USA > Washington DC > The centennial of the beginning of Presbyterianism in the city of Washington > Part 1
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BX 9211 W3 F5 1895
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HE CENTENNIAL OF THE BEGINNING OF PRESBYTERIANISM IN THE CITY OF WASHINGTON.
22. 4
1895.
The First Presbyterian Church, november 17th to 22d, 1895, Washington, D. C.
BX9211 WaFF 1895
Pastors :
JOHN BRACKENRIDGE 1809-1818.
REUBEN POST -
1810-1837.
WILLIAM MCLAIN 1837-1840.
CHARLES RICH 1840-1843.
WILLIAM T. SPROLE
1844-1847.
ELISHA BALLENTINE
1847-1851.
BYRON SUNDERLAND 1853.
ADOLOS ALLEN
1894.
T. DEWITT TALMAGE 1895.
Elders:
ELIAS B. CALDWELL, JOHN COYLE,
GEORGE BLAGDEN, HENRY HILLMAN,
JAMES MOORE,
EZEKIEL YOUNG, THOMAS PATTERSON, ANDREW COYLE, JOHN KENNEDY, JOHN SHACKFORD, JOHN COYLE, JR., JOHN G. WHITWELL,
WM. H. CAMPBELL, DANIEL CAMPBELL, LEONIDAS COYLE,
ISAAC S. MILLER, ALEXANDER SPEER, JOHN DOUGLASS, OTIS C. WIGHT,
THOMAS J. JOHNSTON, HORACE J. FROST, FRANCIS H. SHITH, OCTAVIUS KNIGHT, GEORGE B. PATCH, NICHOLAS DUBOIS, WM. A. SUTPHIN, RICHARD W. CARTER,
F. B. DALRYMPLE, EDWARD G. CHURCH, ALFRED LOCKHART,
THEO. F. SARGENT.
1795.
1812.
1845.
Order of Exercises:
Sabbath Morning, November 17th. Historical Sermon. REV. BYRON SUNDERLAND, D. D.
Monday Evening, November 18th. Rev. A. W. Pitzer, D. D., presiding.
Presbyterianism and the Nation.
Rev. CHARLES L. THOMPSON, D. D., LL. D. New York City.
Tuesday Evening, November 19th. Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, D. D., presiding.
Presbyterians and Education.
Rev. HENRY M. MACCRACKEN, D. D., LL. D. Chancellor of the University of the City of New York.
Wednesday Evening, November 20th.
Rev. George O. Little, D. D., presiding.
Presbyterianism and the District of Columbia.
Rev. B. F. BITTINGER, D. D. Hon. JOHN W. FOSTER. Rev. J. G. BUTLER, D. D.
Friday Evening, November 22d. RECEPTION.
7.30 to 10.30 P. M.
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The following document throws light upon the
BEGINNINGS OF PRESBYTERIANISM
IN WASHINGTON.
. the records of the Presbytery of Baltimore ars that on April 30, 1794, Rev. John Brack- e was licensed, and on April 29, 1795, he re- a call from " The Churches in Washington," small bands of believers who met for worship ›ut any formal organization and including set- the ents outside the present city limits-a city without houses.
In 1795, June 24, order was taken for the ordi- nation and installation of Mr. Brackenridge as · pastor. In 1801, certain irregularities having been reported to Presbytery, Mr. Brackenridge was cited to appear and furnish satisfactory reasons for the same ; but failing to appear he was again cited before a meeting held in Georgetown, D. C., April, 1802. At this meeting he appeared and " leaded ill health as the cause of misunderstand- lug and requested the dissolution of his pastoral relation.
The congregation was cited to appear before Presbytery to show reason, if any, why the request should not be granted ; no person appearing at a meeting on April 26, 1802, the relation was dis- solved. In 1809 the Presbytery, at a meeting held October 27, in Alexandria, appointed Mr. Bracken- ridge to labor as a missionary for three months in
Bladensburg, Maryland, and Washington City, and in 1810 he was appointed supply of Washing- ton City and Bladensburg. In 1812, at the request of the First Church, Washington City, Mr. Brack- enridge wrote a sketch of the rise and progress of the Church, but omitted all the foregoing facts, which, had they been known, would have settled the question of priority raised by Rev. Dr. Lauri after his congregation had joined the Presbytery of the District of Columbia. Dr. Laurie's congre- gation erected the first building, but Mr. Bracken- ridge had the first organization, and for the want of a suitable building was under the necessity of using a carpenter's shop erected for the workmen employed in the building of the President's House. In 1793, when this building was demolished, the congregation worshipped in a farm house now St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church.
