USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Historical Sketches and Eary Reminiscences of Hamilton County, Ohio > Part 13
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Sarah S. Day.
Wm. Cochran.
Reuben McConnel.
Rhoda Day.
Rebecca Cochran.
John Earl.
Annis Day.
Jesse Crain.
Joseph Smith.
Samuel Day.
Mr. Thomson resigned his charge in 1832, and removed to Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he resided until the time of his decease, which occurred in 1859, at the ripe age of eighty-six years.
After the resignation of Mr Thomson the church remained without a pastor until October, 1833, dur- ing which time the pulpit was occasionally filled by the Revs. Sayers Gazley, William Graham, and Benjamin Graves.
In 1834 the Rev. Adrian Aten was called to the
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Stephen Schooley.
Hesther Field.
Michael H. Oveilbiss. Jacob Field, Jr.
Mary Hailman.
Elizabeth Cregar.
Stephen Stibbins.
Jacob Cregar.
Elizabeth Cain.
Daniel Root.
218 EARLY CHURCH ORGANIZATIONS.
pastoral charge of the church. He had preached there several months previous, and was elected on the 22d day of March, and installed on the 11th day of April following. The old meeting- house was abandoned during this year, and on the 7th day of November they worshiped for the first time in the new church, Mr. Aten occupying a carpenter's bench as a pulpit, and the seats from the old church serving the con- gregation as pews, but the building was not fully completed until 1838. In the mean time the society held its meetings in the old log school-house, which stood east of the old Methodist church until May, 1838, when the church was finished and permanently occupied.
It was during Mr. Aten's pastoral charge that the great controversy, between the old and new school parties, arose in the church, or rather reached its culminating point, for it had its origin far back, and amid the conflicts arising from the Kentucky revivals. The liberal sentiment engendered at that time, and for so many years lying dormant and inactive in the church, sprang up anew, and became a formidable element of faith to at least one-half the adherents of Presbyterianism, and over which, for several years, there was carried on such bitter controversy between the high and low church men, or the old and new school parties, as finally led to that grand division and separation of the factions in 1838. But happily,
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EARLY CHURCH ORGANIZATIONS. 219
after a separation of more than a quarter of a cen- tury, the two associations united and consolidated under a modified form of the Calvanistic faith, and harmony and prosperity crowned the union.
Mr. Aten's pastoral labors terminated on the 1st of April, 1841, and in September following the Rev. J. M. Stone, of the Oxford Presbytery, accepted the ministerial charge. He was earnest and efficient in his labors, and during the eight years of his ministry there were many accessions to the church. In the spring of 1843 thirty-two were added to the roll of membership as the immediate fruits of a great revival. Soon after this, however, and before the termination of Mr. Stone's ministry, the harmony of the church was again disturbed. It was at this time that the agitation of the question of slavery stirred the country into a commotion of excitement, rending political parties asunder, and shaking the churches in angry discord. The controversy in the Springfield church rose to a hight beyond control or reconciliation, and a number of the anti-slavery members, believing it a christian duty to speak in condemnation of slavery, as a sin to be held intol- erable in a christian church, and incompatible with the christian faith, dissolved their connection with the society, where, they alleged, the freedom of speech was denied them, and where, if not upheld, at least the advocacy of slavery was not condemned.
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Among the seceders may be named Edmund Glenn and family, Robert and John Watson and their wives, Archy Brown and wife, Thomas Q. Skillman and family, William Hole and wife, and Battis Rusk and family. There were others, but the above are all that can now be obtained.
On the 5th day of June, 1849, Mr. Stone, at his own request, was relieved from the pastoral charge of the church, and was succeeded by the Rev. George P. Bergen.
Mr. Bergen began his labors in August, 1849, but was not installed as pastor until the 1st of May, 1850. He left Springdale in 1857, and died in Birmingham, Iowa, of heart disease, April 11, 1876, in the 56th year of his age, and 27th of his ministry. After the retirement of Mr. Bergen the church was supplied for a few months by the Rev. L. D. Potter, of Glendale Female College, and formerly from New Jersey.
In 1858 the Rev. T. E. Hughes was called as regular supply, and continued his labors until 1866. During the last year of his service the church was favored with an interesting revival, which added thirty-four members to the roll.
