Little Brown Church, Nashua, Iowa
Hebrews 10:25
Let us not give up the habit of meeting together
In 1857, a young music teacher named William Pitts was traveling by stagecoach to visit his future bride. The stage stopped at a village called Bradford (near today’s Nashua, Iowa.) He was inspired by the beauty of the little vale and imagined a church nestled in those woods. As he continued his journey, he penned a poem and then set it to song, The Little Brown Church in the Vale. Arriving home, he stuck it in a drawer.
After being married and living in Wisconsin, William Pitts and his bride moved to Fredericksburg, Iowa in 1862. He was surprised to discover a Little Brown Church in the exact location he had envisioned it years before. He searched for his long-forgotten song and was able to sell the copyright. With the funds he received, he payed for medical school. Doctor William Pitts was a beloved doctor and active community member in Fredericksburg for over forty years. Among many of his accomplishments and local offices held, he continued to teach music, lead a town band, and wrote an extensive history of the local area.
Still an active, the church and has been host to over 76,000 weddings and counting. A reunion is held every August for those that have been married at the Little Brown Church in the Vale.
