USA > Washington DC > The centennial of the beginning of Presbyterianism in the city of Washington > Part 11
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May the Master be with you through all your anniversary exer- cises, and may the beloved Dr. Sunderland find that his last days are his best and be crowned with everlasting life in the kingdom of our Father.
Sincerely yours,
A. P. JOHNSON.
DALLAS, TEXAS, November 18, 1895. Mr. F. SARGENT, ESQ., ELDER, &c.,
Washington, D. C.
DEAR SIR :- I thank you for your cordial invitation to attend the Centennial of the First Presbyterian Church, and deeply regret that I cannot be present.
What pleasant memories your invitation recalled ; how I love to think of the old church in which I was christened sixty-eight years since ; and heard the words of truth and Christianity spoken with the earnestness of Mr. Post, Sprole and McLain, the pastors in
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my day. What pleasant memories hang around the old and sedate elders, Andrew and Leonidas Coyle, Mr. Campbell, and not forget- ting James Moore, who nearly every year brought a new Presby- terian to be baptized in the faith. They have long since gone to meet their reward for the good done on earth.
I also recollect General Jackson and a long line of the great men of the nation that I then looked at with awe.
But I am reminded that you request a " brief communication. " In the old family Bible I find that Mr. Sunderland married my youngest sister July 12, 1855. What a long and honorable service for a pastor to have ! He may well be proud of it.
My father was a member, I think, for about forty years, and only left when he was unable to walk the distance, but gave his support to a struggling church near his home.
I thank God that I was born a Presbyterian, am still one-a member of the First Church of Dallas-and hope to die one. And my only wish is that when God calls me from this earth, my re- mains may be buried alongside of the mother and father to whom I owe all the good I possess, and that the minister in charge of your church shall say the closing prayer over my remains.
Thanking you for your remembrance and with the request that if your proceedings are published, you will send me a copy I am with great respect,
JOHN F. CALDWELL,
the last survivor of the family of Josiah F. Caldwell.
409 Young St.
BRIDGETON, N. J., November 11, 1895. MR. THEODORE F. SARGENT,
No. 322 E Street N. E.
DEAR SIR :- Thank you for the invitation to attend the Church Centennial Celebration that begins November 17th. I wish it were in my power to attend those meetings, but it is a busy time with me here. Everything pertaining to the old " Four-and-a-half Street Church " possesses great interest for me. Seldom is there a week- day, and never a Sunday, when my thoughts do not revert to former days when that church was so important a concern in my life.
May you have a pleasant celebration, and may God's richest blessing continue with pastors, officers and people.
Sincerely, LEONIDAS E. COYLE.
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ZANESVILLE, OHIO, November 16, 1895.
MR. SARGENT.
DEAR SIR :- I know but little of the earliest history of the Four- and-a-half Street Church, as it was then called, sixty years ago. I united with the church under the pastorate of Rev. Reuben Post, a holy and a just man. Messrs. Andrew Coyle, Wm. Campbell, John Coyle and James Moore, were elders ; noble devoted Chris- tians. Mr. Leonidas Coyle and Maria, son and daughter of Mr. Andrew Coyle, led the choir of beautiful sweet singers. How our feet hastened to hear those voices and the voice of our dear pastor. Those voices all stilled in death to us, but in the beyond, making melody in their hearts, and joining their sweet voices in the choirs of heaven. As my feet stand on the brink of' the river it seems as if the Heavens must open and I could hear their voices, which are so fresh in my memory.
I cannot forget the church of my youth nor the city of my birth. Neither miles nor time can separate me from all that my heart holds dear, of scenes and associations connected with the church, which I love more and more as time in its flight brings so fresh to my memory. I shall always love and revere the First Presbyterian Church, and pray for its welfare.
I thank you for your kind invitation to the Centennial Anniver- sary of the dear old church.
Yours respectfully,
ANNA M. CASY.
ZANESVILLE, OHIO, November 18, 1895.
