Methodist and Baptist Church Area

Methodist and Baptist Church Area

Early Businesses
This area of Main Street saw early business activity. The Denny family erected a “board shanty” for their house about where the Methodist Church is today. Stephen Denny emigrated from New York to Saranac in 1843 with his wife and 15 children. They moved from Saranac to Lowell by canoe in the spring of 1847, following the Cyprian Hooker family who moved here several months earlier. Stephen Denny established Lowell’s first blacksmith shop in the middle of the block that today is home to Chimera. It was just east of Hooker’s Forest Mill (today’s City parking lot).

Chapin and Booth built warehouses for mercantile goods at the Louis Campau steamboat landing. The steamboat landing was strategically placed where the Grand River came closest to the main road (now M-21) on the east end of Lowell. Chapin and Booth had a store in the east part of the Hooker house. Soon after that, Orson Peck had a store near the steamboat landing and then about 1850 Peck’s store was across the road from the Denny house on the northeast corner of Division and Main Streets. Louis Campau also had a warehouse at his landing from which he supplied goods to his brother Toussaint Campau and possibly William Cobmoosa who had stores in the Old Wooden Row (1853-1857). Most of the trade with the Odawa at this time was in muskrat, raccoon, smoked buckskin, maple sugar, smoked sturgeon, moccasins and baskets.

William and Sophia (daughter of Isadore Nantiot) Cobmoosa purchased a plat of land from Abel Avery in 1857 and built a Greek Revival style home on Avery St. They sold their house in 1859 and traveled down the Grand River with the rest of their tribe, resettling in Grand Haven. Their Lowell house was moved to 803 N. Washington St. in 1956, to expand the parking lot at Christiansen’s Super Market (north end of today’s Dollar General parking). The house can still be seen today.

Early on, John Blain had a blacksmith shop at the bottom of Peck’s Hill which was located within sight of the steamboat landing. Peck’s Hill is the James Street hill.

Another business in this area at least as early as 1860 was John Taylor who made plows. From 1863 to 1880, he was listed as having an Iron Foundry. He made iron castings of all kinds and was the manufacturer of plows, harrows, cultivators, scrapers, bob sleighs, and all kinds of agricultural implements. His foundry was on the corner of Jackson and Avery Streets. He also had an agricultural implement store (c.1874-1881) in the Amphlett Block (today’s Canfield Plumbing building). Horatio Taylor was the salesman. John Taylor was involved in the community as a member of the School Board in 1867.

The Red Schoolhouse
There was no district school building in Lowell from 1845 to 1851. The few students here had to go to Fox’s Corners school north of town. School was taught at several locations in town for a term or two during those years. In 1851, due to a sizable increase in the number of pupils, a frame schoolhouse, known as the “Red Schoolhouse” was built by Cyprian and John Hooker on a lot purchased from Abel Avery. It was located where the Methodist Church is today. Two yearly terms were taught, one in the summer, one in the winter, each three months long. Women taught the summer term and men taught the winter term. Between 32 and 40 students attended the school. The tuition was a cord of wood. The school must have been a hard one for teachers as each teacher taught only one term. In 1854, 78 students enrolled, 102 in 1855, and 150 in 1856. The Directors built an additional room on the west side in 1856. In 1859, Noah Husted took over in the middle of a term and claims to have rid himself of 15 to 20 troublesome pupils within a day or two by means of the rod.

Some of the teachers at the Red School were Miss Adaline White of Whitneyville (1852), Harriet White who became Mrs. John Hooker (1853), Octavia Richards who married D. L. Eaton (1853), Miss Celia Richardson (1854), Rev. Elisha Mudge (1858-59) and Noah P. Husted (1859). The Red Schoolhouse was used until 1860 when a new large Central School was built near the east bank of the Flat
River.

Churches
The Methodists, Baptists and Congregationalists all held church services in the Red Schoolhouse.