The enterprise was greatly weakened by the ef- fforts made by Dr. Laurie in the formation of a church under his ministrations. After this time the congregation worshipped in "The Academy East," the only house that could be obtained and in which they met every three weeks. It was not long be- fore steps were taken for the erection of a church building and the following persons appointed a committee to have the matter under their care : Messrs. George Blagden, Elias B. Caldwell, John Coyle, John McClelland and Daniel Rapine. The enterprise received great and unexpected encour- agement. In the meantime permission was granted
the congregation to hold worship in the old Capitol, Mr. Brackenridge still laboring a part of his time in Rockville and in Bladensburg. The new house of worship was occupied for the first time June 20, 1812, the dedication sermon being preached by Rev. Mr. Brackenridge from Luke, 19: 9. At a meeting of the congregation held January, 1813, Mr. Brackenridge was called and on July 4, 1814, was installed pastor of the church, continuing as such until May, 1818. Mr. Brackenridge died in 1844 in the seventy-fifth year of his age. The church was supplied successively by Rev. John McKnight and Rev. John Clark.
In April 19, 1819, Mr. Reuben Post was called as pastor and installed June 24, of the same year.
On the 10th of April, 1827, the corner stone of the present edifice was laid. The church was ded- icated December 9, 1827-the sermon preached by the pastor was from Haggai, 2.
Rev. Dr. Post was released from his pastorate January 24, 1836. He died September 24, 1858. Rev. Addison Mines supplied the church until December, 1836, when Mr. William McLain was elected pastor ; installed January 11, 1837 ; rela- tion dissolved June 9, 1840. In November, 1840, Mr. Charles Rich, Licentiate, was ordained and installed pastor. The relation was dissolved July 13, 1843. In November 27, 1843, Rev. William F. Sprole was installed pastor ; relation dissolved April 2, 1847.
The church was supplied by Presbytery until March 1, 1848, when, Rev. Elisha Ballantyne was installed pastor. The relation was dissolved July 21, 1852. Rev. James Gallagher supplied the church until December, 1852, when Rev. Byron Sunderland, D. D., was called, and continues the pastor to the present time.
In 1859 the church was enlarged and re-construc- ted, making it one of the largest if not the largest Protestant church building in the city.
At the first recorded meeting of the Session there were present (September 15, 1812) ;
Rev. John Brackenridge and ruling elders John Coyle, Charles B. Caldwell, George Blagden.
Mr. Laurie, installed over F Street Church, 1803 ; house built afterwards, but no date given.
Came under control of Presbytery of District of Columbia, June 14, 1824, but in 1839 transferred to Presbytery Baltimore-afterwards set off to Pres- bytery of Potomac-again in 1869 united with other churches in Washington City Presbytery.
Dr. Sunderland was installed Thursday evening 7.30 o'clock, April 21, 1853.
Dr. Heacock of Buffalo, N. Y., preached the ser- mon ; J. R. Eckard, charge to pastor ; Mason Noble, charge to people ; Samuel Washburn, Moderator.
Rev. Adolos Allen was installed as co-pastor April 17, 1894, and resigned February 3, 1896.
Rev. Dr. T. DeWitt Talmage was installed co- pastor October 23, 1895.
CENTENNIAL SERMON, By Rev. Dr. BYRON SUNDERLAND. Pastor of the Church.
Ps. 87:3. Glorious things are spoken of thee, O, City of God !
The city. This is the heart of the world. It has been so with the great Capitals of all nations, those now buried beneath the dust of ages, and those still standing, out of which pours the life-blood of the times to the remotest corners of the earth.
