A Michigan Historical Site*

The Origin of the Immanuel Congregation

This congregation has a very long and rich heritage.The Immanuel Congregation originated in August 1847, when the first German Methodist missionary in this territory preached in a log barn on Toepfer Road. Two years later, early in November 1849, the congregation was "officially established” in a building on the north side of Nine Mile Road just east of Gratiot at the current site of the Eastpointe Police Station. The church still has a cemetery which is located behind the police station.

The church was one of many German-speaking Methodist churches organized in Michigan beginning in 1846. The Rev. Peter Schmucker went to the Sandusky region of northern Ohio at that time to organize churches there. However, he found that the people in that area were too busy with the wheat harvest to pay attention to him. Rev. Schmucker then took the suggestion of a Michigan native to come to Michigan. The Immanuel congregation was one of the early ones that was organized as a result of his work.

*The Michigan Historical Marker
in front of our church building reads as follows:

Immanuel Methodist Episcopal Church

German immigrants began organizing Methodist churches in Michigan in 1846. In 1849 a small group founded the Immanuel Methodist Church in Roseville to serve Detroit’s northeast side. In 1933, when the Roseville church was razed to widen Gratiot Avenue, the congregation relocated here. This Neo-Gothic sandstone church, the congregation’s third, was designed by Merritt and Cole of Detroit and was dedicated on November 5, 1933.