USA > Pennsylvania > Allegheny County > Pittsburgh > Centennial volume of the First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, PA., 1784-1884 > Part 21
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The Rev. Geo. Webster represented the church on the South, Side, in which some of the members of the First Church took part when it was being planted as a Sabbath School : and which had been lately aided by the First Church (and other churches,)
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to escape the burden of debt. He spoke of the general life of a church as part of the body of Christ, and gave warmest acknowl- edgments of the work which the great Head of the Church has accomplished by the instrumentality of the church now celebrat- ing its centennial. The interest attaching to his remarks is deepened by the fact that in the interval to this writing his useful life has been closed, and his reward in heaven has begun. He knows now the life of the "church of the first-born which are written in heaven."
Devotional exercises, serious and tender, were then conducted. In them Dr. J. N. Brownson, of Washington, took part, and they were closed by the last pastor of the church.
Thus ended a celebration for which there was ample reason, and which, by all that transpired during its progress, emphasized the grace of God, and the tender care of the church's Lord Jesus Christ, and the necessity of the presence of the Holy Spirit : which showed how the memory of the just is blessed : which has made a landmark of progress, and increased the knowledge of that progress : and which cannot but be useful both as a guide and a stimulus to progress in the future.
May God own all His own which was in it, to His own glory. "To whom be glory, and dominion, and power, for ever and ever. Amen."
16
*
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CHURCH BUILDINGS.
Old Sabbath School Room-1816.
⑈
Church Building-1852.
New Sabbath School Room-1881.
APPENDIX.
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PREFACE TO APPENDIX.
PREFACE TO APPENDIX.
- -
Extracts from the two first papers here printed, together with the letter of the Rev. John Rea, were read in the services of Sabbath Morning, April 20th. The remaining documents are printed as contributions to the Church History, or mementoes of its centennial celebration, or records of its present organization.
JOBG.W. CAUGNKY, PITTS, PAS
Samuel Barr.
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APPENDIX. .
APPENDIX.
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE FIRST PASTORATE.
BY THE DAUGHTER OF THE PASTOR, MISS JANE A. BARR.
NOTE. Several of the children of the Rev. Samuel Barr were of eminent piety. No one was either more gifted or more devoted than the writer of this notice of her father. She passed the closing years of her life at Washington, D. C., where I had the pleasure of seeing her in February, 1877. Her interesting correspondence and the manuscript of this history will be found in our archives. Scarcely any language can express the affectionate esteem in which she was held by her younger sisters and the other still younger members of the family circle. May the printing of this tender memorial of her father help to make blessed the memory both of father and daughter. -[S. F. S.]
My father, the Rev. Samuel Barr, one of the earliest pioneer preachers of the gospel in Western Pennsylvania, and first pastor of the First Pres- byterian Church in Pittsburgh, was born February 4th, 1751, near Lon- donderry, Ireland. His father, who died in comparatively early life, was a respectable farmer. His mother was of Scotch parentage, and was dis- tinguished for her devoted piety and great decision of character. She had an apartment in her house consecrated to purposes of private devo- tion, where she retired, regularly and statedly, to hold communion with God; and where she took her children, one by one, to instruct them in the great principles of the Christian religion, praying with, and for them, and dedicating them, over and over, to the God of the Covenant.
Who can doubt but that she followed her eldest son with earnest prayer through his educational career, then across the trackless ocean, to the home of his adoption, and afterwards to his chosen field of labor ? Perhaps much of the harmony and prosperity of the First Church in Pittsburgh, up to the present day, may be attributed to the fervent prayers of this Christian mother, " for are they not all in God's Book?"
My father received his collegiate and theological education at the University of Glasgow, Scotland; and I haye in my possession numerous certificates from the professors in that time honored institution of
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learning, dating from 1775 to 1783. One of these I will transcribe here as a specimen of the quaint and cautious Scotch professor :
GLASGOW COLLEGE, April 5th, 1780.
This is to certify that the bearer, Mr. Samuel Barr, student in Theology in this University, did attend the Ecclesiastical History lectures, given here this season, from the opening of the same to the date hereof, and that he behaved himself dutifull :, properly, and worthily, in that and in every other respect, as far as is known to me.
