Jefferson County Online A part of the IAGenWeb and USGenWeb Projects Congregational Church of Black Hawk Southeast corner of Section 16, Blackhawk Twp.

"The Fairfield Ledger"
November 17, 1870
Page 3, Column 4

Blackhawk Tp., Nov. 6, 1870.

Editors Ledger: -- Knowing that you have a standing invitation to all friends to communicate whatever of interest transpires in their neighborhood, I thought I would send you a few lines in regard to an enterprise that has been engrossing the attention of some of us for the last six or eight weeks.

The first Congregational Church of Blackhawk was organized in January, 1862, by Rev. Joseph Kennedy, pastor of the Congregational Church at Clay, and Rev. Reed Wilkinson, pastor of Congregational Church of Fairfield, with eight members. It now numbers forty-six, and has just completed a new house of worship, thirty feet wide by thirty-four feet long, with fourteen feet posts. It is a plain, substantial frame building, handsomely finished, especially on the inside, and is quite an addition to our neighborhood. The entire cost of the building, stoves, lamps, fences, &c., is $1,600, all of which is raised.

The dedication services will be held on Sunday, the 20th of Nov., at 11 o'clock, A.M. Sermon by Rev. Joseph Pickett, of Des Moines. We extend a special invitation to our Congregational friends at Fairfield, Wooster and Clay, and a cordial invitation to all, to be with us on that day.

Allow me, also, Mr. Editor, to congratulate our ministerial brethren who have labored with us in that old school house so long, on the happy issue of their efforts.-- Memory brings up the picture of good old Father Wilkinson and Brother Kennedy on that cold January day, in the little school on the wild prairie, gathering that little band of Christians together and organizing them into a church. And then came Bro. Cooper and nursed us along, getting stronger and stronger, until Bro. Merrill, the present pastor at Fairfield, took charge of us, who now, through the blessing of God, sees one of the things come to pass he labored so earnestly for.

To the kind friends who have so nobly helped us we would return our sincere and heartfelt thanks; hoping and praying that the Lord will bless all our offerings, and that the church which has just been erected may stand upon our beautiful prairie like the beacon light on the ocean shore, ever shedding forth its heavenly beams, guiding hundreds of souls tossed on the stormy ocean of sin into the quiet harbor ever offered those who believe in the gospel of our Blessed Master.     J.D.