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"The Little Brown Church" is a historic church located at 2730 Cheyenne Avenue in Nashua, Iowa that was made famous by a song, "The Church in the Wildwood". The structure was completed in 1864.
The music about the church was written by Dr. William S. Pitts in 1857 following a coach ride that stopped in Bradford, Iowa. The church is in a valley near the town, though the church was not actually built until several years later. In the years since, the church has become known simply as "the Little Brown Church". When Pitts returned to the area with his wife in 1862 he discovered a church being erected where he imagined it. The congregation had been meeting in various temporary spaces until Rev. J.K. Nutting led the drive to create a permanent home for the congregation. During this period, Pitts had been teaching singing at nearby Bradford Academy and taught his class to sing his song for the first time at the dedication of the church in 1864. [1] [2] [3] Pitts later sold the rights to the song for a nominal sum. After the church closed in 1888 due to economic downturn in the town, the Society For the Preservation of the Little Brown Church was founded. By 1914, services were again held in the building. Shortly afterward, the small congregation experienced a revival that attracted new attention to it and to its song. Among those who found and loved the song at this time was the Weatherwax Quartet. This group of traveling singers traveled throughout Canada and the United States in the 1920s and '30s and used as their trademark song "The Church in the Wildwood." They would quite easily talk about the little church during their travels. As the song grew in popularity, coupled with the development of the U.S. Highway system in the mid-1920s, many visitors came to the newly reopened little church. Since then the church has become a popular tourist spot, and remains so today. It attracts thousands of visitors every year to see or be married in the "little brown church in the vale." The church is currently a member of the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches.
The Pilgrims, also known as the Pilgrim Fathers, were the English settlers who came to North America on the Mayflower and established the Plymouth Colony in what is today Plymouth, Massachusetts, named after the final departure port of Plymouth, Devon. Their leadership came from the religious congregations of Brownists, or Separatist Puritans, who had fled religious persecution in England for the tolerance of 17th-century Holland in the Netherlands.
Wildwood and Wild Wood may refer to:
Fredericksburg is a city in Chickasaw County, Iowa, United States. The population was 987 at the time of the 2020 census.
Nashua is a city in Chickasaw and only partly in Floyd counties in the U.S. state of Iowa. As of the 2020 census, the city's population was 1,551 a decrease of 67, or 4.1%, from 1,618 reported at the 2000 census. The famed Little Brown Church featured in the song "The Church in the Wildwood" is located in Nashua.
Dunstable is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 3,358 at the 2020 census.
Ilkley is a spa town and civil parish in the City of Bradford in West Yorkshire, in Northern England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Ilkley civil parish includes the adjacent village of Ben Rhydding and is a ward within the City of Bradford. Approximately 12 miles (19 km) north of Bradford and 17 miles (27 km) north-west of Leeds, the town lies mainly on the south bank of the River Wharfe in Wharfedale, one of the Yorkshire Dales.
Bradford-on-Avon is a town and civil parish in west Wiltshire, England, near the border with Somerset, with a population of 9,402 at the 2011 census. The town's canal, historic buildings, shops, pubs and restaurants make it popular with tourists.
Pitlochry is a town in the county of Perthshire in Scotland, lying on the River Tummel. It is administered as part of the council area of Perth and Kinross, and has a population of 2,776, according to the 2011 census.
Plymouth Rock is the traditional site of disembarkation of William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony in December 1620. The Pilgrims did not refer to Plymouth Rock in any of their writings; the first known written reference to the rock dates to 1715 when it was described in the town boundary records as "a great rock." The first documented claim that Plymouth Rock was the landing place of the Pilgrims was made by old Thomas Faunce in 1741, 121 years after the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth.
Clayton is a suburb of Manchester, England, 3 miles east of the city centre on Ashton New Road.
Holman Stadium is a baseball stadium in Nashua, New Hampshire. It was constructed in 1937, as a multi-purpose stadium, by the City of Nashua. The official seating capacity is 2,800 people. Holman is the home of the Nashua Silver Knights of the Futures Collegiate Baseball League.
Oasis is an unincorporated community located in Johnson County, Iowa, United States. It lies within section 26 of Graham Township, and was once known as Graham, Iowa. It is part of the Iowa City, Iowa Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of 2005, the town had a total population of approximately 20. It contains several homes, a cemetery, and a functioning grain elevator. It was once a stop on the Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Northern Railway, later the CRI&P, whose bed has now become the Hoover Nature Trail which runs from Oasis to West Branch. West of town is the Oasis Cemetery. Oasis once featured a sign that greeted visitors, but it disappeared.
Tealing is a village in Angus in eastern Scotland, nestled at the foot of the Sidlaw Hills. It is just 6 miles (9.7 km) north of the city of Dundee and 8 miles (13 km) south of Forfar. With a population of just over 500, scattered across 15 square miles (39 km2) of fertile farming land, it has several large working farms blended with comfortable family homes forming part of the Dundee and Angus commuter belt. There is an old stone-built, but thriving little primary school with about 50 pupils at any one time and a further 10 youngsters attending the nursery school on the same site.
"The Church in the Wildwood" is a song that was written by Dr. William S. Pitts in 1857 following a coach ride that stopped in Bradford, Iowa. It is a song about a church in a valley near the town, though the church was not actually built until several years later. In the years since, the church has become known simply as "the Little Brown Church".
Homer D. Calkins was an American environmentalist who became a leading voice in the effort to save native habitat in Hardin County. He worked to develop county parks that met needs from plug-in campers to untouched wilderness areas. He was instrumental in delaying construction of a rerouted U.S. Highway 20 through the Iowa River Greenbelt in Hardin County, Iowa. Calkins received posthumous awards from the Iowa Wildlife Federation and the Iowa Wildlife Rehabilitators Association praising his long relationship to nature.
African Americans in Davenport, Iowa comprise the third-largest black community in Iowa, with a history that precedes the Civil War.
St. Mary of the Visitation Catholic Church is a parish of the Diocese of Davenport. The church building is located on the corner of 4th and Court Streets in downtown Ottumwa, Iowa, United States. It is part of the Central Park area, which is the civic center of the community. It includes: the Wapello County Courthouse, the Ottumwa Public Library, and the Ottumwa City Hall. The church is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, but it has not been listed.
Bradford is an unincorporated community in Chickasaw County, Iowa, United States.
William S. Pitts (1830-1918) was an American physician and composer who wrote the well-known song "The Church in the Wildwood" in 1857.
St Andrew's Orthodox Church is an Orthodox church located in the Southside, Edinburgh, Scotland. Edinburgh’s Orthodox community was founded in 1948 and has, since 2013, occupied the former Buccleuch Parish Church, which was founded as a chapel of ease of St Cuthbert's in 1756 and closed in 1969.
Coordinates: 42°57′43″N92°30′29″W / 42.961974°N 92.508177°W