Saint Sebald, Iowa

Saint Sebald
Unincorporated community
Saint Sebald Show map of Iowa Saint Sebald Show map of the United States
Coordinates: 42°44′18″N91°32′46″W / 42.7383174°N 91.5459787°W / 42.7383174; -91.5459787 [1]
Country	United States
State	Iowa
County	Clayton
Elevation	1,135 ft (346 m)
GNIS feature ID	464732 [1]

Saint Sebald is an unincorporated community in Clayton County, Iowa, United States. ^{[2] [3]}

Geography

Saint Sebald is located near the junction of County Road W67 (Sebald Road) and Bighorn Road. ^[4]

History

St. Sebald Evangelical Lutheran Church was founded in 1853, named after a missionary to Germany. The church was the founding site of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Iowa on August 24, 1854. The current church structure was built in 1867. A historical marker is present at the site. ^[5] The Iowa Synod'sWartburg Theological Seminary and Wartburg College were located in St. Sebald from 1857 to 1874 and 1857 to 1888, respectively. ^[6] The campus outgrew the limitations of the area and was moved to Mendota, Illinois, and later Dubuque, Iowa. ^[7]

Missionaries from the St. Sebald congregation traveled west to Wyoming, where in early 1860, the missionaries attempted to convert the native Cheyenne people to Lutheranism. The mission was mostly unsuccessful, but three Cheyenne boys were brought to St. Sebald. Two of them — Little Bone and Brown Moccasin — died of tuberculosis in 1865, and are buried in the St. Sebald Cemetery. ^[8]

The St. Sebald post office opened in 1866. ^[9] By 1906, Saint Sebald was considered a post-village of Clayton County. ^[10] The post office closed in 1918. ^[9]

In 1879, a one-room parochial schoolhouse opened in Saint Sebald. This was a German-speaking school. Later, a second schoolhouse, built by the county as a public school and informally called the English Schoolhouse, opened near the parochial school. The German parochial school was expanded in 1906, and then closed in 1918, when Pastor Georg Heinrich Fuckr retired. The building continued to be used for sunday schools, community events, and organizational meetings. ^[11] The public St. Sebald School was one of 41 schools in Clayton County in 1926. Like most of the county schools, there was a single teacher. ^[12]

See also

• Iowa portal

• Giard, Iowa

References

1. "Geographic Names Information System". edits.nationalmap.gov. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
2. "Plat Book of Clayton County, Iowa". Iowa Digital Library. Retrieved October 30, 2017.
3. "Report for Saint Sebald". USGNIS. Archived from the original on September 13, 2018. Retrieved October 30, 2017.
4. "Saint Sebald, IA Map & Directions - MapQuest". www.mapquest.com. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
5. Schmidt, Warren (August 26, 2022). "Baptized at St. Sebald Lutheran, Strawberry Point, IA". lutheranmuseum.com. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
6. "St. Sebald Church" (PDF). NEIowaSynod.org.
7. Harlan, Edgar Rubey (1931). A Narrative History of the People of Iowa: With Special Treatment of Their Chief Enterprises in Education, Religion, Valor, Industry, Business, Etc. American Historical Society. p. 426.
8. "Spreading the Gospel: Lutheran Missionaries at Deer Creek, 1859-1864 | WyoHistory.org". www.wyohistory.org. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
9. "Notification Service | Post Offices". www.postalhistory.com. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
10. Heilprin, Angelo; Heilprin, Louis (1906). Lippincott's New Gazetteer: A Complete Pronouncing Gazetter Ofr Geographical Dictionary of the World, Containing the Most Recent and Authentic Information Respecting the Countries, Cities, Towns, Resorts, Islands, Rivers, Mountains, Seas, Lakes, Etc., in Every Portion of the Globe. J.B. Lippincott. p. 1619.
11. Hock, Albert Llewellyn (2004). The pilgrim colony : the Saint Sebald Colony, the two Wartburgs, and the synods of Iowa and Missouri. Minneapolis, Minn. : Lutheran University Press. p. 244. ISBN   978-1-932688-06-1.
12. National Tuberculosis Association Bulletin. 1926. p. 89.