MY DEAR FRIENDS :- I wish that through ancestry I could claim a share in the planting of the church whose century of growth you now are celebrating. I can so claim a share in its early life and with my own memories and my mother's, can weave a chain of recollection stretching far back to the Sabbath days of that modest primitive temple of worship ; her uncle John Coyle was one of the early members and elders-his son, John, later an elder and precentor-Andrew Coyle, her father, and Leonidas, her brother, stand on the roll of elders-and my father, Dr. Alexander Speer-beloved as well in work of Sabbath School.
In the "little white church under the hill" my mother heard her first sermons and mine were heard (?) from the capacious choir
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of the original Four-and-a-half street church in the midst of a family circle of singers-mother-aunts and uncles-one the leader for forty years.
Indellible, the memory of that house ! The rich pulpit of polished rosewood with supporting pillars and winding stairs-its back- ground of scarlet damask hangings with shining eagle above.
The holiest memory is of those Sabbath afternoons, when in the soft and fading light, the Supper of our Lord was ministered by men of God, whose very names were benedictions-the sweet and solemn service seemed a fitting preparation for the "Marriage Supper of the Lamb," where are now gathered all my own of that generation.
We thank you for remembering us as linked by birthright as we are by affection-with the church of our fathers. They loved its courts with a loving love, its very walls were dear to them-its prayers their refuge-its songs of praise their joy and delight.
The foundations were laid in purity of faith and simplicity of worship-and this mother church like the great apostle-has "fought the good fight," has " kept the faith "-but may she not " finish her work " for centuries untold, and may her children's children ever " rise up and call her blessed. "
In the love of a sacred past,
Affectionately yours,
MARIA COYLE SPEER ANDREWS.
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, November 21, 1895. MR. THEODORE F. SARGENT,
Washington, D. C.
DEAR SIR AND BROTHER :- Your invitation to attend the " Cen- tennial Anniversary of the beginning of the First Presbyterian Church of Washington, D. C.," was duly received. I have been very anxious to be present, and entertained a hope that I might be able to attend the reception Friday night. I find, however, it will be impossible for me to do so. I have been sick for nearly two years and unable to attend to business for seventeen months and am just about to resume my regular duties.
I love the dear old First Church. All my earliest recollections are connected with it. Rev. Reuben Post, D. D., married my father and mother. He baptized several of my sisters and myself. I was quite young when he left Washington, but his lovely face and
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kindly smile as he used to place his hand on my head and call me his " little missionary," are indellibly imprinted on my memory. I promised him that I would be a missionary, and have never for- gotten my promise, although providential hindrances inade labors in the foreign field impossible, but the interest in that great work which he awakened in my young heart has never abated. I am only one of the many whose lives have been influenced by that Godly man.
I can never forget the grief with which we left the old church for a season when, in the wisdom of Presbytery, it was decided that a colony from each of the stronger churches, the First and Fourth, should go to the Second, to save that church from extinc- tion, and my venerable father volunteered to go from the dear old First. But though it was a great sorrow to us all, the Lord's hand was in it, and the noble New York Avenue Church, with the great work it is doing, stands as a monument to the wisdom of the move- ment. It was there that my only surviving sister and myself made our public profession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and first sat down with our parents at His table.
If our sorrow was great on leaving, our joy was no less great, when the work for which our father had left for a season having been accomplished, we returned to our old church home, where we remained until the hand of the Lord led us to another field of work for him, and we removed to the west end of the city to help in the organization of the Western Presbyterian Church. Thence we were called by the unfortunate war between the States to this city, to do whatever work the Lord might find for our hands in the United (now the Grace Street) Presbyterian Church, with which we have been connected for nearly thirty-four years. From this church our mother, Mary M. Moore, our sisters Margaret J. and A. Isabella Moore and brother, Edward D. Moore, and the wife, two grown sons and one grown daughter of the latter have been carried to their final resting place on earth, and their souls to eternal glory. Our two nephews had already done good work for the Master. One of them was cut down while doing home mission work in the swamps of Louisiana ; the other before completing his theological course, with a view to foreign mission work. It was his expectation to be one of the pioneers of the Korean Mis- sion of our Southern Presbyterian Church. Several of his class- mates were permitted to go, but the Master wanted him to join the blood-washed throng in glory.