On the 29th day of July, 1866, the Rev. Wm. H. James, the present pastor, a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, and a licentiate of the Pres- bytery of Passaic, New Jersey, assumed the minis- terial charge.
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Without ostentation, but with unremitting labor, Mr. James has served the church for more than fourteen years, and, if a steady increase of member- ship and uninterrupted harmony in the church and among the congregation are to be takan as evidence, his ministerial labors have been crowned with more than ordinary success. He has surely secured to himself the confidence and esteem, not only of his congregation, but the entire community in which he resides.
HOPEWELL, OR MONTGOMERY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
The records of this church have long since been lost, leaving its early history in obscurity and doubt. Tradition points to an old log school-house that, as early as 1798, stood on the bank of a little stream known as Sycamore creek, a mile and a half north of the present town of Montgomery, where the first religious meetings in the neighborhood were held, and from this stream the church that was soon after organized derived its name, "Sycamore Presbyterian church." The date of its organization cannot at this time be ascertained, indeed but few of the names of its first members are held even in tradition.
It is said, and with much probability of truth, that the Reverend James Kemper preached in the school-
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222 EARLY CHURCH ORGANIZATIONS.
house above referred to in 1798, and possibly a so- ciety was organized during that year; but it was not till 1802 that a meeting-house was built, which was located on the grounds now known as Hopewell Cemetery, about a mile and a quarter north of the present town of Montgomery.
Mr. Kemper was the regular supply at Duck Creek and Round Bottom churches from 1796 until 1806, but one-third of his time was given to newly settled points in the neighborhood, at his discretion, Syca- more, it is said, being one of them. Not until 1801, however, was he appointed by Presbytery as regular supply at Hopewell.
The Rev. Mr. Monfort, who has given the subject of "The Early Organizations of Presbyterian Churches North of the Ohio " great thought and labor, says, on page 8 of his printed discourse : "Next to the First Church of Cincinnati, and the churches now called Pleasant Ridge and Montgomery, Springfield requires notice," thus giving the Montgomery church chrono- logical precedence over that of Springfield. In this respect, however, Mr. Monfort is probably mistaken.
The first settlers of the neighborhood, where Sycamore Church was built, were Cornelius and David Snyder, Jacob Felter, Ironimus Felter, David Felter, Nathaniel Terwileger, and Jacob Rosa. They emigrated from Ulster County, New York, and were all related to each other. Snyder, Rosa, and .
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Terwileger, each having married sisters of the Felter brothers. They effected a settlement in 1794. Sny- der purchased the whole of section 4, now of Syca- more township, portions of which he sold to his brothers-in-law Rosa and the Felter brothers.
Mr. Terwileger located on the south half of section 3, and in 1801 purchased the north half of the sec- tion, and was the founder and proprietor of the town of Montgomery, the plat of which was recorded in 1802. These pioneer settlers were also the founders of the old church, first known as the "Sycamore Presbyterian Church," the name of which was changed to "Hopewell " in 1803.
It is quite probable that there were other persons who belonged to the first organization of this old church, but the following are all that are now known as its founders, viz : Cornelius and Mary Snyder, Jacob Felter and wife, David Felter and wife, Jacob and Katy Rosa, Mathias and Margaret Rosa, Ironi- mus Felter and wife, David and Mary Snyder, and Nathaniel and Ann Terwileger.
Mr. Kemper continued to preach for this church until 1808, after which it was without a pastor for a time, perhaps a year or more.
It is not positively known who were the first elders, but tradition points to Cornelius Snyder and Jacob Felter as two of them, and they probably remained as such until the great division of 1819.
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Mr. Kemper went from Ohio to Fleming county, Kentucky, where he remained until 1819, and on his return to Ohio accepted the pastoral charge of the first Presbyterin church at Walnut Hills, where he labored until his death, which occurred in 1834. He was a Virginian by birth, born in Fauquier county, November 23, 1753. In 1786 he emigrated to Ken- tucky, locating near Danville, and soon afterwards, at the age of thirty-four years, commenced his studies for the ministry. After four years of labor and trial, he was licensed in April, 1791, and was immediately sent to Cincinnati, where he organized the first Pres- byterian church in Ohio-a number of his descend- ents are now living in and around Cincinnati.
