Ottumwa styles itself the City of Bridges, but city of churches would work as well. Swinging southeast on U.S. 34 parallel to the Des Moines, it is the spires of St. Mary of the Visitation (built 1930 and a wonderful art deco version of Gothic Revival), Trinity Episcopal (built 1894-95 and pure Gothic Revival) and many others that catch the eye as they climb the bluff along the river’s far shore.
The contrast between these stone confections and the stark simplicity of the remaining log walls of Mars Hill Baptist Church, located in the Wapello County hills southeast of the city, could not be sharper.
The key word here is “remaining.” Built about 1856 of hand-hewn logs to serve a Missionary Baptist congregation, it was Iowa’s oldest log church, perhaps the oldest log church still in use west of the Mississippi, although only for an annual early-summer service and a few special occasions during the year.
During March, five Ottumwa teen-agers set it afire --- just because they could --- and before firefighters arrived at this remote location the roof was gone, a portion of the west wall had collapsed and many of the remaining logs were deeply charred.
Mars Hill’s simple enclosure crowns the highest point in its neighborhood with sweeping views of a valley to the northwest and a well-maintained although somewhat dilapidated (and vandalized) cemetery, now undergoing restoration, sloping into woods on the east.
Searching for a name for their church, the pioneers who built it looked into the Acts of the Apostles and found reference to the Areopagus (anglicized Mars Hill) in classical Athens and a sermon delivered there by St. Paul.
Paul, noting altars to many gods on Mars’ Hill, including one to the “unknown” god (Athenians believed in covering all the bases), responded as follows (Acts 17:22-25):
“Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, “To The Unknown God.” Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things ….’ ”
I thought about that passage Monday, standing (where signs told me I shouldn’t be) on the charred floor, looking out through empty gaps where windows once had been, then up at the sky.
Mars Hill Church intact was evocative, but confining, musty and dim, its wide plank floor warped and rolling --- like Iowa’s prairie. It seemed abandoned, empty, a fossil, as dim and dead as the interiors of those grand Ottumwa churches must be when their congregations depart.
Now, without roof and windows, sunlight and fresh air flooded into Mars Hill and it was alive in near-death.
Of course these severely damaged walls, although carefully propped into place, cannot survive long exposure to the elements and Mars Hill’s caretakers hope to restore it, perhaps acquiring a log building of similar age and recycling its walls to replace the church’s most extensively damaged logs.
The estimated cost of the restoration project is $100,000 --- an amount beyond the imagination of the men and women who built Mars Hill in the first place. I wish them well.
It could even be that this fresh infusion of love and labor was something Mars Hill needed. The good Lord moves in mysterious ways, after all, His wonders to perform.
To reach Mars Hill Church, drive a few miles south out of Ottumwa on Highway 63, then turn left (east) onto the graveled Copperhead Road. Turn south off Copperhead onto 100th Avenue and follow it down into a creek valley then up around Mars Hill to the church and cemetery.
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