The Evangelical society at Coal Bash, and the German Baptist presence

1847–1880, at Chapman's strength

Two of Chapman's Penn Township church entries belong to the German-language religious world of the county's farm neighborhoods. Three and a half miles south of Mishawaka, the Coal Bash Evangelical Association was organized in 1847 by the Rev. G. G. Platz; the society built its house in 1856, and by 1880 Chapman counts its membership "dwindled to nine" — the smallest living congregation in his township list, printed here at the size he gives it. The Evangelical Association's Mishawaka society of 1846, with its 1857 house and 1872 edifice, is the city congregation's own story and Mishawaka's to tell; Coal Bash is the township offshoot, and its after-course is not in any record. The German Baptist presence stands a degree stronger than a single sketch. The People leg's Chapman sketch of Henry Burket, of section 32, names him a German Baptist — and the county atlas's 1875 church tally seats the fellowship in the township outright: the Dunkards, as the German Baptists were called, hold churches "in Olive, in German, in Liberty, in Penn, Centre, and other townships." A Dunkard congregation therefore worshiped in Penn Township in 1875 on the atlas's authority; its house, its seat, and its course are not otherwise in the record reached, and the atlas line and the Burket affiliation are printed together as the whole of what can be said.

Sources

1. Chapman (1880), pp. 800–801 (the Coal Bash Evangelical Association).
2. Illustrated Historical Atlas of St. Joseph County (1875), churches chapter (the Dunkards' church in Penn).
3. People leg (Chapman sketch of Henry Burket).