USA > Pennsylvania > Dauphin County > Harrisburg > Centennial memorial, English Presbyterian congregation, Harrisburg, Pa. > Part 26
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Mr. Armstrong's life was devoted almost entirely to the teaching of classical schools, for which he had a peculiar fitness, and met with large success. Several years were spent in the charge of an academy at Bellefonte. He came to Harrisburg in 1831 and assumed control of the Harrisburg academy, retaining it until 1816. Many young men were fitted for college and the professions under his tuition. A large number of the leading men of this city were among his pupils, and they regarded him with veneration and respect. His reputation as an educator was of high character, and his training was thorough.
He nnited with this church at his coming in 1831, and on the first Sunday of December, 1840, he was ordained and installed in it as Ruling Elder. He continued to serve the church until his removal from the city in 1846. Returning to Harrisburg in 1862, he again
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united with the church and was again chosen an Elder, and installed in office, 1868. He held the office, serving the church with great faithfulness, until 1871, when he removed to Washington city. There he resided until his death in October, 1884, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. While in Washington he held a position in the Post Office Department.
Mr. Armstrong was thrice married. In 1829 to Mary Rankin, of Bellefonte, daughter of John Rankin and Isabella Dundas. He mar- ried his second wife, Anna Carothers, daughter of Thomas Carothers, of Carliste, in 1833. His third wife, whom he married in 1863, was Mary Hamill, danghter of William Hamill and Dorcas Galbraith.
One of his sons, Lientenant James Armstrong, was killed at the battle of Fredericksburg.
Mr. Armstrong was a man of strong character and commanded the notice and respect of his fellowmen wherever he was known. He possessed natural powers of a high order. His mind was keen and active and through life he was a student of men and books, of the word and the ways of God in the history of the church and the world. His conversation and his publie addresses revealed a wise, strong and thoughtful man. He was also a man of sincere and thorough conse- cration to truth, the good of men, and the triumph of God's kingdom in the carth. His sympathies were very broad. The rights of all men, the overthrow of all forms of social and political evil, the spread of temperance, the preservation of the Sabbath, religious education, in brief every good and Christian movement enlisted his sympathies and won his co-operation. He was a man of prayer, gifted and earn- est, and a wise and reliable counsellor of the church, and was always ready for duty. That he was called twice to the eldership in this church and was chosen to sit in the higher courts of the church sev- eral times, indicates the large esteem 'in which he was held. He was noted for his dignified and courtly manners. and was beloved and venerated for his pure and steadfast Christian character, his un- swerving attachment to Jesus Christ and his stainless life.
On Wednesday evening, December 10, 1844, the following persons were elected to the Eldership of this church : William McClean, William Root, and on January 5, 1815, they were set apart to their office.
WILLIAM MeCLEAN. Born August 4, 1778. Died .December 23, 1816.
William McClean, son of Moses MeClean and Sarah Watkins was born in Franklin township, Adams county, Pennsylvania. His an-
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cestors were from the north of Ireland, his grandfather coming to this country abont the middle of the last century. All the men of his father's family, five brothers, were surveyors by profession. Two of them, his father and an uncle, were employed under the authority of Great Britain in running the famous Mason and Dixon line. One of his uneles was Deputy Surveyor of York county and a man of promi- neneo, and the father of William McClean and himself assisted him in his duties.
Mr. MeClean was reared in the church of Upper Marsh Creek, York county, which was then under the pastoral care of Rev. John Black, a man of high order of talent, moral conrage and pulpit power. The father, Moses MeClean was an elder in that church and was a man of high standing. At that very early day, in the close of the last century, a temperance society was organized, one of the first of the country, whose members were pledged to abstain themselves from strong drinks and not to furnish them at harvestings, house- raisings, and corn-hustings, the popular gatherings of that day. It was a noble pioneer band to the great host of later days.
In the midst of such moral and religious influences, Mr. McClean spent his youth, and as long as he lived spoke of his early pastor with rapture. In 1794 the family became connected with the Lower Marsh Creek Church, which for forty-nine years was under the pastoral care of Rev. William Paxton, D. D., an ancestor of Rev. William M. Paxton, D. D., now of Princeton Theological Seminary. Under his administration Mr. McClean, while a youth, made a public confes- sion of Christ and became a communicant in the church.
