History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 44

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co.
Number of Pages: 666

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the pulpit for six weeks, others following him until the winter of 1838-9, when the eminent W. H. Channing preached with so much acceptance that a call was ex- tended to him in March, and May 10, 1839, his installa- tion took place. He resigned in January, 1844, after a brilliant pastorate; and James H. Perkins, a lay-member, occupied the pulpit for a time. The Rev. C. J. Fenner was pastor from June to November, 1846, and Mr. Per- kins became regular pastor, remaining until his death, in December, 1849. In 1850 Rev. A. A. Livermore became pastor, and two years afterward the western Unitarian conference was organized in this city. The Rev. Moncure D. Conway came from Washington city to the pastorate in 1856, under whose ministry a portion of the members withdrew, to form a second Unitarian society, under the name of the Church of the Redeemer. This secured a building on the southwest corner of Mound and Sixth streets, and was ministered to by a number of famous divines-as H. W. Bellows, A. P. Peabody, Thomas Hill, Dr. William G. Eliot, and others, and by the Hon. Horace Mann. Rev. A. D. Mayo was its pastor from 1863 to 1872, and was succeeded by the Rev. Charles Noyes.

Mr. Conway resigned in November, 1862. Rev. C. G. Ames occupied the pulpit during the most of the next year. February, 1864, the church building and site were sold, and the society met for a time in the Library Hall, on Vine street. Revs. Sidney H. Morse, David A. Was- son, Edward C. Towne, and H. W. Brown from time to time ministered here. September 19, 1865, authority for the purchase of the lot on the northeast corner of Eighth and Plum streets was given. Rev. Thomas Vickers, after- wards librarian of the public library and now rector of the university of Cincinnati, began his pastoral work with the church January 6, 1867. For some years services were held in Hopkins Hall, corner of Elm and Fourth streets; but on the sixth of November, 1870, the new building on Plum and Eighth was dedicated with a ser- mon by Rev. Robert Collyer, of Chicago, and dedicatory prayer by Rabbi Dr. Max Lilienthal, of the Hebrew con- gregation of the children of Israel, reformed. Mr. Vick- ers preached his farewell sermon April 5, 1874, to accept his appointment in the public library, and was succeeded January 19, 1876, by the present pastor, Rev. Charles W. Wendte, from Chicago here. Meanwhile, December 29, 1875, the two Unitarian societies had been reunited under the original name of the First Congregational church of Cincinnati, and was meeting in the Mound street temple. The Plum street church was refitted in 1879, and on Easter Sunday of that year was re-dedi- cated and has since been continuously occupied. Janu- uary 21, 1880, a celebration was had of the fiftieth anni- versary of the founding of the church. An historical sketch was prepared for it by Mr. John D. Caldwell, sec- retary of the Cincinnati Pioneer association and a mem- ber of the society, from which the foregoing account has been abridged.

Unitarianism has a powerful auxiliary in the Unity club, . "a society for self-culture, social entertainment, and help- fulness," which meets in the church parlors on alternate

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Wednesday evenings, and conducts every winter a series of Sunday-afternoon lectures in Pike's opera house. For this some of the best American and foreign speakers have been secured by a nominal admission fee, and the surplus devoted to benevolent objects. The Ladies' Aid associ- ation, of which Mrs. Henry C. Whitman is president, and the Missionary society, which has Judge Manning F. Force for president and the Hon. Alphonso Taft and Mr. George Thurston for vice-presidents, are also useful arms of the work of this church.

CONGREGATIONALISM.

The first society of orthodox Congregationalists which is still in existence, is the Lawrence street church, which is also sometimes designated as the Welsh Con- gregational church. It was founded in 1840, and has its meeting house on the west side of Lawrence street, at the East End, between Third and Fourth.

The Vine street Congregational church and society were, in their origin, the direct outgrowth of the anti-slavery agitation of half a century ago. Their manual to this day bears the brief but emphatic statement: "The cause which originated this church movement was pulpit defense of 'American slavery,' drawn from the Bible, and denunciation of those who agitated the subject of emancipation." The move- ment thus referred to was the application of several mem- bers of the First Presbyterian church of this city, April 5, 1831, to the Cincinnati Presbytery, then in session, to be organized as the Sixth Presbyterian church of Cincin- nati. The request was promptly granted, and the organ- ization effected in the meeting house of the First church, four days thereafter. The original members were Amos and Mary Blanchard, A. F. and Louisa Robinson, Rev. Franklin T. and Catharine Vail, Rev. Ralph and Sophia Cushman, Chancy P. and Lydia Barnes, William S. Mer- rell, Daniel Chute, Thomas L. Paine, Betsey H. Wash- burn, Lewis Bridgman, Harriet Treat, William Holyoke, Horace L. Barnum, Daniel K. Leavitt, Osmond Cogs- well. The pronounced anti-slavery position of the new church brought into its work, if not into membership, a considerable number of the students of Lane seminary, who were about this time developing an aggressive sort of Abolitionism. A few years afterward, in 1838, it was flatly

Resolved, That no candidate applying for admission to the fellow- ship of this church will be received by the session, who either holds slaves or openly avows his belief that the holding or using men as prop- erty is agreeable to God.