J. F. MACLEOD, Historical Professor.
My father was licensed to preach the glorious gospel of the blessed God, late in 1783, or early in 1784, as in the latter year he came to Amer- ica, one year after the preliminaries of peace had been signed between the United States and Great Britain, thus constituting him a citizen of this country, almost from the period of its existence as an independent nation. It would seem as if there was a special Providence in my father bringing with him from his native land a letter of introduction to Mr. James McDowel, of New London, Chester county, whose eldest daughter he married the following year ; and as the church at New London was then without a pastor, my father was immediately invited to fill their pulpit, as stated supply, which he did for several months, so much to their ac- ceptance, that they gave him a unanimous call, which he held under advisement for some time, but afterwards declined, to go to the more destitute West. The church of New London was at that period one of the oldest and most respectable in the country, perhaps, outside of the large cities. Their organization dated back to 1720. Among others, they had enjoyed the ministry of the Rev. Francis Allison, D. D., who was not only eminent as a preacher, but who had established among them, as early as 1743, a classical academy, at which some of the most useful and distinguished men of that day were educated. He was called from them to fill the high position of Vice Provost and Professor of Moral Philos- ophy in the University of Pennsylvania.
As my parents both died in my early childhood, and all are dead from whom I could derive information, I am left to conjecture as to why my father made so unselfish a choice, and I account for it in the following way : Mr. McDowel, my grandfather, in addition to the cultivation of a large farm, was also extensively engaged in the manufacture of flour, which he exported largely to the West Indies, and had a train of wagons constantly employed in carrying it to Fort Pitt, then the very far West, the few settlers beyond coming into that place to obtain their supplies. Hotels were scarce at that time, and all genteel travelers from the West, the merchants especially, coming East to make their purchases-more especially those gentlemen to whom my grandfather consigned his flour- were all entertained at his hospitable mansion, which was on the direct route between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. My father meeting these responsible gentlemen from Pittsburgh there, as I suppose, was so im- pressed by them with the importance of the field and its entire destitution, that he decided in favor of Pittsburgh. Being without local attachments,
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the country " was before him where to choose, and God," I trust, " his guide."
I have no idea he made this decision without a positive understanding with these gentlemen of standing and influence ; he was too prudent and sensible a man, too devoted as a husband and father through his whole life, for me to entertain for a moment any other supposition. Neither would my grandfather have been justifiable in permitting his daughter to leave her comfortable home upon any uncertainty. Accordingly he was ordained by the Presbytery of New Castle, (sine titulo) at New London, June 15th, 1785, and on the 29th of October following, was united in marriage to Miss Mary McDowel; and in a few days after they set out for Pittsburgh, performing the whole journey on horseback, taking with them as a servant, a colored girl, who also rode a horse, to which she was strapped to prevent her falling off in case she went to sleep. I presume they reached their destination in November, from which period I date the commencement of my father's ministry in Pittsburgh.
As to the value of the land on which the First Church is built, which was obtained from the heirs of Penn, through my father's agency, more is known to the church than to myself. My father's ministry was short, something less than five years. So far as I can learn, his interest in the field was undiminished, but, as was to be expected, my mother was unhappy at the separation from her family, and, as I am informed, she could not accustom herself to the rough country and people, and being of a timid disposition, she lived in continual terror of the Indians, who were very numerous, and who would carry off one or the other of her infant boys and keep them all day in their wigwams, she being afraid to show any want of faith in them, even so much as to ask them not to take them, or enquire when they would bring them back ; but when they did return them, she always felt as if she had received them from the dead. I infer from this fact, often related by my brother (lately deceased) to his children, and who had learned it from his mother's own lips, that the Indians must have, at this time, outnumbered the white population. Hannah, the servant girl, when she returned to New London, entertained the servants at her old master's with the war whoop, with which she had become familiar in Pittsburgh.