Mr. MeClean was twice married : fiest to Sarah MeGinley in 1800. who died six years later, and second to Hanna Mel'herson in 1810. His children became persons of prominence-one, Judge Moses Me- Clean, was for many years a resident of Gettysburg. Rev. Dr. O. O. McClean, now spending the closing years of his life, after a long and able ministry, in Lewistown. Pa., Dr. Alex S. MeClean, of Spring- field. Mass., and the subject of this sketch.
Mr. McClean removed to Gettysburg, Penna., in 1816, and about the year 1829 was chosen a Ruling Elder of the Presbyterian Church of that place. In 1839 he came to Harrisburg and served in the office of the Surveyor General of the State for several years, removing his family hither in 1811. So rapidly and completely did he win the con- hdenee and love of the church, by the purity of his life, by his marked abilities and by his Christian courtesy and earnest devotion to the cause of religion that in little over three years after his union with the church as a member, he was chosen Elder by a nearly unanimous vote of the people, receiving one hundred and twenty votes out of one hundred and twenty-five.
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He proved to be the man for the place. He was a Christian of spotless life, and of strong and ardent faith, amid many and severe trials. He met with reverses, afflietions and misfortunes, but abode unchanged in character. He was a man of large benevolence. giving out of his limited means regularly and liberally to objects of Christian charity. He was admirably fitted for a leader, being intelligent, active, fluent in speech and a prompt and wise counsellor. Above all these gifts he was a man of prayer and of friendship with God. His prayers were fervid and earnest, clothed in chaste language and from a heart warmed from on high and a mind familiar with the wants of the Church and the world. He was a good man, greatly beloved and respected, and his death within two years after his installation as an Elder filled the Church with mourning and was felt to be a great be- reavement. His pastor, Rev. Dr. Win. R. De Witt, ever spoke of him in terms of nneommon praise and love. He had often expressed the desire, if the Lord willed, to die a sudden and painless death, and sought to be always in readiness for it. The wish was gratified. On December 26, 1846, he fell suddenly dead in the market place, when in the sixty-ninth year of his age.
WILLIAM ROOT. Born January 10, 1798, Died August 25, 1848.
William Root, son of Josiah Root, was born in Sonthington. Con- necticut, and was the one of New England descent brought into the Eldership of this Church. He came to Harrisburg about the year 1531. and was engaged in the tin and iron trade until his death. He was a man of very large and muscular frame and of wonderful vigor of body, of great weight, powerful. yet active and quick in move- ment. His feats of strength were long remembered and rehearsed after his death. This peculiarity led in some degree to his sad and sudden exit from life. He fell when aboat to lift some timbers upon a bridge in process of erection across the Susquehanna, and death resulted from the injury sustained.
In the gracious and extensive revival that occurred in the year of his arrival in Harrisburg he was converted and made a public con- fession of Christ. Mr. Root, though not a man of much intellectual culture, was a very earnest and active Christian, and possessed the entire confidence of the Church. He was modest and retiring in dis- position, and yet had in him the stuff of which heroes and martyrs are made, the spirit of almost unlimited personal sacrifice for the good of his fellow-men and the glory of the Redeemer whom he
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served. It was in fact the distinguishing trait in the character of William Root. Great in body he was large in heart also. He was ready to do or to die, prompt in every duty, cheerful at all times, never morose or disheartened, and his name was promptly given a place in the memory of his brethren and on the honor roll of the Church. His term of office was but a brief two and a half years. The two men, Messrs. MeClean and Root, were ordained at the same time, were alike honored and beloved in the Church and were alike removed by sudden and startling death in about two years after their induction into office. Mr. Root died at the age of fifty, leaving his wife and an only daughter. The latter is residing in the West, having married George Bushnell, of Cromwell, Connecticut.
At the eighth election, on June 20, 1855, for Ruling Elders, the fol- lowing persons were chosen : Mordecai Mckinney, John Andrew Weir, Robert Jackson Fleming. On Sabbath evening, June 24th, they were ordained and installed.
MORDECAI MCKINNEY. Born -
-, 1796.
Died December 17, 1867.
