More articles on Fort Bragg Finns: Founding and building the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church

The Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church in Fort Bragg has changes its name to the Trinity Lutheran Church

The first Finn permanently moved to the Fort Bragg region, Mendocino count, in California as early as 1869 and the other early settlers in 1877. In the beginning of 1880s the Finnish population in the area increased rapidly. The Finnish immigrants came to Fort Bragg area because of the employment available in the logging, lumbering and fishing operations, trades they knew from the “old country”. Many members of the Fort Bragg Finnish community felt a need for a church where they could worship in their native language. The Finnish religious heritage was primarily Lutheran and early group of Finns formed al Lutheran congregation on February 17, 1889. The fifteen charter members adopted the name Finland Evangelist Lutheran Church. “Evangelist” was a mistranslation of the Finnish word “evankelis”. Notes from the minutes of this initial meeting establish the identity of founders:

At this first meeting we established and named the church with 15 members. Council members were elected by voice vote
Chairman: John Barquist
Secretary: Johan Petter Westerberg
Treasurer: Johan Guest
Board members: Johan Jensen, Herman Barquist/Berkovitz, Jacob Nyy, Isak Markkula, Jacob Backman (Haiman in Amerikan Suomalainen Lehti and in the original minutes), Peter Johanson (missing in Amerikan Suomalainen Lehti).
We agreed that the name shall be Suomalainen Evankelis-Lutherilainen Seurakunta and it shall be changed unless the whole congregation agrees. Members shall be morally upright and they shall not be saloon keepers.

The Finland Lutheran Evangelist Church' churchbook.

At the same meeting a lot was secured at the southeast corner of Corry Street and Redwood Avenue.  In  the next meeting in March plans were underway for the construction of a church building and was decided to clear the Church lot. At the meeting on April 28, 1889, a list was prepared for sign-ups for building funds. On June 30, 1889, the architect’s drawings were approved and a loan for $300 was negotiated to purchase lumber. At this point, however, the Mill (Fort Bragg Redwood Company) donated the necessary lumber, first-cut redwood timber which was being harvested at that time.

Finnish Evangelical Lutheran church in Fort Bragg

Following articles were published in the local Advocate-News:

On July 19, 1889:
Lumber is being hauled this week for the building of a Finland Lutheran Church on Redwood Avenue. It will be 30x50 feet and the top of the steeple, 75 feet from the ground.

On July 17, 1889:
New Church
The new Finland Lutheran Church is well under way and everything points to a neat house of worship. Mr. Barqvist desires to return thanks to those who donated toward the project: Fort Bragg Redwood Co $50, C. L. Burbeck $5, H. Houston $2,50, T. L. Johnson $10, H. A. Weller $5, G. W. Perkins $2,50, Geo Berryhill $1,50, Eri Huggins $5, C. R. Johnson $10, Marks & Leiser gave a keg of nails, Julius Wintzer $5, F. Kammerer $1,50, G. A. Johnson $1, Bucholtz Bros. $5, A .A. Lord $2,50, A. F. Carmichael $2,50, H. R. Danders $2, R. Glanders $1,50, A. C. Kimball $1, O. R. Johnson $25, A. B. Cambell $1, J. Barqvist $10, H. Barqvist $5, A. Wilson $5, Matti Pelta (=Pelto?) $10, J. Martin $3, J. Soderman $10, J. P. Westerberg $5, Y. Hyman $5, Jacob Nyy $5, This does not complete the list.

On August 28, 1889:
Work on the Finn Church has stopped for want of funds. This little edifice will present a neat appearance when completed.

On September 18, 1889
The following people are new contributors to the building fund of the Finland Lutheran Church: Peter Peterson $5, F. A. Whipple $5, T. Murray $5, Kaarl J. Jakobson $5, Eza Terraien $6, Herman Berkamtje (=Barqvist?) $6, J. Soderman $4, J.A. Diel $1.

The Finnish Newspaper wrote in the beginning of June, 1890,
that the Finnish Church in Fort Bragg was nearly completed.
Tampereen Sanomat June 4, 1890.

Construction of the building started in September 1889 and in the end of the same year the structure was roofed and closed in enough to hold regular services. The building was finished in the Summer 1890. It was painted both inside and outside, the altar, pulpit and pews were completed, too. The church was built of redwood and fir with clapboard siding on the exterior. There were four Gothic windows on the north side as well as on the south side of the church.

The membership of the congregation grew rapidly. As early as in the end of the foundation year it was counted to rise over one hundred, including children. In the end of the second year the membership had risen to two hundred. Membership has not thereafter at any point increased to enlarge. The church members lived in addition to Fort Bragg in Noyo Hill, Noyo, Caspar, Mendocino, Albion and Comptche. Some live up to thirty miles from the Fort Bragg.

