USA > Pennsylvania > A pioneer outline history of northwestern Pennsylvania > Part 26
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" But before they left the oil region the Lord cheered them with some fruits of their toil. Early in December, 1769, the first Protestant baptism in the valley of the Allegheny took place at Lawunakhannek. Luke and Paulina were then baptized; and Allemewi at Christmas; and in the beginning of 1770 several other converts were added.
" On the 17th day of April, 1770, after a friendly parting with Wango- men and their other opponents, who now began to regret their removal, Zeisberger, Sensemen, and their families with the Christian Indians, left Lawunakhannek in fifteen canoes. They swept past Gosch-gosch-kunk and bore down the Allegheny, and reached Fort Pitt on the 20th of April.
" It was a novel sight presented to the traders and the garrison at that point, to see a colony of Protestant Christian Indians, who from savages had been transformed into mild and consistent followers of Jesus.
" Leaving Fort Pitt, they descended the Ohio to the mouth of the Beaver. That now populous locality was then a deep solitude. Not even a wigwam was to be seen where Beaver, Rochester, New Brighton, Bridgewater, Falls- ton, and Beaver Falls now throng with population.
"Ascending the Beaver, they carry their canoes and goods around the falls, and arrive at a town on the west bank of that river a little north of where Newport now stands. This Indian town was inhabited by a community of women, all single, and all pledged never to marry. An uncloistered nun- nery! I do not wonder that Indian women, who were doomed to do the drudgery of the family, both in the wigwam and the cornfield, should resolve to lead a life of single-blessedness. It is less excusable in civilized society, in which Christianity has emancipated woman from such hardships.
"A little more than a mile above this town of maidens, on the east bank of the Beaver, and below the afflux of the Mahoning, they found a broad plain, or bottom-land. as we would call it, upon which they made an encamp- ment, putting up log huts.
"' The first business,' says De Schweinitz, ' undertaken was an embassy
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to Pack-an-ke, whose capital stood near, or, perhaps, upon the site of New Castle, and was called New Kas-kas-kunk. Old Kas-kas-kunk, the former capital, was at the confluence of the Shenango and Mahoning Rivers.
"'Pack-an-ke, a venerable, gray-haired chief, but active as in youth, received the deputation at his own house.
"' In response to the speeches of Abram (a converted Indian) and Zeis- berger, he said they were welcome to his country, and should be undisturbed in the worship of their God.
"' A great feast was in preparation. Indians were flocking in in great numbers. Native etiquette required that the deputies should grace the occa- sion with their presence; but after Abram's exposition of their views, Pack- an-ke made no attempt to detain them.
"'Thus one hundred and six years ago, on this soil, and probably about the place where our Second Ward school-house (New Castle) now stands, was exhibited by a pagan savage chief, or king, a measure of hospitality and religious toleration, such as nominally Christian Rome denies, and such as even Protestant Christians are slow to extend to their fellow-men.'
" A village of cabins was soon built upon the site of the encampment, to which Zeisberger gave the name of Langunton-temunk in the Delaware language; in German, Friedenstadt ; and in English, City of Peace. It soon began to attract the Indians. Some Munseys from Gosch-gosch-kunk were the first to come and join the mission; soon after, Glik-kik-kan from Kas- kas-kunk. He was the first convert to Christianity in the valley of the Shenango.
" Zeisberger had warned this brave warrior that persecution would follow his embracing Christianity, but it did not deter him. King Pack-an-ke reproached him. 'And have you gone to the Christian teachers from our very councils?' said he. 'What do you want of them? Do you hope to get a white skin? Not so much as one of your feet would turn white. How then can your whole skin be changed? Were you not a brave man? Were you not an honorable counsellor ? Did you not sit at my side in this house, with a blanket before you, and a pile of wampum belts upon it, and help me to direct the affairs of our nation? And now you despise all this! You think you have found something better! Wait! in good time you will see how miserably you have been deceived !'
" To this burst of passion Glik-kik-kan replied, 'You are right; I have joined the brethren. Where they go, I will go; where they lodge, I will lodge ; nothing shall separate me from them; their people shall be my people. and their God, my God.' Attending church a few days after this, a sermon on the heinousness of sin so moved him that he walked through the village to his tent sobbing aloud. 'A haughty war-captain,' wrote Zeisberger, 'weeps publicly in the presence of his former associates. This is marvellous. Thus the Saviour, by his word, breaks the hard hearts and humbles the proud minds of the Indians.'
