USA > Pennsylvania > Dauphin County > Harrisburg > Centennial memorial, English Presbyterian congregation, Harrisburg, Pa. > Part 12
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OLIVET PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. DERRY AND KITTATINNY STREETS.
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Address by Rev. William P. Patterson.
persons, forty-five of whom signified their intention of becoming communicant members, should the church be organized. Governor Beaver was one of the signers and became a member and also a ruling elder in the new organ- ization. That petition was presented to the Presbytery of of Carlisle, at its meeting in Duncannon on the 8th of October, 1889, was carefully considered and allowed, a com- mittee of Presbytery being appointed to constitute the desired church, if the way should appear clear. The com- mittee raised for this purpose consisted of Revs. George S. Chambers, D. D., George B. Stewart, D. D., Ebenezer Erskine, D. D., and Messrs. Francis Jordan and S. J. M. MeCarrell, On Tuesday, 15th October, 1889, at 7.30 p. m., after proper publication of the matter, this committee accomplished the object for which it had been named. In the organization of Olivet Presbyterian Church the Rev. Dr Chambers preached the sermon, the Rev. Dr. Erskine con- ducted the ordination of the elders then elected, and the Rev. Dr. Stewart made a brief address to the new church. Governor James A. Beaver, William S. Shaffer, Jacob K. Walker and Charles C. Steel were chosen and set apart to the office of ruling elder. Since then Governor Beaver and Charles C. Steel have retired from the Session and church, removing from the city, and Abram I. Groff and Alexander Adams have succeeded them.
In June of 1890 Mr. Robert Cochran was formally called to the pastorate of the church and labored in the parish until, at his own request, he was released in August of 1892. The record of the church-life and work for this entire period, making due allowance for the difficulties and com-
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parative lack of resources incident to most new enterprises, is encouraging in a marked degree. Down to the retire- ment of Mr. Cochran from the pastoral oversight of the church, fifty-seven were admitted to membership on pro- fession of their faith in Christ, and sixty-one by letters of dismissal from sister churches. The sum of $339.00 was contributed for benevolent purposes, and $4,306.00 for con- gregational uses, and $140.00 for miscellaneous objects.
In October of 1892 the present minister was called and, having accepted the call and entered at once upon the duties of the pastorate, was installed on Tuesday evening, 10th of January, 1893, the Rev. Dr. Chambers preaching the sermon, the Rev. Dr. Stewart charging the pastor and. the Rev. David M. Skilling charging the people. Of the history of Olivet Church since the beginning of this second pastorate let others speak. I only desire, in closing my remarks, to express the conviction that, from the standpoint of organization at least, there can be but one judgment as to the promise for the future. Never before have there been brighter prospects of usefulness and of encouraging results in the justly-to-be-desired establishment of our common Presbyterianism on Allison's Hill. The field of operations is both large and interesting. We need, it is true, both friends and money, but given these plus the willing hearts and means already consecrated on the field, the issue can never be doubtful.
Grateful for what this venerable and beloved church has been divinely empowered to accomplish in the promotion of Christ's kingdom, and in the extension of Presbyte- rianism in this city during the century just closed, and fully
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Address by Rev. William P. Patterson.
appreciating the bright, hopeful outlook into the century just opening, we lift our hearts to our common Lord and Father, praying that he may be with you alway, and may bless you exceeding abundantly above all that your hearts can ask or think.
At the conclusion of Mr. Patterson's address Rev. Mr. West led in prayer, and then announced hynm No. 639, verses 1, 3.
Chorus-Shout the glad tidings, exultingly sing ; Jerusalem triumphs, Messiah is King.
1. Zion, the marvelous story be telling,
The Son of the Highest, how lowly his birth : The brightest archangel in glory excelling,
He stoops to redeem thee, He reigns upon earth.
Chorus-Shout the glad, etc.
Chorus-Shout the glad, etc.
3. Mortals, your homage be gratefully bringing, And sweet let the gladsome hosanna arise : Ye angels, the full hallelujah be singing : One chorus resound through the earth and the skies.
