Establishing religious identity - Central Church became first Protestant congregation organized in Jefferson City

Pictured is the second church building of the German Evangelical Central Church in Jefferson City, now Central Church, is pictured on this vintage postcard. The church was responsible for planting the seed in 1903 of what became Friedens Church Brazito.

As the oldest Protestant congregation established in Jefferson City, the German Evangelical Central Church—now known as Central Church—for many years served as a house of Christian worship for German immigrants who had been associated with two separate denominations prior to their relocation to the United States.
 
It is part of a historical legacy linked to King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia who, in 1817, on the 300th anniversary of the Reformation, unified the Reformed (Calvinist) and Lutheran churches. This unification later inspired the immigration of Germans seeking religious freedoms, many of whom eventually settled in Central Missouri.
 
“The German Evangelical Central congregation is a member of the German Evangelical Synod of North America, a church association which advocates the union of two branches of the Protestant church, the Lutheran and Reformed,” explained the Illustrated Sketchbook and Directory of Jefferson City and Cole County.”
 
Although it was several years before official organization took place, the congregation of the German Evangelical Central Church, part of the Reformed movement, began to materialize in Jefferson City in 1850, the same year that a piece of property was purchased on a hill on the corner of Ashley and Washington Streets.
 
The aforementioned book added, “The congregation at Jefferson City was organized … (in) 1858, but for more than two years was without a regular pastor, services being conducted at certain intervals by itinerant preachers. The meetings were held in private houses until 1859, when a plain brick church was built at a cost of about $1,500.”
 
The first full-time pastor for the fledgling church was Reverend Joseph Rieger, who accepted the call in the spring of 1860. Funds were then raised to build a parsonage for the new pastor and his family, which was completed in late summer of the same year.
 
Under the pastorate of Rieger, the congregation began to grow. In 1868, Rev. Edward Huber, a Swiss native and graduate of Eden Seminary in Marthasville, was appointed as an assistant to Rev. Rieger.

“Rev. Rieger died at the parsonage, August 20, 1869, with his wife, daughter, and Rev. Huber attending him,” explained the Central United Church of Christ sesquicentennial history from 2008.
 
Rev. Rieger, who had ushered the congregation through the tumultuous years of the Civil War and had helped found Eden Theological Seminary for Evangelical pastors, was interred in Central Evangelical Cemetery. His remains were moved to Riverview Cemetery in the mid-1960s after the expansion of U.S. Highway 54 consumed the cemetery property.
 
In 1869, Rev. Huber was unanimously elected to succeed the late Rev. Rieger. As the years passed, many of those who identified as Lutherans, and who had been attending worship services at Central, left the congregation when Trinity Lutheran Church organized in Jefferson City in 1870.
 
It was also during Huber’s tenure at Central that the church’s parochial school was erected in 1872. Rev. Huber continued to serve the Central congregation until 1874, but went on to receive widespread acclaim for seeking a reunification of German Protestants.
 
“Rev. Edward Huber, formerly chaplain of the Missouri Legislature, hopes to see the day when the two branches of the Lutheran Church will be united, and is doing all within his power to bring about that end,” reported the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on August 20, 1899.    
 
Following the departure of Rev. Huber in 1874, several pastors came to serve the Reformed congregation for short periods. Pastor J.U. Schneider was welcomed to the church in 1888 and soon sought to plant the seed of a new congregation in an outlying community. 
 
Historical documents from Friedens Church Brazito explain, “…on September 1, 1889, the Reverend J.U. Schneider, who was then the pastor of Central Church, ‘was given permission to cancel one evening service of worship each month in order to enable him to try to organize a Christian congregation in Brazito.’”
 
This endeavor did come to fruition under Pastor Schneider’s tenure at Central Church.
 
A major milestone in church history arrived in 1891 when the congregation, which had experienced substantial growth, embarked upon the undertaking of erecting a new church.
 
“… the contract for the new church was awarded to Mr. Fred Binder, the president of the congregation,” noted the Illustrated Sketchbook and Directory of Jefferson City and Cole County.” It continued, “With pardonable pride the congregation may point to its substantial and beautiful church edifice, which has been erected and furnished at a cost of $10,000.”
 
A second parsonage was built in 1898 on the site of the previous one. Five years later, under the leadership of Rev. Charles Hoffman of Central Church, a new church was finally built and dedicated in the community of Brazito.
 
The next century delivered many changes, such as the closure of the parochial school and the construction of a large Sunday school building with classrooms. The name of the congregation changed to Central Evangelical and Reformed Church following a merger of two synods in 1934.
 
A second merger in 1957 resulted in it being renamed Central United Church of Christ. Buildings have since been demolished and new additions added in the interceding years, but the original sanctuary built in 1891 remains a piece principal element of the church campus.
 
In more recent years, the congregation has undergone another name change and is now Central Church. The legacy of the congregation; however, remains steeped in a fascinating story of German immigrants once seeking to establish their religious identity in a foreign land.
 
As Rev. Dr. Stephen H. Bucholz noted in the forward he wrote for the church’s 150th anniversary in 2008, “Jefferson City was a small, bustling town, the seat of state government, and a magnet for German immigrants and settlers… These folks decided to establish a church of their heritage and theological persuasion that they had known in their homeland.”
 
Nodding to the past hopes for a bountiful future, he added, “May our current generation and our posterity continue to keep the faith so the question of the wisdom of the Proverbs will be answered affirmatively, ‘Will our faith have children?’”
 
Jeremy P. Ämick is author of the upcoming historical compilation "Beyond the Moreau." 

The contractor for the second church building of what is now Central Church was Frederick Binder, who was involved in the construction of many historical buildings in Jefferson City and the surround areas. Courtesy of Central Church