Sunday, November 7, 1999 was an exciting day for Milan and me and our family members and friends as we gathered for our first service as the Oakland Heritage Church of God, in the building formerly known as the Oakland Moravian Methodist Church.
I had learned in the early summer that the Methodists who had been worshipping there for many years were looking for another church group to take over the building, and the legal technicalities had taken most of the summer to get worked out.
Shortly after we started having services there, we learned the history of the building - that it was one of the oldest church buildings in the county which had been in constant use as a church since it was built by Jacob Blickensderfer and his sons in 1887.
Milan and I became immersed in the story of the Blickensderfer family, and the history of the Moravian church denomination. We also came to the conclusion that Jacob Blickensderfer was one of the best kept secrets of Laclede County. Everyone seemed to know about the house he built, known locally as the Oakland mansion, but very few people knew that he was a civil engineer who supervised the building of the transcontinental railroad, that he met with President Lincoln and later on with President Grant, who asked him to re-do the streets surrounding the White House.
His story is told in books written by his family from his diaries. He settled in the Oakland community because his son Martin was a civil war veteran and had received a land grant and he and his father found the area around Cobb’s Creek to be just what they wanted both for Martin’s home and a retirement home for Jacob.
Jacob purchased 494 acres at Oakland from the St. Louis & San Francisco Railway Company in January 1881 to be used as an orchard. Two months later he purchased another 220 acres on which to build his house. Having a Moravian church nearby was his greatest priority so he purchased 80 acres from the railroad in April 1882 for that purpose.
Jacob’s youngest son, Andrew was killed in a hunting accident in 1886. His body was brought back to Oakland by train and laid in the little church where his brothers kept watch over him all night. The next day he was buried beside the church, the first grave in the Moravian cemetery which is still located there.
In September 1888 Jacob’s wife, Louisa, was buried beside her son. She died suddenly just hours before she and Jacob were to make the final trip to the Oakland house for their permanent home. Although she had often seen the house under construction, and had picked out all the furnishings for it, she had not seen it after completion, nor had she seen the beautiful “Red Room” which was to be her bedroom and sitting room.
They were in Omaha at the time and Jacob had already shipped her furniture, doors and carpets by train to Lebanon. It took eight teams and wagons to take the furniture, including her piano in a wagon by itself, from the depot to the Oakland house.
On the way to the train depot in Omaha, Louisa became ill and they returned to the Omaha hotel where she was placed under the care of a physician. She died the next day, cradled in the loving arms of her husband. Mourners gathered in the Red Room in the Oakland house where her coffin was laid amongst a “profusion of flowers” as written in Jacob’s diary.
October 19, 1889 was the date set by the Moravians for the dedication of the Oakland church. (This was 110 years to the day before I received the telephone call from a Lebanon attorney that the church was being deeded over to the not-for-profit corporation we had established with the State of Missouri.)
The entry from Jacob’s diary about the dedication reads “Brother Groenfeldt made a brief address, exhorting the people to dedicate the church to the Lord. Bishop Bachman came to the pulpit. Opening his Bible he read Haggai 2:9 ‘The future splendor of this house shall be greater than the past, saith the Lord of Hosts. And upon this place I shall bestow prosperity’.” (I used the same scripture in one of our anniversary services.)
With Louisa now gone and the Blickensderfer children married and having set up homes for themselves and their children, Jacob was left alone in the big house with all his dreams and plans. He died on February 26, 1899 and was buried beside his beloved Louisa in the beautiful cemetery next to the little white church on the hill.
One of his final entries in his diary reflects his thoughts. Railroading was an integral part of the American way of life and the building of this enormous house was a “folly”. The little church, he wrote, would be his only lasting memory.
EPILOGUE. In 1915 the Moravians were no longer able to sustain a congregation at Oakland and they deeded the land to the Methodist congregation which was meeting there. In 1999 the Methodist Board of Trustees decided to disband the church, and they deeded the acreage and church to our corporation.
By the end of 2011, my health had deteriorated to the point where I could no longer serve as pastor. My husband and our Board of Trustees were able to find another pastor but he was able to stay only six months, and by the middle of 2012, we had to disband our congregation.
I notified another pastor that the building was available and his congregation started holding services there in 2012. I learned this week that they held their final service there last Sunday.
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