However, due to an already existing Salem in Missouri, the soon-to-be postmaster Farrar used his name as a temporary solution, which became permanent.

[2] The Salem congregation was founded on May 16, 1859 by eleven men who had settled in the area that is now Farrar.

[3] They purchased land from the English and Scotch-Irish settlers centered on the Abernathy Settlement, present-day Longtown, Missouri.

Theodore Karl Gruber, a son of the pastor that had led the immigration to Paitzdorf.

The congregation grew with the influx of Lutheran settlers from Saxony, as well as more arrivals in 1866 from the Lamstaedt and Scheessel areas of Hanover.