History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 70

Author: Sulgrove, Berry R. (Berry Robinson), 1828-1890
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 942

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South Street Baptist Church .- This was at first a mission church, established by the old First or Home Church, which purchased the lot on the south- west corner of Noble and South Streets about 1867, and built a small but pretty chapel there. In 1869 a number of the members of the parent church, whose places of residence made a church more conve- nient there than away off at University Square, formed an organization, and with a membership of seventy-six took the mission building as a gift from the old congregation and at once established a flour- ishing church there. A handsome new building re- placed the mission house a few years ago. Pastor, Rev. I. N. Clark. Membership, two hundred and ninety-five; Sunday-school pupils, three hundred and fifty ; value of property, about twenty thousand dollars.

Garden Baptist Church .- This also was a mission established in 1866 on Tennessee Street, and then removed to the corner of Washington and Missouri Streets. It finally built its own house on Bright Street. Pastor, Rev. B. F. Patt. Membership, one hundred ; Sunday-school pupils, one hundred and fifty ; value of property, six thousand dollars.

North Baptist Church .- This, like the other two, was a mission branch of the old First Church, established on the corner of Broadway and Cherry Streets, where it still is. The present pastor is Rev. Daniel D. Read. Membership, one hundred and thirty-one ; Sunday-school pupils, one hundred and fifty; value of property, about eight thousand dollars.

Third Baptist Tabernacle, though named in the city directory with a pastor, Rev. Christopher Wil- son, and located on Rhode Island Street, does not appear in the official list of the Association.

German Baptist Church .- Pastor, Rev. August Boelter, corner of Davidson and North Streets.

Mount Zion Baptist Church, Second and La- fayette Streets. Pastor, Rev. William Singleton.

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New Bethel Baptist Church, Beeler Street. Rev. Jacob R. Raynor, pastor.

Judson Baptist Church, Fletcher Avenue, re- ported disorganized. These last four churches, like the Tabernacle, do not appear in the authoritative lists of the Association, but do in the directory.

COLORED BAPTISTS.

Second Baptist Church, north side of Michigan, east of' West. Pastor, Rev. James M. Harris.

Corinthian Baptist Church, corner of North and Railroad Streets. Pastor, Rev. R. Bassett.

Olive Baptist Church, Hosbrook, between Grove and Pine Streets. Pastor, Rev. Anderson Simmons.

South Calvary Baptist Church, corner of Maple and Morris Streets. Rev. Thomas Smith, pastor.

PRESBYTERIANS.

First Presbyterian Church .- The sectarian dif- ferences which became so strongly marked in the dif- ferent denominations of Indianapolis, after separate organizations had been made and separate places of worship established, were measurably suppressed in the first years of the settlement, and union meetings were frequent in which all denominations joined. Nevertheless each had occasionally worship and ser- mons of its own. In August, 1822, as we have seen, the Baptists took the first steps to form a distinet denominational organization. The Presbyterians fol- lowed on the 23d of February, 1823. Previously they had been preached to by Rev. Ludlow G. Gaines, -the same as the " Ludwell Gains" and " Ludwell G. Gains" who entered several tracts of land in De- eatur township in 1821,-and during the year 1822 Rev. David C. Proctor was engaged as a missionary. The old school-house was the eradle of this church, as well as the First Baptist. The organization was made here on the 6th of March, 1823, after one or two pre- vious meetings, and on the 22d of March trustees were appointed. The formal constitution of the church was completed with fifteen members July 5, 1823. Subseriptions were at once obtained, and a lot pur- chased on the northwest corner of Market and Penn- sylvania Streets, where a frame building, the first church edifice in the place, was partially built the same year and finished the following summer, 1824,

at a cost for site and house of twelve hundred dollars. Mr. Gaines and Mr. Proctor both appear to have served as "stated supply" in the first days of the church's existence, and Mr. Proctor was pastor for a short time till the accession of Rev. George Bush in September, 1824, who continued till June, 1828, and remained in the town till March, 1829. Mr. Bush, as elsewhere noticed, became subsequently, ou remov- ing to the East, one of the most conspicuous heresiarehs in this country. His theologieal vagaries were equaled by his learning, however, and he always commanded attention and respect. It was thought by the com- munity that his eccentricities of faith had something to do with the severance of his pastoral relation to the First Presbyterian Church here. Succeeding him eame Rev. John R. Moreland, from 1829 to 1832. Rev. William A. Holliday succeeded him in 1832, continuing till 1835. A couple of years later he took charge of the old seminary, and figured promi- nently as one of the early educators of the city, as well as one of its most honored moral guides and instructors.