Mordecai MeKinney, son of Mordecai Mckinney and Mary Cham- bers, daughter of Colonel William Chambers, was born near Carlisle, Pennsylvania. His parents resided on a farm and were of that numerous body of Scotch-Irish who were the first settlers of Cumber- land Valley. His early studies were pursued at Dickinson College, where he spent six years, graduating while quite a youth. He began the study of law in the office of Judge Duncan, of Carlisle, and after his removal to Harrisburg, completed his studies, in the office of Hon. Amos Elmaker, Attorney General of the State, and was admitted to the bar in May, 1817. In 1821 he was appointed District Attorney of Union county, and October 12, 1827, Governor Shultze appointed him one of the associate judges of Dauphin county, Pa. He served five years. Subsequently Judge MeKinney turned his attention to the compilation of law books and published " MeKinney's Pennsylvania Tax Laws," and other works of value to the profession. Later still in life he published a volume of labor, research and worth, entitled, "Our Government," an explanatory statement of the system of gov- ernment in this country in its various departments of the State and the Nation, He was a man of extended and accurate knowledge in his profession, an honest and conscientious counsellor, but so modest and retiring that he shrank from the public contests of the bar.
Mr. MeKinney married Rachel Graydon, daughter of William
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Graydon. Her death occurred at Harrisburg, April 12, 1856. Mr. Mckinney principally wrought his mission in the world by his Chris- tian life and character. His life as a man and a citizen was com- pletely transfused by his religion, sanctified and elevated by it .- He was one of the most guileless of men, a man of sterling honesty and conscientiousness, and was remarkably free from selfishness and pride, spending all his years in comparative poverty, no more con- tented, trusting and happy man walked the streets of the city. He was a friend to all that was venerable and good, a defender of law, and a supporter of all that promised to promote the welfare of society.
Though he could give but little he was distinguished as a philan- thropist, giving what is often far better than money, time and atten- tion and. his most hearty sympathy. A true-hearted man, he "counted nothing foreign to him that was human," giving in genuine unselfishness a faithful and earnest devotion to the outcasts and Pariahs of society. He knew no ambition beyond the simple doing of right, and though so lowly and unassuming in all things else, in this he was as brave a man as ever faced an enemy. No notions of policy or of expedieney ever swerved bim from his course. He was the friend of the slave, of the poor, of the despised, and his loyalty to their rights and wants merited universal admiration. And touching as was the tribute to his worth when on the day of his burial, the officers of the court and members of the bar at their head, the presi- dent judge passed beside his coffin, taking their last and silent look and giving their unspoken farewell to their old friend and associate who died as poor in worldly goods as he was morally great. it was by no means so noble and so impressive a testimony to his goodness and worth as when the long procession of parents and children from the colored population of this city passed, and with the touching eloquence of sobs and tears told all, that they had lost their best earthly friend.
It is, however, as a devout Christian that Mr. Mckinney will chiefly and permanently live in the history of the Church. For half a een- tury he was an active member of its communion, for fourteen years a member of its Board of Trustees, and for thirteen years a Ruling Elder. The Presbyterian Church was his by deseent, by education, by love of its doetrines and order. It was a pride and a pleasure to him to sit, as he was permitted to do, in her various courts, the Presbytery, the Synod and the General Assembly.
Judge MeKinney was a great student of the Bible. ITis brethren of the bar were wont to find open on the table where lay his commen- taries on human law, the volume of Divine Law, and with its contents he was more familiar than with any work of human origin. He was a theologian of the Scriptures.
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For many years most of his active christian labors were given freely, and as the chief reward the pleasure of doing good, to the colored people of the city. He sought no public notice. He was over at his post. His life was a life with God. A life of kind thoughts, pious deeds, charity toward men and of trust toward God. It was closed by a calm and quiet death of entire trust in the Great Redeemer, for whose speedy second coming he had longingly waited. His death was the result of injuries from a street car, and when he was told by his pastor that in a few hours he would stand amid the scenes of eternity, he heard the announcement with all the composure and cahnness of one who hears of the most common event of life. The half a century of prayers, labors, counsels and godly living that Judge McKinney gave to this Church are of inestimable worth.
JOHN ANDREW WEIR. Born January 10, 1802. Died October 10, 1881.
John A. Weir, second son of Samuel Weir, and Mary Wallace. was born at Harrisburg. His father was one of the first three Elders of the Church, and a man of high character. The mother, who sur- vived her husband several years, was greatly esteemed by her sons, and by all as a woman of great worth. Mr. Weir received an educa- tion in the private schools of the borough and in the Harrisburg Academy. The best teaching he had, by his own testimony, came from his mother. He learned coach-making. but did not pursue the trade to any large extent in subsequent life. taking up the hardware business in preference and som what later connecting with it the drug business, associating with him his nephew, Daniel W. Gross.