“To taste the white bread.”

The first Finnish Church in Minneapolis  was erected by Apostolic Lutherans. Members standing in front of the new church in 1902. In this picture might be Mr. Peter Saarenpaa, too.

The story of Finnish immigrant in Minneapolis. This interview was made by Alfred Backman in February, 1939.
 

Peter Saarenpaa’s interview

At the age of 19 Peter Saarenpaa, 242 Humboldt Avenue N., came to Minneapolis August 11, 1871 (should be 1878), from Tornionjoki, Province of Oulu, Finland. Peter say that, when he stepped off the train at the old Milwaukee depot 61 years ago, the Mississippi River seemed to him to be the grandest sight he had ever beheld, particulary that part where the huge sheet of water leaped over the rocks at St. Anthony Falls.

The Minneapolis Journal, August 15, 1902

Peter’s father had preceded the family by for years, arriving in Minnesota in 1873. For two years he worked in the Pine City lumber camps, saving passage money for his family. Working in Finland he could never have hoped to accumulate the sum necessary to bring them to this country. Wages for agricultural common laborers like Peter’s father amounted to only 170 marks a year, approximately $ 34 in American money. Worse still, wages for women amounted to only half what was paid to men. Asked why he wished to come to America, Mr. Saarenpaa answered: “To taste the white bread.”

(Minneapolis) Star Tribune, January 15, !904

Anderson Store in Minneapolis Finntown

Finnish Apostolic Lutheran Church at Humboldt Avenue North in the 1920s

The former Apostolic Lutheran Church some years ago,
now a private building.

Salted fish, “piimää” (soured milk), and the hard, heavy, black bread, combined in famine times with pounded straw, provided the Finnish agricultural workers, or crofters, the Saarenpaa family lived in a state approximating serfdom, working out the rent for their small tract of land by laboring a specified number of days on the estate of the landlord. Naturally, when Peter’s father returned to this native land with stories of white bread every, and lumber camp food that far surpassed the best diet that the poor Finnish worker had ever dreamed of, and of wages that in one year amounted to more than the Finnish worker could earn in a dozen or more years, an exodus of agricultural workers took place.

Upon arriving in Minneapolis in 1878, both father and son found employment with the Milwaukee Railroad as car cleaners, receiving $40 per month for a ten-hour day and a seven-day week. Mr. Saarenpaa remarked that it had not been for the confining hours he would have been able to supplement the family diet considerably by hunting game in the timberland surrounding the city. Incidentally, hunting licenses were required of any persons wishing to game in adjoining forests. The father worked for the Milwaukee Railroad until his death in 1904. Peter eventually learned to be a carpenter, and has sice worked at that trade, making it his regular occupation. In connection with his railroad work Mr. Saarenpaa spoke of having lived at a Finnish boarding house, called Wicksteads and Hermansons, at Washington Avenue and Second Street N. paying fifty cents per day for room, board and washing.

Like his father Peter devoutly followed the teachings of the Apostolic Lutheran Church and took an active part in it organization in North Minneapolis. Prior to 1895 meetings were held in a store building at Fourth Avenue and Main Street N.E. In 1895 Isaac Putas (Pudas) and Gustav Bergstadt, trustees, incorporated the Apostolic Lutheran Church at the Hennepin County Court House. It was the first Finnish Church in Minneapolis. In 1902 a church was erected at 237 Humboldt Avenue N., where services have been held regularly for 36 years. It was the first Finnish organization in this city- Mr Estenson (Torsten Estensen?), a Norwegian-Finn, who arrived in Minneapolis in 1880, performed all religious functions for the Finns in their own tongue during the years 1887 – 1888. Occasional services were held from time-to-time by Reverend Antti Wittikko-Huhta, who came to Minneapolis from Hancock, Michigan, whre he preached as an ordained minister of the Apostolic Lutheran Church as early as 1869.

The Saarenpaa family were, for 54 years, subscribers to America’s first weekly newspaper (actually, it was fifth, but the first one in Minnesota), the Uusi Kotimaa (New Homeland), established in Minneapolis by I.W Lahde in 1880 at 521 Third Street N. The paper was moved to New York Mills in 1884, where it continued publication until 1934, being purchased in that year by the Finnish Federation and moved to Superior, Wisconsin.

A series of articles about Finnish organizations in Fort Bragg: News on the establishment of the Evangelical Lutheran congregation in Fort Bragg

Evangelical Lutheran Church in Fort Bragg photographed pretty soon the building was completed.