Piety and Patriotism forever, both love and laud their seat of Government whether in church or state. The home of Religion and the Capital of a nation, in the blended story of their beginning and progress have never ceased to kindle the most thrill- ing emotions in every mind susceptible of exalted conceptions.
It was so at Jerusalem in the time of the first Kings. There was the center of God's worship and the famous capital of the Hebrew Nation, and there in the great festivals which celebrated the wonders of their history, the majestic choir of Tabernacle and Temple poured out this song of Triumph, " Glorious things are spoken of thee, O, City of God." Yes, it was the city of God, destined to have such a his- tory as no other city on the face of the globe ever had or can have. These words booming from Strophe to anti-Strophe through the wide air, gave
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voice to the feeling of immense multitudes, rapt by the spirit of grateful adoration. It has often been so among the generations of men !
It is so with us to-day. For now we begin to commemorate the founding of our city and of that line of religious evolution in Washington from which we trace the development of this old church back through a hundred years.
Presbyterian Christianity was early in this region, as the churches of our order at Hyattsville and Georgetown bear witness, and as one church closely akin, but not then associated with us, organized in Washington a few years before our own, also attests.
Tradition, clear and undisputed, couples this church and the Capitol in their founding and pro- gress. The story of the city is no Greek or Roman fable. Prior to the coming of the colonists this place was called Tohoga, the seat of an Indian Emperor or Sachem. Here dwelt the Nacostians, whose neighbors were the Monacans and Powha- tans. Their council fires were lighted on yonder hill. But their feuds are ended. They vanished before the pale-face like a vision of the night. A new order from beyond the sea began to displace the Amphictyon of Savage Life. Lines of survey were traced here more than two hundred years ago. Patents came out through the monarchs of England for Pinner, Langworth, Troop and Francis Pope, who seeing that his name was Pope, aspired to be equal to the Pope and gave to his estate and the
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stream that laved it, the august names of Rome and the Tiber. His prophecy which lingered around the Hill for a hundred years was then to be fulfilled.
In 1793, the first corner-stone of that structure which now looks down upon us in more than Roman majesty was laid. From the spot now covered by its dome spread out in those first years of the city, the lands of the then proprietors, on one side de- clining to the river's brink, on the other, expanding in copse and forest away to the circling hills.
There are the hamlets of Hamburgh and Carrolls- burgh, there is Duddington pasture, there the house of Daniel Carroll, yonder of Notley Young and yonder still of David Burns. There are the uplands and the orchards and the old burial places of the dead. The lark springs up from the dewy corn with his morning song, the plover sends out his nightfall whistle from yonder sedge. In many a footpath, by many a spring, the children wander, searching the wild fruit and waking their echoes in the deep woods. Sportsmen haunt the shores of Anacostia, whose rude old wharfs scarce break the shoals and water courses that crowd over the track of Pennsylvania avenue and end away in "the Northern Slashes."
All this in a scene of rural loveliness, which then, as now, beamed from Prospect Hill, from the Heights of Georgetown, from distant Arlington, and from the moonlight sheen of waters laughing to the sea.
Years before, Washington had fixed his eye upon this site for the seat of government. The action of
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Congress looking to this end, began in 1790. Mary- land and Virginia followed it with appropriate enactments. Terms of cession were agreed upon, and on April 15th, 1791, the first corner-stone of the District was set up below Alexandria, with fit- ting ceremonies, and in the great concourse, the minister of the Cross offered up to Almighty God the prayer of the infant Republic. The soil thus outlined was thenceforth consecrated to the cause of American Independence and the Religion of Jehovah.
In 1792, the corner-stone of the Executive Mansion was laid, and it was a whole decade before the struc- ture was completed. There in the heart of the for- est a carpenter's shop was erected, and there for years it stood a shelter for the workmen in summer's heat and winter's snow.