But while my father's stay in Pittsburgh was short, it was long enough for him to create sufficient interest among all classes to build the first house of worship ever attempted to be erected in the present large city of Pittsburgh ; the humble mother church, from which many other Pres- byterian churches in Pittsburgh have sprung. He sowed the good seed of the Word, which has brought forth fruit a hundred fold to the glory of God. In going West just when he did, and undoubtedly he made great sacrifices in going, I believe he helped to save that region of country to Protestantism certainly, and perhaps very largely to that grand organiza- tion-the Presbyterian Church.
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APPENDIX.
I regret exceedingly that in the frequent removals of my father's family after his death, most of his valuable papers were scattered and lost. They no doubt contained much that would have been interesting at the present day, not only to the First Church, but to the citizens of Pitts- burgh generally. My father was chairman of the committee which located the first market house in Pittsburgh ; and I have no doubt, from his executive talents, that he did much to advance the temporal as well as the spiritual interests of the community. That facilities in the mode of traveling had greatly increased in a few years, I infer from the fact that we have furniture in the family which our parents bought and used in Pittsburgh, and brought it with them when they came from the West.
After returning to the East, my father settled in New Castle, Delaware, within twenty miles of my mother's home. The church in New Castle claims to be the oldest Presbyterian church in the country, with the exception, perhaps, of the First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, and the church at Snow Hill, Maryland. They were an organized church in 1700, and earlier. The building occupied at that time, and in which my father preached in 1790, is an excellent and substantial structure yet, though they have erected alongside of it a handsome modern edifice. The congregation, though never very large, has always been remarkable for piety and culture. As early as 1709, Thomas Janvice was a ruling elder in this church. This gentleman was a Huguenot, who had escaped from France in the reign of Louis XIV, upon the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. My youngest sister, Margaret, is married to one of his lineal descendants, Mr. Benjamin A. Janvice.
My father departed this life May 31st, 1818, and with my mother, who died four years previously (April 25th, 1814), was buried at New Castle. Copied from the family record :
"James McDowel, first son of Samuel and Mary Barr, was born at Pittsburgh, Pa .. September 14th, 1786 : was baptized April 24th. 1787, by the Rev. Joseph Smith, and died of consumption at New Castle, December 3d, 1814."
" Robert Hamilton, second son of Samuel and Mary Barr, was born at Pittsburgh, Pa., May 25th, 1788 ; was baptized August 16th, by the Rev. James Dunlap, and died in New Castle, December 25th, 1875, aged eighty-seven years and seven months."
HIe attained to more than the years of his fathers, yet his hearing was perfect, his eye not dim, nor his mental faculties in any degree impaired. To the last he cherished a warm affection for the place of his birth, and always rejoiced in its increasing prosperity.
There were ten children born in Delaware, most of whom, with the two born in Pittsburgh, are interred with our parents in New Castle. Said the aged Barzillai, "When 'I die, bury me beside my father and my mother." Two only, of the twelve children, died in their early infancy ; but not until they had been baptized into the name of the Divine Trinity ; " and they shall see His face, and His name shall be in their forehead."
Three daughters, Jane, Elizabeth and Margaret (the youngest of the family), still survive, and are living witnesses that the promises of God are all yea and amen in Christ Jesus.
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APPENDIX.
Signed by the eldest surviving danghter of the first pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh.
JANE A. BARR.
September 12th, 1877.
No. 1753 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, WASHINGTON, D. C., April 10th, 1884.
REV. S. F. SCOVEL,
Wooster, Ohio.
Dear Brother : On the 5th instant, at my request, my son David R. McKee acknowledged the receipt of your letter of the 28th ultimo, conveying the kind invitation of the Session of the dear old First Church of Pittsburgh, to participate in its centennial anniversary on the 13th, 14th and 15th instant. I then feared that my physical condition would debar me from the pleasure of joining you on that interesting occasion, but sent word that I would write definitely in a few days. I write now to say that I think it will be dangerous to my health to make so long a journey in the present unsettled state of the weather. I am still suffering somewhat from the effects of a fall on an icy pavement ; but chiefly from the fact that a cataract has almost wholly darkened the windows of my earthly tenement.
