794 ST. PAUL UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST, DAYTON Roediger, who was the pastor under scrutiny, eventually resigned, and after a time the church resumed normal activities. St. Paul’s Church had been an independent church, but in 1931 it joined the Evangelical Synod of North America. It was because of a subsequent series of mergers undergone by that body that the name of the church became St. Paul’s United Church of Christ. The church building of 1900 was remodeled during the early 1970s, and St. Paul’s United Church of Christ still holds its ser vices there. As of 2000 the church had approximately 375 members. The congregation continues to participate in various philanthropic activities; it works with the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts, and members volunteer to work at a local soup kitchen. “Answer Filed in Church Litigation,” KTS, March 22, 1923, 33. Campbell Co. Historical Society. Campbell County, Kentucky, 200 Years, 1794–1994. Alexandria, Ky.: Campbell Co. Historical Society, 1994. “Church of the Week,” KP, September 16, 2004, 8K. “17-Year Mission Seeks Volunteers—Church Members Hand Out Food,” KE, June 13, 2005, 3B.
Elizabeth Comer Williams
ST. PAUL UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST, DAYTON. The St. Paul United Church of Christ opened in 1863 so that Dayton, Ky., residents could attend ser vices closer to home than Newport. The first church meetings were held at the home of Frank Tinneman, one of the three men who helped bring the church into being. Later, the meetings were moved to the public school, then to the Presbyterian Church on Th ird St. in Dayton. Th is site, rented for $25 a year, was used from 1863 to 1869. In 1864 the congregation elected its first pastor, Carl Clausen, who served until 1880. That same year, the Ladies’ Aid Society, also known as the Frauenverein, was organized. Construction began on a new church building along Third St. in 1868. This building was used until 1915, when a new church, needed to accommodate church growth, was built on nearby Fourth Ave. The St. Paul Church joined the Evangelical Synod of North America in 1885, which merged with the Reformed Church in 1938, causing the local church’s name to be changed to the St. Paul Evangelical and Reformed Church Dayton. In 1961 a denominational merger with the Congregational Christian Churches changed the church’s name again to the current one, St. Paul United Church of Christ Dayton. In 1993 the St. Paul United Church of Christ Dayton celebrated its 130th anniversary with many activities and church ser vices. The current pastor, James Hill, who has served the church since 1990, reports that although the St. Paul Church continues with its ser vices each week, the membership is struggling as people move away from Dayton. DeVroomen, Sacha. “St. Paul’s Marks 130th Anniversary,” KP, October 30, 1993, 9K.
St. Paul United Church of Christ. One-Hundredth Anniversary: October 6–13, 1963. Dayton, Ky.: St. Paul United Church of Christ.
Elizabeth Comer Williams
ST. PAUL UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST, FORT THOMAS. In 1862, 31 members of the St. John’s Evangelical Protestant Church at Seventh and Columbia Sts. in Newport (see St. John United Church of Christ) left to form a new church. On December 27, 1862, they organized the St. Paul’s German United Evangelical Protestant Church. The congregation acquired a vacant frame Methodist church in Newport at 24 E. Eighth St. as their new home and held their first ser vice on February 3, 1863. A new pipe organ was purchased a few months later for $550. Later, they erected a parochial school building to instruct their children about their faith and to teach them the German language. Th is school was continued until public school education became available in Newport. By 1882 the congregation had built and dedicated a new church building at the same site. In 1884 a new pipe organ replaced the original organ, and in 1892, the church purchased a residence at 805 Monroe St. in Newport to be used as a parsonage. The church celebrated its 50th anniversary on April 6, 1913. The church and parsonage were repainted, the organ was rebuilt and enlarged, and new art-glass windows were installed in the sanctuary. At that time the congregation numbered 550 families. The Bible school had an enrollment of 938 students, the choir had 30 members, the Ladies’ Aid Society had 203 members, and the Young People Society had 80. In 1918 the word German was removed from the church’s name, and German ser vices were discontinued. One year later, after a peace between the United States and Germany had been signed, ending World War I, the German-language ser vice was reintroduced on a monthly basis; beginning in 1942, it was held only once a year, on Good Friday, and then two years later it was eliminated entirely. The church became affi liated with the Evangelical Synod of North America in 1923. The church’s steeple, which had been weakened during a storm in 1891, was removed in 1925. A new parsonage was purchased nearby at 801 Overton St. in Newport. On June 14, 1931, the church’s present threemanual Kilgen organ, costing $9,000, was acquired. Along with other churches in Newport, St. Paul’s assisted in aiding the homeless during the flood of 1937. Later that year, the church became an active partner in the development of Camp Sunshine for the underprivileged, located near Mentor in eastern Campbell Co. In 1943 St. Paul’s Church merged with the Evangelical and Reformed Church. That was when St. Paul’s joined with other Newport Protestant churches in orga nizing the Week Day School of Religion. In 1957 the congregation laid the cornerstone for a new building on 13 acres of property located half in Newport and half in Fort Thomas. Today, the church is positioned between Grand and Newman Aves., at 1 Churchill Dr. The prop-
erty in Newport at 24 E. Eighth St. was sold and currently is used as a parking lot. In 1957, at the national level, the Evangelical and Reformed Church merged with the Congregational Christian Church to form the United Church of Christ. Thus, the name of the local church became St. Paul United Church of Christ. United Church of Christ. “St. Paul United Church of Christ.” www.uccwebsites.net/stpauluccftthomasky .html (accessed May, 2005).
Donald E. Grosenbach
ST. PETER LUTHERAN CHURCH. Located in the rural area known as Hunter’s Bottom on Ky. Rt. 36 in Carroll Co., four miles from Milton (in Trimble Co.), this church can be traced to 1848, when the Detmer family moved down the Ohio River from Rising Sun, Ind., to Hunter’s Bottom, Ky., and found John Obertate and other recent German immigrants living nearby in Carroll Co. The Hopewell Methodist Church gave permission for a Lutheran congregation to use their meeting house at Hunter’s Bottom for Sunday afternoon ser vices, and the congregation hired Rev. Mueller, pastor of the German Evangelical and Reform congregation that dated back to 1841 at Madison, Ind. When Hopewell Methodist moved its building to high ground at Locust in 1895, the German American community worshipped at the Hopewell School at Hunter’s Bottom, and within a year the group purchased land and built a church adjacent to the Hopewell School. The building committee included Johann Obertödler (Obertate), C. Fred Th iemann, and Frank Th iemann. The 1896 church constitution written under supervision of the committee—Friedrich Detmer, Heinrich Hotfi l, and Karl Walkenhorst—declared the congregation at Hunter’s Bottom to be an independent German Evangelical Protestant Church; it required that pastors preach in German and that the school teach children the German language. The church was completely congregational in structure; the pastor did not have voting privileges, and only males were official members. A three-person executive committee ran the church, with a new person elected to the committee each year. All decisions were made by congregational vote, usually after church on Sundays. In June 1928 a new constitution required church minutes to be written in English and church ser vices to be held in English. It also extended the right to vote in congregational matters to women. The original church building, constructed on a grassy knoll by members of the congregation, was funded by a $400 loan from Ernst Thiemann at 5 percent interest. Each month there was a slight surplus used for debt repayment. During the 1990 renovations, which required resetting the doors, it was discovered that there was no true square in the original building; all measurements in 1896 were apparently eyeballed. The church has a bell tower equipped with the original 1896 brass bell from Germany; the constitution required the sexton to