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What did Ann Arbor look like 150 years ago? Was it a vast, untamed wilderness or a small community on the rise? According to the letters of Frederick Schmid, the founding pastor of Zion Lutheran Church, it was both.
Ann Arbor is a little village, mainly of English people, only a few German families are in the city, the remaining families, perhaps forty to forty-six, live out in the woods and forest. Everyone has his house upon his property, and for that reason the Germans often live as much as six miles from one another, but all in the same direction.
Schmid did not speak much English when he arrived in America. His letters, diary, and sermons were written in German. Schmid's diary, in German, is available at the Bentley Historical Library. His collected, translated letters are held at the Zion Lutheran Church archive. The letters included in this section have been translated into English for your convenience.
Schmid was only 26 when he arrived to serve a pastor to the growing city's 34 German families. He was born in Wruttemberg in 1807, and received his theological training at Evangelical Institute of Switzerland. He arrived in August and gave his first Lutheran service in Michigan inside a Detroit carpenter shop. Two days later he gave a sermon in a small country schoolhouse on Territorial Road in Scio Township, 4 miles west of Ann Arbor, which he describes in a letter. That same day, Bethlehem Church, the forerunner of Zion Lutheran Church, was founded.
In addition to Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Schmid founded some fifteen Lutheran churches in Michigan. Because there were so few pastors of any denomination in Michigan, he preached as many as five different sermons, in five different places, every Sunday in his early career. His letters are an invaluable resource for the study of early Ann Arbor and Michigan. As he walked from town to town, Schmid recorded his impressions about everything from living conditions to road repair. Some of his most interesting observations are about the local Native American communities. Schmid describes their clothing, living arrangements, and means of travel.
As a Christian minister, Schmid considered the Native Americans "heathen" because they did not believe in Christianity. His views were not uncommon in the early nineteenth century, although many people would find them problematic today. Despite these qualifications, however, Schmid's letters are remarkably detailed and his impressions provide a rare glimpse of the interaction between Ann Arborites and the Native Michigan populations.