May 28th through July 4th is Northfield History Month.  Learn more about the events hosted this month here. To honor Northfield’s past and showcase the work of the Northfield History Collaborative, there will be new posts each week about the various projects that have been added to the Collaborative’s online collection.  

To start off, we will first introduce our four new partners to the Collaborative: Christdala Swedish Lutheran Church, Three Links Care Center, First United Church of Christ, and the City of Dundas, and each of their roles in the history of Northfield. 

Christdala Swedish Lutheran Church:

The content currently available in Christdala’s collection are the church’s records, beginning with its foundation in 1877 by the first Swedish settlers in Rice County, and ending in 1941. Kept in Swedish until 1927, the records themselves reflect the immigrant community’s commitment to preserving their culture and language as well as their eventual assimilation into American culture. Including treasurer, administrative and pastoral reports, the records chronicle both the period of peak membership and growth experienced by the church as well as the beginning of the decline of the congregation that led to its eventual disbanding in 1966.  The 1877 to 1941 records for Christdala Swedish Lutheran Church can be accessed here.