Bethel A.M.E. Church - Iowa City,
Iowa
Information from National Register
of Historic Places Registration Form
Bethel A.M.E.
Church in Iowa City
For its members, the A.M.E. Church in Iowa City was both a building and
the community of worshippers gathered within it. Church documents do
not record the initial circumstances of its establishment beyond its
founders' names but land for the building was purchased by one of them,
James W. Howard, early in the spring of 1868. The lot was located
within a newly platted addition to the town owned by Charles H.
Berryhill, a long-time
Iowa City resident and somewhat infamous land
speculator.49
Berryhill, a native of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, arrived in the area in
1838, a year before Iowa City was founded. According to his
45Proceedings
of Iowa Federation of Colored Women's Clubs. Thirty-third and
Thirty-fourth Annual
Sessions, 1934-35 (no publisher), 17. [Collection of Bethel A.M.E.
Church.]
46Ibid., 18.
47Ibid., 19.
48In addition to Cools (1918) and Jenkins (1933), see especially John
R. Crist "The Negro of Iowa City,
Iowa: A Study in Negro Leadership and Racial Accommodation," (unpubl.
MA thesis, State University of Iowa,
1945).
1874 obituary, Berryhill was a "frontiersman" who "when most of
our 'old settlers' came [was] found... young, active, speaking the
Indian language and in...trade laying the broad foundation of that
fortune which in the various enterprises of his after life contributed
so largely to the business prosperity of out city."50
Johnson County and Iowa City land records are replete with Berryhill's
name and he frequently bought, sold and developed land. He platted his
second addition to Iowa City in 1866.51
Two years later Howard purchased a lot from him. Just ten days after
that, Howard and his wife Rebecca Howard sold
the south half of that Lot 19 to the trustees of the "First African
Methodist Ep[~] Church" for $50. Within this same record the church is
also called the "first African Methodist Church." So much for precision
in frontier legal records. The purchasers on behalf of the church
organization included: Boston Clay, James W.Howard, and [hard to read
but likely Henry] Boon, as trustees of the church.52
James
Howard, an African American born in Virginia, was 35 years old in 1868.
His wife Rebecca was 39 and born in Pennsylvania; they had no children.
Unable to read, both left their mark on the deed that transferred the
half lot to the Church Trustees. The second trustee, 53-year-old Boston
Clay was born in Alabama. His wife, Anna Clay, 23, was also born in
Alabama. They had three children, all born in Iowa, the eldest of whom
was six. This family apparently arrived in Iowa by at least 1864. Both
Boston and Anna Clay were literate. The final Church
trustee, Henry Boon, was also 53, and born in North
Carolina. Minnie
Boon, his wife, was 29, from Mississippi. Neither could read or write.
The Boons had two children, all born in Iowa, the eldest of whom was six.
"'Johnson County Recorder, Deed
Record Book 27, Page 536. The deed reads: Know all men by these ----
that we Charles H. Berryhill and
Eliza G. Berryhill husband and wife of Johnson County, State of Iowa, in
consideration of the sum of
Three hundred and fifty dollars in hand paid by James W. Howard of
Johnson
County, State of Iowa, do hereby
sell and convey unto the same James W. Howard the following described
premises situated in the County
of Johnson, within the State of Iowa, to wit: Lot number nineteen (19)
in Block
number one (1) in Charles H.
Berryhill's Second (2nd) Addition to Iowa City so designated on the
Recorders
Plat of said Addition to Iowa
City and we do hereby covenant with the said James W. Howard that we are
lawfully seized of said
premises; that they are free from incumbrances; that we have good right
and lawful
authority to sell the same; and
we do hereby covenant to warrant and defend the said premises against
the
lawful claims of
all----whomsoever, and the said Eliza G. Berryhill hereby relinquishes
her right of dower in
and to said premises. In witness
whereof we have hereto set our hands and seals this 27th day of March
A.D.
1868. The deed was recorded on
April 2, 1868.
50"In Memoriam," [Iowa City]
Daily Press. 06/01/1874.
51 Johnson County Recorder, Deed
Record Book 28, Page 293.
