Did You Know..?
First Weddings
Did You Know curiosity led to scouring church records for information relating to brides, weddings and our church!
And this is what we found:
William E. Plant, (son of church founder Wm. M. Plant & and his first wife Frances Swift) married Sarah E. Allen on May 16, 1870. Church members were still meeting in temporary quarters as the Church had not yet been built.
An early church member, Henry Prehn, came to Webster Groves in 1857. Henry’s first wife, Johanna Leue, died in September of 1868 leaving two small children. Henry joined First Church, that same year.
Though records are not always definitive, there are indications widower Henry Prehn married Mary Carolyn Bangert on January 16, 1873. This might make them among the first of our early church members to wed within just a few years of the church founding, but no evidence has been found to indicate they were married in our church building.
There are several sources that seem to have inaccurate information about the first wedding in our church, including Clarissa Start’s otherwise definitive 1975 history of Webster Groves. However, a letter from William M. Plant (son of William E., grandson of the founder William M.), written in 1941, states the first wedding in the church happened in September of 1878.
In the same letter he says that Fannie D. Plant married, in the church, William Hastings on September 3, 1878. Her sister Mary Barnard Plant married, in the church, Stanley H. Wheat on November 17, 1882. (This 1882 date is verified on a copy of the Wheats’ marriage license.) Fannie D. and Mary B. were the daughters of founder William M. Plant and his second wife, Frances L.
Could it be that Fannie D. Plant’s wedding was the first wedding in our permanent church building that was built in 1870?
1872 Church Building
January 2017 edition