Finally, as a crowning moment to our 2008 tour of Swedish church sites in the Holdrege area, we stopped on the way home at Monroe. The function of the Swedish land agents, Rylander and Hallgren, was central to the immigrant center of Holdrege/Phelps Center. In his study of this, David M. Gustafson reports that just a few years later they also facilitated the swelling of immigrant numbers to the Chicago settlement in Hamilton County.

We had seen from the Nebraska Conference history, that the 1878 annual meeting of the Mission Synod up in Malmo had provided the opportunity for pastors including Skogsbergh and G. Norsen to visit Hamilton County with the land agents to assess the prospects there. No doubt this prefigured the coming of both the Skogsbergh family and Pastor Norsen to just that part of Nebraska.

"Chicago Settlement." Nothing today would suggest to the visitor to Monroe church any possible connection to the word "Chicago." Monroe sits untouched by time amid the cornfields of Nebraska. The church itself has grown in size and shape by accretion, but very likely beneath the multiple additions and remodelling efforts the original structure remains. The very architecture, if one could call it that, grew up from local thinking and was not the product of traditional design approved by centralized ecclesiastical authority, or tastes. In that, Monroe is true to its origins in a way that is at the same time jarring and charming. The people of Chicago Settlement may have come from Chicago but they brought nothing of Chicago with them.

The Chicago Settlement cemetery, on the other hand, is not obscured behind the church itself but has pride of place right on the crossroads. It can be viewed with or without the church in the picture. And it is in the cemetery that the story for us really grows interesting.

Anna Skogsbergh, born 1823, died 1895

Here we indeed found the Skogsbergh family name. Anna Skogsbergh, mother of the renowned Swedish evangelist is buried here. We have not yet located the family homestead, but suspect it is close by. In his memoirs, Skogsbergh remembers her taking him to his grandparents home, where "Vid hans sida lärde jag att böja mina små knän for första gången och läsa mina barnaböner" "by whose side I learned to bow my little knees for the first time and read my childrens' prayer".

That was back in Sweden, and she would have been one of those whose children brought them to wondrous America in later life to join with them. The same was true in many families including my own, and these elders were the immigrants who never left the Swedish language for English. Carl, another of her sons, was also counted among the Mission pastors in Nebraska. We suspect he was also the resident of the home farm, but did not find his marker at Monroe.

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Listed as a founder at Monroe, Carl Skogsbergh
and his famous brother E. August Skogsbergh

There is a lesson to be learned in the fact that the mother of the Mission Covenant's best known evangelist is buried in a Free Church cemetery. For those who feel most keenly the wall that arose between the Covenant and Free, and that would surely include the denominational historians, this presence of the Skogsbergh name in a Free church cemetery seems puzzling. It places us back in a time that was fluid. While Skogsbergh was building his Chicago south side tabernacle, the influence of the Princell-Martenson group on the north side was gaining strength. Through the pages of Martenson's Chicago-Bladet paper, all forms of denominational structure were being condemned. Martenson was a product of the Moody-Skogsbergh meetings on the north side and had sought Skogsbergh's counsel in beginning his publishing venture.

Skogsbergh's grandest Tabernacle, at Minneapolis

Before his endorsement of the Mission Covenant at its charter meeting in 1885 with the oft-quoted "now the child is born," Skogsbergh's congregation had abandoned its precursor, the Mission Synod, to become independent. It has been suggested that Skogsbergh was less concerned with denomination-building because of his own dramatic success whatever formal structure might have been present. He simply paid little attention to it. If the mission friends of Hamilton County were divided over Waldenström's teachings or Martenson and Princell's ideas, perhaps he thought it would pass. In his memoirs, he addresses the question, "Was Moody a Waldenströmian?" This is perhaps indicative of Skogsbergh's free-wheeling theological perspective. When the time came for the dedication of the Monroe church, he was the famous relative who came to officiate. No one objected that we know of.

The Monroe Church as Skogsbergh dedicated it in September, 1907

At the time of the formation of the Mission Covenant, strong anti-denominational sentiment permeated the Swedish Mission friends. By casting his lot with the Covenant, Skogsbergh may have dealt the Martenson-Princell faction a telling blow; one from which the Free Mission movement would be a long time recovering. How this played out in the Chicago Settlement is an interesting question.