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" Finding their locality, which was on or near the present site of the hamlet of Moravia, too low and unhealthy, Zeisberger, toward the end of July, laid out a new and larger town, with a church on a hill, on the west side of the river opposite the first. This town was located on the ridge to the west of the railroad, and extending north from the Spring run this side (north) of Moravia station. Thus one hundred and six years ago, this month (July, 1876), was founded the first Christian village and community in this beau- tiful valley-yes, the first west of the Allegheny Mountains! We cannot pursue the details of its history farther in this discourse except to say that upon that spot, consecrated by the prayers and tears and the toils of David Zeisberger, John Senseman, George Youngman, and their wives, and of Abra- ham, Glik-kik-kan, and other red men who had given their hearts to Jesus, a Christian town of five hundred souls grew rapidly up. The number of con- verts increased until, before they migrated to the Tuscarawas, it reached two hundred. The town and church were built of hewn logs, and were occupied by an industrious and orderly community. It continued to prosper until, from various considerations, they were induced to emigrate to the valley of the Muskingum, in what is now the State of Ohio.
" The considerations which led to this change grew out of various circum- stances ; partly from the necessity of the removal of the Christian Indians on the Susquehanna to a place where they would be more exempt from the encroachments of the white settlers, and partly from untoward influences gathering round them in this vicinity.
" Traders had early established posts along the Allegheny and Ohio. Whiskey was introduced by them, and habits of intemperance grew rapidly among the pagan Indians. It not unfrequently happened that the wild Indians, when drunk, would come to the peaceable Christian town, and whoop and shriek along the streets, insult the women, and sometimes disturb even the meetings for worship. Thus early were the atrocities that inevitably spring from the rum-traffic perpetrated in our loved valley, and down to the present day those atrocities have never ceased.
" Early in the spring of 1772, accompanied by Glik-kik-an and several others of the Indians, Zeisberger proceeded to the Tuscarawas to announce the coming of the Susquehanna Indians, and prepare for their reception. The work still went on at Friedenstadt until the spring of 1773, when the mis- sionaries and their Christian Indians took a sad farewell of their beautiful home on the banks of the Beaver; levelled their beautiful sanctuary with the ground, to prevent its desecration, and bent their faces toward the banks of the Tuscarawas, where, at the beautiful locality of the 'Big Spring,' a few miles from it, they built two towns,-Gnattenhutten and Schoenbrun,-in which they lived happily and labored faithfully for Christ, until the wars came on which resulted in so many disasters and so much bloodshed, and they were cruelly murdered, Glik-kik-an among them, by a body of frontiersmen from
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Washington and Green Counties, Pennsylvania, and from West Virginia, under the command of Colonel David Williamson. These men had marched to avenge some atrocious murders which had been committed by wild Indians in those counties, and, failing to discriminate between the harmless Moravian Indians and the real authors of the murders, they cruelly slaughtered nearly one hundred old men, women, and children! It was a terrible tragedy, illus- trative of the fearful nature of unbridled and undiscriminating vengeance.
" Although not directly connected with the history of our congregation, I have deemed it proper to give this brief and imperfect sketch of the interest- ing congregation of Christian Indians, which one hundred and six years ago was established in our immediate vicinity, and as our own was established near the same site, and once extended its borders almost, or quite, to Frieden- stadt (Moravia), it may be considered the first successor of that interesting congregation.
" The tawny Delawares and Senecas and Shawnees still lingered along the banks of the Shenango and Neshannock for some years after this church was organized. After the decisive victory of General Wayne, in August, 1794, a treaty was formed with the Indians, by which the peace of the border was for a time secured; and, shortly after, white inhabitants began to cross the Ohio and Allegheny, and settle the country lying between those rivers and Lake Erie. Gradually the tide of population flowed north and west, and, by 1798, there was a considerable population scattered through what is now the counties of Beaver, Butler, Lawrence, Mercer, Venango, Crawford, and Erie.
