The Cooksville Lutheran Church is celebrating its founding 125 years ago in 1891 with an event planned for Sunday, August 14, 2016. Both the establishment of the Lutheran Church in 1891 and the establishment of the nearby Cooksville Cemetery in 1861 will be commemorated.
The day will include a special
church service, a luncheon and a history program followed by a tour of the
Cooksville Cemetery. The program will
begin with a church service at 10 a.m., luncheon at 11:15 a.m., a history
program at 12 noon, and a guided tour of the cemetery at 12:30 p.m. Church founders’ graves will be marked, and families of the
founders will be available for questions and guidance. A free-will offering for the lunch will be
accepted from attendees. All interested persons are invited to attend any or
all of the events
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| Cooksville Lutheran Church, photo 1941 |
The Cooksville Lutheran Church
officially began life as the Norwegian Lutheran Church in 1891, a result of the
increased number of immigrant from Norway who settled in the Cooksville area and
who had been attending the nearby Stoughton Lutheran Church.
On October 5, 1891, at a meeting in
the Cooksville Schoolhouse, the Norwegian settlers in the area decided to
organize and erect their own Norwegian Lutheran Church in the village. The
constitution of the United Norwegian Lutheran Church was adopted, with the
first Cooksville congregation consisting of twelve families. The Reverend
Theodor H. Dahl from Stoughton agreed to conduct services in Norwegian every
third Sunday at an annual salary of $125.00
A campaign for funds to construct a
Lutheran church in Cooksville was successful. The new Norwegian Lutheran church
was a small, handsome Gothic Revival church with some Shingle Style details in
the tall, graceful bell-tower and steeple, and it was dedicated on December 14,
1892, on South Street next to Cooksville’s existing Cemetery.
Unfortunately, the church was
struck by lightning and burned to the ground on September 13, 1896. The loss, calculated at $2,339.00, was mostly
covered by insurance. The congregation
decided to re-build, and a second, similar church building was constructed in
the same location in 1897, with more elaborate stained-glass windows.
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| Cooksville Lutheran Church today |
The elegant rural Lutheran Church
still stands, with several new additions and a restored bell-tower, a
significant part of the history of the Village of Cooksville as well as an
important part of present-day life.
The adjacent historic Cooksville
Cemetery was established 155 years ago. Many of the original Lutheran Church
family members as well as founders of the Village of Cooksville are buried
there. The two separate historic properties, the church and the cemetery,
adjoin each other on Church Street in the historic Village of Cooksville.
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| Cooksville Cemetery sign |
The old Cemetery in Cooksville,
founded in 1861, was historically named “Waucoma Cemetery” after the Village of
Waucoma that had been platted next to Cooksville in 1846. The Cemetery replaced
the village’s earliest burying ground used in the 1840s and 1850s and located
northwest of Cooksville’s General Store.
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| Polly Woodward headstone, 1851 |
The Cooksville Cemetery contained
2.5 acres of land purchased from Waucoma’s founder Dr. John Porter for $25. The
cemetery expanded to the west in 1947 with about 1.4 acres of land acquired
south of the Lutheran Church, and in 1999, it was expanded again with the
purchase of two acres of farmland to the east.
The Cooksville Lutheran Church and the
Cooksville Cemetery are both located on Church Street at the southeastern corner
of the village. Both the Cemetery and the Lutheran Church are part of the
Cooksville Historic District listed in the National Register of Historic Places
in 1980, which includes most of the small Rock County village.
The church will again celebrate
its 125th anniversary in November this year when a commemorative “Lutheran Church Memory
Book” will be available.
For more information about the
August 14 events at the Cooksville Lutheran Church and the Cemetery, contact
Ilene Axford at (608) 873-6914.
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