Missionsvennen

A Norwegian Lutheran church in Frankfort, TN

Frankfort, Tennessee is barely a place on the map these days. It was a small town near another slightly larger small town, Wartburg. It was marketed to Germans and Norwegians as a potential destination away from the harsh northern climate and for a brief time immigrants moved there. The soil was not very arable however, and while I don’t know what happened, it seems that these immigrants eventually moved on again, perhaps to Thorsby Alabama or other points.

There was a Norwegian Lutheran church in Frankfort during those years. The church was part of the United Norwegian Lutheran Church in America (also known as the United Church).

Translation:

Frankfort congregation.

Approximately 1895-13 (?)

Organized in 1895. Dissolved 1913 (?). 72 souls in 1896, 93 in 1903, 64 in 1907. Priests: P.T. Stensaas, 1895-97; H. Engh, 1899-02; C.K. Helland, 1902-08; T.O. Juve, 1908-1913. Civil servant in 1896: b. Thor Aasen. In 1906: b.A.S. Neskaug, Thorwald Weideman.

At Frankfort the pastors have been: Simon J. Nummedal, 1893-1894; P.T. Stensaas, 1896-1897; Hagbart Engh, 1899-1902; C.K. Helland, 1902-1908; T.O. Juve, 1908-1913; Th. M. Bakke, 1924–-, with Deer Lodge as the post office. Frankfort reported 72 members in 1896; 64 in 1907. Juve was born in Telemarken. He had migrated in 1852…He wrote once that he felt lonesome in the South and wished himself back to the Northwest where Norwegian is the language of the streets. He died in 1913, way down south in Dixie. Bakke is a graduate of St. Olaf College and the United Church Seminary. He has been a pastor on the plains of Minnesota and in the woods of Wisconsin. He has broken the Bread of Life to his countrymen on the outstations of Alberta to the North; he now is ministering to their spiritual wants in the mountain fastnesses of the South.

History of the Norwegian People in America by Olaf Morgan Norlie · 1925 Augsburg Publishing House. Page 248.

Here are the pastors who served the congregation, most of them briefly and as part of a larger call that included Thorsby:

If anyone knows more about this congregation or group of immigrants, please let me know.

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Hans Jakob Grøgaard Krog was born in Flekkefjord, Norway. After having obtained his master’s degree, he took up the study of theology but discontinued this, however, and became a teacher in Christiania and later in Trondhjem. Rev. J.A. Ottesen had often written in Norwegian papers concerning the scarcity of clergymen among Norwegians in America, and this led Krog to take up the study of theology anew. In 1872 he emigrated to America and was ordained into the ministry in 1874. His first call took him to Minneapolis, but a year later found him in Menominee, Wis., where he remained until 1890, when the Church Council elected him to a professorship at Luther College, where he remained for six years. He taught Norwegian, Religion, Latin, and French, besides taking, together with his wife, a very active part in the church work in and about Decorah. Rev. Krog was intensely interested in mission work, especially in the seamen’s mission. In 1902 he resigned his pastorate, which he had held at Ossian since 1896, in order to devote all his time to the mission work. In this capacity he labored unselfishly to the last. In the death of Rev. Krog the cause of Christian education has lost one of its warmest friends and supporters and one whose labors and influence have promoted and strengthened the highest and best elements in the field of education.

Hans Jakob Grøgaard Krog

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