52 Johnson County Recorder, Deed
Record Book 27, Page 539.
Again, this family appears to be in
Iowa by 1864.53
All of the men listed their occupation as "day laborer" according to
the 1870 census. Except for one individual, therefore, all of the adult
founding family members of the Bethel Church were of southern origins.
Church
records list the initial spiritual leader for the new congregation as
"Bishop Shorter, minister," but Shorter is apparently not found within
the 1870 census of Iowa City.54
Shorter's function is either taken over or augmented by "Exhorters" for
the church from 1868 to 1889. In the long line of church leaders, there
is no other "Bishop." Rather, the title consistently used is
"Reverend." The brevity of Shorter's tenure and lack of information
about him may indicate he was not a permanent resident of Iowa City or
Johnson County, but rather a missionary organizer for the greater
A.M.E. Church generally. James W. Shorter was a "trailblazing"
missionary Bishop for the church whose activities included Texas.55
While there is no evidence at this point beyond the shared surname to
indicate the Texas trailblazer was the 1868 Iowa City church leader,
the presence of the only Bishop-level leader named Shorter at the
inaugural year of the church is evocative.
Over the years the
numbers of individual members and families who attended Bethel A.M.E.
Church varied. Church records are sketchy, but membership just before
World War I, when Rev. B.F. Hubbard was pastor, hovered at peak levels
around 40. This number was again achieved in the mid-1920s when the
members both suffered through the fire damage to their church and
celebrated its renovation and installation of modern plumbing and
heating systems. Church attendance again declined during the Great
Depression of the 1930s to half the peak number and then declined even
more, perhaps because working African American
residents
left town in search of jobs in bigger cities.56 In 1933, a graduate
student studying African American students at the university for his thesis
53All
biographical data are taken from the manuscript pages of the 1870
federal census.
"Unfortunately,
the census page for Scott Township, where a "Friends Meeting House" may
have been
located,
is unreadable beyond a tantalizing possibility of a three-person black
family with a last name that could
be
Shorter. The location of the Quaker building is noted on Topographical
Map of Johnson County (Davenport:
Iowa
Publishing Company, 1906).
"Charles
Spencer Smith, A History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church
(Philadelphia, 1922. Reprint
Johnson
Reprint Corporation, no date), 71.
remarked on the lack of college students attending the A.M.E.
Church. Though there were 58
black students at the time, "none, even among those who claimed
residence in Iowa City, were members of the local A.M.E. church."57
After holding on through the post-World War II years, the church today
is growing and its membership may be near 50 or 60. Ironically, with
the renewed vigor of the African American community's commitment to the
church, comes the stress of worshiping in a historic building that
suddenly seems far too small.
56The name of one prominent
church member appears on the rolls during this period. Helen Lemme, a
community activist after whom a
local elementary school is named, arrived in Iowa City from Grinnell
around
1929 to attend the university.
She married a local man, Allyn Lemme, who worked at the only black-owned
and run business of any
substance in town, Short's shoe shop. Mr. Lemme's name does not appear
on the rolls
of Bethel Church. A biography of
Helen Lemme has been compiled and is available at the library of Helen
Lemme School in Iowa City. See
also "Case 5" at pp. 78-80 of Crist's 1945 thesis.
57Jenkins, 13. The historic role
of college students in the community and their decision to attend the
A.M.E.
Church or another (likely white)
church in Iowa City remains a question for future study. Local records
and
primary evidence indicate that
the traditional "town and gown" division that often separates
university students
from permanent residents may
have persisted within the African American community as well. Very real
differences in the white and
African American populations existed, however, and need to be studied.
Perhaps
the most basic difference is
that the number of blacks living in Iowa City at any one time was a
tiny percentage
of the town's total population.
Expectations that under such conditions blacks would naturally
congregate
together for a sense of
belonging and social interaction must be viewed within concepts of
class that divide
some African Americans
themselves. In the years before World War II and the GI Bill, students
may have been
viewed as elitist and coming
from an upper class, especially by local residents historically limited
by racial
discrimination to the lowest
ranks of employment.
(Source:
U.S.
Dept of Interior, National Register of Historic Places registration form)
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