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Another brother, with his only sister, is actively laboring in the Sabbath School and Christian Endeavor Society, in a church recently organized in one of the suburbs of this city. The youngest of the four brothers was received by East Hanover Pres- bytery at its last meeting as a candidate for the Gospel Ministry. The writer of this has had the honor of representing his church in Presbytery and Synod frequently, and once the Presbytery in General Assembly. These things are mentioned, not in a spirit of boasting or vain glory, but as some of the results of the work of the First Church. Our father was converted in that church, and served it thirty-four years in the eldership. Our mother was con- verted in the Bridge Street Church, Georgetown. It was under the pastorate of Post, McLain, Rich, Ballantine and Sunderland, in the First, and Knox, Smith and Eckard in the Second, that they labored and brought up their children ; and whatever of work for the Master their descendants have been permitted to do must be traced to the influence of the holy men of God who founded that church.
Well do I remember the day, over fifty-four years ago, when the Juvenile Missionary Society was founded. How proud we boys were to be made Secretary or Vice-President ; and to be President gave us more pleasure than any honors which could have been conferred upon us in our later years. That Society has done good work. How many souls were saved through labors of its colporters in Texas only the records of eternity can reveal.
Then the Maternal Association ! The Master Himself only knows what honor has been brought to Him through the prayers and labors of those dear mothers in Israel who used to meet to talk with each other and pray for the welfare and conversion of their children. The female prayer meeting, I trust it too is still continued. For years the house in which I was reared was the meeting place, and no storm of winter or heat of summer, was severe enough to prevent at least two or more Godly women from coming together to call upon Our Father for His blessing on the church which they all so dearly loved. Then we recall the homes and faces of four devotedly pious women, who for years used to go twice each week, Sabbath and Thursday, to the city jail and, shut up from two to three hours with its unhappy inmates, read the Scriptures and prayed with these unfortunate victims of vice and crime, Then there was dear old " Mother Knowles," who, like Anna
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of old, abode in the sanctuary, giving on the Sabbath, fully an hour before the time for service in the morning, and remaining till the close of evening worship. She, like Elijah, went to heaven in a chariot of fire. No finite mind can begin to estimate the blessings brought to the church and its families through her prayers. Their influence will never cease until the angel with one foot on the sea and the other on the land, shall proclaim that tinie shall be no longer.
The Neighborhood Prayer Meetings. Not content with two regular services in the lecture room every week, prayer meetings were conducted by some of the elders in the then remote and desti- tute portions of the city. Many a stormy night has your corres- pondent, when a boy, most unwillingly carried a lantern in one hand, an umbrella in the other and accompanied his father to the West End Island, or English Hill, to a prayer meeting in some private house or school building. The Mission Sabbath School on English Hill was begun and continued by menibers of the First Church ; continued till that worst section of Washington was renovated and changed so that it was no longer needed. The Cen- tral Presbyterian Church is not far from the site of the old Mission School.
When the Young Men's Christian Association of Washington City, the third in the United States, was organized, the First Church was prominent in the work, and the first secretary was a member of this church. The first Union Prayer Meeting of all denomina- tions held in Washington City, was held in this church in October or November, 1857. That it did much to bring the Christian peo- ple of the city nearer together than they had ever been before cannot be gainsaid.
You asked me for a short communication, but in thinking over the past of our beloved church, it has been impossible to be short. Memory has run away with me. There is much more I could say if time permitted. But time would fail to mention all I would like to say of the long list of worthies whose names and forms now rise before me. Begging that you will present to our dear old pastor, Dr. Sunderland, our love and congratulations that God has per- mitted him to live to behold this day, I am,
Very truly yours,
J. HALL MOORE.
For himself and sister, Miss Rosa Moore,
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STATEBURG, S. C., OCTOBER 4, '95.
REV. DR. BYRON SUNDERLAND.