REV. WILLIAM ADAIR HOLLIDAY .- The parents of the subject of this biographical sketch were Sam- uel Holliday and Elizabeth Martin, both of Scotch- Irish ancestry. The former was associate judge of the Marion County Circuit Court, and officiated at the trial of Hudson, Sawyer, and the Bridges, in 1824, for murdering Indians. They are said to have been the only white men exeented for this crime. It was said by Oliver H. Smith, in his " Early In- dian Trials," " Judge Holliday was one of the best and most conscientious men I ever knew." Eliza- beth Martin Holliday was the daughter of Jacob and Catherine Martin, and the sister of Rev. William Martin, a prominent pioneer preacher of Indiana, familiarly known as Father Martin. William Adair Holliday, born July 16, 1803, in Harrison County, Ky., at the age of three years removed with his parents to Preble Connty, Ohio, and from thence in 1815 to Wayne County, Ind., after which Marion County, as then constituted, became the permanent residence of the family. The early years of Mr. Holliday were fraught with many of the depriva- tions incident to the life of the early settler. Few

WilliamA. Holliday

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opportunities for education were afforded, and the means for obtaining those advantages so limited as to make a thorough scholastie training a work re- quiring not only perseverance but often great sacri- fiee. William A. Holliday, being ambitious for in- struction superior to that offered at home, walked from his father's farm to Hamilton, Ohio, and there attended school. Subsequently he went to Blooming- ton, and from thence to the Miami University, at Oxford, Ohio, where he graduated in 1829. Having chosen the ministry as his life-work, he traveled on horseback to Princeton, N. J., and there pursued a theologieal course, after which he was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of New Brunswick. At the elose of his studies he preached with great ae- ceptability at Goshen, N. Y., to the congregation of which Dr. Fisk had been pastor, and would have been called to that important pastoral charge had he not discouraged the movement under a conviction that he ought to labor in the West. In 1832 he accepted an invitation to supply the First Presby- terian Church of Indianapolis, over which charge he ministered two years. Subsequently he devoted him- self to missionary labor among feeble churches in Indiana and Kentucky, combining the work of preaching with that of a teacher. From 1841 until his death Indianapolis was his home. He was in 1864 elected professor of Latin and modern languages in Hanover College, of which he had long been a trustee, and for two years rendered gratuitous service in that capacity, resigning in June, 1866. His own early struggles for a thorough education gave him a deep sympathy with young men similarly situated, and inspired him with a deep interest in their efforts to seeure opportunities for thorough education. A desire to promote this prompted him to give while yet living, out of a moderate estate, property which sold for twelve thousand dollars for the purpose of endow- ing a professorship of mental philosophy and logic in Hanover College. The following tribute is paid by Rev. Dr. J. H. Nixon, a former pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, to his scholastic attainments and piety : " His prayers and counsels and influence were always heartily given to every good work. He was a man of deep piety, of much learning, and 26

of most excellent spirit. His habits of study were continued to the close of his life. He read daily the Scriptures in the original. He kept well abreast of the religious literature of the day, and yet was a careful and thoughtful student of passing events. So modest was he that few except his intimate friends knew the treasures of learning he had gathered. He had been for several years stated clerk of Muneie Presbytery, and was a regular and valued member of the church courts. For many years he was a member of the congregation of the First Church of Indianapolis, of which he had for- merly acted as pastor, and was a most punctual and earnest attendant upon the ministry of the Word and the prayer-meetings, and ever ready to afford his pastor the benefit of his eounsels, sympathies, and prayers." Mr. Holliday was married to Miss Lueia Shaw Cruft, to whom were born seven children. Two of these died in infaney, and a third at the age of fourteen years. The four survivors are Rev. Wm. A. Holliday, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Belvidere, N. J., Margaret G. Holliday, a missionary of the Presbyterian board at Tabriz, Persia, John H. Holliday, founder and editor of · The Indianapolis News, and Francis T. Holliday, its publisher. The death of Rev. William A. Holliday occurred Dee. 16, 1866, in his sixty-fourth year, and that of Mrs. Holliday Jan. 17, 1881, in her seventy-sixth year. She was a native of Boston, coming from Puritan stock numbering in its branches many eminent and worthy people of New England. Her grandfather, with whom she lived for some years during childhood, was the Rev. William Shaw, for more than fifty years a pastor at Marshfield, Mass., and she was trained in all the rugged New England virtues. Two of her brothers settling on the Wabash at an carly day, she removed to Indiana in 1826, making her home at Terre Haute and Car- lisle until married.