When the church subsequently went into Congrega- tionalism, this resolve was unanimously re-affirmed.

Long before the vote, the society had taken equally positive action upon temperance. The following resolu- tion is said to represent the very first act of the new church :

Resolved, That all persons admitted to this church adopt the princi- ple of entire abstinence from the use of ardent spirits, except for medi- cine.

Wing's school-house, where the Gazette building now stands, was the first meeting place. Worship was subse- quently attended in the Bazaar, the college building, the

Universalist church on Walnut, Burke's church (the old First Presbyterian) on Vine, and the Mechanics' insti- tute. At last, February 18, 1836, the church property owned by the Baptists on Sixth street was bought for eight thousand dollars, and here services were held for more than twelve years, when they were transferred, Oc- tober 22, 1848, to the lecture room of the fine edifice built and still occupied by the society, on Vine street, near Ninth.

The Rev. Asa Mahan, well known as a writer upon logic and other topics, and since president of Adrian col- lege, Michigan, was the first pastor, August 25, 1831, to May 1, 1835. His successors have been: H. Norton, June 1, 1835, to October- 24, 1837; Artimus Bullard, about four months from December 1, 1837; Jonathan Blanchard, March, 1838, to November 9, 1845; C. B. Boynton, September, 1846, to March 27, 1856, Novem- ber 18, 1860, to March 1, 1865, and October, 1873, to February 1I, 1877; Starr H. Nichols, June, 1865, to January 1, 1867; H. D. Moore, April 17, 1867, to May, 1873; and C. H. Daniels, December 20, 1877, to this writing.

November 10, 1846, a unanimous vote was had to change to Congregationalism, and reorganize as the Sixth street Congregational church of Cincinnati. A change of name was soon afterwards made to the Vine street Con- gregational church, under an act of the legislature. Un- der its auspices mainly were organized the Western Free Missionary society, now merged into the American Mis- sionary association, and the Reform Book and Tract so- ciety, now flourishing as the Western Tract society. About fifteen hundred persons have been received into its membership since the beginning, a number of whom have entered the Chistian ministry. Revivals have oc- curred in 1834, 1838, 1840, 1842, 1853, 1858, 1863, 1870, and 1877, the first and third of which brought each seventy-two into the church. Its discipline has been practical and thorough, and many have been cut off from its communion for transgressions scarcely noticed in some other churches. In the words of its manual, "an un- trammeled pulpit, and the application of the gospel to every known sin, have been and still are fixed principles of action in the life of this church." And we cannot better close this review than in the words of one of its former pastors, in his historical discourse of January 7, 1877:

After so many years ef varied experiences, here stands Vine street church to-day-not weaker, not stronger-not despised, but respected for her firm defense of the right ; stronger than ever, incumbered with no debt, and ready, if baptized with the Holy Ghost, for still nobler work.

The George street Presbyterian church, which was col- onized by thirty-seven members from the Second Presby- terian church in 1843, became the First Orthodox Con- gregational in 1847. It subsequently took the title of the Seventh street Congregational church, and has kept the right to the name since by remaining upon that street, where its house of worship is, on the north side, between Plum street and Central avenue. The corner-stone of this building was laid July 16, 1845, with principal ser- vices by the Rev. Dr. Lyman Beecher. The basement

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was occupied the same year; but the whole was not ready for dedication until May 10, 1849, when the appropriate ceremonies took place.

The Columbia and Storrs churches, with the Presby- terian and other old churches in Columbia and Cum- minsville, will be noticed in chapters which treat of the suburbs or townships.

LUTHERAN.