" As in the entire process of settling Pennsylvania, the sturdy and in- telligent Scotch-Irish race were the pioneers. They had at an early period settled in Bucks, Chester, Lancaster, and Cumberland Counties. They were the first to cross the Alleghenies and occupy the counties east of the Allegheny River and south of the Ohio; and when the broad, fertile, and forest-clad region north of that river was opened to them, they were prompt to enter it.
" An herculean task lay before them. A massive forest was to fell, fields were to clear and reclaim, and bread was to be wrung from the soil-rich, indeed, but rugged and untamed. But the very hardships of their condition developed energy and self-reliance. Trained in their former homes in the Bible and the Shorter Catechism, and most of them in the Psalms of David, they brought with them a piety, if rude, yet sturdy and sincere. They made their cabins and the surrounding forest vocal with their voice of unsophisti- cated praise and prayer. Loving the preached gospel, and reverencing the ministers whom they left behind in the older settlements, they had a natural desire to receive visits from them, and, at their request, some of the godly pastors from over the rivers made occasional visits. The venerable Elisha McCurdy and Thomas Marquis were the first ministers of our order who traversed the hills and valleys, gathering the scattered settlers in little assem-
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blies to worship God and hear the precious gospel. They went as far north as Erie County, and visited many settlements, dispensing the word and ordi- nances. It is impossible in our day to appreciate the difficulties of such mis- sionary tours. There was not a bridge from the Ohio to the lake, over any stream. The creeks were often swollen so that they were compelled to swim their horses across the angry current; and sometimes even this was im- practicable, and the missionary would be prevented by such insurmountable obstacles from fulfilling his appointment."
Among the first ministers of the gospel who visited this region, some of whom remained permanently, was Thomas Edgar Hughes, who settled at Greensburg, now called Darlington. He was a man of mark, and the first settled pastor north of the Ohio. He was of Welch origin, his grand- father having come from Wales. He was born in York County, Pennsyl- vania, April 7, 1769. Licensed by the Presbytery of Ohio, now Pittsburg, in 1798, he was ordained and installed over the churches of New Salem and Mount Pleasant, August 28, 1796.
Soon after he was joined by two other ministers from the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland.
A Presbytery was formed in 1774, and the church, as a body, obtained a foothold in the New World. The subject of union between these bodies was agitated before either was many years old, the leading ministers be- lieving that such an alliance would add to the efficiency of both. During the Revolutionary War several meetings of ministers of the two denominations were held, at which the matter was thoroughly discussed. In 1782 three Presbyteries met in Philadelphia, and a union was consummated. The new organization took the name of the "Associate Reformed Synod of North America." A few of the ministers of both bodies refused to enter into the alliance, and the original bodies maintained a separate existence.
The Associate Reformed Church flourished. It spread rapidly to the westward, and was largely and steadily increased by immigration. In 1793 it had a firm hold on the territory now known as Western Pennsylvania. In that year the original Presbytery of Pennsylvania was divided into two,-the First and Second Associate Reformed Presbyteries of Pennsylvania. The Second, by order of the Synod, took the name of the Monongahela. It was composed of four ministers,-Revs. John Jamieson, Henderson, Warwick, and Rankin, with their elders. This was the first Presbytery organized in con- nection with any of the Reformed Churches west of the Allegheny Mountains. Its boundary lines were the Allegheny Mountains on the east and the Pacific Ocean on the west.
The prosperity of the new body in Western Pennsylvania was remark- able. Soon it became necessary to form new Presbyteries in the territory originally covered by the Presbytery of the Monongahela. and the church commanded the attention of the entire country.
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A union of the Associate with the Associate Reformed Churches of North America had been for a long time considered desirable by the leading min- isters of both denominations, and it was accomplished in 1858. The con- summation took place in Old City Hall, Pittsburg, and was the occasion of general rejoicing among the ministers and members of both bodies. It was in this city of ecclesiastical reunions that the United Presbyterian Church as a distinct Presbyterian body was born.
I give a sketch of one of these ministers, written by myself for the United Presbyterian, of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania :
" Rev. John Jamieson was born in Thornhill farm, Scotland, about eight miles south of Glasgow, in 1747. His father was Allan Jamieson, a descend- ant from the noble family of Bruce. One of Allan Jamieson's ancestors was steward to Mary, Queen of Scotland. This ancestry turned Protestant, left the court, and returned to Thornhill farm. Rev. John Jamieson's mother, according to the family tradition, was a descendant of Sir William Wallace, who left a natural daughter.
