USA > Pennsylvania > Allegheny County > Pittsburgh > Centennial volume of the First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, PA., 1784-1884 > Part 14
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22
155
HISTORICAL FRAGMENTS.
PLAN OF PEWS IN OLD LOG CHURCH,* WITH PEWHOLDERS. 1801.
SIXTH STREET.
And. McIntire.
John Scull.
James O'Hara.
Ebenezer Denny.
John Johnston.
Wm. Steel.
John Wilkins.
John Irwin.
Isaac Craig.
James Ross.
Wm. Dunning.
Wm. Cecil.
33 34 35 36 37 38
1 2 3 4 5 6
32 31
8 7
Geo. Stevenson.
30
9
Steel Semple.
Jas. Morrison.
Jas. B. Clow.
Jas. Robinson.
29
10
G. McGonigle.
Jno. Wilkins, Jr.
28
11
David Pride.
Nath. Irish.
John Reid.
26
13
James Riddle.
25
14
Jos. McCully.
24
15
Robt. Smith.
23
16
22
17
Thos. Collins.
Wmn. Morrow.
21
18
And. Richardson.
20
19
Alex. Addison.
VIRGIN ALLEY.
Whole number of Pews
38
Number rented in 1801
31
Highest Pew Rent
$12.00
Lowest Pew Rent.
9.00
* The plan inserted has been substituted for that drawn according to Mrs. Way's memory, as somewhat more complete, and accompanied by a list of pewholders. It is the work of his Honor Judge Addison, and was drawn in 1801 .- S. F. S.
WOOD STREET.
Jno. Woods.
27
12
Wm. Anderson.
PULPIT.
156
HISTORICAL FRAGMENTS.
The pews, so called, were really only benches with backs, and not very substantially set up. I remember upon one occasion, that the seat of our "pew" fell down at one end, making quite a noise, my mother falling with it. Mrs. O'Hara, who sat just behind, leaned forward and said to my mother in a low voice, "Why, Mrs. Anderson : you are the last woman I should have thought would have made a disturbance in the church !" She referred to an incident that had taken place a short time before, when a young girl from Washington county, who had been through the exciting scenes of the falling work, then very prevalent in south western part of the State, had "fallen down " in the church with screams and moans. Major Denny had peremptorily ordered her out, and assisted "Harris, the bell ringer," in carrying her out and throwing water on her.
I cannot remember anything about the "pulpit" nor the windows. The house itself was built, I think, of unhewed logs, and stood quite a distance in the yard.
The brick church was built in Mr. Steele's time. It was a necessity, the log church not being large enough to hold the con- gregation. The subscriptions for the building of the church fell far short of the actual expense, so a lottery was proposed and many tickets sold. My father sold tickets to all his work-hands. He also gave me one-which drew a six dollar prize. Mr. James Thompson drew $100. The lottery wheel was in 'Squire Wilkins' office, on Wood street, corner of Fourth. Squire Wilkins had a large garden, extending from his house up Wood street to Diamond alley, and from Wood street to the Diamond.
When the "drawing" was made, Mr. Steele's two oldest sons turned the wheel.
William Wilkins (Judge, ) took quite an interest in the project, but somehow it was not a success. Somebody, I do not know who, was said to have drawn a prize of $1,000.
Elijah Trovillo and old Mr. Goudy were the brick layers of the brick church. The new house was built around and over the old one. Trovillo, who was somewhat of a wag, used to tell the country people that when the new walls were up, the old church was to be burnt out of the way ; and he actually appointed a day for some of them to come in and see the sight. The pulpit of the new church was a large round box, rather high up. It was always a mystery to me in my childhood how the minister got
157
HISTORICAL FRAGMENTS.
into it: the steps up to it were in some way concealed behind it.
The communion table was placed across the house in front of the pulpit. It was a long table with benches. They had silver goblets and nice white table linen. Mr. James Cooper was one of the elders, and his daughter, aunt Peggy Davis, always took care of the communion service. The pews of the new house were arranged, as near as possible, after the same plan as in the old house, and each family had relatively the same locality in the new, as they had in the old house.
The new house, however, faced Wood street, unlike the old, which, as I said before, faced Virgin alley.
At Mr. Steele's death the pulpit was draped in black, and re- mained so until Mr. Herron's arrival.
Old Mr. Graham, of Wilkinsburg, preached Mr. Steele's funeral sernion.