Daniel Hayden was the next pastor of Hopewell church. Born in Redstone, Pennsylvania, April 9, 1781, he was educated at Jefferson College, and grad- uated in 1805. In 1807 he came to Ohio, and moved to Montgomery in 1808, soon after which he began his labors at Hopewell church. He was a licentiate of Erie Presbytery, and on the 17th of November, 1810, was regularly ordained and installed at Hopewell, Joshua L. Wilson preaching the sermon, and Matthew G. Wallace delivering the charge. He remained in the pastoral charge until 1819, when he assumed full ministerial charge of the church at Pleasant Ridge, where he continued to preach the remainder of his life.
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EARLY CHURCH ORGANIZATIONS.
Much of the time, during Mr. Hayden's ministerial labors, was spent by him in teaching school. He taught at Montgomery for a number of years, and also at Reading for several terms, and is remembered as a stern, severe teacher and rigid disciplinarian. He also preached frequently at the school-house in Read- ing, at which place, although no organized society had then been established, the predomnient religious senti- ment was Presbyterian. Mr. Hayden was regarded as an able minister, but was by no means an eloquent or polished speaker; indeed, he was often abrupt in his delivery, and curt and severe in speech. He purchased a small farm in the south - west quarter of section 21, Sycamore township, where he resided up to the time of his decease, which occurred August 27, 1835. He left eight children, viz .: Thomas, Nancy, John, James Cob, Sarah, Jane, Mary, and Joseph B.
During the ministerial charge of Mr. Kemper Hopewell church escaped, in a great measure, the dissensions growing out of the Kentucky revivals. He was a rigid Calvinist, and among the first to oppose those irregularities known as the exercises, and kept the churches, over which he had charge, Duckcreek, Roundbottom, and Hopewell, measurably free from the New Light doctrines, and yet enough of these liberal ideas were diffused among the mem- bers to form the germ of future trouble. Mr. Hay-
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226 EARLY CHURCH ORGANIZATIONS.
den, although strictly orthodox, could not prevent a growing disaffection in the church.
When faith in the doctrines of Calvinism, especially that of election, is once shaken, or yielded up, and God's leading attributes, infinite wisdom, power, and goodness retained, there is no escape from universa- lism, or its kindred ideas. This was substantially the case with many of the members at Hopewell.
Just enough of these free-will doctrines were enter- tained to furnish food for thought and reflection, and having once departed from the Westminster confes- sion, each individual wandered at will amidst the undefined and erratic ideas of the New Lights, which assumed different forms in different localities. At Turtle creek it ran into Shakerism; at Springfield it inclined to Unitarianism and Congregationalism ; while at Hopewell and at Carpenter's run it assumed all shades of doctrine, from free grace Trinitarianism to extreme Universalism.
While this disaffection was growing at Hope- well, the same or like troubles were aggitating the Baptist church at Carpenter's run, in the adjoining neighborhood, each dissenting faction stimulating the other until both churches were disrupted through angry disputations, for the most part upon questions now considered non essential. Soon after Mr. Hay- den's retirement from Hopewell, these long-continued disputes terminated in a division of the church, or
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Price, 50 Cents.
PART VI.
HISTORICAL SKETCHES AND
EARLY REMINISCENCES OF
HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO
INCLUDING
A BRIEF HISTORY OF A FEW OF THE EARLY CHURCHES AND OF THE SETTLEMENT
OF THE TOWNS
READING, MONTGOMERY, CARTHAGE, SPRINGDALE, SHARON, MOUNT HEALTHY, AND LOCKLAND.
TOGETHER WITH BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF SOME OF THE EARLY SETTLERS OF THE
MILLCREEK VALLEY,
BY
J. G. OLDEN.
ATE STORICAL
CINCINNATI, O. H. WATKIN, PRINTER, 119 FIFTH STREET, BET. VINE AND RACE, 1882.
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rather, there were several factions that seceded, and formed new organizations or societies, based upon their own peculiar doctrines. One class of its mem- bers organized a New Light church, and built a stone meeting house, about one mile east of Montgomery : the old building still remains, though the church has long since become extinct. The church building was afterwards converted into a grist-mill, and more re- cently into a factory for the manufacture of playing- cards.