" Rev. John Jamieson enjoyed the advantages of wealth. He graduated from St. Andrew's University, and studied theology with Rev. John Brown, of Haddington, who formulated the Westminster Catechism. Rev. John Jamieson was licensed and ordained by a Burgher presbytery, of Scotland, in about his twenty-fifth year. He preached from the Hebrew or Greek Bible, translated his own texts, and was an expert shorthand writer. According to his diary, he preached at Bathgate, Scotland, in 1776. Rev. John Jamieson's early life embraced a stormy period in Scotland between the Scotch and Eng- lish. His adult life was surrounded by a period of literary activity. The poems of Ramsay, Thompson, Burns, Scott, Holmes, and others were written and published from 1730 to 1785. The known Scottish poets then exceeded two thousand. In 1775 Rev. John Jamieson married Agnes (Nancy) Gibbs, daughter of John Gibbs, of Paisley. Gibbs's wife was a Miss Jackson. The young couple set up housekeeping in Edinburgh, Scotland, where they re- sided seven years. Three children were born to them in this city,-viz., Jeannette, John, and Agnes, otherwise called Nancy. Rev. John Jamieson, considering himself prepared for thorough gospel labor, determined to migrate to America and devote his life to missionary work in the New World. On August 27, 1783, he sold the Thornhill farm to a Mr. Wilson. It might be well to state here that Pollock, author of " The Course of Time," was born on the adjoining farm, and that these two farms are now literally covered with houses and form a part of greater Glasgow. At the age of thirty-six. with his wife and three children, Rev. John Jamieson started from Edin- burgh, Scotland, for America, and in the latter part of November, 1783, landed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he immediately connected himself with the Associate Reformed Church.
"He resided here and went on missionary journeys through the wilder-
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ness on horseback as far south and west as the Carolinas and Georgia, until September 22, 1784, when he located at Big Spring, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, at which place he preached in a log church for eight years, also at Stony Ridge, Shippensburg, Marsh Creek, Conococheague, and other points, in barns and houses. He also purchased six hundred acres of land and erected a grist-mill at or near Big Spring, and his son John, Jr., resided here until after 1809.
" Three children were born to Mr. Jamieson while living at Big Spring, -viz., William, Isabelle, and Margaret.
" In the early spring of 1792 Mr. Jamieson resigned his charges in Cum- berland County and crossed the Allegheny Mountains with his wife and three children, with their effects all on horseback, or pack-horses, and located in Hannahstown, Westmoreland County, leaving John Jamieson, Jr., and two other children on the homestead at Big Spring. In 1794 he removed to Derry, and in 1796 to Altman's Run, where he erected his log cabin in what is now Conemaugh or Blacklick Township, Indiana County, Pennsylvania.
"In the year 1792 he and Rev. Matthew Henderson, Sr., were appointed by the synod to missionate in Virginia and Kentucky for one year. In 1794 he dropped Hannahstown and made frequent missionary tours through what is now Indiana and Armstrong Counties, and was the first pastor to have a charge north of the Conemaugh River and west of Blacklick in Indiana and Armstrong Counties. In 1793 the second presbytery of Pennsylvania was formed, and at a later time by order of the synod was called ' Monongahela.'
" This presbytery was composed of four ministers,-viz., Rev. John Jamieson, Rev. Matthew Henderson, Sr., Rev. Robert Warwick, and Rev. Adam Rankin, with their elders. Its boundary lines were the Allegheny Mountains on the east, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. Rev. John Jamie- son's pioneer preaching in Western Pennsylvania was at the installation of Rev. Robert Warwick at Laurel Hill, Dunlap's Creek, and Spring Hill. These points are in Westmoreland and Fayette Counties.
" In 1794 Rev. John Jamieson organized the Crete church, in Indiana County, preaching to the people first from a small platform, five by eight feet, supported by wooden brackets between two large oak-trees, the congre- gation, of course, being seated on logs on the ground. His mode of preach- ing was to lecture or expound the Scripture in the morning, and to preach a sermon divided into firstly, secondly, etc., in the afternoon. At Crete a tent was secured for a while, and then, in 1815, a log church, twenty-four by thirty, was erected. He preached at this point until near 1820. From his diary I find that he also preached at Conemaugh, Crooked Creek, Bethel (Indiana County), Plum Creek, and Kittanning, and that he held services in cabins and log barns. The names of these places, dates, etc., are recorded in his diary, as well as notes of texts and sermons, many of these in shorthand.
