Added on November 2, 2026  Sara Swanson

Manchester was once home to a Lutheran Seminary, that building is up for sale

by Sara Swanson

Manchester was once home to a Lutheran Seminary. Maybe you read the one sentence about it on Manchester’s wikipedia page and wondered if it could possibly be true. Or maybe you read the blurb on the back of the Manchester Areas Historical Society calendar in 2008. Or maybe this is the first you’ve heard of it. In any case, it is true that 140 years ago, Manchester was home to Michigan’s only Lutheran seminary. For two years, 1885 and 1886, the Michigan Lutheran Seminary was located at 8720 Sharon Hollow Road in Manchester in a two-story brick house. And the building and property that housed that seminary all those years ago is currently up for sale!

So much of the story of the seminary in Manchester came together for this article by piecing together the little bits of information we do know, though there still is quite a bit we don’t. Two indisputable facts that have emerged in researching the seminary are that although not at all associated with it, how a seminary came to be located in Manchester is a story that is closely tied to Emanuel Church, and seems to be largely the work of Manchester Township’s Johann George Heimerdinger (1830 – 1917) .

Heimerdinger, who went by “George”, was born in what was then called The Kingdom of Württemberg, a state in what is now Germany, and immigrated to the US as a child or young man, met and married his wife, Christina Schumacker (1834 – 1909), who was also born in Württemberg, in Manchester Township. They had nine children who lived to adulthood. They were a prosperous farming family and George served on the church council of Emanuel, known as Immanuel United Evangelical Church in those days.

Emanuel was the largest congregation in the village, and been formed as the protestant church for German speakers in Manchester, of which there were many at the time; “Evangelical” in this context just means protestant.

Over the first few decades of the 19th century, many protestant German-speakers back in Europe who would have identified as Lutheran or Reformed (Calvinist) before, had their churches combined into a single state-run church. Those in support of the combined churches were known as Unionists, while others, notably a subset of Lutherans, strongly opposed it. Over in the new world, Emanuel Church had been founded by a mix of Unionists and Lutherans.

The Emanuel congregation started be meeting in homes, but by 1866 had purchased an unused building in Soulesville (the settlement near where the library and dam are located on the east side of the city today). They moved it to the southwest corner of Wolverine and Vernon Streets in the village and utilized it until the congregation outgrew the space. They then moved into the newly constructed brick church in its current location in 1882. At this time they decided to revise their bylaws.

A few German-speaking states did not form these union state churches including Württemberg which had a strong Lutheran identity. Heimerdinger who came from Württemberg, held on to that identity amidst Emanuel’s blended congregation. When the bylaws were opened up for debate, the Evangelical versus Lutheran conflict came to a head.

Heimerdinger, and five others (men who likely had families, so presumably more people than six) in the congregation who also identified as Lutheran decided to split from the church. We don’t know the others’ names but Howard Parr described them as “wealthy German farmers living on the southwest side of Manchester.” One of them most likely was Heimerdinger’s neighbor Johann Georg Keck (1829 – 1915).

The conflict reached the courts as Heimerdinger and Keck eventually ended up in a lawsuit with Emanuel as both refused to pay the money they had subscribed in 1882 toward Emanuel’s new brick church building. In August of 1885 Emanuel sued for the money and in October of 1885 both Heimerdinger and Keck paid the installments owed on their notes and the suits were dropped.

Emanuel Church historian, Rose Breitenwischer explained that things got so contentious that Emanuel’s Rev. Wehrheim, who had been resident pastor there since 1877, resigned over the strife near the end of 1884. Though he did stay on to help find and hire his replacement, Rev. Schoettle. He also agreed to let the Lutheran separatists use the former church building across town, which Emanuel was holding on to for use as a German School, to hold Lutheran Church services in.

Although we don’t know exactly the order of events, around this time, Heimerdinger brought Rev. Ludwig Alexander “Alex” Lange (1824 – 1901) to Manchester presumably to serve as pastor to the Lutheran Society of Manchester. Lange was born in the City of Lipno in part of Poland that had been annexed by Prussia, immigrating to the US in 1846. He had lived and worked in Freedom, Missouri; Ixonia, Wisconsin; Detroit, Michigan; Buffalo, New York; and Remus, Michigan, which was where he was working when Heimerdinger contacted him. Although they are not mentioned in the scant documentation of his time in Manchester, Lange was married to a fellow Prussian, Caroline Schnegelsiepen (1829 – 1904) and they had had four boys. The oldest, twins Alex and Gotlieb would have been 23 and middle child Frederick would have been 21 at the time of the Langes’ move to Manchester, so it is possible only the youngest, Carl, who would have been 13, accompanied his parents here.