Mrs. Holliday was a woman of rare strength and charm of character. Prominent and devoted in her religious life, among the foremost in the benevolent and missionary work which falls peculiarly to the hand of woman, she yet illustrated the words of Lord Lyttleton, that " a woman's noblest station is retreat,"

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and reserved for the sanetity of home and the nar. rower eirele of intimate and loving friends that fuller exhibition of a thoroughly developed and symmetrical life, which will eanse her memory to be cherished as a precious incense. In her girlhood she enjoyed only the ordinary common-school edu- cation incident to that period in the State of her birth ; but she was all her life an omnivorous reader, was endowed with unusual perception, and was withal a deep and logical thinker. With these faculties she became a woman of great and varied. information, of clear and strong judgment, and a ready and capable conversationalist and reasoner.

Cheerfulness and sympathy were prominent traits of her character, and these probably were the ex- planation of the strong hold she secured and retained upon her friends. Throughout her long life, cheek- ered with hardships inseparable from the lines in which it was cast, she ever had a smiling face, a warm hand, a sympathetic heart for everybody. In her Christian affection she was no "respecter of persons," and from every walk and station of life there came at her death the sincerest grief, because "a friend has fallen." One of the most unselfish of women, forgetting herself entirely to serve others, she received the reward of a devotion from her family, and of sineere affection from those who lived within the influence of her deeds, whieli was eon- spicuous because of its rarity.

Rev. James W. McKennan succeeded Mr. Holliday in February, 1835, and remained till 1840, when Rev. Phineas D. Gurley followed and remained till 1849. Mr. Gurley was the cotemporary and friend of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, pastor of the other Presbyterian Church,-separated and by no means generally friendly in those days like other seets,-and in after-years, as the pastor of a church in Washington City, attained a national reputation. For about two years the church remained without a pastor, and then Rev. John A. McClung, of Kentucky, was called. He was a brother of the distinguished lawyer, politi- cian, and duelist of Mississippi, Col. Alexander Mc- Clung, and for many years had himself been one of the leading lawyers of his State. At that time he was sceptical, and is said by his friends to have converted

himself by a close study of the prophecies. Whether this was true or not, he was more profoundly versed in the prophecies, and treated them more frequently and fully in his sermons, than any man that ever filled a pulpit in Indianapolis, or probably any other city. Io his younger days he compiled a volume of stories of the adventures of the pioneers of Kentucky called " Western Adventures," which was a very popular and widely-read book, though now out of print. Mr. MeClung remained here till 1855. Some years after- wards, probably during the war, he was drowned in the Niagara River,-some thought by suicide,-a few miles below Buffalo. His daughter was married to a son of Edmund Browning, of the old Washington Hall Hotel. Rev. T. L. Cunningham followed Mr. MeClung in October, 1855, and remained till 1858, marrying here the daughter of Governor John Brough, of Ohio, previously for many years president of the Madison Railroad here. For two years the ehurel remained without a pastor, when Rev. John Howard Nixon came in 1860 and remained till 1869. Rev. R. D. Harper succeeded him, and resigned in 1876 to take charge of a church in Philadelphia. The present pastor, Rev. Myron W. Reed, took charge of the church in 1876.

In the old frame church on Pennsylvania Street was conducted during most of its existenec the " Union Sunday-seheol," which formed so conspicu- ous a part of the moral agencies of the early settle- ment, and a still more conspicuous part of the celebration of the Fourth of July. The first meet- ing was held on the 6th of April, 1823, in Caleb Seudder's cabinet-shop, on the south side of the State-House Square. It continued through the sum- mer, till cold weather began to come in the fall, with about seventy pupils,-a very creditable number for a little village in the woods of not more than five hundred souls all told. In 1824 it was revived, and theneeforward carried on in the Presbyterian Church, constantly increasing in average attendance, and not suspended on account of the weather. The average ran up from forty the first year to fifty the next, sev- enty-five the third, one hundred and six the fourth, and oue hundred and fifty the fifth, by which time a library of one hundred and fifty volumes had been

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accumulated of the little marble-paper backed Sun- day-school literature of the "Shepherd of Salis- bury Plain" school. On April 24, 1829, the Meth- odists, having completed their first church, and the first brick church in the town, drew off to them- selves. The Baptists colonized their school in 1832, leaving the Presbyterians alone. In 1829 the Sun- day-schools formed a prominent feature of the cele- bration of the Fourth of July for the first time, and for thirty years following were either the chief or sole feature of that national ceremony.