In the Finnish American Newspaper there was April 7, 1889, news on the establishment of the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran congregation of Fort Bragg, in Mendocino County, in Northern California. I wrote it down and translated to English. Above you'll see the image of the church built the same year, which I found in a short history of the congregation.

Fort Bragg, Mendocino Co., Cal., Feb. 21..

We ask for a place to get something to said on A. S. Paper's columns also about this place. At the meeting held on this month's 17th day, was established Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church, which elected with majority of votes John P. Bergqvist for Chairman, John P. Westerberg for clerk, John Gert for treasurer, for board members were chosen John Jensen, Herman Bergqvist, Jacob Ny, Isak Markkula and Jacob Haiman (Hyman ?). Members of the congregation joined 17 people. Next meeting is scheduled for the forthcoming month's 17th day, in which congregation's laws ja constitution will be treated. The meeting will be held in Fort Bragg in John Bergqvist's house. All citizens living in surrounding area are asked to come to the meeting. The construction of the church will be implemented as soon as there will be enough money together to begin. Lot is given by Fort Bragg's company free of charge, which would have cost $ 500 when buying. On behalf of the church:
John Bergqvist, manager
John P. Westerberg, clerk,

Finns in Fort Bragg: The Westerberg family from Vadsø, Norway

Westerbergs, which moved from Vadsø (Vesisaari), Norway to Fort Bragg, California, in a family picture taken  around 1903

Many of the early Finnish settlers on the U.S. West Coast came not direct from Finland but instead from Northern Norway. One of them was John Peter Westerberg. He was born April 11th, 1856, in Vadsø (Vesisaari) , Norway,  on the Varanger fjord at the Barents Sea. He had Norwegian parents and his ways may have been more Norwegian than Finnish. But he fit into the Noyo Hill's Finnish community very well, when he came there in 1881. At twenty-five years age he immigrated with his wife and four other Norwegian families from the same region. Three of them is known, Mathisons, Aulins and Raudios. Shortly after their arrival in America Westerberg's wife died.

John Peter worked first at logging in the woods along the South Fork of Noyo River. In 1892 he was able to purchase 160 acres on Noyo Hill from Simeon Covington. He paid $ 800. There was a cabin on the property that Westerbergs could use immediately. John Westerberg got married second time with Effina Emilia Hy(v)önen, who was also from Vadsø, Norway. She was born July 8, 1871 in Saltijärvi, Norway. Their marrige accured April 20, 1890, in San Francisco. John Westerberg's brother David and his wife Hilda and John's and David's grandfather moved also to Fort Bragg area. The men logged the hillsides and made ties to earn money. They also built John Peter a large barn and fenced the fields. At the same time a sauna and several cabins were built. Simeon Covington had planted a cherry orchard and the Westerbergs added orchards of apples and plums and vegetable gardens. Finally a two-story house was constructed.

John Peter Westerberg (1856 - 1934) was a lay
preacher first in the Finnish Evangalist Lutheran
Church and later in the Apostolic Lutheran
Church of Fort Bragg.

The Westerbergs had nine children in all. Their first child, Francis, fell against a hot stove and died from severe burns at the age of three in 1894. A second tragedy struck again when their daughter Annie was sixteen years old. She fell in the well and drowned.  Seven of the children reached their adult age and were also married. John Peter Westerberg became a citizen of the Unites States June 19, 1889.

When George Eskola finished church building in 1894 for the Apostolic Lutheran congregation on Harrison street, was John Peter chosen to serve congregation as a lay preacher. He had been a lay preacher for the Finnish Evangelist Lutheran Church during years 1890 - 1894. According to tradition, parishioners gathered almost every Sunday after church at John and Effie Westerberg's ranch. The yard was filled with horses and buggies as parishioners gathered for pot-luck dinner. Effie Westerberg had reputation of being a very good cook. Besides food supplied from the farm, in season there was salmon the men caught in Noyo River that she pickled or smoked.

John Peter Westerberg had a library in his home where people could borrow books, mostly written in Finnish. Each book had its own number, names of readers were written beside the numbers and record of when books were returned was noted by an X after the borrower's name. John Peter was a very energetic and highly considered person. He was active in his church, a board member of Tunnel  School at Noyo Hill, a member of the first board of school trustees of the Fort Bragg Union High School District. His obituary  states: "He was a fine, upright man who commanded the respect of his friends and neighbors." Effina Westerberg died in August 1930 and John Peter February 22, 1934 at the home of his daughter Ida in Oakland, California, where he had been living two - three years.

Westerbergs in the Finnish Evangelist Lutheran Congregation's church book, page 189