This pathfinder can assist you in locating valuable pieces of your family’s history or researching the Scott County area using local church records. The Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center has an array of materials from area churches including sacramental records, membership lists, architectural studies of historic church buildings, and images.

 

Keywords or phrases which may be useful to you in searching DPL’s “iBistro” online catalog are:

            Davenport Iowa Church or Churches

            Scott County Iowa Church or Churches

            Davenport Iowa Cemeteries

 

Many of the local church records in our department fall between the Dewey Decimal System call numbers of SC 280 to SC 286. If you wish, you can browse our collection in person or from your home computer using these call numbers. Some of our most frequently used materials include:

 

St. Anthony's Catholic Church, Davenport, Iowa: deaths, 1839-1866 and baptisms, 1839-1862 (SC 282.77769 St)

Saint Katharine's Hall: a church boarding and day school for girls, Davenport, Iowa: register for the fifteenth year, 1898-1899 

(SC 371.02 Sai)

 Marriage register, church of St. Anthony, Davenport, Iowa from 21 November 1839 to 9 January 1882 (SC 282.77769 Mar)

 

The bibliography called Iowa History and Culture (SC 977.7 Daw) is an excellent resource for locating materials published between 1952 and 1986 and has both a personal name index and a subject index.

The Annals of Iowa continued the bibliography through the 1990’s.

Palimpsest, although not in our catalog, is present in our collection and has an index ready to spur you on to further reading about churches in our area.

 

 

 

The Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center maintains a diverse photographic collection including unique images of many area churches. Listed below are just a few examples of images in the collection along with dates, church address and image number.

 

First Baptist Church of LeClaire (1880s) Dodge Street, LeClaire, Iowa VM89-000824

St. Anthony’s Catholic Church (1890s) 407 Main Street Davenport, Iowa VM89-001450

Jewish Synagogue Free/Hostetler Collections

Old Methodist Church of LeClaire (1980s) LeClaire, Iowa VM89-000823

 

 

The Upper Mississippi Valley Digital Image Archive is an online visual collection of historic images from area repositories. You can search the database using the keyword “church”. Images are in the process of being added, so check often. The website is located at http://www.umvphotoarchive.org

 

 

Local church records on microfilm can be viewed and images can be printed from them. Parish records often include membership lists, baptisms, marriages and deaths that can be particularly useful for the pre-1880 time period. Our uncataloged microfilm collection includes records from:

 

Grandview Baptist Church

St. Joseph’s Catholic Church

Trinity Episcopal Church

Zion Lutheran Church

Unitarian Church

 

 

 

The newspaper archives index provides access to significant church events and also includes a series called “Walks Amid the Churches” published during 1889. Following is a sampling of indexed items: 

 

“Almost Forgotten Churches”                    23Nov1903    p.8                   Democrat

“Tri-City Churches”                                      25Nov1905    p.8                   Times

“Christian Church”                                       9Sep1889      p.4                  Times

 

 

In a study done in 1981 the following Davenport churches were deemed historic properties of significance. Requesting the architectural survey from the Staff Desk in the Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center can access detailed information.

 

Swedish Baptist Church

Sacred Heart Cathedral

St. Mary’s Church, Rectory and School

First Methodist Church

Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church

First Presbyterian Church

 

 

The Web sites listed below have been previewed and selected for this topic.