" In 1790 the Presbytery of Pennsylvania was directed to deal with him
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[Rev. John Jamieson] for not attending synod. In 1791 he was present, but was disgusted, as he tells us in his published account of his subsequent trial, so that he resolved to terminate his connection with the body. This threat he did not carry out, although he soon afterwards resigned his charge at Big Spring. Having finished his mission to Kentucky, he arrived during the winter of 1792-93, in Western Pennsylvania, and was very soon settled in Brush Creek, now Bethel, Westmoreland County, Hannahstown, near the present New Alexandria, and Conemaugh, Indiana County. He was released from Brush Creek and also from Hannahstown (which he had informally dropped), and his time was given to Loyalhanna in connection with Cone- maugh, but he continued to visit and preach to groups of families in a very large district. In May, 1794, he attended the meeting of the synod at Marsh Creek, Adams County, Pennsylvania. It was the custom of the synod then to make the next minister in seniority the moderator, and it happened to be Mr. Jamieson's turn. He took the chair, protesting, however, that he would not stay there long.
" At an early stage of the meeting he presented ' An Overture' for the consideration and adoption of the synod. This overture maintained that a strict and rigid uniformity in all things was essential to the government and discipline of the Church; and that the synod should adopt a confession and covenant to secure such uniformity in praise, public and private, in the admin- istration of the Supper, in the solemnization of marriage, etc. The language of the overture was by no means soft and persuasive, and its personal thrusts were well understood. After debate, more plain than courteous, the overture found no friend but its author, and was emphatically rejected. Mr. Jamieson immediately left the chair, protesting that he could not preside over any body that would thus ignore ' the attainments' of the Church in Reformation days. Another moderator was elected, although Mr. Jamieson retained his seat in synod, and thus avoided the obligation of signing as moderator the minutes of a backsliding synod. He returned home filled with great indignation, and in his published defence takes great credit to himself that it was not until the second Sabbath after his arrival home that he commenced his public con- demnation and protest. By his own confession he spared neither synod as a whole, nor the leading members individually ; and he spoke equally severely of the Red Stone Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church, in the midst of which he lived. Complaint was made to synod in 1795 of his course by William Findley, one of his elders; and Messrs. Dobbins and Young were appointed a committee to go west and help the second Presbytery of Penn- sylvania investigate these charges, together with other charges of heretical teaching. This was done in the autumn of the same year, and resulted in the tabling of a libel containing eleven specifications. This libel and all the testimony relating thereto was referred to the next synod. The gravamen of the whole may be reduced to two points,-viz., a false and injurious abuse
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of the synod and particularly of Dr. Annan and of John M. Mason, ' who inherited his father's odiousness, and error in doctrine in reference to faith and the offer of the gospel to the reprobate.' There was no difficulty in the matter of proof, for he admitted that he had denounced the unfaithfulness of synod, because it ' made an act allowing or approving the singing of Watts's Psalms, Sternold and Hopkins, or anything that families pleased in family worship,' and that it did so at Dr. Annan's dictation, because Mr. Nourse, his wealthiest member and elder, claimed this privilege; also another act setting aside the fast-days and thanksgiving days usually observed in con- nection with the Lord's Supper ; and that this was to favor the rich merchants in Dr. Mason's charge; and finally that they were about setting aside the publication of the banns of marriage, so that the clergy might not lose their marriage fees; 'that thus the worship, government, and discipline of the Church are nearly given up for a price or a loaf of bread.'
"Rev. John Jamieson 'was found guilty by synod at its meeting in 1796,' and 'suspended from the office of the ministry and prohibited from teaching students of divinity until next meeting of synod.' At the next meet- ing, in 1797, he refused to give any satisfaction, but read a protest, declined the authority of the synod, and withdrew. Synod forthwith deposed and excommunicated him, and this action was never reversed or modified. A large portion of his church at Hannahstown joined with him in his declina- ture, and he continued to minister to them 'for a season,'-viz., nine years, or until 1805.
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