During the administration of Gov. Ritner, 1885-1837, he served as a clerk in the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth. In 1840 he was elected Prothonotary of Dauphin county, and held the position for six years. While serving in this position he became a Director of the Harrisburg bank, and later a teller in it, and so continued until 1880, when the infirmities of age obliged him to retire. He was also from 1850 to 1880 the Treasurer of the State Lunatic Hospital at Harrisburg. His peculiar fitness for such duties brought him many trusts as administrator and executor of estates and the guardian of minor children. In his many and difficult responsibilities he proved to be eminently worthy of all confidence.
He made a public confession of Christ in the year 1820 at the age of eighteen, and for sixty-one years, as a member of the church, maintained a Christian character that was worthy of all praise and
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imitation. He was summoned to many duties by the Church, serving it as a Trustee for sixteen years, as the Treasurer of the congrega- tion for a number of years, as Superintendent of the infant school about fifteen years, and from 1855, until his death, a period of twenty- six years, as an honored and beloved Ruling Elder. For a long time, with his first wife, he was a member of the church choir. They were both excellent singers.
He was above most men a genuine lover of children, and a model in all his intercourse with them. He was beloved and held in memory by all who were under his training.
In the graver duties of a Ruling Elder, he was a wise and safe counsellor in the Session and in the higher courts of the Church. In private and public life his character was conspicuous for its beautiful consisteney and uprightness. No man in the city had a more unsul- lied reputation for all manly Christian virtues than John Andrew Weir. He was a man of large and unfailing liberality .. . He kept himself informed of wants of the Church and of the world and was prompt to meet them to the fulness of his ability. He was a great and true friend of all moral reforms, steadfast and devoted to the temperance cause, closely connected with Bible societies from carly manhood, one of the first and staunchest friends of the anti-slavery movement and of the negro in the North. He had also the courage of his convictions. He was one of the best and truest of friends, genial, cheerful and brotherly. Wherever he went he brought sun- shine and peace. The house was brighter after he had been there, faces were sunnier, hearts were lighter. He came with a benediction and left with a blessing. He was one of the gentlest of men. Life has been happier, its burdens have been casier, its crosses lighter, and faith in God and faith in man have grown stronger for many a fellow mortal because of the true and Christian friendship of John Andrew Weir.
Nr. Weir was twice married, first to Catharine Wiestling, sister of the late George P. Wiestling, and second to Matilda M. Fahnestock, sister of the late Adam K. Fahnestock. Of the family of Mr. Weir but two survive, Misses Anna C. Weir and Sybil M. Weir, who reside in the family home, for many years the residence of Mr. Weir.
ROBERT JACKSON FLEMING. Born November 16, 1803. Died December 2, 1874.
Robert J. Fleming, the son of Samuel Fleming and Sarah Becket, was born in Hanover township, Washington county, Pennsylvania. He received an academic education, and while yet a young man, in
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1829, became a teacher and lecturer on English grammar, and took a trip to the west, lecturing on his favorite topic. His parents had re- moved in 1813 to Hanover, Dauphin county, Pa., whence came a number of the carlier families of this church. Mr. Fleming was a lover and also a teacher of vocal music, and was the chorister of the church from 1834 to 1850. In 1834 he established the coach-making business on a large scale in Harrisburg, and continued it with success until June 15, 1865, when his entire establishment was destroyed by fire. He built at his shop the first eight-wheel passenger car which ran on the Pennsylvania railroad between Columbia and Philadelphia. Also the first on the Williamsport and Elmira railroad, taking it up the canal on a flat boat. In 1861 he was appointed notary public, and held the office until his death, doing the business of the Harrisburg National Bank in this capacity. He married June 5, 1845, Sarah Ann Poor, of MeConunelsville, O.
Mr. Fleming was deservedly honored by his fellowmen as an up- right and enterprising citizen, and a man of intelligence and high moral character. He united with this church on confession of his faith, March 31, 1842, and was ordained and installed a Ruling Elder June 24, 1855.