In September of the following year, Washington came to lay the corner-stone of the Capitol. On that memorable day he was attended by a procession with fife and drum, winding their way on a fallen tree across the Tiber amid the oaks and underbrush to the elected spot. That scene was the presage of all that followed. The old roads gave place to new made streets, the marshes receded, the evening lights grew thicker, the bloom of urban life was gathering to the flower just bursting from the shadow of the wilderness. The times of Adams and Jefferson suc- ceeded. There were already three thousand souls. The Congress came in 1800, and two years after the City of Washington was incorporated. Municipal
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functions were assumed, and the Metropolis was fairly launched on her pathway of renown. The fathers of the city came, the physicians, the lawyers and the judges came, the noble artists came, the inventors and men of genius came and their mag- nificent works are all before us. Time and space would fail me to trace the growth of the city to what we see it now, or to name the glorious men who have made it what it is.
"Glorious things are spoken of thee, O, City of God! " It is surely to-day the favorite city of all true Americans, beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole nation, can we add the words, "O City of God !" In what sense is it the "City of God !" His divine protection has ever been over it. On one occasion only was God's shield withdrawn and that but for a day and a night when it felt the rav- age of the Minion troops of England, to be followed speedily by the death-dealing guns at Baltimore and Ft. McHenry, which gave us the immortal ode of Francis S. Key, "The Star Spangled Banner !"
It is the City of God in this, that at the very be- ginning, from the North, the East, the South (for then there was no West) God's own people came here, as to their new Jerusalem, religious families, men and women who had been trained in the var- ious Christian denominations, and who brought with them their convictions and predelictions. Among these religionists, were the Presbyterians, some from the churches of Makamie the father and founder of straight Presbyterianism in this country, and
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some from the church of the Covenanters, under the title of " The Philadelphia Synod of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church." The General Assembly of the Makamie churches was organized in 1788 and comprised by far the larger portion of those who professed the Presbyterian faith.
When these families arrived in Washington they found no churches of their order within the limits of the city. They had no Pastors, no church organ- izations, no stated religious services, which they sadly missed and for which they could only substi- tute irregular meetings when some traveling minis- ter or missionary could be procured to conduct them.
Under these conditions the Presbyterians of Washington, uniting in their efforts, procured the use of the carpenter's shop in the grounds of the White House where they first assembled for religi- ous worship in 1795. From time to time they met there, until the shop, no longer needed, was torn down, and they were obliged to seek another place of worship.
There is in existence an old deed giving to the "Calvin Society " a lot of ground adjoining the site of the old German Lutheran Church, now standing in the first ward of the city. For some reason un- known to me, it certainly was never appropriated by our people, if they ever had any title to it, and it remains to this day in the use and possesion of the German Church. Their next place of worship was a frame building, used also for a school, on F street, near the corner of Tenth street N. W.
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About this time the Covenanter portion of the peo- ple withdrew and in 1803 organized what was long known as the " F Street Church," under the pastoral care of the Rev. Dr. James Laurie, and in connec- tion with the Associate Reformed Synod of Phila- delphia. The building is now known as " Willard Hall."
The remaining party of the Presbyterians in Washington were those who had come from churches in connection with the Presbyterian General Assem- bły and, though without formal organization, which accounts for the absence of permanent records for the first fourteen years of their history, they still clung together, as the facts have surely been handed down to us upon the testimony of many of the early members of this church, some of whom were active participants in the Presbyterian movements of that period, and from whose lips I personally received the account more than forty years ago.
On leaving the F street building they removed to the " Academy East," in the vicinity of the Navy Yard, because in those days it was expected that the bulk of the growing city would be eastward of the Capitol, and because the requirements of the Navy Yard had already drawn to that section a considerable colony of people from whom they hoped to augment their numbers and extend their usefulness.
When, however, the Capitol had been so far ad- vanced as to provide a basement room for the ses- sions of the Supreme Court of the United States,
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our fathers obtained permission to hold their Sab- bath service in that place, and there the Lord's Supper was first administered.