The Rev. Mr. Graham one day came to my father's with the abrupt question : "Have ye a devil about you ?" " Well, I don't know," said my father, "they are very plenty about here. Were you wanting one ?" It proved to be some particular kind of plow he wished to borrow.
I spoke of " Harris, the bell ringer." I never knew any other name for him. He was always called that. He was father of Isaac Harris, the "Directory" man. He was sexton of the church, and rang the bell for church and school. The bell was not at the church, but at the Court House, and did service for all the town. It was not put up until some years after the Court House was built.
Among my earliest recollections, is that of assembling with the other children in the church after service, to be catechized by the minister.
Hymn books were very scarce and hard to be got. I think we had no hymn books in the congregation, as a general thing, until after the brick church was built. Nicholas Cun- ningham brought the hymn books from Philadelphia. I have mine yet. It was presented to me by Mr. John M. (afterwards Judge) Snowden. My name and the date are written on a fly leaf. (January 1, 1814.)
158
HISTORICAL FRAGMENTS.
(Copy of title page) :
Psalms carefully suited to the Christian Worship in the United States of America : being an improvement of the old versions of the Psalms of David. "All things written in the laws of Moses, and the Prophets and the Psalms, concerning Me, must be fulfilled." New York: printed and sold (wholesale,) at 156 Pearl street, by D. & G. Bruce, 1808.
(Copy of 2d title page) :
Hymns and Spiritual Songs. In three Books.
I. Collected from the Scriptures.
II. Composed on Divine Subjects.
III. Prepared for the Lord's Supper, by I. Watts, D. D.
"And they sung a new song, saying, thou art worthy, etc., for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us, etc." Rev. r. 9. " Soliti essent (i. e. Christiani) convenire, Carmenque Christo quasi Deo dicere." " Plinius in Epist." New York : printed and sold (wholesale,) at 156 Pearl street, by D. & G. Bruce, 1808.
(The Psalm Book contains the one hundred and fifty Psalms, with six doxologies, one of which is headed "As the 113th Psalm :" another "As the 114th Psalm." In the Hymn Book the hymns are numbered in each part separately. Part first contains hymns CL. Part second, hymns CLXX. Part third, hymns XLV, including twenty so called doxologies and hosannas. There is also the usual index of subjects and table of first lines, both of which are also found in the Psalm Book.)
"Mr. Steele was buried in the graveyard attached to the church."
The fifth of these fragments concerns the incidental early con- nection with the First Church of no less a personage than Bishop Henry Hopkins. The extracts are taken from his life written by his son, and show how near we came to having a bishop among us permanently.
"In May, 1816, arriving the first evening in Pittsburgh, they were the guests of their dear friends the O'Hara's; and on Sun- day went to the Presbyterian meeting with them, as a matter of course, Dr. Herron being then the leading preacher in all that region of country. * When the singular kindness of the O'Hara's is remembered and the absence of all definite church principle as yet, in my father's mind, is kept in view, it will not seem strange that on his coming to live in Pittsburgh, my parents
159
HISTORICAL FRAGMENTS.
went on Sundays, as a matter of course, to Dr. Herron's Presby- terian meeting, with seats in the O'Hara pew, and there they would probably have remained had it not been for one of those trifling things which the world calls accidents. (Mr. H. was re- quested to become the organist in Trinity Church.) In 1816,'17 and '18 the Presbyterian Society was by all odds the dominant one in Pittsburgh, whether for numbers, wealth, or social and intellectual power and weight. Few and feeble were the Church- folk in Western Pennsylvania in those days, and the worst step a young man could take who wished to rise in the world as a lawyer, was to quit the Presbyterians and 'join the Episcopals.' [pp. 60, 61.]
After the Rev. Mr. Carter left Trinity a long and painful va- cancy followed. Now one was obtained for a time, now another, but of such moderate abilities, that but little growth could be expected of their leadership. One of them experienced great diffi- culty in the preparation of his sermons, and made no secret of it. He lived in a house the rear of which looked upon the rear of that which was occupied by the Rev. Mr. McElroy, (long known as Dr. McElroy, of New York City,) then a young Presbyterian minister of leading ability and a kind heart, and the gardens be- tween them were narrow. Each had his study in the rear of the house. The story runs, that once upon a time, in the summer, our rector had found himself utterly unable during the week to write the dreaded sermon, and on Saturday, at about noon, de- spairing of success, bent down his head over his crossed arms upon his study table and wept audibly from sheer helplessness and mortification. The windows were all open and the kind hearted Presbyterian dominie, sceing his predicament and pitying him sincerely, called out loud enough to be heard through the gardens : 'Don't cry, brother -. I'll lend you a sermon.'' [p. 63.]