Chorus-Shout the glad, etc.
After the Benediction by Mr. West, and Mr. Crozier's organ postlude, Guilmant's chorus in D Minor, the audience dispersed. Though in the nature of the case the exercises were unusually long, they were yet of unusual interest, and the attention of the large audience was unrelaxed through- out the whole service.
THURSDAY EVENING, February the 15th, 1894, at 7.30 o'clock.
HISTORICAL EVENING.
This was the indispensable evening of the week. The other services, delightful as they were and appropriate, were yet not essential. In this evening centered the significance of the whole celebration. This fact raised the expectations of the large audience to the highest point. They came anticipating a rare treat and they were not disappointed. The occasion justified the high hopes of all concerned. The Minister of the church was requested by the Centennial Committee to preside at this meeting. The service was introduced by Mackenzie's " Benedictus," a quiet and tender prelude, which harmonized with the memories evoked by the occasion. The Minister led the congregation in repeat- ing the Apostle's Creed, the foundation faith of the Church. The Rev. I. Potter Hayes, pastor of the Presbyterian Church Wrightsville, Pa., and formerly pastor of the Covenant Presbyterian Church of this city, led the congregation in prayer. Rev. Dr. George S. Chambers announced hymn No. 435, verses 1, 2, 3, 5.
Our God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come, Our shelter from the stormy blast, And our eternal home !
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Before the hills in order stood, Or earth received her frame, From everlasting thou art God, To endless years the same.
A thousand ages in thy sight Are like an evening gone, Short as the watch that ends the night Before the rising dawn.
Our God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come ! Be thou our guard while troubles last, And our eternal home.
Rev. John L. MeKechan, M. D., pastor of the Steelton Presbyterian Church, read the Scripture lesson, Psalm 89 : 1-11. At the conclusion of the Scripture lesson the choir sang the " Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's "Mes- siah." As the first notes of this inspiring chorus came from the well trained voices the large audience rose as by a common impulse, and remained standing until the last notes of the holy praise died away.
The PRESIDENT OF THE EVENING. This evening is the jewel of this week. All that has gone before and that which is to come after is the setting, resplendent and full of delight, but still the setting. It is this night that gives significance to, and justification of, all others. We are cele- brating the centenary of our church, and we are met to-night to hear the story of an hundred years of endeavor, of struggle, of trial and of achievement; and we are to hear it from one than whom there is none better to tell us the story, nor more competent to give us the correct interpretation thereof. And aside from this, there is a peculiarly tender and
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significant reason why he should be invited to narrate this history. He himself was an actor in much of it, bearing. his part nobly and well for thirty years, and for the last ten years he has been a spectator, interested and closely associated with the events as they have transpired. He is bound to many in this audience by ties most tender. Your thoughts to-night will follow his words as he tells you the story of your ancestors and of yourselves. Before I give place to him, I feel that in all sincerity I ought to say what I am delighted to take the occasion to say, that since I have been his successor in the pastoral office of this church he has proved himself to be my wisest counsellor and my firmest friend. The delight of serving you has been intensi- fied by the delight of following him. I have learned the reason of your love for him, and I desire to be enrolled in that great company whose hearts are entwined around his and whose lives are made richer, purer, better by having learned to love him. I could have been treated in no more cordial, helpful, fraternal manner than I have been by Dr. Robinson. I bear this testimony that the century which is to follow, may know, if it cares to know, that I love him with all my heart, as you did, and still do. Dr. Robinson will now speak to us upon the history of the church for an hundred years, entitling his theme " A Century Plant."
"A CENTURY PLANT."
By Rev. THOMAS H. ROBINSON, D. D.
Now go write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come forever and ever .- Isaiah, xxx. 8.
Walter Scott has very touchingly told us of Old Mor- tality, a religious itinerant of his times. He was first dis- covered in the burial ground of the Parish of Gaudercleugh. It was his custom to pass from one graveyard to another, and with the patient chisel of the engraver clear away the moss from the grey tombstones, and restore the names and the lines that Time's finger had well nigh effaced. It mattered little to him whether it was the headstone of some early martyr to the faith, or only love's memorial to some little child. It was his joy to do the quiet and unbidden work of bringing again to the notice of men the history and the heroism of some of God's nobility of whom the world was not worthy, nor less to honor the unknown ones who were laid to rest with unseen tears.