We know from a handwritten note on the back of a painting in possession of the Manchester Area Historical Society that Lange’s church didn’t continue to meet in the German School building in the village for long. In 1964, George and Christina’s granddaughter, Helen M. Heimerdinger – Goodall who was an artist living in Spring Valley California at the time had grown up in the house after it had ceased to be a seminary and sent a painting she had done of it as it looked in 1901 to the Manchester Township Library. On the back she wrote that Pastor Lange held church meetings in the McMahon School House. McMahon School House was one mile south on Sharon Hollow Road, much closer to the Heimerdinger property than the building in the Village. Remarkably she includes a list of the children confirmed there by Lange including Fred Grossman, Anna Maurer-Davidter, Rickie Stockbridge Paul, Charles Maurer and Gotlieb Huber.

In addition to serving as pastor to various congregations, while in Buffalo, Lange was director of the Buffalo Synod’s theological seminary, Martin Luther College and Seminary. It just so happened that the Michigan Synod decided they needed to start a seminary to train Michigan-born ministers, having been unhappy with a good number of the imported European trained ministers. Not only was Manchester centrally located in the Michigan Synod, and there was a presumably under-employed (with his brand new break-away congregation) pastor who had previously been a seminary director living here, but a parishioner had an empty, two-story brick house that he was willing to donate the use of for two-years for free. Who was the parishioner? Heimerdinger of course.

The Heimerdingers owned and lived on large farm at what is 8553 Sharon Hollow Rd today, across the street from the property and house that went on to host the seminary. We know from a blurb in the Manchester Enterprise that in April of 1882 he purchased the property in question from Enoch Gates Cook (1826 – 1901) for $10,000. It is unclear if Cook ever lived on the property as census records show him moving here from Vermont, then living in Clinton, then Tecumseh. Cook listed his occupation variably a grain speculator, in sales, a cattle broker, and a farmer, so it is possible he did live on the property and farm for a period of time. In any case, the purchase meant the Heimerdingers had an empty house in 1885.

Were these a set of coincidences or the result of a lot of planning on Heimerdinger’s part? We probably will never know, but we do know the result: within a year of Heimerdinger exiting Emanuel Church, a seminary was operating in Manchester Township. That seminary had been made the official seminary of the Michigan Synod, and six students were living and studying on Sharon Hollow Road to become Lutheran ministers. One factor that makes me believe this was a set of coincidences and not a plan, is that from the very beginning Heimerdinger had only given the seminary the house for two years so the this location was always going to be temporary.

One of the things Manchester is not known for is being centrally located in Michigan, so it might sound odd that one of the reasons given at the time for situating the seminary in Manchester was that it was centrally located in the Michigan Synod. But it was true, and it was thanks to Michigan Lutheranism and the Michigan Synod’s deep roots in our area.

The first German Lutheran minister to come to Michigan was Rev. Fredrick Schmid (or Schmidt) (1807 – 1883) a missionary who trained at the Basel Mission House in Basel, Switzerland. He arrived in Michigan on 1831 and held the first Lutheran service in the state on August 18, 1833 in Detroit. He settled in Scio Township, marrying 17 year old Louisa Mann there in 1834, having 6 sons and 6 daughters with many descendants that stayed in our area. Not only did Schmid found a church in Scio, by traveling first on foot, then by horse, he eventually established 20 congregations over the course of his life, including in Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor, Detroit, Monroe, Freedom, Waterloo, Bridgewater, Rogers Corners, Lansing, Chelsea, Marshall, Northfield, Saline, Plymouth, Saginaw, Genova, Grand Rapids, Jackson, Wayne, and one Indian Mission in Sabawaing. He brought other missionaries over from Europe to help lead the new churches.

Many churches you will recognize in our area owe their origins to Schmid:

• Schmid’s first church, Salem Lutheran Church, founded in 1836 is recognized as the first Lutheran congregation in the state. This church is the church that gives “Scio Church Road” the “church” part of its name. Schmid served as pastor here until 1867.
• He founded Bethel Church in Freedom Twp in 1840. By the 1860’s Bethel had a different missionary pastor named Rev. J. G. Hildner who held services in the morning on Sunday at Bethel and every other Sunday afternoon held services in the Village of Manchester and Rogers Corners in homes. The Manchester services grew into Emanuel Church.
• Schmid founded St. Thomas in Freedom Township in 1842 or 1843 and served as pastor there until 1867. Zion Lutheran Church in Freedom Township split from St Thomas in 1865 and St. Johns in Freedom Township, which closed its doors earlier this year, split from Zion Lutheran in 1890.
• He founded Bethlehem Church in Ann Arbor in 1845 where he served as pastor until 1871. In 1875 Ann Arbor’s Zion Church split from Bethlehem and Schmid went with Zion.
• He founded St. John’s in Bridgewater in 1853.
• He founded St. Paul’s in Chelsea in 1855.

