The Zeba Indian United Methodist Church is a religious building located at 227 Front Street (between Whirl-I-Gig and Peter Marksman Roads) in

Zeba, Michigan Zeba ( oj, Ziibiins) is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Baraga County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The CDP had a population of 397 at the 2020 census. The community is located near the southern end of the Kewe ...

, northeast of L'Anse. It marks the site of the Kewawenon Mission, built in 1832, which was the birthplace of Indian Methodism in the western

Upper Peninsula The Upper Peninsula of Michigan – also known as Upper Michigan or colloquially the U.P. – is the northern and more elevated of the two major landmasses that make up the U.S. state of Michigan; it is separated from the Lower Peninsula by t ...

, and predated

Frederic Baraga Irenaeus Frederic Baraga (June 29, 1797 – January 19, 1868; sl, Irenej Friderik Baraga) was a Slovenian Roman Catholic missionary to the United States and a grammarian by and author of Christian poetry and hymns in Native American langu ...

's mission at Assinins by 11 years. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1980 and designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1979.

History

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...

missionaries arrived in this area, via Sault Ste Marie, in the first half of the 19th century. One of the earliest was John Sunday, a Chippewa pastor, who came to this site in 1832 and erected a log mission house. Reverend John Clark followed in 1834 and built a school and mission house. A number of other Methodist missionaries were assigned to what was then called the Kewawenon Mission, including Daniel Meeker Chandler, W.H. Brockway, George King, John Kahbeege, Peter Marksman, and John H. Pitezel. By 1845, the mission included a farm and church with over 60 members, the large majority of whom were Indian. A second church was built in 1850, and was dedicated by John H. Pitezel, who had served at Kewawenon from 1844 to 1847. The mission began holding annual camp meetings in 1880, which attracted a large number of Indians from all over. A third church was constructed in 1888 at a cost of $1400, funded by donations from non-church members. This building remains on the site. An outdoor chapel was built in 1924. Now known as the Zeba United Indian Methodist Church, the site has been in continuous operation since 1832, and represents one of the oldest and most successful integration of Christian and Native American religious traditions.

Description

The Zeba Indian United Methodist Church is a vernacular

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

building, built of wood in a rectangular plan. The front facade is asymmetric, with double colored glass windows on one side and an offset square tower holding the entrance doors on the other. The facade also includes a small gable peak window and a triangular window above the entry doors. Memorial windows line each side of the church and a large

rosette window Rose window is often used as a generic term applied to a circular window, but is especially used for those found in Gothic cathedrals and churches. The windows are divided into segments by stone mullions and tracery. The term ''rose window'' w ...

is in the rear. The polygonal steeple has Gothic slits in the belfry and a wrought iron top. The exterior is sided with the original handmade wooden shingles, arranged in linear patterns.

History

Description

References

Further reading