Where Is the Little Brown Church in the Vale?

First Congregational Church, Vermontville, Michigan

Road Trips. Weddings. Where Is the Little Brown Church in the Vale?

My mother used to take us on day trips that were within driving distance of our home in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

She found interesting places within a day’s ride, filled us in on them on the trip, and introduced us to spots all over the state.

One Sunday afternoon, we visited “The Little Brown Church in the Vale.”

Weddings and Music Teachers

We arrived just in time to slip into the back of the church to watch a wedding being performed there.

A Congregational church, a denomination that is a descendant of the Puritans, the church’s history befits a church that now hosts 40,000 visitors a year and 400 weddings.

It seems a young music teacher, William Pitts, was visiting what was then Bradford, Iowa, now Nashua, near Waterloo, to visit his future wife, around 1856.

He walked down the street and saw a beautiful spot in the woods that he thought would make a perfect setting for a church.

He went home to Wisconsin, wrote the poem, “The Church in the Wildwood,” and later set it to music.

Art Before Life

By the time he returned in 1862, because his wife’s family was ailing, the church had been built.

It had even been painted brown, because that was an inexpensive paint, unlike the white-washed churches of the time.

He taught his music class the song and they sang it at the church’s dedication in 1864.

Click here to watch Andy Griffith and Don Knotts perform “The Church in the Wildwood.”

Click here to hear The Original Carter Family perform “The Church in the Wildwood.”

Did your parents ever take you on road trips when you were growing up?

Did you like them or just tolerate them?

What games did you play in the car to entertain each other?

What was the most memorable trip you took with your family?