Growing Beyond Their Dreams

The Baptist Church in Steamboat Rock has few records of its founding and for this reason a clear picture  of the churches first year is difficult. The first settlers in what is now Steamboat Rock, were mostly of English and American birth. Later an overwhelming number of German immigrants came and settled in the community to where they dominated the population. As best as can be determined the first German settler came to Clay Township in 1857. They were few however.

Careful study of the Baptist church in Steamboat Rock leads one to believe that the first Baptist Church established was an English speaking church in 1869. There are no church records, but history indicates that it must be true. It also indicates that in 1872, the body in Steamboat Rock was joined by a similar group from Hardin City, the two united into one organization. Later a large number from this group withdrew and organized a church in Jackson township. The first pastor of the Steamboat Rock group was Rev. Root, who came in 1871. His tenure is not known, but he was followed by Revs. A. Len and Cook. Seventy members were added to the rolls, but by 1882, only thirty-two were left. This church’s services were held in the other churches in the community. It later seems to have disbanded, or perhaps

became part of the German group. Language would have made this unlikely. As a side note the church in Jackson township had only twenty members in 1882. They never erected a building either, and later disbanded as well.

It appears that around the same time in the year 1869, a small nucleus of German believers began meeting in a schoolhouse six miles north of Steamboat Rock with a Rev. Reinder as their preacher. About the same time, a group of German Baptists from the “Ostfriesen Baptist Church of Silver Creek, Illinois,” now known as the Baileyville Baptist Church, migrated to Iowa and settled in Grundy County, in a
section known as Pleasant Valley Township located about four miles south of Aplington. Preaching services were soon begun in the “Dreyer” schoolhouse as a mission of the Silver Creek Church. Brother Reinders and several other families also moved to this vicinity, and in December, 1874, this mission organized into an independent Baptist Church and became known as the “Pleasant Valley German Baptist Church” and is now known as the Aplington Baptist Church. This church in turn became the spiritual mother of the Steamboat Rock Church.

A mission of the church was soon established at Steamboat Rock. Because of the distance to Pleasant Valley, the members found it difficult to attend the services there with any degree of regularity. Thus arose the need for an independent church at Steamboat Rock. Accordingly, on November 18, 1876, seventeen spiritual pioneers, with letters of dismissal from the Pleasant Valley Church formed the German Baptist Church of Steamboat Rock, Iowa which was based on the Hamburg Confession.

For the first year and a half the church was served by Brother Albert Van Dornum, an ordained elder and preacher, who baptized four converts and saw the original 17 members grow to 41.