Our work to-day bears something of the same character. Like Old Mortality, we step softly and reverently among the graves of the past. Chisel in hand we pass from memory to memory. We clear away the gathered moss. We re- furnish the ancient stones and read again the names of the departed, dropping here and there a tear as precious mem- ories are awakened, and reminding ourselves anew of a fellowship that is only interrupted for a little time. The
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past is ours. We are its heirs. Its good comes down to us in an apostolic succession of benedictions. The links that bind us to past days and years are golden links. It is one of the choicest gifts of grace, that we may at the same time live three lives in one. Past memories and present ex- periences and future hopes do blend to make human life noble and attractive. Our holy faith commemorates the past, gladdens the present and brightens the future.
We stand to-day at the close of an hundred years. We stand also at the beginning of another hundred years. This Church is to-day one of the Century Plants in the earthly garden of our Lord. It has taken a century to grow to what it now is and a century to do the work that it has done. A mighty forest tree is what the revolving years, it may be the added centuries have made it. Day and night, sunshine and rain, seasons coming and seasons going, gentle winds and stormy blasts, the soil, the atmosphere, a thou- sand things have been conspiring in a happy partnership to lift that mighty trunk towards the sky. So with ourselves. No man creates himself. No man begins his own work. The roots of our being run back into the past generations. Our work began before we were born. Other hands laid the foundations on which we are building. So with a Church. Many workers toil in its uplifting. The men of to-day are carrying on and carrying out what others be- gun. There is a succession and dependence in all the labors of men. The generations reap the fields their fore- fathers sowed. The knowledge, the wisdom, the power, the numbers, the religious faith, which any Church of to-day possesses are largely a transmission from the past. It has
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been handed down, each generation retaining what it re- ceived from its predecessor and adding to the general stock for the benefit of coming ages. We are debtors to the past. The social, the political, the moral and the religious riches we are enjoying have been slowly accumulating. Other men prepared the way for our era of light and liberty. Other men who left no name behind them, helped to build our large estates of science, of art, of freedom and religion. It is because before us there were preachers of righteousness, and lovers of truth, men who were fearless against wrong and enamored of goodness, it is because we had fathers in the olden time who had patience and courage to work on for the better times that were to come to their children, that we now find the world getting ready for the Christ age.
We may well recall with gratefulness the history that leads us up to the present. We cannot, indeed rehearse all they were, nor all they did, who bequeathed to us our heritage. It will be all that we dare to hope, if we give a little life and vividness to our ancestral records.
One hundred years carry us back to seventeen hundred and ninety-four, the date of organized Presbyterianism, as a Church, on this spot. How changed the scene from that upon which we look to-day! The broad river with its beautiful islands, the wooded ranges of the Kittatinny rising like a protecting rampart, the glorious sunset and the overarching sky were here, but all else, how different. Large forest trees were standing upon the greater part of the ground now occupied by the city. The hills back of us were covered by the forests. Rugged country roads led to
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and from the little hamlet that gathered around the ferry across the river. The town began its growth from the region about the junction of Paxton and Front streets and from thence extended up the river and up the hill, with a width of but two or three streets. The little village of from one hundred to one hundred and twenty houses had been incorporated into a borough in 1785, nine years before, and had been named Harrisburg after its founder. Its dwellings were scattered somewhat irregularly below the place on which this Church stands. Very few houses were to be found above Market street or beyond Third. Leaving the corner of Market square from the door of this Church, one might pass down Second street then ungraded, and with quite a steep descent from Chestnut street to Paxton creek, thence out Paxton street to Front and up Front to Market street and to the point of starting, and he will have marched around the greater part of the town. In a small room of a log house which stood near the corner of Front and Vine streets, the first courts for the new County of Dauphin were held; and a short distance from this primitive court house stood the Pillory, a noted instrument of public justice in those days. The large stone house on Front street and Wash- ington, the, residence of the late General Simon Cameron, had been erected by John Harris the founder of the town in 1766, nearly thirty years earlier. It is one hundred and twenty-eight years old and bids fair to see the close of the twentieth century. There was in the town a population of a few hundreds. Families that were prominent in the organization of this Church had been resident here for some years. It was a mixed population consisting mainly of the
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Scotch-Irish and German people, with a few families of direct English descent.