DEAR SIR :- I have read with lively interest of your proposal to celebrate the Centennial of the First Presbyterian Church of Wash- ington. I have a strong and life-long attachment to that especial branch of the Church of our Lord. It was there that I became a member by baptism nearly sixty-six years ago. My father, Rev. Reuben Post, not William, was the pastor. He was a native of Vermont, a graduate of Middlebury College, and studied theology at Princeton. I think it was about 1820 that he received the call, his first charge, to the First Presbyterian Church in Washington, a small stone building, with parsonage attached, situated at the foot of Capitol Hill. Desiring above everything the prosperity of the church, and foreseeing the future growth of the Capital, it was under his leadership that the congregation determined to build a new edifice on Four-and-a-half street. This edifice was completed about 1827; for, as children, we were told that my brother. born May 1828, was baptized in the little brick church : and I, who was born November, 1829 was baptized in the new church on Four- and-a-half street. My father's pastorate though probably only half the length of your own, was next to yours, the longest of any exercised in that church. Then, as at the present time, Presidents and Members of Congress there united with the resident congrega- tion in Divine worship. I well recollect that President Jackson had a pew in front of our own-also Mr. Polk, member of Con- gress, who was afterward President-and Mr. Henry Laurens Pinckney, member from South Carolina. There may have been many others. Between Mr. Pinckney and my father there sprung up a warm friendship, that led my father to resign the pastorate of his beloved church in Washington, on receipt of a unanimous call to the old historic church known as the " Circular" in Charleston of which church Mr. Pinckney was a member.
An English family of the name of Blagden (they were parents of the Rev. Washington Blagden of Boston) were among the founders and supporters of the little brick church. I remember the name of Whitwell also-Mrs. Underwood (Aunt Christie she taught us to call her), and her sister, Mrs. Wm. Campbell, were devoted friends of my parents. During the forties I made several visits to Mrs. Underwood's family. They lived then in one of a row of brick
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houses on Capitol Hill. At that time the music of the church was assisted by the tones of the bass viol, that was played by Mr. Un- derwood. His wife was one of the singers.
When visiting Washington in 1860, I was pleased to recognize the identical pulpit in which my father officiated ; the original building was then being used as a Sunday School room.
What a change has taken place in the intercourse existing be- tween pastors of different denominations in the District. I have heard my father say that the Rev. Dr. Keith, rector of an Episco- pal church in Alexandria, had preached in his pulpit ; and my father had preached in Dr. Keith's. They were personal friends ; and Dr. Keith had studied divinity, though an Episcopalian, in Princeton Seminary. The late Bishop Johns of Virginia, had also studied theology at Princeton.
I beg pardon, dear Dr. Sunderland, for intruding so long upon your time and attention. I wished to correct a mistake in my father's name, etc.
The friendship between Mr. Pinckney and Dr. Post was contin- ued by their children, and cemented by my marriage with the son of my father's friend. With sincere respect,
Truly yours, MRS. HENRY L. PINCKNEY, nee HARRIOTT L. POST.
WASHINGTON, D. C., November 12, 1895.
T. F. SARGENT, EsQ.
DEAR SIR :- In reply to your invitation to be present at the Cen- tennial Anniversary of the First Presbyterian Church during the coming week, I reply that I will be present as often as I can.
I love the old mother church within whose folds I was received nearly fifty years ago, when I was but a boy, and shall always rejoice to hear of her prosperity. May God bless you all and make you perfect in good works.
Respectfully yours, &c.,
B. R. MAYFIELD.
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HAMLINE M. E. CHURCH,
WASHINGTON, D. C., November 18, 1895.
THEODORE F. SARGENT.
DEAR SIR AND BROTHER :- I shall take great pleasure in attend- ing the Centennial Anniversary of the First Presbyterian Church of this city, an invitation to which is just at hand. I rejoice with you in the fact that though the old tree has shed its leaves and changed its bark many times during the past century, it is still so green and strong. Age is honorable, but age with growth and vigor still remaining, especially in case of a church, is most inspiring.
Fraternally yours,
E. S. TODD.
E STREET BAPTIST CHURCH, WASHINGTON, D. C., November 18, 1895.
MR. THEODORE F. SARGENT.
