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History of Dutchtown
(How about a little history of one
of Chaffee's neighbors to the North)
From Southeast Missourian of March 22,
2008
Dutchtown has a
long history of habitation. Martin
Rodner, a Hessian soldier who came to
America in 1776 to fight for the British
during America's Revolutionary War,
moved his family to the Dutchtown area
in 1801, where he owned a water mill on
Hubble Creek. Because his American
neighbors had trouble pronouncing his
name, it became "Rodney", and his mill
was known as Rodney's Mill. He
died in 1827.
In the mid 1830s,
the area near Rodney's Mill began being
settled by Swiss and German families;
they called their settlement Spencer.
That later became Dutchtown, a variation
of the word "Deutsch," which means
German.
The small village
grew. A blacksmith and a
bricklayer settled there.
Bloomfield Road ran through the town, as
did railroad tracks.
In 1836 the German
Evangelical Church was founded and
remained an active congregation until
about 1900. The original church
was log, but a brick edifice was built
in 1887. The church remains, as does its
cemetery with about 150 markers.
The church was
also referred to as the "Swamp Church,"
since the village was built on the edge
of a swamp.
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