In the late 1860’s Schmid became progressively weakened by an unnamed disease which forced him to retire from most of his pastoral activities, only staying on at Bethlehem. Schmid died on August 30, 1883.  He is buried in Bethlehem Cemetery in Ann Arbor.

While Schmid is known as the father of Lutheranism in Michigan, was ordained as a Lutheran and identified as Lutheran, he often set aside strict Lutheran orthodoxy and ministered to all protestant Germans, a practice that has landed him on the wrong side of history with confessional Lutheran historians today. This legacy of his Lutheran ministry with unionist leanings is evident if you look at the churches he founded in our area. Salem Church, St. Thomas, Zion Lutheran, St. Johns, and Ann Arbor’s Zion Church are Lutheran churches today; while St Johns, Bethel Church, Emanuel, St. Pauls, and Bethlehem are United Church of Christ churches, the modern day inheriting organization of the German evangelical churches of the 19th century.

In addition to churches, Schmid also founded the Michigan Synod. He founded two, actually.

He formed the first Synod with two other pastors in the early 1840’s and they named it The Mission Synod. They were joined by four newly arrived strongly Lutheran missionaries who left the Synod a short time after joining after a reformed minister was also allowed to join. The four men who left went on to form the Missouri Synod, the second largest Lutheran Synod today. The Mission Synod then fell apart.

Schmid founded the second Michigan Synod in 1960 with seven other pastors and named it the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Michigan. He was elected president and served until 1867, when his health had taken a turn. From the very beginning of this Synod, the lack of trained ministers was a reoccurring issue and topic of discussion. Finally, one year after Schmid’s death in 1883, the Michigan Synod passed a resolution to start its own seminary.

The Synod president, Christoph Eberhardt’s report for 1885 included the following: “[The Lord] has for nearly six months in our Synod met the difficulty of the need for pastors from an entirely different side than we were accustomed to expect help. He has made a number of young men in our congregations willing to be trained to be preachers of God’s Word and has aroused their parents to a readiness to make sacrifices for that purpose. The Lord has also sent us a teacher for them, with whom they already have wholeheartedly begun their study. A member of the congregation in Manchester, Washtenaw County, Mr. Heimerdinger, has presented to us free of charge his large brick house on his farm. To be sure the room will not be completely sufficient for the students, however, he has promised to compensate for these needs in his own residence which is nearby and to find a few other congregation members ready to do the same.”

In August 1885 Lange began teaching six students in the brick house in Manchester Township. The seminary was officially approved by the Synod that October at their 26th annual session at Adrian. Shortly after, two additional pupils joined the original six and two more joined in 1886.

We don’t know a lot about the day to day at the seminary. We do know the Lange family and the pupils, who were in their mid-teens, lived in the house, although some may have lived across the road with the Heimerdingers. It was a “practical theological seminary” in which students attended for seven years of instruction, equivalent to high school plus three years beyond that. And everyone spoke German.

Unfortunately, student records of the years before 1910 no longer exist but we do know that the class, which got its start in Manchester, graduated in 1892. Of the ten (or eleven as accounts differ) students who studied in Manchester, we know the names of the five that entered the ministry, Fred Krauss, John Henry Westendorf, G. Ehnis, G. Wacker, and I. F. Henning. We also know that Heimerdinger served as one of 4 laymen on the seminary’s board of regents along with 4 pastors.

It is unclear why there was a two year limit set on the use of the house. Professor Joel D. Otto who teaches church history at the Michigan Lutheran Seminary today theorizes that the house was only available for two years as a way to get the Michigan Synod to choose a more permanent location with enough space to grow the school. He explained that Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary began in Watertown, WI in a similar way, operating for their first two years out of a house and school building of a local church twenty years earlier so this may have been an accepted model for starting a seminary. My guess is the fact that the Heimerdingers had nine children also was a factor.

In any case, when the two years were up, the school would move. Where the school would move to was a matter of debate. The Michigan Synod began fundraising for a permanent site and multiple communities vied to be chosen.