Another class of its members joined the body of Presbyterians, known as Seceders, and built a meet- ing-house a short distance north of what is now the Sixteen - Mile Stand in Sycamore township. This church is still in existence, and is known as the "Sycamore church." Still another body of the mem- bers joined in a petition to the Presbytery, at its session in 1820, praying for permission to organize a Presbyterian society, to be known as "Somerset Presbyterian Church." The petition was granted, and the church organized. They built a meeting- house about five miles north-east of Montgomery, in Warren county, near its southern line. This church is also a living organization, the Rev. Mr. Elliot having pastoral charge over it, as he is also the present supply at Sycamore church. And yet an- other portion of the members of Hopewell seceded, and afterwards organized the Universalist church of
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Montgomery. Among these were the Snyders, the Felters, the Rosas, the Buckinghams, and others. In consequence of these divisions many of the old families of the neighborhood became separated. The wife and daughters generally remaining stedfast in the old faith, while the husband and sons wandered off into new and speculative doctrines, and strange and peculiar modes of worship.
Notwithstanding the numerous factions that went off from the old church, it still survived, weakened to be sure, and unable to sustain a settled pastor, yet with sufficient vitality to keep up its meetings and employ a minister occasionally. From 1819 until 1822 the church had no regular supply, but there was preaching at irregular periods by the Revs. Hesekiah Hull and Benjamin Boyd.
In 1821 the old church was abandoned, and the meetings were held in the academy building, in Montgomery, until the new church was built in 1830, which, though occupied, was not fully completed until 1833.
In 1822 the Cincinnati Presbytery held its first session, and a petition went up from Hopewell and Somerset churches, asking that the Rev. Ludwell G. Gaines be the supply of the two churches two-thirds of his time. The petition being agreed to, he ac- cepted the ministerial charge, and was regularly in- stalled on the 7th day of May, 1822.
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EARLY CHURCH ORGANIZATIONS.
Mr. Gaines was a native of Culpepper county, Virginia. Thrown upon his own resources in early life, he managed, by great industry and perseverence, to secure a fair classical and theological education, and was licensed by the Miami Presbytery in 1820, being then twenty-seven years of age. IIe was a man of fair talent and ability. As a minister not eloquent, but earnest and sincere. IIe closed his labors at Hopewell on the 2d day of May, 1834. He preached afterwards at Bethel, Goshen, Williams- burg, Mt. Carmal, and Cumminsville, and died in 1861, after laboring in the ministry for more than forty years. Theophilus Gaines, the lawyer, and at one time the prosecuting attorney of Hamilton county,. was his son. After the release of Mr. Gaines the church was again without a minister for a year or more, but had occasional preaching by different min- isters.
In the spring of 1835 the Rev. J. C. Harrison became the stated supply, and remained for one year, after which there was again a vacancy until Septem- ber, 1837, when the Rev. Daniel K. McDonald, from the Oxford Presbytery, accepted the pulpit. He was a man of great ability and fine address. IIe remained at Hopewell till 1842, and was succeeded by the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, of Salem Presbytery, who was installed April 17, 1844, and remained until 1347. Ile too was a man of fine education and great
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talent, and afterwards filled with honor many high positions, being president of Hanover College, Indiana, and of Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, and at one time pastor of Arch street church, Philadelphia, still later of the Second church of Baltimore, and more recently pastor of the First Presbyterian church of Peoria, Illinois.
Another two years' vacancy followed the retire- ment of Mr. Edwards, the pulpit being filled tempo- rarily by the Rev. Gilbert M. Hair, of Kentucky, who, in 1849, became the regular pastor, and served the church till 1852, when he retired at his own re- quest. Under his charge the church was very pros- perous, having increased both in membership and in spiritual life and vitality.
In the spring of 1852 Hopewell and Reading churches were united under the pastoral charge of Rev. James H. Gill, a man of sterling sense and purity of character, but whose failing health would not endure the labors of ministering over two churches so remote and difficult of access to each other, and having a pressing call to go into a field of labor supposed to be less arduous, he retired from Hopewell and Reading in the spring of 1854.
Mr. Gill was an intimate and valued friend of the writer, and at his earnest request he wrote, during the winter of 1878, the following brief memoir of his life.
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"I am a retired minister of the Presbyterian church, being too infirm to bear longer the labor of the pastoral work.