Of the Scotch-Irish families the following names may be mentioned as among the earliest residents : Moses Gilmor, Adam Boyd, Samuel Weir, James Murray, John Hamilton, James Mitchell, John Kean, Thomas Forster, William Graydon, James Clunie, Henry Fulton, Robert Sloan, Archibald MeAAlister, the Montgomerys, the Berryhills and others.
Presbyterianism on this spot antedates by many years the organization of the Church. Its households were connected with the long prior and more venerable Church of Paxtang, which for more than half a century was under the pastoral care of the celebrated John Elder. Joined with Paxtang under the same pastorate for forty-eight years was the Church of Derry. North of Derry and Paxtang along the Kittatinny Mountains lay the large congregation of Hanover, now for many years extinct. From these three once flourishing congregations came the founders of the Presby- terian church in Harrisburg. They were mainly from Paxtang as this region was within the boundaries of that congregation. They were a people of strong and clear and intelligent convictions, adherents of the Westminster Con- fession, and the Presbyterian polity of church government. A long line of pious ancestry in the mother land, had prepared them for the trials and triumphs of their new pioneer homes across the sea. They were the best materials out of which to build a free State and a free Church. They were a frugal, industrious, energetic people. Hardy, rugged and resolute. They have left their name and their mark
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wherever they have gone. They were men of peculiar and marked character. In their ways of thinking, their habits of life, the training of their families, and their religious customs and modes of worship, they were clearly distinct from the ordinary Englishman and the German. They were strict in their ways, rigid in the observance of the Sabbath, and were the very quality of human nature out of which to make good and useful citizens and great men. They were the firm friends of education, moral, patriotic, liberty-loving, tyrant-hating, God-fearing. They were plain and simple in manners. They founded pious homes, orderly communities and excellent schools, and never failed to plant the Church of Jesus Christ wherever they settled. They trusted God. They held by his holy truth. They thoroughly believed in religion. They worked and lived for a better and brighter future for their descendants, and doubted not that when they passed away the truth would live on and the Kingdom of God would grow, and Christ would win the final and complete victory. They had their faults. They were not the best and saintliest men that ever lived, but we may heartily thank God for their sturdiness and their devotion to what was good and sound and true.
A brief reference to the Church and its pastor, out of which this church sprung, seems to be necessary in form- ing a just estimate of the elements that entered into the early structure of the Presbyterian Church of Harrisburg.
The parish of Rev. John Elder was a large one. It ex- tended along the banks of the Susquehanna from the Gap in the mountains at Dauphin, to the banks of the Swatara at Middletown, a distance of fully twenty miles. On the
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hill back of the village of Dauphin there stood in the early part of this century a small church building in which Mr. Elder was accustomed occasionally to preach. In width the parish extended back from the river to the mountain and to the borders of the Hanover congregation, a distance of from eight to twelve miles.
Mr. Elder's pastorate commenced about thirty years after the first establishment of Presbyterianism in this country, and continued through the bitter religious controversies of the early history, through ravages of border warfare with the savage Indians and through the seven years of the Revolutionary conflict, and until four years after the estab- lishment of our present free and constitutional government in 1789; in brief, from 1738 to 1792, when Mr. Elder died in the eighty-sixth year of his age, and the sixtieth of his min- istry, fifty-four of which were spent at Paxtang.
