their wish on March 3,1839, and a few weeks later the Society conducted its first public worship in the undercroft of the cathedral. The Saxons continued to use that cathedral undercroft for the next three years and nine months. This arrangement with the Episcopalians was beneficial to both groups. St. Louis became home to many other Saxon Lutherans and was later known as the national headquarters of a strong religious organization, the Lutheran Church of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, subsequently renamed the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
NOTES
1 Walter O. Forster, Zion on the Mississippi (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1953), 299–300.
2 William Koepchen, “Conference Notes,” trans. Axel Reitzig (unpublished ms., Stephan Family Archives, 1934), 61.
3 J. F. Koestering, The Emigration of Saxon Lutherans in 1838 (St. Louis: n.p., 1867),15. The statement about episcopacy was verified by Koestering in his book. The actual recording of these minutes of this meeting where Bishop Stephan made the statement is not available.
4 Koepchen, “Conference Notes,” 61.
5 William Koepchen, “Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838,” (unpublished ms., Stephan Family Archives and Concordia Historical Institute, 1935), 110.
20
Establishing a New Home
These new immigrants were preparing to establish themselves in one of the first new states carved out of the Louisiana Purchase. In 1821, Missouri had joined the federal union through the difficult Missouri Compromise. Two states had applied for statehood at the same time. Maine, supported by states opposing slavery, wanted to be admitted as a free state. As a borderline state between North and South, Missouri had significant slavery interests. To maintain the numerical balance of free and slave states, the Missouri Compromise admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state—yet one more evasion of the crucial human rights issue that would erupt in civil war only twenty-two years after the Saxon Emigration.
Paul Nagel, in his bicentennial history of Missouri, notes that the state was blessed by nature and known as a second Eden.1 An early seminary in St. Louis was even named Eden Seminary after this geographical description. Nagel also relates that Thomas Jefferson described the area as an unspoiled region that would launch a second wave of American development. The country began
to speak of an old and a new West. With St. Louis the portal to the new West, Missouri represented new opportunity and new wealth. Daniel Webster observed that the state had more mineral and agricultural wealth than any other area on earth.2 Ralph Waldo Emerson claimed this as one of the world’s great crossroads. The rivers were superhighways. By 1844, the usual travel time from New Orleans to St. Louis was under four days, less than half the time required when the Saxon Emigrants had made the trip up the Mississippi just six years earlier.3
The city of St. Louis, long a supply post for hunters and trappers going up the Missouri, was at the time of the Saxon Emigration home to approximately 15,000 people. Not only a great fur trading post, it was a gateway to the vast lands opened earlier by Lewis and Clark. The St. Louis Arch on the banks of the Mississippi commemorates the tidal flow of people who came through this city to settle the West. The arch is also a symbol of the great optimism and hope for the people of the United States as it opened the vast wooded spaces and wealth of minerals.
In 1838–1839, 72 percent of the U.S. population were farmers; many others were moving to cities like St. Louis. The population more than doubled since 1830. St. Louis was not a well-planned city. It was a hodgepodge of streets, many of them attempting to conform to the great bend in the Mississippi. From a collection of news articles, state directories, and historical reviews, Forster’s composite picture of St. Louis was
an irregular, sprawling, ill-planned collection of rather unattractive houses of widely varying ages, of empty lots, and of filthy, crooked streets. Arends, viewing St. Louis the year before the Saxons arrived, declared: “There can hardly be another city of so peculiar appearance on earth.” While his description is probably an exaggeration, Dana characterized St. Louis of 1836 as “emphatically only a little French city” ... In 1839 St. Louis was seventy-five years old; it had been an incorporated city since 1822. In 1830 the population of St Louis was 6,694 ... “Then the city proper only extended westward as far as Seventh Street. Beyond that line there were some scattering residences, gutters, and prairie ... To the north the city extended to Middle (Biddle) street and to the south, just below the Convent of the Sacred Heart.”4
In Pursuit of Religious Freedom: Bishop Martin Stephan's Journey Page 21