We know from an article in the Manchester Enterprise from early in 1887 that Ypsilanti was making a bid to have the seminary moved there. Mat Blosser, editor of the Enterprise re-ran a passage from the Ypsilantian proposing residents raise $2,000 to secure its relocation to that city. Blosser added this at the end: “Is Manchester going to sit quietly down and allow her educational institutions to creep away from her?” It is hard to know if there was local opposition to the relocation or if that was just Blosser attempting to drum some up.

Dr. William Zeiger has served as acting president of the Michigan Lutheran Seminary over different periods through the years and has done research into the early days of the institution. According to his timeline, Blosser would have been too late at that point anyway. Zeiger stated, “In the fall 1886 synod convention, a resolution passed–by a very close vote–to build the school in Adrian. Then a special January 1887 synod convention rescinded that resolution and passed a new resolution to build the seminary in Saginaw City–the close second in the 1886 vote.”

There was some controversy attached to the revote as the special January convention was called by Eberhardt, still synod president, who also served as pastor of St. Paul’s in Saginaw. A gift of $4,500 was guaranteed and Eberhardt was offering to personally donate 2 & 3/4 acres of land for the seminary to be built on if the delegates voted to rescind the Adrian decision and select Saginaw. They did. The Lutheran church in Adrian withdrew from the Synod for several years in protest.

Zeiger continued, “Architectural plans for a substantial brick building of two and one-half stories over a raised basement and with an impressive, tall bell tower were quickly developed, ground was broken in April 1887, and the new building welcomed its student body for the September 20, 1887 opening.”

Director Lange and his family moved with the seminary to Saginaw in 1887. We know exactly what was taught by who in 1887, the first year in Saginaw, which sheds some light on what Lange was probably teaching in Manchester. Retired Prof. John Brenner who has worked on the early history of the Michigan Synod reports that in the Synod’s records for 1887 it is recorded that the faculty in Saginaw included Prof. Lange, Pastor Eberhardt, Pastor Huber, and Teacher E. Sperling. Lange taught exegetical theology, Latin, Greek, catechism, symbolics (the Lutheran Confessions), homiletics (preaching), church history, and world history.  Eberhardt taught dogmatics (systematic theology), pastoral theology, and arithmetic.  Huber taught English. Teacher Sperling taught penmanship and music.

Lange’s tenure as director was short-lived after coming to Saginaw. He was dismissed for doctrinal reasons (or resigned, depending on the source) from his position after one year, in the summer of 1888. Otto stated that it seems to have had something to do with the call into the ministry.

The beginning of the 1888 school year was delayed until November when Pastor Ferdinand Huber, who had been serving in Zilwaukee, accepted the call as the school’s second director and professor. He was assisted in teaching by Rev. Eberhardt and two other Saginaw pastors and one teacher. In its fourth year, the school had sixteen students.

The Michigan Synod began talks of joining with the Wisconsin and Minnesota Synods in 1891, adopting the proposal in 1892. One of the conditions of the federation of these three Synods was that the Seminary in Wisconsin be the only seminary and that Michigan turn their seminary into a progymnasium, a college preparatory boarding high school. The Michigan Seminary’s faculty was strongly opposed to this and were able to get the Michigan Synod leadership who had championed the federation voted out.

Michigan voted to leave the federation in 1896 with a minority who supported the federation and changing the seminary to a preparatory school leaving the Michigan Synod, forming the Evangelical Lutheran District of Michigan Synod and retaining membership in the federation. The Michigan Synod on its own has a turbulent time and the seminary went through multiple directors, before in 1902 hiring Professor F. Beer from Germany who had “a tendency to enforce a very rigid, almost Prussian military discipline”, and “a lack of understanding of American youth. ” By 1907 only one student remained and the seminary closed its doors.

The Michigan Seminary had produced 40 pastors during the twenty-two years of its existence as a theological seminary.

The Michigan Synod and District of Michigan Synod began meeting in 1906 and by 1910 reunified and re-entered the Federation with Wisconsin and Minnesota, which is now just known as the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod today. Michigan Lutheran Seminary re-opened in 1910 as a prep school.

Zeiger reports that although it was no longer a seminary, the name “Michigan Lutheran Seminary” was retained for historical reasons. Students would now study for four years in Saginaw and then complete their preparation for work in the church in Wisconsin for pastors or Minnesota for teachers. He added, “Another interesting change was that the re-opened school included a girl in that student body of six, the daughter of the director.”

