The Taubach church St. Ursula
was the only large building that rode out the great village fire in 1674, however, but it balanced on a knife's edge, because the nearby buildings were ablazed. Two years later, on 18th(Jul.)/28th(Gre.) September 1676, the Monday after crucifixion (Jul.) respectively the 18th Monday after Trinitatis (Gre.), the tower vane, which were warped days afore, should be brought into line by the Weimar slate master Geörge Caspar Keilhawen. It was discovered that the tower ball was so heated during the fire, that the tower spindle had already been charred on the side towards the village and that the slate of the tower had begun itself to release by the heat. The documents which were contained in the tower ball were sent by the school master Mr Michael Rücker to the princely office of Weimar, who returned such documents and another new document, written on parchment, together with four pfennigs and five dreiers of more recent Weimar coins. The new document of 19th(Jul.)/29th(Gre.) September 1676 referred to the stated coins, which should be preserved in this way as a memory for the posterity. Every of the three Taubachien Mr Geörg and Mr Hans Krippendorff as well as Mr Hans Hänßchen added one pfennigs, the tower ball was closed again and placed on the spindle, which had been mended with new timber, on the 20th(Jul.)/30th(Gre.) September 1676.
At the end of September 1689 the tower ball and the tower vane had to be taken off again for repair, because it was afflicted by the weather of the past years. New documents were not inserted, but the Messrs. Georg Krippendorf, Caspar Fritsch, Nicol Rost and David Löbnitz each inlaid a coin. On Oct. 1st(Jul.)/11th(Gre.) October 1689, the tower ball and the weather vane were set up again.
Towards the end of the 17th century the Nachbarn (neighbours, designation for fully legitimated peasants) came together to debate about their church. But the money, the consequences of the disease epidemics, the Thuringian Deluge, the Thirty Years' War and the great fires of 1674 and 1690 were still so great, the plague of locusts 1693 were a new setback. The representatives of the church, pastor and Adjuncto Magister Mr Friedrich Müller, as well as his substitute and son-in-law Magister Mr Georg Heinrich Kirsch, were skeptical that the project could be successful and many neighbours were against it. In 1701 Mr Magister Müller died and his deputy Mr Kirsch was transferred to Gaberndorf in 1702. Instead the pastor Mr Johann Matthäus Zahn, who has been worked in Gaberndorf, came to Mellingen and thus to Taubach too …