Salem Lutheran Church

Duane's take

Here's the story as the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now settle in, because this one goes back a good ways. November 22, 1856.

Out in the Salem community of Washington County, a man named Reverend Johann G. Ebinger gathered seventeen charter members and organized a church. Seventeen people.

Not a crowd, not a congregation that fills a hall, just seventeen souls with a shared faith and, apparently, a whole lot of ambition. They called it Salem Lutheran Church. And where did they worship first?

A log cabin. Land deeded by a man named Wilhelm Bohne, sitting about three tenths of a mile to the southwest of where you'd eventually find the church standing. Now, that log cabin held services for a good long while.

But in 1913, Salem Lutheran packed up and moved to its present site. The second oldest German Lutheran congregation in all of Washington County, and it didn't just sit still once it got there. This church led in the development of the area.

That's not my opinion, that's the record talking. A cemetery, sponsored in 1869. A school, 1886.

Then came 1897, and they stood up two programs in the same year: a Sunday School and a Women's Auxiliary. By 1900, the Luther League was running. And then, nearly half a century after that first gathering of seventeen, they added the Junior Lutherans in 1947.

From a log cabin on Wilhelm Bohne's land to a school, a cemetery, a league for the young, and then the younger still. Seventeen people showed up in 1856, and what they started just kept growing.

What the marker says

This church was organized in the Salem community on Nov. 22, 1856, by The Rev. Johann G. Ebinger and 17 charter members. Worship services were first held in a log cabin on land deeded by Wilhelm Bohne (.3 mi. SW). In 1913 the church moved to the present site. The second oldest German Lutheran congregation in Washington County, Salem Lutheran Church has led in the development of the area. Programs have included sponsorship of a cemetery (1869), a school (1886), Sunday School (1897), Women's Auxiliary (1897), Luther League (1900), and Junior Lutherans (1947).