Church History
of Shiawassee County MICHIGAN

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Religious services were held in Shiawassee County as soon as shelters were complete and two or more families gathered together. The services consisted of singing, prayer, bible reading, sermons and were usually followed by a social hour. Eventually, as the community prospered, the families worshipped in the log schools, way stations, town halls and in the Courthouse. Church spires began to dot the hillsides in the 1840's.

The Methodists began services as early as 1836 as the county became part of a circuit which preachers regularly followed. Methodist circuit riders were the most welcome figures in the villages. Riding miles through the forest, they brought spiritual revival and news of the outside world. In addition to preaching, meetings were held, the dead were buried and marriages and baptisms performed.

Burns township resident Riley Crawford listened to an early minister and wondered

"....what could induce him, a man so slender in form, so neatly dressed and so handsome in feature, to leave his home in the city and ride over such a road for sixteen miles and spend an hour in a log cabin with a dining table for a pulpit, in preaching to a handful of adults and children and not even hint that a collection to defray traveling expenses would be acceptable."

The earliest Methodist preachers who came to Shiawassee were Washington Jackson, Issac Bennett, Riley Crawford, Seth Reed, Charles Locke, Samuel Wilkinson, John cosart and William Cochran.

Mary Ann Freeman lived with her husband Richard and twelve children in New Haven township with just an Indian trail to guide them six miles to Owosso. The family came there in 1836 and "....were deprived of a school and church for several years." When the log school was built in 1843 a preacher began to stop from time to time. In 1861, when services were held in the schoolhouse semi-monthly by Rev. L.C. York, Mrs. Freeman became a "consistent Methodist to the time of her death."

Another famous missionary from Shiawassee County was Leander W. Pilcher, who went to Pekin in 1870. He was the son of a Methodist preacher. As a professor in the University of Pekin he died with great honor.

When Elias Comstock came to Owosso, in 1836, the spiritual needs of the baptist pioneers were met. Elias was the son of Elkanah Comstock, the first ordained Baptist minister to enter the territory which became Michigan. The first services were held in the Comstock Cabin. Other Baptist congregations formed in Maple River, Laingsburg, Perry, Corunna, Vernon and Byron. The earliest known preachers were Elias Comstock, John Swain, Silas Barnes, George Reynolds and Benjamin Brigham.

The Presbyterians were in Morrice, Byron, Vernon and Vernon Center.

The Catholics arrived in the early 1840's and by 1847 had built a log church at Woodhull, under the direction of Father George Godez. He came all the way from Westphalia to minister to this flock. That church must have been an interesting place to be for Father recited the Latin Mass with his German accent, while the parishioners responded in their Irish brogues.

St.Mary's Catholic Church was founded in Corunna in the early 1850's and was located on John St. 1/2 block east of Shiawassee St. The rectory, 607 S. Shiawassee St., has been converted to a house, but the church was torn down. St.Mary's Cemetery is located at Hibbard and State Rd., south of Corunna.

Several Shiawassee County residents have entered the priesthood including Rev. Father John J. Cavanaugh and his brother Fr. Francis P. Cavanaugh in the 1920's.

The First Congregational Church of Shiawassee County (now Bancroft) was organized at the schoolhouse in Shiawasseetown on March 14, 1840, under the ministry of Gershom Mattoon. Liberty Lyman was chosen clerk. His handwritten minutes state that its members must abstain from liquor, be opposed to slavery and could not sue each other. Further, their duty in all matters should be guided by "honesty, justice and integrity as the gospel directs," and toward each other each should, "cherish feelings of love and benevolence." Mattoon was also instrumental in founding congregations in Vernon and Owosso.

Missionaries include: In 1881 the Rev. Lucious O. Lee left the Congregational Church to go to Turkey. Mrs. Henry Marden, Turkish missionary whose husband died in Greece while en route to United States, left for Turkey in 1893. Rev. William Scott Ament and a Miss Belle Lonstreet who left Owosso in 1893 and was of assistance during the Boxer uprising.