Altimos, Solomon
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About ei ghteen months ago the Confer ence
Council of nd,;Unistrat ion author i zed th~
pl acing of a bronze marker at the gr ave of Rev. ~olomon Altimos , first missionary
of the Evangelical Church t o ~chigan. The grave i s located in the Port Creek
' cemetery, nea r Fl at Rock, Monroe county, Michigan .
The original ston~, placed by the Conference in 1897, was cut from Indiana l i mestone. It had deterioaated so badly that the inscriptipn is scarcely legible.
Careful investigation reveal ed that the stone had deteriorated to a point where
the lettering could not be recut. It was decid~d that rather than erect a new stone
we would retain the old stone and place a bronze plaque, carrying the same message
as the stone, at the base of the stone.
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In carrying out the mandate of the Council much delay was encountered. Delay in
getting the decision from the stonecutter, delay in the making of the plaque and
delay again in finding someone to set the plaque. The plaque was completed in
June. Finally Mr . John Van Houten XKX, of our Port Creek Ch~_!l, was contacted and
~-~e set the~ for us. W
e fee+ that we have an excellent job and a marker that
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should l ast for an indefinite pe riod of t ime . Our sincer.e thanks to all who have
assisted in this important task.
Solomon Altim.os
Solomon AJ.timos was born and reared in eastern Pennsylvania. He was licensed by the
East Pennsylvania Conference i n 1833· For five years he served pastoral char ges in
the states of New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Some time in the early past~
o.f-1838 he {:arne to Monroe County, Michi~n, settling near Flat Rock. Here he established preaching places at Port Creek and Swan Creek and extended his preaching
ministries thr ough southern Michigan and Northern Ohio and northern Indiana, r eactling as far as Fort W
ayne, Indiana and Centerville, Michigan, among other places.
He had a s ubstantial congregation organized at Port Creek by December 1938. (An
earlier Michigan Conference historian set the date of his coming to Michigan a s
19391 and that date appear s on the stone and marker. The present historian has done
research work that s ets the correct date to be 1938). From his base at Port Creek
he traveled far and l aid the foundation for numerous congregat i ons .
The ~ denominational recorda list his name among the great leaders of the
church, including such men as Bi shop John Seybert. But he was greviously afflicted
with that blight ing disease, epilepsy. Subject to frequeat and unpredictable
seizures he found it impossible to seave in the regular pastorate. He did serve,
most effectively, as a kind of free l ance evangelist and gospel preacher. His
pulpit ministries were reported to be powerful.
The burden for Michigan and the Nprthwest Territory lay heavily on his concerned
heart. Pressed by that burden he returned to Pennsylvania March 25, 1839 to attend
the General Confereace. Her e he ple~d with that Conference to provide wor kers to
develope this new territory. But his old enemy (epilepsy) was unrelenting and in the
May first, 1841 Issue of the Christliche Botachafter the following announcement was
carried,"Solomon Altimos is no more . He died on the 18th of March, at his home in
Ash township, Monr oe County, Michigan, of his old disease (epilepsy). He had nineteen attacks in succession and then fell a s le~p to awake no more till the voice
of the archangel will rais e the dead. He was for eight years a preacher in the
Evamgelical Association. By his death the Church has lost a faithful shepherd, his
neighbors a sincere teacher and servant and his wi fe and two c)]ildren a kind husband
and father . Still they need not mourn as those who have no hope ." Let us remember.
w. H. Watson,
Conf erence historian.