First Years in America
7
Julius Kirmse was one of the founding members of Salem Lutheran congregation. Salem was founded on May 16, 1859. by eleven young men who had settled in the area around what is now Farrar, Perry County, Missouri during the prior five years. See appendix xxxx.
Picture of Church xxxx
bit of history xxx
Below is a current (2016) Google Earth map showing the Salem Lutheran Church property relative to the village of Farrar, Missouri.
Supposedly Julius Kirmse walked to church when he first came to Perry County. As shown below, it is about an hour walk from Julius’s farmhouse (Pcr 340) to the Salem Lutheran Church.
Ties to Paitzdorf
Family lore has that Julius Kirmse attended church services at Paitzdorf (now Grace Lutheran Church, Uniontown). as early as 1855. As can be seen from the following Google map, the distance from Farrar to Uniontown is about seven miles. In today’s concept of distance, that is only about a 10 minute drive by automobile, but it was and still is about a 3 1/2 hour walk from Julius Kirmse’s farmhouse and about 2 1/2 hour walk from Farrar, Missouri.