The old church was abandoned in 1842, when a new brick was built on the corner of Circle Street and Market, the site of the present Journal building, during the pastorate of Rev. P. D. Gurley. After this the old house came to base uses. It was a carpenter- or carriage-shop for a little while, and an occasional assembly-hall for chance gatherings that could not go anywhere else. It was torn down or moved away in 1845 or 1846. The new church was dedicated May 6, 1843, and cost about cight thou- sand three hundred dollars. The present structure was begun in 1864. The west end, or chapel, con- taining Sunday-school rooms, lecture-room, social- room, and pastor's study, was completed and occupied in 1866. The main building and audience-hall were finished and opened for service Dec. 29, 1870. The present membership of the First Church is three hundred and sixty-five ; Sunday-school pupils, three hundred and eighty-one ; estimated value of property, one hundred and twenty thousand dollars.

Second Presbyterian Church .- This was better known, even in Indianapolis, for a good many years as " Beecher's Church." It was organized with fif- teen members Nov. 19, 1838, in the " lecture-room," or main upper room, of the old seminary. Henry Ward Beecher came as its first pastor July 31, 1839. The old seminary room continued to be the place of worship for over a year. On the 4th of October, 1840, the frame building erected for it on the corner of Circle and Market Streets, directly opposite to that occupied a year or two later by the new First Church, was completed and dedicated, though the basement- room was occupied previously. Thus the Second Church was fully launched on what has proved to

be a prosperous and beneficent career. The division was not the effect of any local or personal dissension, but grew out of the same influences that produced the separation into the " Old" and "New" School Churches. Mr. Beccher made this church, during seven years of its life and his, the most conspicuous in the State. In 1843 or thereabouts he delivered in this church on Sunday nights the " Lectures to Young Men," which gave him his first reputation abroad, and which were soon after republished by an Eastern house. About the same time he conducted a revival, in which he secured the conversion of some of the " fast" young men about town. A year or two later he spoke out on the slavery issue with so unequivocal an utterance that some of his parishion- ers of an adverse political inclination got up and walked out of the house. A few left the church altogether. At the same time, and, in fact, all the time, he waged relentless war on liquor drinking and selling, following up the reform movement begun here by the " Washingtonians" under Mr. Matthews. In the course of this discussion he was brought into col- lision with a Mr. Comegys, of Lawrenceburg, then an extensive distiller, but previously a clerk of the eminent merchant, Nicholas McCarty, and a well- known citizen here. The debate grew so acrimonious that the distiller hinted at a personal interview and a physical discussion, to which Mr. Beccher replied (the correspondence appeared in the Journal) that if his antagonist wanted to fight, he (Beecher) " would take a woman and a Quaker for his seconds." Mr. Beecher left the church early in the fall of 1847, closing his pastorate on the 19th of September.

Rev. Clement E. Babb succeeded Mr. Beecher in the Second Church May 7, 1848, and remained till the 1st of January, 1853. Mr. Babb was succeeded by Rev. Thornton A. Mills, after an interval of a year, Jan. 1, 1854, remaining till Feb. 9, 1857. He was chosen secretary of the committee on education of the General Assembly, the duties of which required his residence in New York. He died there suddenly June 19, 1867. Rev. George P. Tindall succeeded, Aug. 6, 1857, and remained till Sept. 27, 1863. Rev. Hanford A. Edson, now of the Memorial

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Church, followed Mr. Tindall, Jan. 17, 1864. Rev. William A. Bartlett served the church for several years in the interval since Mr. Edson left it for his later charge, and Rev. Arthur D. Pearson succeeded him for a short time. The present pastor is Rev. James McLeod. The old edifice, on Cirele and Mar- ket Streets, was abandoned in December, 1867, when the chapel of the new one, northwest corner of Penn- sylvania and Vermont Streets, was ready for occu- pancy. This building, one of the finest in the city or the State, was begun in 1864, the corner-stone laid May 14, 1866, the chapel occupied Dee. 22, 1867, and the completed edifice dedicated Jan. 9, 1870. The value of the property is now probably one hundred and twenty thousand dollars. The membership is eight hundred and four; Sunday- school pupils, six hundred and thirty-nine.

