Another Fire!
One line in a newspaper article of March 27, 1861, might concern our church history. A dreadful fire burned six business houses to the ground along Dubuque Street from the alley to Iowa Avenue. Then we read: “All the buildings but one were two stories high, and one of them was the first house put up in Iowa City.” The two story log cabin of Matthew Ten Eyck was considered the first house in this city, probably built early in 1839, and it was there that Rev. Joseph Kirkpatrick held the first gospel service with a group of Methodists. That is considered the beginning of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Iowa City.