It is fascinating to read in the Skogsbergh memoir how he remembers John Martenson the printer, coming to him after his conversion at a Skogsbergh meeting, and asking what he thought of the idea of "a little newspaper." He could not give financial aid, but offered moral support, written contributions and good will. "We went to work" says Skogsbergh, "and soon Chicago-Bladet was out." In his own view he was almost a co-founder; a notion we find nowhere else. But that may have been typical Skogsbergh.

The twenty-five year history of the Covenant Nebraska Conference has little to say about Skogsbergh, but does characterize the Hamilton County Swedes as being influenced by Chicago-Bladet and the Martenson/Princell campaign against organization. In its introduction, the Conference is primarily concerned with the work of the "respredikant" mission; the travelling preachers who visited the congregations and preaching stations in this expansive territory. They made use of a large tent. This effort is both in keeping with the style of the Swedish colporteur and the American evangelist. It was a modest undertaking and plagued by drought and blizzards. It also had not yet envisioned a time when congregations would be settled and relatively prosperous, with proper church buildings and an established ministerium. But it was as much a "mission association" as a "denomination" at this stage. The anti-denomination "media debate" being conducted on the pages of Chicago-Bladet may have seemed a minor stir, but it would have an effect which would divide neighbors and families among the mission friends.

In the end, the "Princetonboarna" to the east would form a Mission Synod congregation and the "Chicagoboarna" to the west would remain independent, and ultimately a Free Mission congregation. In part, the division was geographic, for the western group had secured a building site which the easterners rejected. In fact, both groups were in the thrall of independent-mindedness against which their more established Augustana brethren had chided: "nothing good will come of it." By the time the nearby town of Aurora eclipsed the Scandinavian "settlements", the denominational structures had crystallized to the point that two churches had to be built, Covenant and Free, where to all intents and purposes one should have sufficed.

Peter Wedin

There is also a remarkable lesson in the life of another Mission pastor whose grave is at Monroe; Peter Wedin.

I first took note of Peter Wedin while spending seminary internship at the Covenant Church in Princeton, Illinois. Wedin was listed among the early pastors of that church. A Princeton Anniversary book reports, "Following C.P. Mellgren as pastor was young, enthusiastic Rev. Peter Wedin who began his work on New Year's day, 1873, and served for four years. The records reveal a spirit of growth and development...that the church had foresight both concerning the local and the wider work of the Mission Friends is revealed on the one hand by the organization of a sewing circle and on the other by taking an active part in the formation of the Mission Synod on May 22, 1873 at Keokuk, Iowa."

While he was there, Skogsbergh conducted one of his evangelistic meetings at Princeton. As a result, the membership nearly doubled. Soon after, Wedin left both Princeton and the Mission Synod to take up work as a mission preacher for the Augustana Synod in Nebraska. We surmise that he was not pleased with the direction in which the mission friends appeared to be going. One historian from the mission friend perspective suggests Wedin "went over" to Augustana, and nothing more was heard of him.

Augustana's Gethsemane Church at Ong, Nebraska
Peter Wedin was pastor there

Just what it was about the new style of churchmanship embraced by Skogsbergh that was foreign to Wedin and others is muted in Covenant history by Skogsbergh's signal success, but we have this remarkable vignette from a Swedish Baptist source:

"At the time he (Rev. Frank Peterson) was pastor in Chicago a certain preacher arrived from Sweden who became very popular and attracted wide attention. He was a real gospel preacher and evangelist, but used a rather coarse language. Peterson's audience was growing less and less. Some friends suggested that he could change this condition by emulating the more popular preacher. 'Impossible', said Peterson, 'it isn't in me.' And it was not in him. He could never appear in public in any other than in a dignified manner"
-L.J. Ahlstrom 1933

Wedin at Sunnerbo, Sweden

The context is the Swedish neighborhood of the South Side Tabernacle and Second Baptist church in Chicago. But the same conflict of style appears in many places and should not be underestimated. Not only this Baptist, but many Mission pastors, both Covenant and Free, did not "have it in them". "Coarse language" need not mean profane language, but rather the employment of the vernacular of the common man in the pulpit, for which Moody was famous. Immigrant Swedes found Moody easy to understand, and so accepted the style of the "Swedish Moody", Skogsbergh. Once their English became more polished and their ministerium more established, this era probably was over. But it was a dramatic time fondly remembered. For most of the Swedes, the revival meeting was one thing, associated with "special meetings", the evening gospel service and tent meetings, but Sunday morning worship was something else. This was certainly the case in my home church, the "Swedish Christian Congregation" of Wausa, Nebraska. On Sunday mornings, I like to think the spirit of old Sweden's "högmesse" endured.

