Georg M. Grossmann

Grossmann arrived with his family in Saginaw, Michigan, in July 1852. He rented a storefront in Saginaw to house a school that enrolled five students and would eventually become Wartburg Theological Seminary, the first German-Lutheran teacher training seminary in North America. Grossmann would serve as the president of the seminary from 1852 to 1868 and again from 1878 to 1894.

Their stay in Saginaw was short-lived however as Grossmann found himself caught up in old arguments that had been developing between the Buffalo Synod and the Missouri Synod about ecclesiology. Löhe had been trying to mediate between the two synods, which ended up causing both sides to mistrust Löhe. Due to Grossmann's loyalty to Löhe, he soon became a target of mistrust as well and was even threatened with church discipline by his pastor, Ottomar Cloeter, at Holy Cross, who himself had been a missionary sent by Löhe.

At a conference in Saginaw, both Grossman and another Löhe missionary, Johannes Diendoerfer of the nearby Frankenhilf colony (today called Richville in Denmark Township), were made to understand that their views were creating divisions.[1] Attempting first to move out of the nearby region, the Missouri Synod asserted that in states where it had congregations, no other Lutherans had a right to do missionary work.[1] Finally, Deindoerfer and Grossmann acquired Löhe's approval to separate from the Missouri Synod when Grossmann's seminary was threatened with dissolution as a schismatic institution if it was not handed over to that synod.

In July and August 1853, Deindoerfer took an exploratory trip with Frankenhilf colonist Gottlob Amman to Iowa. In September of that year, Grossmann, with about 20 other people, moved from Michigan to Iowa to reestablish the teacher-training seminary and establish a new synod apart from the Missouri Synod.

Grossmann rented a brick building on Garfield Avenue in Dubuque, Iowa, and reopened his seminary. At this time he began to make connections with the various German-Lutheran immigrants in the area. Deindoerfer moved to Clayton County with some of the colonists from Michigan and they established the St. Sebald colony there (named after the patron saint of Nürnberg).

On August 24, 1854, Grossmann met with Deindoerfer at his log cabin in St. Sebald along with professor Sigmund Fitschel from Nürnberg and Micheal Schüller (who was ordained at the meeting). Together these four established the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Iowa. Grossmann served as president of the Iowa Synod from 1854 through 1893.[2]

Grossmann established synod headquarters in Dubuque and quickly backed the work of establishing congregations for the newly arriving German immigrants to Iowa. He was instrumental in the founding of St. John's Lutheran in Dubuque. Another early enterprise was in Sherrill, Iowa, where he purchased 80 acres (32 ha) of land with Bavarian immigrants Georg and Heinrich Vogel from Hof, Bavaria,[3] in 1855 in order to establish a school and church.[4]^: 19–20 This became St. Matthew's Lutheran, where the original Wartburg Seminary bell sent by Löhe from Germany and first used in Saginaw has been housed since Easter 1869.[4]^: 29

The cost of keeping the seminary going in Dubuque became prohibitive and in July 1857, Grossmann left Dubuque. He relocated the seminary to Clayton County, where the teachers and seminarians could more cost-effectively incorporate self-provision into their education. It was in the wooded areas of Clayton County that Grossmann named the seminary "Wartburg" because it reminded him of the area around the Wartburg castle in Germany where Martin Luther had been hidden during the early Reformation.

In 1878, Grossmann moved to Andrew, Iowa, to train teachers. The following year (1879) both he and the school moved to Waverly, Iowa. In 1885, this school was combined with Wartburg Seminary, which had been operated in Mendota, Illinois. Grossmann remained in Waverly as president of the seminary until his retirement due to health in 1894. He died in Waverly in 1897 and is buried there in Harlington Cemetery.