The Baptists: First Baptist Church and the Later Congregations

First Baptist pastor succession printed from 1842 — frame church burned in the Baptist church fire, January 1874 — stone edifice at Main and Wayne occupied January 1887

First Baptist Church: Howard prints the succession of the pastors of the First Baptist Church of South Bend beginning in 1842, opening with William L. H. Stocker and running through E. T. Manning, S. L. Collins, D. Thomas, A. S. Ames, Ira Corwin, C. Ager, T. P. Campbell, M. Mulcahy, J. L. M. Young, and their successors to William Kirk Bryce, the pastor of 1907. The congregation’s frame church stood at the corner of Main and Jefferson streets, on the present site of the post office. That building had been moved from the next lot south in 1864 and at that time greatly enlarged and improved.

The fire of 1874: In January 1874, during the pastorate of the Rev. Mr. Young, the frame church burned. The fire is known in local annals as the Baptist church fire, and was one of the most terrible contests the old volunteer fire department ever fought; the weather was intensely cold, and many of the firemen never recovered from the exposure. The building was repaired after the fire and used by the congregation until their removal to the fine stone edifice at the corner of Main and Wayne streets in January 1887.

The mission that became Fellowship Baptist: In the spring of 1930 the First Baptist Church of South Bend undertook a mission work on the west side of the city. Mrs. Mary Stewart, under the leadership of Pastor J. Burt Bouwman, made a survey of the area, and a Sunday school was organized on May 4, 1930, in a tent at 416 South Dundee Street, as the Belleville Community Mission. The mission moved that fall into a house at 420 South Dundee, and about a year and a half later into a building set up at 431 South Dundee, continuing under various pastors, student pastors, missionaries, and lay people until 1944. On November 12, 1944, a meeting called by the Rev. C. Louis Kau organized the mission as a church, named Stewart Memorial Baptist Church in honor of Mrs. Stewart. A recognition service on May 13, 1945 welcomed it into the fellowship of the Northern Association of the Northern Baptist Convention. In the late 1960s the church disassociated itself from the Convention and became an autonomous, independent Baptist church, and in September 1979 it took its present name, Fellowship Baptist Church of South Bend, worshipping at 4849 West Ford Street.

The other Baptist churches of 1907: Howard’s survey of that year lists, besides the First Church, the Mount Zion Baptist Church at 116 North Birdsell Street, the Immanuel Baptist Church at 875 South Marietta Street, the Quincy Street Baptist Church, organized in 1906, and the First Swedish Baptist Church at the corner of Laurel and Napier streets. The Quincy Street congregation is carried forward in the genealogical society’s crosswalk as Calvary Baptist Church.

Mount Zion and Pilgrim Baptist: Mount Zion Baptist Church was founded in 1890 as the first African American Baptist church in South Bend. The church grew out of Olivet African Methodist Episcopal Church and was organized under the leadership of the Rev. W. M. Ridley; the Studebaker brothers donated the small wooden frame building the congregation first used. In 1891 the church building was moved to 116 North Birdsell Street. The foundation for the present sanctuary and basement was started in 1921 and the building completed in 1926; after a financial crisis in the Depression the church reorganized and in 1935 officially changed its name to Pilgrim Baptist Church. The congregation’s later civil-rights history is told with the Black churches in the Black History file; it is recorded here as a founding.

Sources:

1. Timothy Edward Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1907), Baptist section and Sec. 5 survey — the pastor succession from 1842, the 1864 move and enlargement, the January 1874 fire, the January 1887 stone edifice, and the Mount Zion, Immanuel, Quincy Street (1906), and First Swedish congregations.
2. Fellowship Baptist Church of South Bend, church history as reproduced in its church listing — the 1930 Belleville Community Mission of First Baptist Church, the May 4, 1930 Sunday school, the November 12, 1944 organization as Stewart Memorial, the 1945 recognition, and the 1979 name.
3. The Clio, Pilgrim Baptist Church entry, drawing on the Indiana University South Bend Civil Rights Heritage Center, African American Landmark Tour (2013) — Mount Zion founded 1890, its origin in Olivet A.M.E., the 1891 move to Birdsell Street, the 1921–26 building, and the 1935 name Pilgrim Baptist Church.
4. South Bend Area Genealogical Society, Saint Joseph County Church Records crosswalk — Quincy Street Baptist carried forward as Calvary Baptist.