The Little Church and Parsonage in Marion, Iowa

09/28/2025

I had a friendly follower poking for an update and I don't think I'd realized how much time had passed since the last time that I posted. What's been going on?!

Well, the big time consuming thing has been our effort to get the property listed on the National Register of Historic places. We're not there yet, but we have a great shot and have had some great conversations with the Iowa State Historic Preservation Office. When a property isn't listed in either a historic district or as a national register site, the onus is on the owners to make their case. There are some great resources in our area who can do this but we have a passion for this and decided to give it a go on our own. Our concern is that if we were to do work that the preservation groups disagree with, even if well intentioned and would preserve the structure, it could jeopardize the whole project. So slow and steady wins the race!

Back in the summer we did some exploratory work on the window jambs themselves and learned that the windows being stored in the church are absolutely the windows that were in the house! How do we know? Right size ✅ right style ✅ right pinned hardware and holes in the jambs ✅ This is unbelievable fortune, too. The previous owners had enough foresight to save them. Having the original windows that could be added back improves the architectural integrity of the home once reinstalled But to install these, we'll need to remove BOTH sets of storm windows in order to install the original windows. I better hope that the original storms are in the church too (they probably are!) or we'll have a lot to make!

04/26/2025

In the past we've made mention of something called a Birdseye map. Let's explore this more.

In a recent trip we took to Hannibal, Missouri where we stayed at the marvelous Belvedere Inn BnB, owned by US renown historic preservationist, Bob Yapp and his host with the most wife, Pat, we spied a Birdseye Map of Hannibal created by the same artist - Albert R***r. This made us curious to learn more about these maps.

We've since learned that Albert R***r was the first of the panoramic artists who were successful in making a business of the endeavor in the US The Library of Congress has 213 maps by this artist, who was originally from Prussia.

Back before drones... And airplanes... There were groups of artists, like R***r, who would travel across the United States, speak to folks in the city, and offer to draw up the city for a fee, usually sponsored by local leaders or business if I understand correctly. For this fee, the traveling artists would find tall buildings or other high vantage points to draw a panorama view of the city. They'd go through great lengths to try and get many details, like windows and chimney counts, building orientation and landscaping details, correct. Oftentimes there would be embellishments of a particular aspect of the city - for Cedar Rapids, it may have been overly busy rivers or railroad stations. For Marion it may be busy fairgrounds. These drawings could then also be used by the city to promote themselves. Brilliant! Marion's Birdseye map is available in larger than life form for all of us to enjoy in the Marion Heritage Center.

There were several other cartographers who also performed these services. I found it interesting that there are fewer birdseye maps of southern states given they were generally poorer than northern states at the conclusion of the Civil War and due to negative sentiment,these artists fromvYankee states were not always welcome.

I believe that the i-house depicted next to the old Prescott School in the 1868 Birdseye map of Marion illustrates our parsonage, before it was a parsonage (the church wasn't moved until 1879). It's also interesting the the map displays the the old Marion Street names before the city changed them because they were creating confusion according to Marvin Oxley accounts (for example one may find it confusing that there werw multiple 3rd streets - one running east/west and one running north/south)). If you've never seen the Marion Birdseye map, I'd encourage you to take a look using the link below and explore it further.

Marion's Birdseye map: https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4154m.pm002210/?r=-0.013,-0.393,1,1.567,0

https://www.metskers.com/Articles/ABriefHistoryofBirdseyeMaps #:~:text=The%20notable%20European%20cartographers%20Mathias,for%20today's%20innovative%20mapping%20techniques.

Perspective map not drawn to scale. LC Panoramic maps (2nd ed.), 221 Available also through the Library of Congress Web site as a raster image. Includes ill. and index to points of interest. Vault AACR2: 100; 651/1; 710/1

04/25/2025

Here are a few more cool construction elements of the parsonage. Set behind this lath (hard to tell) is a 4"x8" vertical post on the second level. Attached to it angeling up towards the ceiling is another post that is mortise and tenoned into place. This sort of framing is common timber framing, which predates balloon framing that was common in the late 1800s. I'm not as familiar with timber framing other than learning that it typically involves mortise and tenon and live edge wood or larger beams. So I have some r search to do there at some point other than it could be another indicator of Civil War era construction.

The lath here, though neatly cut, is 1/2" thick, which is thicker than more common lath from the late 19th century. This could be an indication that the lath came from a period after lath was hand cut but in a period when saw mills were established in the area.

Bonus, I've included some square cut nails. The heads appear to be rounded. Were they hand forged? I dunno. I'm not going to remove one of these at this point as it's not likely that they'll better approximate the age of the property on their own. If you can tell me what type of flooring this is. The floor boards are all different sizes from like 5.5" to 7."

Both of these shots were taken in the second level of the parsonage.

04/24/2025

What is special about this sash? Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. These sashes appear to be the correct size to fit in the parsonage. Based on how they were constructed, they could be the original windows to the parsonage.

Now I hear you asking "what then is in the parsonage now?" Currently there are two sets of storm windows. Odd, but very cool. Someone went through great lengths to keep these sashes while taking measures to continue to protect the house.

Me thinks (that's my bad attempt at humor) that if I were to remove the inner set of storm windows and the trim around the inner perimeter of the window jamb, I'd find the original window jamb and a chamber on each side where the window weights for these beauties may be lurking.

Don't judge a book by its cover. Behind these chippy-paint beauties is a completely restorable window sash. You see, unlike replacement windows, these windows were made with maintenance in mind. Break a window pane? Replace the glass. Bad glazing? Reglaze.it. Paint is going bad? Paint it. Bad rail or muntin? Fit a new one. Old windows are almost never unrepairable.