Third Presbyterian Church was organized by the Presbytery of Muncie, at the residence of Caleb Seudder, Sept. 23, 1851, twenty-one members of the old First Church getting letters of dismission for that purpose. The leading men were James Blake, Caleb Scudder, John W. Hamilton, Horatio C. Newcomb, Nathaniel Bolton, Dr. William Clinton Thompson, and Charles B. Davis. They first met for worship in Temperance Hall,-now the News building,-and erected the present church, northeast corner of Illinois and Ohio Streets, in 1859. Rev. David Stevenson was the first pastor. He has been succeeded by Rev. George Heckman, Rev. Robert Sloss, and Rev. H. M. Morey. Just at this time the church, now known as the " Tabernacle," lias no pastor. The membership is three hundred and thirty-five. The Sunday-school, organized Oct. 26, 1851, has two hundred and ninety- five pupils ; the value of the property, about sixty thousand dollars.

Fourth Presbyterian Church .- This is a colony of the Second Church as the Third is of the First Church, and was formed almost at the same time. The Fourth was organized on the 30th of November, 1851, by twenty-four members of the Second Church, who were given letters of dismission. Samuel Mer- rill, Lawrence M. Vance, John L. Ketcham, Alex- ander H. Davidson, Alexander Graydon, Horace Bassett, Joseph K. Sharpe, Henry S. Kellogg were

among the prominent members in this organization. The first pastor was Rev. George M. Maxwell, of Marietta, Ohio. In 1857, September 13th, a fine church edifice was completed and dedicated on the southwest corner of Delaware and Market Streets, now forming part of the Baldwin Block, the congre- gation selling it a dozen years ago and moving up town to the northwest corner of Pratt and Pennsyl- vania Streets. Mr. Maxwell retired from ill-health in November, 1868, and was succeeded by Rev. A. L. Brooks in October, 1859. He remained till 1862, and was succeeded by Rev. Charles H. Marshall. The present pastor is Rev. A. H. Carrier. Membership, two hundred and twenty; Sunday-school scholars, two hundred and ninety ; value of property, probably sixty thousand dollars.

Fifth Presbyterian Church is a colony of the Third, which purchased a frame mission Sunday- school house on Blackford Street, between Vermont and Michigan, in the fall of 1866, and in October the Indianapolis Presbytery authorized the organization of the Fifth Presbyterian Church here, with eighteen members,-twelve from the Third, one from the First, and five from churches out of the city. The present house, on the southwest corner of Michigan and Black- ford Streets, was erected in 1873. The first pastor was the Rev. William B. Chamberlin. Present pas- tor, Rev. Joshua R. Mitchell. Membership, two hun- dred and ninety-four; Sunday-school pupils, three hundred and eighty; value of property, probably fifteen thousand dollars.

Sixth Presbyterian Church .- This church was organized Nov. 20, 1867, with twenty-one members, and a handsome brick house built on the northeast corner of Union and McCarty Streets in a few years after. The first pastor was Rev. J. B. Brandt, so long secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association. He had two or three successors, but the pastorate is now vacant. The membership is seventy-five; the Sunday-school pupils, one hundred and sixty-two; value of property, probably ten thousand dollars.

Seventh Presbyterian Church .- This was origi- nally a mission branch of the First Church on Elm Street near Cedar. It was the suggestion of an old member of that body, William R. Craig, who hoped

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to reduce to better order a troublesome juvenile pop- ulation of the southeast quarter of the city by the influence of a Sunday-school. The scheme worked well, and the mission Sunday-school, established in an old earpenter-shop in 1865, grew into a mission church and a new frame building, on a lot donated by the late Calvin Fletcher and his partners in a traet of city property, in December of that year. The parent church gave Rev. W. W. Sickles as stated supply at the outset, but in 1867, November 27, a church was organized with twenty-three members. Rev. C. M. Howard was the first pastor, who resigned in 1869, and was succeeded for a time by Rev. J. B. Brandt, but finally in 1870 by Rev. Charles H. Raymond. Rev. L. G. Hay preceded him for a few months. Pastorate vacant. Membership, two hundred and fifty-six ; Sunday-school pupils, three hundred ; value of property, about three thousand dollars.

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History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 70

Author: Sulgrove, Berry R. (Berry Robinson), 1828-1890 Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 942

Author: Sulgrove, Berry R. (Berry Robinson), 1828-1890
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 942