The pioneer church of this faith has already been no- ticed very briefly. The Germans who first came to Cin- cinnati were mostly Lutherans and Presbyterians; and in 1814 they united in forming a German Lutheran society, whose first pastor was the Rev. Joseph Zesline, from Philadelphia. By the next year, although they had no place of assembly of their own, they met regularly for preaching in German and English every Sunday. By this time some benefit was derived to the early churches from sales of land in the twenty-ninth section in every township of the Miami Purchase, which was granted by the General Government for the support of religion therein. The law of the State made it the duty of the trustees of the school sections to sell the ministerial sec- tions in leases of ninety-nine years, renewable forever, and divide the annual rents among the regular Christian churches, in amounts proportioned to their numbers of members, respectively. In this way, and by the aid of their fellow-Christians of other denominations, whose habit it was in those days to lend aid liberally in build- ing for each other, the German Lutherans presently got means together for a church.

The German Evangelical church, of the Lutheran faith, now has its house of worship on Race, between Fifteenth and Liberty streets. The German Protestant society (St. John's), also Lutheran, meets at the corner of Elm and Twelfth streets. There is one more Luth- eran church in the city, the well-known English Evangel- ical, on Elm street, between Ninth and Court .*

The Lutherans are sometimes called "the children of the Augsburg confession." The confession is justly styled the mother-symbol of the Reformation. The late Dr. D'Aubigne, historian of the Reformation, charac- terizes it as "a production which will remain one of the masterpieces of the human mind enlightened by the spirit of God." The Lutheran is an old orthodox church, the child of the Reformation. It is by far the largest of all the Protestant churches, from forty to fifty million souls being now under her spiritual care. In the United States it numbers seven hundred and fifty thou- sand members, holding about the third place in this country with the other families of Protestantism. It has here between three and four thousand ministers, some of whom are among the most famous divines in the coun- try, as the Rev. Professor C. P. Krauth, D. D., LL. D., of Philadelphia, Provost of the University of Pennsyl- vania ; Rev. John G. Morris, D. D., LL. D., of Balti- more; Rev. Professor J. A. Brown, D. D., LL. D., of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; Rev. Mosheim Rhodes, D. D., of St. Louis, Missouri: and many others.

Thirty-nine years ago (in 1841) the first successful ef- fort was made towards founding the first English Evan- gelican Lutheran church in Cincinnati. Fifty-six years ago, a well-known Lutheran clergyman, the Rev. Jacob Crigler, of Somerset County, Pennsylvania, where he was then pastor of six congregations, passed through Cincin- nati on his way to Florence, Kentucky. He enquired whether there was an English Lutheran church in Cin- cinnati, and was answered that there was not. In 1834 he removed from Pennsylvania to the neighborhood of Florence. He was still concerned about the formation of a church in Cincinnati. The writer of this account, some years before the founding of this church, wrote several letters touching this matter, to the editor of the Lutheran Observer, which was published in Baltimore. An extract from one of those letters is: "Could there not be an English Lutheran church established in this large city? Ought there not to be one here? Will not the brethren in the east do something in this matter? If other denominations, without materials for a church, are succeeding in planting their standard among us, why cannot Lutherans do the same, when materials are al- ready prepared to their hands?" The founding of an English church of this creed was too long neglected, and if it had not been neglected there might now have been here more than one.

The Rev. Jacob Crigier was president of the Mission- ary Society of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of the west, which met in Indianapolis October 5, 1841. This synod united with the Evangelical Lutheran synod of Ohio to support for one year the pious Rev. Abraham Reck, of Indianapolis, as the English Lutheran mission- ary for Cincinnati. Accordingly Mr. Reck came to Cin- cinnati December 8, 1841, and the next Sabbath morn- ing preached his first sermon here, in the upper room of the engine-house situated on the corner of Vine and Canal streets. In the afternoon the late Rev. John Krack preached. He came to the Lutherans from the United Brethren church, and remained with them till his death.

The organization of the first English Lutheran church was afterwards effected in the old college building on Walnut street, on Sabbath, February 20, 1842, by the Rev. Mr. Reck, assisted by the late venerable Rev. Jacob Crigler, who preached an encouraging sermon on that occasion.

Michael Straeffer, J. M. Straeffer, Hon. Henry Kessler, Samuel Startzman, (the first superintendent of the Sab- bath-school), Thomas Heckwelder, Isaac Greenwald, David Hawley, J. E. Jungeman, (musician), Mark Dorney, Adam Epply, Thomas Walter, William Walter, John Lilley, John Everding, John Meyers, George Meyers, Andrew Erkenbrecker, (superintendent of the Sabbath- school for awhile), Frederick Rammelsberg, Charles Woellner, and Henry Stuckenberg, with their wives, were some of the first members; and also the widows McLean, Whegroff, Seiters, and Lowrie. Mr. Reck remained pastor until November 30, 1845. A learned living di- vine said that he "was one of the holiest men I ever met." This faithful servant of God died at Lancaster,

* The matter that follows under this head is contributed in substance by the Rev. J. M. Straeffer, of Cottage Hill, Columbia.

