Augustana Lutheran
Church
Organized 1850
Andover, IL
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Augustana Lutheran Organized 1850
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Jenny Lind Chapel, Andover, Ill., ca. 1975.
Jenny Lind, "the Swedish Nightingale," opened her American tour on September 11, 1850 in The Castle Garden in New York City. In addition to several performances there, she appeared in another eighteen cities. Invariably her concerts sold out. In some cities local citizens' committees raised tens of thousands of dollars to construct a suitable hall in which she could appear. Lind herself received the virtually unheard of sum of $187,500 (deposited in a London bank as a guarantee by P. T. Barnum who organized and promoted the tour). On October 18 and 19 she sang at the Musical Fund Hall, on Locust Street in Philadelphia. The two concerts netted $19,000. The Jenny Lind craze reached such heights, in Europe as well as the United States, that people began naming everything from locomotives to baby cribs after her.
Perhaps the most visually striking portrait of Lind was painted in 1846 by Eduard Magnus. Even The Liberator, William Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist weekly, covered the "Jenny Rage" on November 8, 1850: The 'Jenny' Rage.--The New York Organ, in alluding to the present excitement in the Knickerbocker city, observes: 'New stores and saloons and hotels are christened 'Jenny Lind'; steamboats, locomotives, stages, and all vehicles are 'Jennys'; on 'Change they sell 'Jenny'-see wheat; the spinning 'Jenny' is eclipsed by the singing 'Jenny,' at least for this 'Jenny'-ration; people delight in tracing their 'Jenny' alogy back into Sweden; all men seem to be studying verbs in the 'Jenny'-tive case; 'Jenny'-rosity is a virtue no longer neglected; even our only military Major-Jenny-ral has surrendered to the queen; fond mothers call their babes, sportsmen their dogs and horses, farmers their cows and pigs, 'Jennys'; in short, 'Jenny' is the 'Jenny'-ric term for all these things, and for how many more, 'Jenny'-sais quoi.'
Jenny Lind Chapel, see The Lutheran Journal Vol. 60, No. 3, 1991 and Vol. 61, No. 1, 1992, is a national historic site. Swedish-Lutheran immigrants dedicated their house of worship in Andover in 1848, and established their first congregation in 1850 under the leadership of Lars Paul Esbjorn. The Jenny Lind Fund Committee, consisting of Hortence Lindorff, Albert Lestor, Art Art Arnold, and Harry Nelson was established by Conrad Bergendoff in 1973. It was chaired by Albert Lestor, the pastor of the Augustana Lutheran Church at the time. The Committee asked me to prepare a video consisting of a series of slides, complete with professional narration and background music. The result was a series of videos dealing with Jenny Lind Chapel. This 15-minute Visitor?s Guide of the chapel, narrated by Kai Swanson, who was a radio announcer and news director of radio station, WVIK on the campus of Augustana College in Rock Island Illinois, is installed in the basement of Jenny Lind Chapel in Andover, and is available for viewing. Dr. Tom Robin Harris and Janina Ehrlich, members of the Augustana College music department, and Jeff Cohen, a former concert artist at the college, composed the background music with traditional Swedish hymns played on the organ in Jenny Lind Chapel by Hortence Lindorff. This 15-minute video may be purchased for $10 in the Jenny Lind Chapel Museum located in the basement of Jenny Lind Chapel in Andover, Illinois. The video tells a moving story of the chapel from its beginning, a century and one half ago, to the present day by means of colored slides, period photographs, paintings and documents, and follows the immigrants on their 68-day journey from their homeland in northern Sweden to the rugged frontier plains in northwestern Illinois. Over 140 years ago. Lars Paul Esbjörn, a Lutheran pastor from northern Sweden, and 146 Swedish pioneers left their homeland and sailed for seventy days on the crowded freighter, "Cobden" to New York. From there, more than 100 immigrants from Sweden continued their journey for another 26 days along waterways of the Hudson River, the Erie Canal, around the Great Lakes, where they met cholera, the "angel of death", to Chicago and then by canal boats to Peru, Illinois. From Peru, the baggage, the women, and the children were put on wagon trains to Andover, Illinois. The rest of the party went on foot. Due to illness, lack of food, and lodging, the majority left the group in Andover and went their separate ways. Only Pastor Esbjörn and handful of his faithful followers remained in Andover to build Jenny Lind Chapel, which became the "mother church" of the Augustana Lutheran Church and Augustana Synod. It later merged with the Lutheran Church in America. Today it is called the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. This article concentrates on Lars Paul Esbjörn, his place of birth and early life in Delsbo, Sweden, his early schooling in Hudiksvall and Gävle and his study of theology at Uppsala University. Thereafter, he was ordained at Uppsala Cathedral, became and assistant pastor at Ostervåla, then pastor at the factory