Indiana – What Does This Mean?

Wyneken Heads South to the Wabash

In very bad weather, on the 17th of October 1838, Wyneken traveled west to Bertrand and Niles, Michigan, along the present route of US 12. There he met several families, but was unable to assemble a congregation for worship. Finding himself once again on the Michigan Road, Wyneken returned via South Bend to Harris Prairie and Elkhart. He preached to them on the 21st, forming two congregations, one located in each place. Striking out across country along the present route of Indiana State Highway 331, he stopped briefly in Mishawaka to baptize a child. Continuing on his way, he reached the town of Bremen, a settlement on the north branch of the Yellow River. Almost all of the people of the town were ill with cholera, yet the circuit rider preached to one of the largest congregations he was to assemble on his first missionary journey.

Wyneken returned to the Michigan Road, traveling through the Logansport to the
Wabash River. He could not locate the German Lutherans he had been told lived along the future route of the canal. Few of the people he encountered there were even willing to take information to their neighbors. Riding on to southwest along the river, he entered the town of Delphi on a Sunday afternoon. Prospects for a worship service appeared slight. Finding only a handful of people who could speak German, he asked if there were Germans living in the area. He was informed that these settlers “belonged to no church.” Not a man to be easily discouraged, Wyneken made the rounds of the taverns, argued heatedly with the men he found there, finally dragging enough of them out of the bars to gather together a sizable congregation for an evening worship service. After lecturing them well into the night, Wyneken convinced them to gather in prayer on future Sundays, rather than desecrate the sabbath in the saloons.

The missionary continued on to Lafayette, where he had no success in gathering a congregation for worship. Following the Wild Cat River, he rode on to a settlement a few miles away. Here he discovered that six congregations existed in the neighborhood of Lafayette, making it ideal for the placement of a resident pastor. After a futile attempt to find a congregation reported to be at the middle fork of the Wild Cat, Wyneken followed the Wabash River into Fountain County. There he encountered a road, running along the present route of US 136 and Indiana 32. Taking this trail, he passed through Crawfordsville and Lebanon, before meeting the Michigan Road and turning north. There he preached to a congregation visited by Eusebius Henkel of Lebanon at the Sugar Creek in Clinton County.

Friedrich Wyneken’s Missionary Journey

On October 2nd, 1838, Young circuit rider Friedrich Wyneken set out along the Goshen Road towards Elkhart and South Bend (Now US Route 33) A severe cholera epidemic held Western Ohio and Northern Indiana in its grip at that time. Wyneken reported, “On the whole, from a human point of view, the time in which I traveled was an unfortunate time to work for God’s kingdom. Sickness raged everywhere. Often I entered a town where not one house was without a sick person: In many homes, everyone was sick, so that often my gatherings were very small.”

In Benton, Indiana, a town with forty German families in 1838, this deadly disease kept the size of the congregation down to twelve people. These settlers begged the missionary to return to them later, since they hoped to form a congregation. Promising to visit again, Wyneken continued on toward South Bend. At the junction of Goshen Road and the east/west section of the Michigan Road, near the town of Elkhart, and a few miles farther west at Harris Prairie, the missionary stopped to preach. He discovered many Germans in the area and resolved to return to form congregations.

Pressing further west along the Michigan Road, he traveled through South Bend and La Porte to Michigan City. Finding no German Lutherans to the west, he returned to South Bend and preached there on the 12th of October to a congregation of six hastily gathered people. Moving farther east, Wyneken preached again at Harris Prairie on October 13 and at Elkhart on the 14th. These communities asked him to return once more and help them to organize their congregations. Agreeing to do this, the missionary took the Michigan Road northeast to Mottville, Michigan, where he preached on the 16th and visited the sick. He baptized several children there the next day.

Friedrich Wyneken in Indiana

Friedrich Wyneken arrived at the settlement of Friedheim, near Decatur, Indiana on September 20th, 1838. The first German he met in Indiana received the missionary with suspicion. “If you are an honest pastor, then go to that house over there. A very sick man lies
in it,” the woodman challenged. “If you are something else, like most pastors coming from Germany, then go over there to the rich wagonmaker!” “Nevertheless, I’d love to see the sick man first,” Wyneken quipped and then carried through. At this sick man’s home, he learned of Karl Friedrich Buuck, the leader of Jesse Hoover’s Adams County congregation and the pastor’s future father-in-law.

Wyneken ministered in the area for six days before riding north along the Decatur Road to visit Fort Wayne and New Haven. In 1838, Fort Wayne was a small but growing town on the Wabash-Erie Canal. This community of fifteen hundred sat at the portage between the Wabash and Maumee rivers, the only passage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. At the summit, overlooking the merger of the Maumee’s two sources, Fort Wayne was the focal point of the effort to create a continent-wide water transportation system. By 1837, the Wabash-Erie Canal was complete to Logansport, a growing community on the Michigan Road. This road stretched north to South Bend and Michigan City and south to Indianapolis, Madison and the Ohio River. Due to this geography, Fort Wayne grew in spite of the economic depression that followed the Panic of 1837. The Northeast corner of Indiana quickly became a destination of choice for German emigrants in search of a new home. Fort Wayne was an ideal location fora circuit rider charged to “gather scattered Protestants.”

Shortly after Wyneken reached Fort Wayne, St. Paul’s of Fort Wayne and Zion in Friedheim called him to serve as their resident pastor. The young pastor explained that he could not accept such a call without the permission of the Pennsylvania Ministerium. Since the missionary needed to continue his survey of Indiana, he suggested that the church council of Fort Wayne’s St. Paul Congregation write to the Mission Society for his release. Wyneken promised to return in four weeks to receive the Mission Society’s instructions. On October 2nd, Friedrich Wyneken once more mounted his horse and headed north into the forest.

Wyneken Wanders in the West

“After you had left me at the train station in Havre De Grace,” Wyneken wrote from Fort Wayne to his friend, Johannes Häsbärt, “I felt like a stranger in a strange land for the first time.” But Fritz was not a man to stay lonely for long. He continued:

This feeling lasted for a day, until I arrived at Zelienople, not far from Pittsburgh. I bought a horse there and trotted out through the forested land, cheerfully and joyfully. I felt much better then. Whether I was alone or traveling in the best of company, I could, any time I wanted to, merely pull out my beloved Paul Gerhardt book or New Testament and put them back in my pocket when I was done. Sometimes my heart was so full of the sweet, cheerful grace of my Savior, that I had to laugh, to sing loudly, to have a joyful heart and to praise my Lord.

The frontier forests of Ohio and Indiana moved many first time travelers to awe and wonder, even if few of them broke into song. Hugh McCulloch, a future United States Treasurer, a young lawyer in 1833, described the Michigan Road as follows:

It was perfectly straight, and the noble trees, nearly a hundred feet in height, stood on either side of it like a protecting wall. The birds were sighing blithely, and although my horse was my only companion, the wildness and novelty of the scene acted upon me like a tonic.

Wyneken set forth due west across Ohio, along the present route of U.S. Highway 30, towards Adams County, Indiana, and Jesse Hoover’s orphaned congregations. Along the way, Fritz first experienced legendary Western hospitality, often being given directions, company, refreshments and lodging.

The journey proved to be long and hard for the young pastor, who was not used to riding long distances in the wilderness. The roads of the frontier were not much better than trails, often still filled with tree stumps. The late summer temperatures weighed heavily on most Germans, unaccustomed to the heat. These conditions slowed Wyneken down, giving him much time to wonder if he was strong enough to meet the challenges ahead. He drew comfort that God was indeed strong enough to use him to seek the lost. Eager to bring the Gospel to scattered pioneers, he rode on.