In 1855, the First Methodist Episcopal Church of the Village of Lowell was organized as part of the Flat River Circuit. Rev. Isacc Bennett was the pastor and there were 40 members. The preaching was held every alternate Sunday afternoon in the Red Schoolhouse.

In 1860 dissensions arose and the congregation scattered. Fortunately, some Methodist families arrived from New York supporting those remaining both spiritually and financially. In 1862 the Methodists purchased the old red schoolhouse for $400. They reseated, papered, and painted it to become the first Methodist Church building. By 1868, the church was overflowing so a subscription was circulated for a new building. The old Red Schoolhouse was moved away in 1869 and replaced by a brick Methodist Church. A parsonage was built across from the church in 1887. The Rev. A. T. Luther was first to use it. A new parsonage was built on Main Street in the lot adjoining the Church to the west in 1906.

In 1962 the Educational Building was built and a connector building joined the Education Building with the 1922 Fellowship Hall in 1988. A new parsonage was built up the hill at 640 Shepherd Drive in 1995. The old parsonage was sold and moved ¾ mile down the road east to 1126 E. Main. The First Methodist Episcopal Church of Lowell celebrated 170 years in ministry in 2025.

In 1854, a Baptist congregation organized and held church in the Red Schoolhouse. Rev. A. C. Howell was the first pastor. In 1859 the Baptist Church was built on land donated by Mr. Abel Avery, one block to the west of the Red Schoolhouse on the northwest corner of East Main and Jackson Streets. The church was moved 20 feet in 1898 to build an addition to increase the seating capacity to 100. Late in the 1930s the Baptist Church closed because the Great Depression left the people unable to support a pastor. It reopened in the 1940s but struggled. In 1948 the Reverend Keith McIver and Grand Rapids Seminary classes (1948-51) came to Lowell to help reestablish the church. The basement floor was finished and a running water toilet was installed in the late 1950s. They built a new church on land donated by the Donald Gerards on West Main Street in 1966.

Today, a restaurant called Keiser’s Kitchen operates diagonally across from the Methodist Church on the southeast corner of Main and Division Streets. Robert Christiansen, son of William Christiansen built the building c. 1946 and it was named Christiansen’s Dairy Bar. Thelma Roth managed it. In the 1950s, Tony Zoovas bought the restaurant, and it was called Showboat Drive-In (1959) and Showboat Restaurant (1961). Tony cooked and Helen Adams managed the dining room and cash register. About 1968, Bea Emelander purchased the restaurant from Tony and operated it until Paul and Bertha Erickson bought it in 1972. In 1988 a fire destroyed the first Keiser’s Kitchen location on West Main Street; they moved to this location, and it has been Keiser’s Kitchen ever since. The original building is the west room of Keiser’s today. Another dining room and patio were added on the east side.

Images:

Stereoscopic view of Bridge (Main) Street in the early days shows the Methodist and Baptist Churches, c.1887.

The Methodist Church site can be seen in this 1870 lithoigraph as the tall spire. was the location of the Red frame Schoolhouse from 1852-1859. The first “shanty” built for the Stephen Denny family was a few rods to the south of the school. In 1869, the school was moved away and the Methodist Church built. The Baptist Church was built one block to the west in 1859.

The building complex at the corner of Jackson St and Avery St, seen on the top left, was the site John Taylor’s Iron Foundry. He made castings out of iron and especially agricultural implements.

Noah Husted brought order to the Red School.

John Taylor, Iron Foundry, Lowell Businessman, 1876

The Methodist parsonage was built in 1906. The house was moved away in 1995. Postcard, 1909.
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The Show Boat Restaurant after Paul and Bertha Erickson purchased it in 1972. The sign with the Showboat on top reads “Steak, Chicken, Sea Food and Lunches.” Their slogan to entice customers is painted on the building: Home Cooking and Air Conditioned. This building has been Keiser’s Kitchen since 1988.