Michigan Lutheran Seminary continues today as a co-ed college preparatory boarding school in Saginaw. Its primary purpose is still to encourage its students to consider preparing for full-time service as pastors and teachers in the congregations and missions of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. Zeiger stated, “What started as a dream for German Lutheran immigrants in Michigan in the 1860s and a plan by the Michigan Lutheran Synod in Manchester in the mid-1880s firmly continues with Michigan Lutheran Seminary in Saginaw today–but in a slightly different way than originally dreamed.”

What about those who were there in Manchester at the very beginning of the seminary?

We know Lange served as pastor to a congregation in Saginaw after leaving the seminary. According to Lange’s obituary he suffered a stroke of paralysis in 1892 and remained an invalid for the rest of his life, dying at age 77 in 1901. Three of his four sons went on to be professors, with his youngest, Carl, teaching at the University of Michigan. Lange was originally buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Saginaw but was moved and reburied in Forest Hill Cemetery in Ann Arbor next to his wife after she died in 1904, presumably after moving to Ann Arbor to be near Carl.

We don’t know how long Rev. Lange’s Lutheran church lasted in Manchester. The Enterprise reports that in May 1886, the Lutheran Society of Manchester accepted his resignation, so possibly the whole endeavor lasted less than two years.

Rev. Schoettle remained Emanuel’s minister for the next two decades, proved to be a better diplomat than his predecessor and was able to bring the factions back together. One of the concessions made to the Lutherans was removing “United” from the name changing “Immanuel United Evangelical Church” to “Emanuel Church”. We don’t know the date that the Lutheran separatists rejoined Emanuel, but Emanuel’s historian Breitenwischer reports that George Heimerdinger was back on Emanuel’s church council by 1887.

George Heimerdinger lived to the age of 81, dying in November of 1917, months after the US entered WWI against Germany, a time at which anti-German sentiment was at its peak. Although the switch from, German to English would most likely have happened eventually as 2nd and 3rd generations spoke fluent English, the war hastened the end of the use of the German language in public spheres including churches. Emanuel, like the rest of the German language churches in the Manchester area began the switch to English, introducing English hymns and English services until its services were completely in English.

Emanuel continued carrying on in a mix of Lutheran and Evangelical traditions. Breitenwischer explained that Emanuel resisted joining a Synod until 1930’s. They got ministers from German Evangelical Synod of North America but used Lutheran catechism all the way up through the 1960’s. Eventually, like many of the 19th century German Evangelical Churches, they joined United Church of Christ.

As for the seminary building in Manchester? It returned to its original purpose as a private home.

We don’t know who built the house or what year it was built, but we know one other previous family that owned and lived in the house (or at least a previous house in that location) before the Heimerdingers purchased it, and it is possible they built the house. George (1809 1875) and Fanny Jane Tuthill (1823.- 1899) and their 8 children. We know they lived there from at least 1860 through 1874 but that George died in the village in 1875, and afterwards Fanny was living in the village with some of her children.

And while we don’t know what happened to the house between 1887 when the seminary left and 1901, we know from Helen M. Heimerdinger Goodall that four of the Heimerdinger sons, Frederich, William, Charles, and Chris owned and operated the two farms across the street from each other in partnership. Frederich, the Heimerdingers’s 5th child/third son, and his wife Bertha moved into the house in 1901 and lived there for 24 years. They had three children including Helen in 1914, all born in the house. Goodall recalls her mom naming it “Locust Farm” because of the huge locust trees in the front yard. The farms were sold in 1926 and the brothers went their separate ways.

The farm that once housed the Lutheran seminary for the State of Michigan has since gone through multiple owners, has seen different uses, and is currently up for sale. In addition to original brick house, the property includes 20 acres, a large automotive workshop including a paint booth and offices, a horse barn with stalls, tack room, and pasture, a dog boarding/kennel operation, and an additional pole barn. It’s current list price is $840,000 and is listed by Mark Baker of Foundation Realty who can be reached at mbaker@foundationlenawee.com by email or by cell at 517-206-2121. See listing online.

Editor’s note: Many people shared their expertise to make this article possible. Thank you Rose Breitenwischer, Margaret Goodrich, Laura Sutton, and Jaimie Schmitd; and thank you to the men and woman from Michigan Lutheran Seminary and Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod: Dr. William Zeiger, Joel D. Otto, Pastor Mark Luetzow, Prof. em. John M. Brenner, Rev. Paul Prange, and Susan Willems.