We have emphasized the matter of "style", but there may also a question of doctrine. Esbjörn and his Augustana successors objected to the departure of American Lutherans from the "unaltered Augsburg Confession" as the benchmark of Lutheran orthodoxy. The Mission people who undertook to form their own synods, and that included the Princeton congregation, had followed Augustana in endorsing the Augsburg Confession. But by the late 70's, in the fervor of the Waldenström controversy, a new wind was blowing. Loyalty to Lutheran orthodoxy was fading in many minds, perhaps directly or indirectly encouraged by the Skogsbergh phenomena. What role this played in Peter Wedin's decision to take up his ministry under Augustana's banner we can only guess, but it would be reasonable to surmise that his instincts went along with those of Esbjörn. He was reluctant to see the anchor of the creeds cut loose and the Lutheran colors lowered. When the Mission Synod merged into the Covenant in 1885, he removed his name from the roll of Mission Synod pastors. Augustana's historian acknowledges Wedin and his Nebraska work, so we are able to follow him further. Covenant historian Karl Olsson also reveals his fascination with Wedin. No part of the book "By One Spirit" is as striking as the tracing of mission pastors back to their Swedish settings. Connections are made which illustrate and explain events on this side of the Atlantic as nothing else can. Not only is Mission church history illuminated by this, but Augustana's story as well. Here we learn that the Småland immigrant preachers reflected a less hostile relationship to the state church and came earlier to the American scene than did their Värmland counterparts. This helps explain how some of these moved more freely between Mission and Augustana circles than did the latecomers. Their motive for leaving Sweden was more economic than religious. This incidentally is in sharp contrast with the earlier Baptists, while the later Värmland type of emigrant, under pressure from the established church, may have had more in common with the persecuted Baptists.

The story of Sunnerbo's Mission Society

Not long ago we were delighted to find, in a used bookstore, the account of the Sunnerbo Mission Society of Sweden. This was the home of Wedin, and he was a colporteur or laypreacher there along with C.P. Mellgren. During the time of the Rosenian movement, this was near the region where the singer, Oscar Ahnfeldt was influential. C.P. Mellgren, who combined his craft of shoemaker with preaching, came to Princeton, Illinois, and served the Mission congregation there. His friend from Sunnerbo, Wedin, succeeded him as pastor at Princeton. Wedin then came to Nebraska and Mellgren to Kansas.

Wedin's friend from Sunnerbo, Sweden, and Princeton, Illinois

Mellgren as he appeared in the Sunnerbo days
(He had changed his name upon emigrating)

Both Wedin and Mellgren changed their names. The Sunnerbo book speaks of the influence of a Skåne preacher named Ekdahl on their early work. A relative of mine named Olson, also from Skåne, took the name of Ekdahl when emigrating. A coincidence?

In his memoirs, Skogsbergh marvels at the small number of mission preachers working from the early Chicago center with requests coming from groups of immigrants near and far. His list includes: "Björk, Sanngren, Carl Youngquist, P. Wedin, Magnusson, Mellgren, John Peterson och Lindell". Remarkable to us is the number of these who found their way to Nebraska, six of the eight.

It was into this context that Peter Wedin came as a mission pastor, reflecting the style of the colporteur, or lay minister, in Sweden and deliberately separating himself from the American revival style emerging in the Mission Synod in Illinois. He was ordained in the Nebraska Augustana Conference and served as pastor of the Gethsemane congregation at Ong, but Sandahl refers to him as an "eccentric" old Pietist who was better suited to the role of itinerate mission preacher. This was his specific calling later for Augustana. How he came at last to be at the Monroe Free church we can only surmise. He certainly would have represented the old Rosenian Swedish Lutheran brand of Christianity, and though the times and modes had changed, he would not have been alone in this among the immigrants there.

From Sunnerbo, to Princeton, to Augustana and at last
the final resting place at "Chicagoboarna"; Monroe Cemetery!
No doubt among acquaintances from days past

So we have the irony of the Monroe cemetery, where Peter Wedin is buried very near the Skogsbergh plot to the left above, and the Princeton days are forgotten by all. (As a footnote: census records have Swedish-born Andrew and Mary "Widin" and four children at Monroe. These may be kin to Peter and account for his burial there.)