DEAR SIR :- I am in receipt of invitation to attend the Centennial Anniversary of the beginning of the First Presbyterian Church of Washington, D. C., and of the beginning of Presbyterianism in this city, and in reply would say that I regret that engagements in connection with the annual gathering of the Columbia Baptist Association will prevent me from participating in the exercises of this celebration as I would wish to do. I hope, however, to be present at the reception on Friday evening next.
Permit me to extend hearty congratulations on the noble record which your church and denomination has made in this city. A record most honorable and in every way worthy of consecrated imitation by others.
Permit me also to wish for your beloved and long-time pastor, Rev. Dr. Sunderland, whose ministry has been freighted with so much good, not alone to Washington but to the nation at large, years of blessing and prosperity among the people he has served so faithfully for well nigh half a century.
I rejoice in the work accomplished and the successes achieved by the Presbyterian Church for the spread of our common Lord's Kingdom and the salvation of our fellowmen.
Fraternally,
J. J. MUIR.
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WASHINGTON, D. C., November 18, 1895.
COMMITTEE ON CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIRST
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
DEAR BRETHREN :- I would add my congratulations to those which spring from the hearts of the many who honor your church and its pastors. The history of the First Presbyterian Church is interwoven with the development of not merely this city, but of our nation. There is one incident in its history which forms a pleasant tie with the church with which I was connected, namely, each celebrated the Lord's Supper in the Capitol-the only times that this sacrament was administered within its walls.
May the past success of the First Presbyterian Church be a prophecy of its future achievements for God and humanity.
Fraternally yours,
JOHN CHESTER.
WESLEY CHAPEL, WASHINGTON, D. C., November 19, 1895. MR. THEO. SARGENT, ELDER, &c.,
Washington, D. C.
DEAR SIR :- In response to your committee's invitation to attend the Presbyterian Centennial Celebration, I regret that I am hin- dered from being present. Engagements in my own church every night this week demand my attention.
I congratulate the great Presbyterian Church on the splendid work of the hundred years; but especially that of the closing decade and the auspicious outlook upon the new century. I rejoice in your success. Your success is ours. We are laborers together with God. If we are true to the spirit of our Divine Master there is no place for jealousy or envy between the Presby- terian and the Methodist Churches. Each has its providential mis- sion. While some other denominations are pining for a union against which they raise impassible barriers, our branches of the Church of Jesus Christ may illustrate a true unity by a real Chris- tian sympathy and brotherly co-operation.
God speed you in your work ! When the next century of your church life shall be celebrated, and the capital shall number mil- lions in its borders, may there be hundreds of thousands of brave- hearted loyal Presbyterians rejoicing together.
Yours fraternally,
CHARLES W. BALDWIN.
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JOHN F. HURST, Bishop of M. E. Church.
WASHINGTON, D. C., November 20, 1895.
MR. THEODORE F. SARGENT.
MY DEAR SIR :- I have received your kind invitation to be pres- ent at the meetings in commemoration of the Centennial Anniver- sary of the founding of the First Presbyterian Church in Wash- ington. Unfortunately my engagements are such as to take me out of the city.
I heartily congratulate the pastors, elders, and members of the First Presbyterian Church on the arrival of this important anniver- sary. The Presbyterian Church has always stood in the forefront of an aggressive, religious and national life. Its record in the old country continued in America has been worthy of all honor, and it cannot be doubted that the story of the coming centuries will be of the same noble quality. Trusting you may have a delightful series of meetings, I remain,
Yours sincerely,
JOHN F. HURST.
EXECUTIVE MANSION,
WASHINGTON, November 20, 1895.
MY DEAR SIR :- The President directs me to acknowledge the receipt of your kind invitation to attend the meetings and recep- tion given in connection with the celebration of the beginning of Presbyterianism in this city, and to say that he greatly regrets that in consequence of the pressure of official matters of importance he finds it impossible to be present.
Very truly yours,
HENRY T. THURBER, Private Secretary.
THEO. F. SARGENT, Esq., 322 E Street N. E., Washington, D. C. 4
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