Tag Archives: Municipality – Streamwood IL

My Architecture & Design Photography: Founded in pioneer Hanover Township in 1852 for German settlers, Immanuel United Church of Christ on Old Church Road in Streamwood, Illinois is today in the Chicago suburbs. (4 Photos & Illustrations).

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FEATURE Image: March 2016. Immanuel United Church of Christ, 1500 Old Church Road, Streamwood, Illinois. Built in 1868, it is the congregation’s second house of worship on the site and remains the congregation’s active sanctuary. 7.49mb _0979

IMMANUEL UCC in Streamwood, Illinois, has a unique history within the context of the similar histories of other early settlers in Northern Illinois beginning in the 1820’s. Though diverse settlement throughout this part of the state was feverish (Chicago incorporated as a city in 1837), the prairie landscape expanse remained sparsely populated into the 1830’s and 1840’s with its mixture of farms, industry, and trade. The Streamwood church and burial grounds were founded in 1852 when W.G. Hubbard donated its five acres of land for “the sole and exclusive use of erecting a house thereon for religious worship and a burying ground.”

March 2016. Immanuel UCC is today part of a complex that includes newer church-related buildings. https://streamwoodiucc.org/home/about-us/church-history/ – retrieved January 30, 2025.

It was a group of 13 farmers who organized the church and chose its name: Deutsche Vereingigte, Evangelische Lutherische Immanuael’s Germeinde. Apparently, as Illinois was the edge of the Western frontier, in those days there wasn’t anyone around, or very many, to enjoin them to state it in English. Of course, it translates as “United Evangelical Lutheran Immanuel Congregation.” Today, Streamwood is in Cook County and sits just on the other side of DuPage County to the south that broke off from Cook and was established in its own right in February 1839. The original relatively open site today is surrounded by tract housing and other modern development for as far as the eye can see or vehicle drives with Elgin about 9 miles to the west.

1851 map of Cook and Dupage Counties. Hanover is between Elgin and Schaumburg Townships. Public Domain.

Streamwood, incorporated in 1957, is one of three communities that comprise the so-called “Tri Village” area that includes Bartlett and Hanover Park. This part of Northern Illinois had served as a seasonal hunting and camping ground for the Cherokee, Miami, Potawatomi, and Ottawa Indians. In their turn, the land had been claimed by France, England, Spain, Virginia, and the Northwest Territory before it became part of the State of Illinois in 1818.

March 2016. The ImmanuelUCC church and burial ground were created in 1852 for German settlers in Hanover Township in today’s northwest DuPage/Cook Counties. Three U.S. Civil War veterans are buried here, including from the 127th Illinois Infantry; Volunteer 5th Calvary Illinois Regiment; and U.S. Calvary Co. H, 3rd Regiment. All three died and were buried in the cemetery decades after the war had ended. Author’s photograph.

While the church started out as Evangelical Lutheran, over time the congregation moved towards becoming part of the United Church of Christ. In 1959 the members changed its name to reflect that reality. The first church building that was completed in 1853 was replaced in 1868 and is the present one. Among other buildings added to the church complex, the same historic sanctuary remains this Chicago suburban congregation’s house of worship today.

March 2016. Landscape and grounds near ImmanuelUCC church in Streamwood. Hanover Township was an expansive area of farmland settled by mid-19th century German settlers to Illinois. Author’s photograph.

Sources:

DuPage Roots, Richard A. Thompson, editor, DuPage County Historical Society, 1985.