The sixth of the fragments was a reminiscence of First Church Hospitality.
The Rev. Sylvester Scovel, declining invitations to Eastern fields, came West in 1829, having been married in Philadelphia on the day the journey began, to Miss Hannah Matlack. Arriv- ing at Pittsburgh on Saturday, after a wearisome journey of nearly a week, they were found to be at the hotel. Dr. Herron
160
HISTORICAL FRAGMENTS.
sent one of his daughters (my mother remembers yet how hand- some a family it was) to conduct them to his own house. They spent the Sabbath there. Mr. Scovel preached in the morning in this pulpit. In addition he preached in the afternoon in the Second Church, then under the pastorate of Dr. Swift. On Monday, Dr. and Mrs. Herron, with Mr. and Mrs. Scovel, were entertained at dinner at Dr. Swift's, in Allegheny.
When obliged to resume their journey, the family rose as early as two o'clock in the morning to send them away to the missionary work of years in the then great West-the valley of the Ohio, and near Cincinnati. This rest and refreshment of Christian care and fellowship has now been a bright spot in my mother's memories for nearly fifty-five years. The date of the Sabbath on which it occurred is corroborated by the diary of Er. Swift, and by the account given in 1881 by the Rev. Dr. Adam Tor- rance, recently deceased. He, a student in the Seminary and boarding at Dr. Swift's, dined there with those already mentioned on the Monday, and had preserved in his diary a record of my father's text and an appreciative notice of the sermon.
That Sabbath-July 5th, 1829-was the communion occasion in the Second Church, and seventeen persons were added upon examination. The Rev. Dr. Jennings preached in the morning, who has long been my own, as he was my father's friend. (They had been in Princeton Seminary together.) It is to be noted as an apt illustration of that promise of the xlyth Psalm (which I remember Dr. McGill's quoting to me when I handed in my first commission to the General Assembly, in 1860)-"instead of the fathers I will take the children :" that during these services (nearly fifty-five years after that Sabbath ) there will be present Dr. Swift's son (who presides over the meeting this afternoon), and the son of Dr. Jennings, (the Rev. Philip S. Jennings) and my father's son.
These incidents I have desired to find some place in our cele- bration, as they show (1) the lasting blessings of that simplicity of life which does not consume everything upon itself but leaves a large margin for Christian hospitality ; and they show (2) what a delightful state of good feeling then reigned between the two churches and has ever since endured ; and they show (3) that the ministers' sons do not all go to the bad.
161
MISSIONARY HISTORY.
MISSIONARY HISTORY.
DR. WM. SPEER.
[The Missionary History was then read by the Rev. Dr. Wm. Speer, and will be found to embrace many most interesting details now collected for the first time.]
It is a conspicuous fact in the religious history of America, that Pittsburgh has been a very prominent centre of missionary interest, and of corresponding influence, not alone in the Presby- terian, but to some extent in other churches of the nation. To what cause is this due ? .
The condition of the country west of the Allegheny mountains a century ago was such as to make, at that early day, what we classify as "foreign missionary work" a stern necessity.
The heathen were the owners and occupants of nearly the whole of the country where we now have reared innumerable cities and luxurious homes. Thomas and Richard Penn had bought, for ten thousand dollars, from the Indian tribes called the "Six Nations," the land between the Susquehanna and Alle- gheny rivers. But the savages understood little and regarded still less what such a sale meant; and dwelt upon and hunted over it. And so they did in all the country west of the Allegheny, which they sold in like style to the Penn's during the very year which we are commemorating.
Causes which we cannot now consider had created intense and increasing hatred, and caused unsparing and deadly warfare to exist between the Indians and the whites. Many horrible mas- sacres of either people by their enemies had given a terrible notoriety to the region. They watched, and hunted, and slew
162
MISSIONARY HISTORY.
each other like wild beasts. The local authorities of the whites paid rewards for the dead scalps or living bodies of Indians, vary- ing in their sums from a hundred and fifty down to fifty dollars, according to sex and age. Some, even Christian people, had persuaded themselves that the Indians were the Canaanites of the land, and to be utterly destroyed without mercy.