" My father moved to Ohio from Washington county, Pennsylvania, in 1804, purchased and settled on what has since been known as ' Rose Hill' farm, on the top of the Four Mile hill, now in Avondale, and in about 1807 built the house recently removed by Mr. Robert Mitchell. There I was born, on the 29th day of April, 1808. In 1813 my father, having sold his farm for fifteen dollars per acre, moved into what afterwards became Union county, now Colum- bus, Ohio. There I grew up to manhood. When twenty-one years old I entered upon a course of col- lege education, but in the junior years of the course my health gave way, and I was compelled to abandon the future prosecution of my college course. In truth I left college not expecting to live twelve months.
"Being relieved from the toils of college study, in which I had applied myself with great energy, and had taken great pleasure, and, with the benefit now of out door exercise, I soon so far recruited that hope awakened that some years of my life might yet be in reserve for me. There being just then a vacancy in the clerkship of both the supreme court and of that of common pleas, I was chosen to fill both. After six years in these offices, with the purpose of studying theology for the ministry, I resigned my appoint-
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232 EARLY CHURCH ORGANIZATIONS.
ment, having yet two years to run. At the close of the last term in which I served the court of common pleas, Hon. Joseph R. Swan, who was the presiding judge all the time I was in the service of the court, very unexpectedly to me, in the presence of the mem- bers of the bar of the district and of the crowded court house, in behalf of the court and bar, pro- nounced such a eulogy on my fidelity in the office, that the remembrance of it even now almost makes me blush. After three years of close study in the department of theology I entered the ministry, and spent, in active work in that calling, without respite, one-third of a century, and nearly all in the Miami valley.
"In the spring of 1853 I came into this vicinity, taking charge of the churches of Reading and Hope- well. In connection with these two churches I spent one exceedingly pleasant year, and it is believed not without useful results. This pleasant relationship was interrupted in the spring of 1854 by a pressing call from the Board of Home Missions of the Presbyte- rian church upon me to go into the service of the board as a traveling agent. Twelve years afterwards I returned and took charge of the church of Reading, and continued with that church until its union with the church of Lockland. This union was the result of the great re-union of the old and new school branches of the Presbyterian church.
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"The accumulated labor necessary for the united church, for which union I had most fervently labored, rendered it also necessary that with my health I should seek a field requiring less physical labor. After laboring five years in Rising Sun, Indiana, and it had become necessary for me to cease the active work of the ministry, the heart of myself and wife turned to this people, in the midst of whom we might pleasantly close the remainder of our days.
"JAMES H. GILL."
About a year after writing the above Mr. Gill closed his days on earth. Though quite feeble and subject to occasional attacks of prostration, his friends were not prepared for his death in a manner so sud- den. He was taken to his bed at his home in Lock- land, and passed rapidly away, dying on the morning of the 9th of August, 1879, after a brief illness of four days.
Mr. Gill was succeeded in the pastoracy of Reading and Hopewell churches by the Rev. John Stewart, who continued his labors till 1857. He was followed by the Rev. John McRea for one year, after which Hopewell was irregularly supplied until 1860, when it was again united with the Somerset church, under the charge of the Rev. E. Mckinney, who continued until December, 1861, when he accepted a chaplaincy in the army, and resigned his relations with these churches.
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In 1862 Hopewell made a call upon the Rev. Thos. F. Cortleyou, its present pastor, who had just then been released from the charge of the church at Wil- liamsburg, and on the 9th of May, 1862, he was installed pastor of Hopewell and Somerset churches; over those churches he continued the ministerial charge until 1872, since which time his entire labors have been devoted to Hopewell, or, as now called, Montgomery Presbyterian church, the name having been changed by act of Presbytery at the request of the congregation, in May, 1868.
The following are the names of the elders of the church as far as can now be ascertained, the first two named are included by the writer upon mere tradi- tional authority :
Cornelius Snider and David Felter, from the first organization perhaps until 1819; Christopher Hay- den and Jonathan Whitaker, in 1808, Mr. Whitaker perhaps a few years earlier; James Jones, in 1809 until his death, which occurred November 30, 1834; Daniel Skinner and Samson McCollough, elected in 1817; Samuel Irwin, in 1822; William Comback, 1824 until 1836; Josiah E. McMeens, from 1830 to 1840; Hiram Tice, in 1830; Elisha Bodine and Rob- ert Jones, elected August 11, 1832, Bodine left the bounds of the church in 1836, and Jones in 1863; Israel Brown, 1837; Robert Davison, John T. Jones, and William Brown, who went to Pleasant Ridge
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