By the way, these 2-lite sashes were common in the mid-19th century. Could this be a hint into when the parsonage was actually constructed? Maybe, but we'll need to look for more clues.

Proooooove it! In due time, we'll have a big reveal... There are other priorities right now. Until then, stay tuned!

04/22/2025

I've learned a lot lately. These old houses are always trying to tell us their story, but we don't always know how to translate to listen. On the heels of our post of the chimney that was masterfully redone from the roof up by Ryan Rose, I wanted to show a picture of what the chimney looked like inside the south side of the attic. Notice how it snakes down at an angle. No it's not falling over - that's how it was built. That would help with rain not putting our your fire. Chimney people know that but it's not common knowledge today.

Notice there is no chimney on the north end (pictured). However we know that at one point there was definitely a chimney on this side of the house. How do we know this? There's a stove collar on the floor of the second level in line with the chimney breast.

The south side, that has a chimney, no longer has a chimney collar, but there are floor patches in line with the chimney breast on that side - a mirror image of the north side. It was common for i-houses (our style of house) to have chimneys on both sides of the house.

What else have we learned? Well, we're going to leave a few Easter eggs to share in future posts but I do want to take a moment to thank Ann Cejka, who has been translating some of the Parsonage's language for us. She taught us that the live edge wood (pictured) under the roof sheathing is called decking. She mentioned that it was spaced to allow the roof to breath. Unlike houses made today which are oftentimes made airtight, old houses were made to breathe. Ann mentioned that the old-timers would sometimes choose to let bundles of the cedar shingles soak overnight in barrels of boiled linseed oil - supposedly you'd get another decade or two out of them. I'll be darned! I'm sure that we'll mention Ann again in the future as we share more about the history of the church and the parsonage in the future.

04/21/2025

It's been a while since we've provided an update on the church and parsonage. The weather is getting better, and despite other projects, were getting antsy to keep protecting these beauties.

Over the past couple weeks we've been busy having the chimney on the south side of the parsonage rebuilt from the roof up. The brick that was there was spalling and in bad shape. It had been caulked and completely capped. While I don't know that either of these two practices caused the brick to need to be replaced, I know that Preservation Brief 2 from the National Parks Service on repointing, the new mortar must have greater v***r permeability and be softer than the brick.

Thank you to Joshua Lee from Antiquescapes for recommending that we reach out to Mike Gavin at Gavin Historic Brick in Iowa City to find salvaged brick or similar age, size, and color. We think the result looks great and we think you will as well!

01/14/2025

Starting in 1871, the M.E. Concord Church was used as a meeting hall by the Odessa Grange, Linn County's first Grange association. Grange Associations, collectively were responsible for putting pressure on Congress to enact the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. These associations were driven to help get better prices for farm commodities by bringing farmers together across the state and country in their rural areas. If you're interested in learning more about Grange associations in Iowa, feel free to look at the link below to view Myrtle Beinhauer's The Development of the Grange in Iowa.

And if you know more about the Odessa Grange, please feel free to share it! We're still not entirely sure how long the group used the church as a Grange hall.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://pubs.lib.uiowa.edu/annals-of-iowa/article/12178/galley/120680/view/&ved=2ahUKEwiYnPGtxPWKAxVswckDHTzoAZEQFnoECBkQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2hFrlkqWz4xRpGgrQp_sh9

01/01/2025

As we ring in 2025, I'm reflective of the church and its 155 year history. Yes, that's right, it was built in 1870, and later moved to its current location in 1879. It was first built as the Concord M.E. Church, being dedicated July 14, 1870 (more on that in a future post as well).

We'll continue to share more about these buildings as well as the life of the Marion Free Methodist's first Reverend; W.C. Thompson, one of Marion's and Linn County's earliest settlers.

We've been able to pull many important pieces of information from the Marvin Oxley files. https://marion.advantage-preservation.com/viewer/?k=concord%20church&t=33674&i=t&d=01011800-12312017&m=between&ord=k1&fn=history_of_marion_usa_iowa_marion_18660101_english_140&df=1&dt=4

Included with this post are some additional maps illustrating the location of the property, which was approximately located around the Marion Wal Mart. A big thank you to Ann Cekja, who was able to help us find these maps and very quickly approximate where the church used to stand.

We originally found these maps on the University of Iowa's Digital Library but I'm having a hard time to getting it to load, so I'm referencing a different site.
https://historicmapworks.com/Atlas/US/32699/Linn+County+1895/

12/28/2024

With the weather having gotten colder we've turned some of our evenings into research gathering on the church and parsonage. We've learned a lot!

Below, I've taken a screenshot from the Library of Congress (and provided a direct link) to the map of Marion from 1869. I've pointed to the only building illustrated on the block between 2nd St and 3rd St (now between 3rd Ave and 4th Ave) and Grove St (now 7th St). 1869 was about a decade before the church was moved to the 40th block.

If any of you reading this have experience with this map, specifically how closely to scale these drawings were or how to figure out which houses/families are illustrated, please let us know!

The abstract indicates that W.H. Morris and Mary J. Morris conveyed the land to Mary Susan Holan in 1879, but there's no other indication on a property having stood there before.

https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4154m.pm002210/?r=0.089,0.237,0.055,0.083,0

12/14/2024

Well the painting season is over for us for the year. The parsonage just got a "clear coat" put on it today from mother nature. 😆 We didn't have time to clean up everything before we snapped these pics, but wanted to show off the nearly paint-finished parsonage photos anyways. Stay safe and Happy Holidays to you and yours!

12/10/2024

Anyone know Gary Barrows? Gary needs to stop by and clean up his graffiti from ??? years ago. Just kidding. 😆

At some point he signed the foundation of the parsonage. I think we could all agree with his message of peace though.