So blind and vindictive was the hatred of all Indians that in March, 1782, a party of men from about Fort Pitt, upon an ex- pedition through what is now the State of Ohio, came upon three villages of Christian Indians-Gnadenhutten, Shonbrunn and Salem, where had been gathered and were living in peaceful industry and quiet, some of the converts of the pious Moravian missionaries, Post, Zeisberger and Heckewelder. These Indians and their teachers had taken pains to avoid connection with their heathen kindred in their deeds of violence, and to exhibit to the whites on the Ohio river and at Fort Pitt their anxiety for friendship and peace. On the other hand they had, with great efforts and much danger to themselves, prevented many of the heathen Indians accepting the solicitations of the British at Detroit, to serve them in the war then raging against the Amer- ican colonies. Yet many of the Fort Pitt people refused to accept the declaration of these things.
On Monday, the 6th of March, the white party appeared at the villages, and were kindly entertained by the Indians with corn, and venison, and honey, of which they emptied their stores and beehives. They refused to receive warnings which some of their friends gave them, of danger. They talked with the whites of God and Christ Jesus, and their faith. On Thursday, there were hot debates in the white camp. The" Shonbrunn people became alarmed and fled into the forest. In the afternoon a party of the whites collected the Salem and Gnadenhutten people ; they bound them in couples, and put all the women and girls into one house, the men and boys into another at Gna- denhutten. The night was spent by the captives in prayer and singing of hymns. In the morning a band of men entered each house. With clubs, mallets and hatchets, they murdered the entire number confined there, save two boys, one of whom hid himself in the cellar, and the other escaped through the door. Ninety-six people, five of them Christian assistants of the mis-
A
163
MISSIONARY HISTORY.
sion, perished. The whites scalped the bodies, took fifty horses, what plunder they could carry, and returned to Fort Pitt.
Only two months afterwards the heathen Indians defeated Col. Crawford's expedition, and inflicted a horrible vengeance upon the Pennsylvania people for that massacre at Gnadenhut- ten. They burned Col. Crawford and several other captives at the stake, with mocking and fearful tortures.
In such events as these, there were two overwhelming argu- ments for Christian missions to the Indian tribes. The first, the troubles and dangers inflicted upon the white population of this region and all their interests by the proximity of the barbarous Indians. The other, the assured fact that the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ had power to change the most savage nature, to impart habits of civilization, and industry and peace, and to enable men and women, born in heathen darkness, to live lives and to die deaths which bear comparison with those of the Christian martyrs of the first centuries or of the Protestant Refor- mation.
The condition of the white population, which was forming infant settlements in the most eligible spots, afforded two similar arguments for home missions. On the one hand there were resi- dent in this new frontier, some men and women and families of tried and fervent and intelligent piety ; a piety made" like gold, the more pure and shining by the fires through which it passed and the dross with which it was contrasted. The people, save a few Germans, were almost all of the Scotch blood, disciplined by a sojourn in the north of Ireland. But the greater part of the white population, from Fort Pitt to the mouth of the Ohio, was of a very abandoned and desperate character. Some of them lived with the Indians, and incited them to the commission of many of their acts of atrocity. Deeds of bloodshed and crime were fre- quent, and many of them unpunished. Drunkenness and vice corrupted much of what society there was. The soldiers of Fort Pitt were almost beyond restraint. A military commander sent there in 1782, reported to the Secretary of War at Philadelphia, "they are the most licentious men, and the worst behaved, I ever saw." These were the circumstances in which a few men and women, dwelling among them, whose righteous souls from day to day were vexed with the unlawful deeds and with the filthy conversation of the wicked, sought for deliverance through the
164
MISSIONARY HISTORY.
help from on high, and began to pray that the Lord would bring in preachers of righteousness.
In the year 1784, a day of better things began to dawn. The town of Pittsburgh was laid out. The portion of the State of Pennsylvania west of the Allegheny river, was bought from the Indians of the Six Nations. Steps were taken during the year to obtain regular preaching by Presbyterian ministers. We see how, from the beginning, the church inhaled an atmosphere which kindled the pulses of an energetic missionary life; one which has continued strong and fervent in its youth and in its prime.
And the Holy Spirit of God gave to His people in all this region the promise that the day which then dawned in such darkness, should be one of great fruitfulness and joy, by pouring out upon the churches here and there rains of unexpected grace, which, in the years until the present century fairly opened, multiplied and spread over this and other lands. This was the beginning of the mighty advance which religious history entitles " the Great Revival of 1800."
The SECOND period in the missionary history of this church, is that associated with the rise of organized activity in the spread of the gospel at home and abroad.