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Ohio, May 18, 1869, at the age of seventy-eight years, four months, and sixteen days. Quite a number of prominent citizens became church members; such as John Everhard, (a good singer, and for some time super- intendent of the Sabbath-school), Jacob Guelich, Herman Schultz, Henry Schaeffer, Thomas Bowers, George Fisher, Monroe Lowrie, Charles Whemer, Edward Lau- ton, Mr. Reem, Mr. Man, and Alonzo Adams, (who was for a long time chorister and superintendent of the Sab- bath-school). A number of the early members are now sleeping in the dust of the earth.

This church receives the Holy Bible as the word of the living God, from first to last, from Genesis to Reve- lation, with its prophecies, histories, commandments, names, places, miracles, mysteries, invitations, threaten- ings, exhortations, and promises .:

The second pastor was the Rev. Dr. William H. Har- rison. He assumed his pastoral labors April 18, 1846. This was his first and only charge, which he held twenty and a half years. He was stricken down in the meridian of his days by cholera, November 3, 1866, at the age of nearly forty-eight years. He was untiring in his calling.

The third pastor was the genial and impressive Rev. Dr. Joel Swartz, one of the professors in Wittenberg col- lege, Ohio. He remained about one year and a half.

The fourth pastor was the Rev. Dr. John B. Helwig, now the efficient president of Wittemberg college. He remained about four years and a half.

The fifth pastor was the Rev. Rufus W. Hufford. He remained about a year and a half.

The sixth pastor was the meek and pleasant Rev. Ephraim Miller. He took charge of this church March I, 1875, and remained until October 1, 1878, a period of three years and seven months.

The seventh and present incumbent is Rev. H. W. McKnight, who is sometimes in his sermons flowery and descriptive.

This church belongs to the Miami Synod of the Lu- theran church, a district synod which is connected with general synod of the Lutheran church in the United States. There are several Sabbath-schools connected with the church, which are in a prosperous condition. The spiritual state of the church is good. The present church edifice is situated on Elm, near Ninth street. It is brick, with the front of Ohio freestone. It was built in the year 1851, and set apart to the worship of Almighty God in 1854. Its people hold to the Paulinian doctrine, which was rescued from oblivion and revived by the Lutheran Reformation, which is justification by faith alone. Articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesiae.

THE DISCIPLES.

In 1826 the Rev. Alexander Campbell, then in the prime of his spirituabenergy and intellectual power, vis- ited Cincinnati and preached his new doctrines at a series of meetings with telling effect. As one result of his ar- guments and eloquence, nearly the entire body of the Sycamore Street Baptist church, a new and flourishing congregation, was swept into the movement headed by Mr. Campbell, and became a Disciple society, still under

the charge of its pastor, Elder James Challen, who after- wards became through a long life, here and in Philadel- phia, a shining light in the church of his adoption. The Central Christian church, the first of the faith formed, left Sycamore street and built on Walnut and Eighth in 1847, and in 1869 a superb building, costing one hun- dred and forty-two thousand dollars, on Ninth street, be- tween Central avenue and Plum, which they now occupy.

THE EARLY PREACHERS.

The Rev. Timothy Flint, who spent a winter in Cin- cinnati nearly seventy years ago, and afterwards returned and settled here, left this testimony in his interesting book of Recollections :

Some of the ministers whom I heard preach here were men of con- siderable talent and readiness. They were uniformly in the habit of extemporaneous preaching, a custom which, in my judgment, gives a certain degree of effect even to ordinary matter. Their manner had evidently been formed to the character of the people, and indicated their prevailing taste, and had taken its coloring from the preponderance of the Methodists and the more sensitive character of the people of the South. They did not much affect discussion, but ran at once into the declamatory. Sometimes these flights were elevated, but much oftener not well sustained. For the speaking the whole was, for the most part, moulded in one form. They commenced the paragraph in a moderate tone, gradually elevating the voice with each period, and closing it with the greatest exertion and the highest pitch of the voice. They then af- fected, or it seemed like affectation, to let the voice down to the origi- nal modulation, in order to run it up to the same pitch again.

And again :

What development the lapse of ten years may have given to the em- bryo projects of humane institutions, which were now in discussion, I am not informed to say. But the town has a character for seriousness, good order, public spirit and Christian kindness, corresponding to its improvement in other respects.

