Congregational Church History

THE HISTORY OF THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH AND THE COMMUNITY OF ROBERTS, ILLINOIS

Written in 1953. Unknown author.

Part 1.

In the consideration of the history of the Congregational Church of Roberts, Illinois I think that it would be best to discuss the history or the Roberts community.

Roberts is a small village of slightly over 400 population located in Central Illinois, one-hundred miles south of Chicago on the the Illinois Central Rail Road and on highways # 54 and #115. It is in the center of Ford County and it looks to Paxton, Illinois as its county seat.

Ford County was the last county organized and settled in Illinois because until the 1870's and 1880's it was mostly swamp land. The county was organized in 1859. Lyman Township, in which Roberts is right in the center, was organized in 1867. By the 1860's the county and the people living therein realized that the swamps might be drained and that valuable farm land might be obtained. The project of draining the land began in the 1870's.

The large majority of immigrants that came to this developing land were German and many of them came directly from the homeland. During the 1870's and 1880's there was a large immigration to this country and many of them stopped here in the newly acquired farm land instead of moving on west. Other nationality groups that were noticeable were the English, Scotch, and Irish.

The large number of German immigrants were evident in the types of churches there were established in this newly settled community. There were within the early community a Zion German Evangelical Church, a Zion German Methodist Episcopal Church, a German Lutheran Church (now American Synod), and in the neighboring towns of Thawville, five miles away, and Buckley, eight miles away, a German Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod.) The other churches in the Roberts community are a Roman Catholic, Methodist and Congregational. In almost every community surrounding Roberts for 25 miles is a German Lutheran church, besides many of them having German Evangelical and German Methodist churches. The Zion German Methodist Episcopal church in Roberts disbanded and the sold their building to the people of the Roman Catholic faith in 1886. Most of the German Methodist people had moved out of the immediate community. The Zion German Evangelical Church, located southeast of the village five miles, disbanded in 1937 with most of the remaining members going to the Congregational Church of Roberts and to the Zion Methodist Church of Melvin.

--to be continued.