The Evangelical line: Salem, on Ash Road

THE EVANGELICAL CONGREGATION OF HOWARD'S LIST · PRESENT SEAT 52173 ASH ROAD

Howard's second church survives on the ground under a Methodist name: the South Bend Area Genealogical Society's index of St. Joseph County church records crosswalks the congregation seated at Granger under three historical names — Salem Evangelical, Smith's Church, and Dutch Church — to its present identity, Salem United Methodist. "Dutch" in the county's usage is Deutsch: this was the German-speaking Evangelical congregation of the township's German farm families, the Evangelical Association line that ran through the county's German settlements. Its seat stands at 52173 Ash Road, on the designated place's eastern edge against the Elkhart County line, beside the Salem Cemetery that the township keeps — church and burying ground together in the farm pattern, entered in the cemeteries entry below. The name course above the door follows the national mergers of its denomination, which are the record's own frame for the local changes: the Evangelical Association's successor body joined the Evangelical and Reformed union's partner in 1946 to form the Evangelical United Brethren Church, and in 1968 that body united with the Methodist Church to form the United Methodist Church — so an Evangelical congregation of the farm century is, by 1968, a United Methodist one, and the Salem congregation worships today as New Salem United Methodist Church, the "New" carried in its current directory and press usage. The congregation is a living one in the current record: funeral and visitation services were held at New Salem United Methodist Church, 52173 Ash Road, in September 2016, in the University of Notre Dame's published memorial record. What this section could not settle is the congregation's own early course: its founding date, its first building, and the building course that brought it to the present Ash Road church do not appear in any source the leg could read first-hand, and they are printed as a named gap. Settler: the congregation's own records, which the genealogical society's index locates in the keeping of the Mishawaka-Penn-Harris Public Library and the St. Joseph County Public Library, and the journals of the Indiana Conference of the United Methodist Church and its Evangelical United Brethren predecessors.

Sources:

1. South Bend Area Genealogical Society, Saint Joseph County church-records index and name crosswalk (sbags.org) — "Salem Evangelical | Granger | Salem United Methodist"; "Smith's Church | Granger | Salem United Methodist"; "Dutch Church | Granger | Salem United Methodist"; record copies held at MPHPL and SJCPL.
2. University of Notre Dame, NDWorks memorial notice (2016) — services at New Salem United Methodist Church, 52173 Ash Road, Granger.
3. Current directory listings for New Salem United Methodist Church, 52173 Ash Rd, Granger, IN 46530.
4. The denominational merger record (Evangelical United Brethren union, 1946; United Methodist union, 1968), as the frame for the congregation's name course.