An account of Mr. Elder, given by Mr. Joseph Wallace, the grandfather of Judge McPherson, thus describes him. He was a large, fine-looking man, above six feet in height, well formed and proportioned, dignified in his manners, a fine specimen of an educated gentleman. He was beloved and respected by the people of his congregation and exer- cised a great influence for good among them. He retained, after his settlement in this country, the dress and manners of the early Scotch and Irish ministers abroad. On Sabbath morning he went from his dwelling, which was near the church, to the study, a small log building containing one room, which was used for the meetings of the Church Ses- sion, and there remained until the congregation had assem- bled and the time to commence service was at hand. He
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then came from the study, dressed in a gown, with a wig carefully powdered very white and surmounted by a small cocked hat. Thus attired he walked in a stately and solemn manner to the church door, speaking to no one, nor even looking at any until he had entered the pulpit and opened the service. He was a man of great activity in all the rela- tions of life, resolute, fearless, positive in his opinions, stern and unyielding in what he believed to be right, and ready to maintain his convictions at any sacrifice. He was a good, sound preacher of the most approved orthodoxy. He was a man of great courage and of indomitable force of will, one of the men born to rule. His influence extended far beyond the boundaries of his own congregations. Very few men acted a more conspicuous and influential part in the history of Central Pennsylvania for fifty years than did Parson Elder. His public reputation as a citizen and a strong leader of men is attested by his commission as a colonel of militia during the stormy times of the Indian wars. It was under such a leader of men that the fathers of this church were trained. Nor should it be omitted from this sketch that some of the early as well as later members of the church were from the " Old Hanover " congregation, where they had been under the instructions of the sound and wise and devoted James Snodgrass, pastor of that church, from 1788 to 1846, a period of fifty-eight years.
After the borough was constituted and named, and made the seat of county government, the population increased more rapidly. Owing to the distance and the difficulties of travel, the Presbyterians of the town found it inconvenient to attend the religious services at Paxtang where they held
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their church membership. Many of them were tradesmen and mechanics and must find their way thither on foot and in all sorts of weather. The people were strongly attached to Mr. Elder, and were unwilling for a long time to sever their connection with him. But after the close of the Revolutionary war, in the fall of 1782, and the return of the people to habits of peaceful life, movements began towards an organization in the town. Mr. Elder was draw- ing near eighty years of age and becoming too infirm to meet the wants of so large a parish. Many ineffectual attempts were made to obtain Mr. Elder's consent to have occasional preaching by other ministers in Harrisburg. The attachments of more than half a century joined to the tenacity of old age made it impossible for him to consent to measures that looked towards the separation of the people of Harrisburg from his flock. He desired them to abide as they were until after his death. Some of the best of his people were in the town. He was jealous of all intrusions of neighboring ministers into his parish. The pastor at Silvers' Spring for many years was the Rev. John Hoge. He seems to have preached in Harrisburg without any invitation from Mr. Elder. It was regarded as a discourtesy and an offense. Mr. Elder made complaint to the Presbytery for redress, saying that a "certain hog had been rooting in his grounds," giving the pronun- ciation to his name that was common at the time.
It is a matter of tradition that the first sermon preached in Harrisburg, was given by the Rev. Joseph Montgomery, a Presbyterian minister who had been appointed the Register and Recorder of the county, by Gov. Mifflin. It is said to
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have been preached on a pleasant Sabbath afternoon in June, on the lot at the corner of Second street and Cherry alley, upon which the original Presbyterian church of the town was subsequently erected. The people of the place assembled in the open air and were sheltered from the sun by the shade of some forest trees that were standing and the apple trees of an orchard planted on the spot. It is how- ever wholly improbable that Mr. Montgomery's sermon was the first one preached in a community whose origin dated back beyond that time for nearly half a century. Mr. Elder had probably often preached in the little community using the dwellings of his parishoners for the service. Neighboring ministers of the Presbytery, and occasional travelling ministers, had doubtless often preached, using private houses for the purpose of holding service out of doors.
In October, 1786, a petition was presented in the Presby- tery of Carlisle from Harrisburg and the parts adjacent requesting that the people be erected into a congregation and be allowed to have a place of worship in the town, and to have supplies appointed to them. Owing to the absence of Mr. Elder no action was taken on these requests.
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