Mrs. Steele, author of A Summer Journey in the West, in 1840, pays Cincinnati the following compliment in one of her letters :

July 20th .- I am happy to inform you the state of religion and mor- als in this place are such as would please every lover of Jesus and of good order. One fact speaks for itself, there are here thirty churches. There are also twelve public schools, and between two and three thou- sand scholars, who are there educated. What a blessed thing is it to see a city, instead of lavishing its surplus wealth upon theatres and places of dissipation, erecting schools, and such respectable, nay, ele- gant houses of public worship as we see in Cincinnati. The conse- quences are seen in the circumstances and behavior of the people. Here is no haunt of vicc, no Faubourg St, Antoine, no Five Points; the people keep the Sabbath, and are respectable and happy.

"MILLERISM."

In 1843-4 this delusion was propagated with great in- dustry and zeal in Cincinnati by the Rev. Messrs. Hines, Jacobs, and others. They began and carried on relig- ious services for a time in the building of the Cincinnati college, and finally, as their congregations and means in- creased, they built a rough but convenient "tabernacle" near Mill creek, a broad building of eighty feet square, capable of seating two thousand hearers. They estab- lished a newspaper organ called The Midnight Cry, and succeeded in convincing a large number of persons in the city and vicinity that the end of all things was at hand. The close of 1843, the twenty-third of March, 1844, and midnight of the twenty-second of October, of the same year, were successively announced as the peri- ods of the final winding-up of sublunary affairs. The rest may be told in the pleasant words of Mr. Charles

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Cist, who relates the story in the number of his Cincin- nati Miscellany for November, 1844:

All these periods were referred to in succession in The Midnight Cry, and so firmly was the faith of the Millerites fixed on the last calculation that the number published for October 22d was solemnly announced to be the last communication through that channel to the believers. In this progress of things, both in the press and tabernacle, as might have been expected, deeper exercises of mind among the Millerites was the result, and within a few days of the twenty-second all the brethren had divested themselves of their earthly cares, eating, drinking, and sleep- ing only excepted. Chests of tools which cost forty dollars were sold for three. A gold watch worth one hundred dollars was sacrificed for one-fifth the value. Two brothers of the nanie of Hanselmann, who owned a steamboat in company with Captain Collins, abandoned to him their entire interest in it, alleging they had nothing farther to do with earthly treasures. John Smith, an estimable man, once a distin- guished member of the Baptist church and a man of considerable property here, left it all to take care of itself. A distinguished leader in this movement shut up his shop and placed a card on the door, "Gone to meet the Lord"-which in a few hours were irreverently re- placed by some of the neighbors with "Gone up."

One of the believers, the clerk of one of our courts, made up his bus- iness papers to the twenty-second, and left later business to those who were willing to attend to it. Another, a clerk in one of the city banks, resigned his position in order to devote his entire attention to the sec- ond advent preparations; and others settled up their worldly business, paying their debts so far as was in their power, and asking forgiveness of their unpaid creditors, when they were unable to discharge the ac- count. Others, again, spent weeks in visiting relations and friends for the last time, as they supposed. In short, after all these things, all ranks and classes of the believers assembled at the tabernacle on the nights of the twenty-second and twenty-third successively, to be ready for the great event.

In the meantime considerable ill-feeling had been engendered among the relatives of those who had become infatuated with these doctrines, as they saw their wives or sisters or daughters led off by such delusions, to the neglect of family duties, even to the preparing of ordinary meals or attending to the common and everyday business of life. The spirit of lynching was about to make its appearance. Crowds upon crowds, increasing every evening, as the allotted day approached, aided to fill the house or surround the doors of their building. A large share were ready to commence mischief as soon as a fair opportunity should present itself. On last Sabbath the first indications of popular dis- pleasure broke out. Every species of annoyance was offered to the Millerites at the doors of the tabernacle, and even within its walls, on that and Monday evening-much of it highly discreditable to the ac- tors. At the close of an exhortation or address, or even a prayer by the members, the same tokens of approbation, by clapping of hands and stamping of feet, as are exhibited at a theatre or a public lecture, were given here, interspersed with groans of "Oh Polk!" "Oh Clay!" shouts of "Hurrah for Clay!" "Hurrah for Polk!" "Hurrah for Bir- ney!" and loud calls of "move him," "you can't come it," varied oc- casionally with distinct rounds of applause. A pigeon was let into the tabernacle also, on Monday evening, to the general annoyance.

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History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 44

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co. Number of Pages: 666

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co.
Number of Pages: 666