Previous to the current century, there had been in New England and on the western frontiers, irregular missionary efforts of individuals and of associations. But there was now a swelling of the river of the water of life, which called for new and powerful ecclesiastical machinery and enterprise.
Pittsburgh was the place which the position in respect to mis- sionary fields, the character of the people, and the spiritual baptism which this western region had received in richer measure than the East, indicated as ordained of Providence to be the source of such a movement in the Presbyterian church of the nation as would qualify her to fulfill her high obligations to Jesus Christ and to mankind in all future time.
It is a remarkable fact in the religious history of America, that while the missionary efforts of other branches of the Christian church have been experimental and unsystematie, the Spirit of God guided the Presbyterian church here at once to the very form and order and methods of the control and performance of
165
MISSIONARY HISTORY.
such work which time has proven to be, as to its membership, . the most suitable, practical, permanent, and capable of expansion until its operations should extend throughout the nation, and we know not yet where throughout the world. "The Board of Trust," which the Synod of Pittsburgh organized and appointed at its first meeting in 1802, was the germ and the model of all subsequent Presbyterian Missionary Boards, home and foreign, in our own and in other bodies of the Presbyterian name. Con- gregational ideas of church government interfered with it for a time and proved its strength and vitality. But the influence of this region restored the original plan. At last it triumphed fully, and for all the future, in the acceptance by the General Assembly of the organization reared here, and in the adoption of it for the whole church in 1837, under the name of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church. A portion of the great Presbyterian body refused for a third of a century to conform to this mode of operations. It was a joyful day when, on that memorable Friday morning, the 12th day of November, 1869, what had been called the Old and New School divisions of the church met here in the same city, and on the very ground where the Synod of Pittsburgh had, in 1802, planted the tree, and sat down together as one reunited and rejoicing family, to eat and drink under its now widely extended and fruitful branches.
This old church well deserved that distinguished honor. The first seven annual meetings of the Synod of Pittsburgh were held under its roof; and of the first twenty-two meetings, that is until the year 1833, sixteen were held in the same place ; the other six were held in the town of Washington, a deserved tribute to the noble body of men in that vicinity. The Western Foreign Missionary Society was presided over, during its exist- ence, by Harmar Denny, an elder, as President, and by Dr. Herron, as Chairman of its Executive Committee; and its meetings were generally held in the lecture room of this church. The contributions of the people of the church were the largest, with few exceptions, made to its treasury.
And yet it would be neither just nor modest were we to dis- parage the co-operation of many other churches, and other ministers and elders ; some in this region, some elsewhere, par- ticularly in the cities of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and
166
MISSIONARY HISTORY.
Cincinnati. And high above all other men of the Presbyterian name in fervent zeal, comprehensive knowledge, moving elo- quence and arduous labors for foreign missions, was the pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church and Corresponding Secretary of the Society, Dr. Elisha P. Swift, the son of Lucy Elliot, a de- scendant in the fourth generation of the famous first apostle to the Indians of America, John Eliot, of Massachusetts, and a kinsman of the Payson's and others of the saintliest spirits of modern ages.
The very limited time permitted to the present address allows me only to sketch the holder outlines of the causes and facts which have created the eminent missionary character of this church and this region. It has sustained this character by the liberality of its contributions to all forms of missionary and benevolent work in this and other lands ; by the personal efforts of its sons and daughters in many ways for the advancement of the Redeemer's kingdom, and its influence upon the students of the Theological Seminary, which have been noticed more partic- ularly in the Sabbath School history ; and by the part which it has taken in establishing and fostering the religious and literary institutions of the neighborhood and of the land. Its pastor was an active participant in the steps by which the Gen- eral Assembly organized the Presbyterian Board of Education, and he was continued by his Synod or the Assembly a member of the Board, during most, if not all the time, for forty years, until his death in 1860. A son of this church was the Corres- ponding Secretary and executive officer of that Board, in Phila- delphia, for nearly eleven years. The largest contributions of the means by which the operations of the Western Theological Seminary were sustained, came, for many years, as also those by which it was at first built and when burned rebuilt, from members of this church. A summary of the history of your first century would be incomplete without the record of these facts for the inspiration of those who shall follow, to still better deeds. And . far better and larger efforts truly are needed from those to come -home missionary work, especially for the conversion of the millions of foreign emigrants who threaten our republican in- stitutions with their most serious danger ; and foreign missionary work, to send, according to the Redeemer's last command, the gospel to every creature.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.