town of Oslättfors. He married Amalia Gyllenbåga, and lived in two rooms of the parish school house in Hille where he became a preacher of the Pietists. The article concludes with Esbjörn and his immigrants sailing from Gävle to New York in 1849. My cover photograph shows a base relief by Bror Hjort depicting Paul Esbjörn and his wife Amalia standing in front of Jenny Lind Chapel in Andover, Illinois. The relief is located in the Lutheran Church, Ostervåla, Sweden. In the last issue of the journal, Esbjörn?s early life in Sweden, his preparations for the ministry, his marriage to Amalia, his conversion to Pietism, and his determination to accompany his flock to America were described. In this article, a detailed account of his trip to America includes the voyage at sea, his arrival in New York, his arrival in Andover, his meeting with Jenny Lind, the chapel construction, and the establishment of the Augustana Synod appears in vivid detail. It concludes with the establishment of Augustana College in Chicago in 1860, and his return to Sweden where he died on July 2, 1870, and lies buried in the cemetery of the Lutheran Church in Ostervåla. His second wife and children returned to Andover. Although the basement of the chapel in Andover has been transformed into a museum, the chapel is used, as it has been for over 100 years, as a house of worship. On the cover is my photo showing the Lutheran Church at Hille, Sweden, where in 1840 many in the congregation and almost the entire choir went with Pastor Esbjörn to America. ANDOVER -- The Jenny Lind Chapel in Andover, a nationally recognized monument, also is a memorial to early Swedish settlers who came to this country to found a branch of the Swedish Lutheran Church. Hundreds of those settlers died of cholera in the early 1850s and are buried in mass graves in the chapel cemetery and a ``block south and the block north of this location,'' according to Andover historian Ron Peterson. Construction on the chapel began in 1851, about 18 months after a group of Swedish Lutheran immigrants established a congregation under the leadership of the Rev. Lars Paul Esbjorn. He was given royal Swedish permission to travel to the United States to extend the state church of Sweden to these shores, Mr. Peterson said. However, as other Swedish settlers followed, hard times hit the community, Mr. Peterson said. ``This church was built in such stark and suffering times. ``Lumber which was to have been used for the church was lost when cholera struck. ... The basement of the church became a hospital for the people with cholera,'' he said. ``There is no steeple because the wood was needed for coffins.'' Mr. Peterson said the 45-by-30-foot church was finished in 1854. The chapel was named after world-renowned Swedish singer Jenny Lind, who donated $1,500 toward its construction while she was on a concert tour in the eastern United States. However, Ms. Lind never saw the church or visited Andover, Mr. Peterson said. ``The church was considered a masterpiece when it was new and could accommodate, at the most, 300 people. At one time, a rectangular hole was cut in the sanctuary floor so that people in the basement could hear the service,'' he said. The congregation grew so large that Augustana Lutheran Church, across the street a block away, was built in 1867. Church members traveled from all around the area, from the Quad-Cities to Galesburg, to worship in the new church, Mr. Peterson said. The little chapel continued to be used for various church functions until 1947 or 1948. Over the years it fell into disrepair. However, in 1973, the late Conrad Bergendoff, president emeritus of Augustana College, spearheaded a drive to restore and maintain the chapel. The work paid off with a listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. The church, on a seven-acre site, is owned and managed by the Northern Illinois Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. During restoration, the chapel's basement was converted into a museum through the work of Hortense and Everett Lindorff, formerly of Rock Island, now of Minnesota, Mr. Peterson said. ``So many people visit the sanctuary, but they have no idea the museum is in the basement. It's probably one of the best-kept secrets about the Jenny Lind Chapel,'' he said. The museum has many artifacts and much history of the early settlers, including immigrants' letters written in Swedish, which Dr. Bergendoff translated to English. Dr. Bergendoff's contributions to the restoration and museum live on today in an audiotaped narration of the history of the settlers and chapel, which museum visitors can listen to. Part of the brick foundation on the west wall is exposed, as is one of the huge timber support beams in the basement ceiling. The bricks were made by the settlers from clay from land near the church. Like Mr. Peterson, Andover resident Doris Brodd, who oversees the museum, hopes more people will discover the sanctity of the chapel and take time to learn about those who gave so much to build it. The chapel, still used for special events, is open daily from May 1 to Sept. 30, and by special request during the fall and winter.
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