Later on they determined to seek, through the Presbytery of Baltimore, a church organization and to erect an edifice for public worship. The site chosen was near the Pennsylvania avenue ascend- ing the hill just south of the Capitol. The first earth was turned for the new building by John Coyle, one of the first elders of this church. His daughter, Mrs. Whitwell, then a little girl, de- scribed to me the scene. The ground was then broken into steep hillocks and spurs and covered with a growth of saplings, vines, and underbrush. There, one evening in the solitude just as the set- ting sunlight flashed upon the autumn foliage, lighting up a flame of gorgeous colors, might be seen a man with head uncovered; by his side his little daughter and a stout-bodied colored man, spade in hand, on which he reverently leaned. Then the voice of prayer rose fervently to the God of the Covenant for a benediction on that spot and the use to which it should be put. The prayer ended, the master took the spade and struck it in the ground and turned over the first soil where the corner-stone was laid of the "little white Chapel under the hill." Some of its wall are still standing but buried out of sight by the subsequent grading there. The building was dedicated in 1812, at the beginning of our second war with England.
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From that date, the permanent records of the church appear. The nucleus that met in the car- penter's shop in 1795, and had been a nebulous and nomad body of Christians began to take a local habitation and a name. About the year 1811, it was formally organized by the Presbytery of Balti- more under the title of "The First Presbyterian Church of Washington, D. C., having for its first pastor, the Rev. John Brackenridge, whose grave remains to this day by that of his wife in a beauti- ful field of the " Old Soldiers' Home."
But in truth, it must be said, the church was never chartered and fully organized as it is this day, till 1868-when to the Session a Board of Deacons and a Board of Trustees were added, filling out the requirements of the written law of the church in every particular, by its form of govern- ment, its Directory of worship and its Society, Con- stitution and By-Laws. It is the first charter granted by Congress to any church in this city or District.
In the process of time, the growth of the city to the west and north, and that also of the congrega- tion induced the removal to our present site. The records of this undertaking read like a romance. The first building erected here, was dedicated to the service of Almighty God in December, 1827, the then Pastor, Rev. Dr. Reuben Post, preaching the sermon. It was a day of great rejoicing in the history of the church.
After many years the space again became too narrow, and in 1860, the present auditorium was
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constructed above the old one, now the lecture- room. The front of the building was changed, and it was re-dedicated in December of that year. The venerable Dr. Gardiner Spring, of New York, preached the dedication sermon, the last public service he ever rendered outside his own city. In the afternoon the Rev. Dr. Charles Reed, of Rich- mond, Virginia, preached a sermon, and in the evening, the Rev. Dr. Jenkins, of Philadelphia, delivered the closing discourse. It was one of the whitest days in our annals.
The church edifice, as it then was, remained almost untouched for thirty-two years. It much needed renovation, which occurred in 1892. The building as it appears to-day was the result, and in November of that year it was again dedi- cated. The historical discourse on that occassion was delivered to a large concourse of the members and friends of the church in the city.
That sermon was subsequently published, not without a few errors, and some lack of authentic records, but in the main it may be regarded as a detailed and truthful statement of the origin and life of this Mother church of Presbyterianism in the Capital of the Republic.
It is not my present purpose to recite those details so recently exhibited, but from what has now been said the public may understand the significance of this Centennial, and the reasons of its adoption, and of this commemoration.
In 1795 the only churches of our order, near us,
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were the church at Hyattsville and that in George- town.
The pioneers of this church first held religious meetings in the city in 1795.
This church received its title as the First church in connection with the Presbyterian General Assem- bly, organized in Washington, whereas it was not till 1823 that the " F Street Church " became a con- stituent of the same Assembly.
This church, as it is now seen, has been an evolu- tion church, solidifying gradually from the concre- tions of a hundred years, and marking the begin- ning of Presbyterianism here, but it has never at any time gone back from its polity, doctrine or discipline. We have sometimes been represented as almost too deep a blue for the current public thought of the world, and as standing so STRAIGHT that we bend over backward. But there is nothing in all this for which we need to blush in an age so rife with frantic efforts to eliminate all trace of the supernatural from the works and word of God.
From this church has gone forth a great company to proclaim salvation throughout the circuit of the earth, devoted men and women, missionaries of the Cross, preachers, teachers, lawyers, physicians, soldiers, sailors, ministers of State, noble souls born here and born again into the everlasting kingdom of our God and of His Christ. Some are living still, some are now active in other spheres, in other churches here, and elsewhere throughout the length of Christendom.
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