Mr. Fleming was earnest and active in the work of the church, being greatly interested in the young. For many years also, with his wife and others, he devoted himself to Christian work among the colored population of the city. He was a hearty opponent of hunan slavery. Self-denying, generous, true-hearted, he wrought good and noble work for Christ and his cause. He died in the seventy-first year of his age.
At a meeting held for the purpose on February 19, 1868, the follow- ing persons were elected to the office of Ruling Elder : Alfred Armstrong, Dr. James Fleming, William S. Shaffer, Walter F. Fahnestock, jr.
The latter three were duly ordained and installed on Sabbath evening March 8, 1858. Mr. Armstrong being already ordained, was installed at the same time.
JAMES FLEMING, M. D., D. D. S., Born June 25, 1810, Died January 30, 1875.
James Fleming, son of Samuel Fleming and Sarah Becket, was born in Washington county, Pennsylvania. In 1812 his parents removed to Hanover township, Dauphin county, Pennsylvania. He received a good education, being ambitious to excel in his studies.
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Thrown upon his own resources at the early age of eighteen, he resolved to help himself by alternately acting as teacher and pupil. He pursued this course for seven years and became conversant with the higher mathematics, with one or more of the ancient languages and with French. He taught in various schools and academies spending some time in the States of Ohio and Kentucky. In 1838 he graduated with honor from the Jefferson Medical College, Phila- delphia, and entered upon the practice of medicine in Harrisburg. For some years he practiced his profession, but finding the duties too severe for a slender constitution his attention was drawn to the science of dental surgery, then comparatively in its infancy. He went to Philadelphia and acquired a thorough knowledge of the science, and returning to Harrisburg he met with a deserved success in his new profession and prosecuted it through the rest of his life. He was one of the originators of the Pennsylvania Association of Dental Surgeons, aided in establishing the first Dental College in Philadelphia, it being the second of its kind incorporated in this country. He was a frequent contributor to both medical and dental journals and occasionally to the newspaper press. He was tendered a professorship in the Dental College at Philadelphia, but deelined it He twice received the honorary degree of Doctor of Dental Surgery. He was also a director in the Harrisburg National Bank, and President of the Board of School Dircetors, showing himself to be a man of public spirit and ability.
He made a profession of his faith in Christ and united with the Presbyterian Church March 2, 1813. He at once entered upon Chris- tian work and was for many years a teacher in the Sunday school. He was ordained an Elder in the Church March 8. 1868. and met his duties with fidelity until his death, eight years later. He was a man of pure and noble character, retiring in his ways, gentle- manly, obliging and courteous to all. He was a man of generous instinets and actions, a man of sincerest piety and of real worth. He married, in 1852, Jeannette Street, daughter of Col. Thaddeus Street and Martha Davenport Reynolds, a lineal descendent of Rev. John Davenport, the founder of New Haven. The widow and two children, Mrs. D. P. Bruner, of Philadelphia, and William R. Fleming, of New York survive him.
WALTER FRANKLIN FAHNESTOCK, JR. Born October 8, 1844. Died May 19, 1879.
Mr. Fahnestock was the son of Walter F. Fahnestock and Louisa C. Heisley, and was born at Harrisburg. Ile united with this
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Church on July 2, 1865, and was active in the work of the Church and of the Young Men's Christian Association. He 'gave large promise of usefulness and of success and was called into the Eldership and ordained March 8, 1868. After a brief service of four years he removed to Philadelphia, severing his connection with the church. Ile died while still comparatively young at his father's house in Harrisburg.
Mr. William Stowe Shaffer served the Church for twenty-one years with sincere devotion. Since the organization of the Olivet Church in 1889, he has been an active and earnest Elder in that organization.
On April, 15, 1877, the following persons were added to the goodly roll of the Eldership of the Church by ordination and installation. They were chosen to the office on April 4: James Franklin Purvis, Samuel John Milton MeCarrell, Jacob Augustus Miller, Gilbert Martin McCauley. After serving the Church with ability and univer- sal acceptableness until December 26, 1882, Mr. Purvis removed to Kansas, where he still resides. He has been a Ruling Elder in the Presbyterian Church of Holton, Kansas, since a short while after his removal there. The remaining three are still amid the active duties of the office. To them were added by ordination and installa- tion on March 20, 1887, John Craig Harvey and John Henry Spicer. The complete roll of the ruling eldership contains thirty names. The foregoing record will show what noble and able men have served God and the Church in that office.
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