If time served, and I were not apprehensive of wearying you, I could detail many ineidents touching the early history of the church and con- gregation which might be new to the present generation. I must, however, be very brief.
I am now in my eighty-fourth year and my life has been a busy and eventful one ; but its courses and chief activities undoubtedly have been laid, shaped and directed greatly by the influence exerted upon me as a young man by the pastor and members of the First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh. I was born at Mckeesport, December 7th, 1800. My father died in February, 1807, and in the fall of that year my mother removed her family to Fort Pitt. My recollection is that the First Church had then for minister the Rev. Mr. Steele, and that the congregation worshiped in a log building on Wood street, which was not taken down until the walls of the new brick church were erected around it; and that Dr. Herron soon afterwards arrived from Cumberland county and assumed the pas- torate. Passing over the intervening nine or ten years, which I partly spent on the farm of my uncle MeCoy, in Washington county, and in the service of Messrs. Hugh & James Jelly, merchants, in Pittsburgh, I come to the most important epoch of my life, when in the winter of 1817- '18 I was arrested in a career of worldliness and frivolity-born again, as I believe, and under the ministry of my dear old pastor, Dr. Herron, was admitted to the communion of the church. Thenceforth I seemed to live in a new world, and became desirous to serve a loving and compassionate Master.
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APPENDIX.
At this time I was the book-keeper of J. L. Thompson, a merchant on Market street. Soon after this, Dr. Herron and his Session selected three young men to be educated by the church for the gospel ministry ; of which number I was one. The other two were William McComb and Wells Bushnell. After anxious and prayerful consideration, and frequent consultation with my friends, I reached the conclusion that the ministry ought not to be my future vocation. The other two brethren accepted the invitation of the Session, received a collegiate education at Canons- burg, a theological training at Princeton, were in due time licensed to preach the gospel, and for many years, as I am informed, served the Master in Ohio and Northern Pennsylvania. Thus "two were taken and one was left." Among the friends with whom I consulted on this im- portant question, besides Dr. Herron, were the venerable and beloved Rev. Joseph Patterson, James Cooper, Samuel Thompson, James Clow, Hugh Mcclellan, James Brown and Robert Beer.
In 1818, Messrs. Southmayd Scovel and Thomas L. Pierce, of Zanes- ville, Ohio, contracted with the manufacturers of salt on the Kanawha river for all the salt made or to be made during several years, at one dollar per bushel, and established a depot at Wheeling, in connection with a mercantile store. For the management of this important concern I was most unexpectedly selected. By the advice of my brother and other friends, I accepted the appointment, and in July of that year removed to Wheeling, where I resided for upwards of thirty years.
Wheeling was then a small town of about 1,000 inhabitants ; but being the western terminus of the great National Road, was destined to become a city of importance. Its moral status was, however, vastly different from that of the city from which I had recently come. The Sabbath was a day of recreation and ordinary business pursuits. There was no per- manent church organization of any kind, and there was little attention paid to the education and religious instruction of the youth. The town was considered within the bounds of the "Forks of Wheeling Presby- terian Church," six or seven miles distant, and was visited by the pastor of that church, the Rev. James Hervey, once in two weeks. He lived on a farm some four or five miles distant ; rode in on Sabbath mornings and preached to a limited number in the old court house, and then rode home. There were several respectable families in the town, called Presbyterians ; but on inquiry I could find but one man and some five or six old ladies who were communing members of that church. The missionary labors of Mr. Hervey had not resulted in the establishment of either a Sabbath School or weekly prayer meeting."
To me the change was very great and discouraging ; but Providence had evidently sent me there, and, young as I was, I felt it incumbent upon me to do something to better the morals of the place. In this I was greatly blest. In the fall of that year, 1818, I established the first Wheeling Sabbath School (the first, I think, in Western Virginia), and was superintendent of it for twenty-five years following. About the same
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time, or soon after, Wednesday night prayer meetings were established, and in two or three years the Presbyterians were formally organized as a congregation, and in 1823 as a church, by the Rev. Mr. McCurdy, and the services of Rev. William Wylie were secured for alternate Sundays. From this time forth the church grew with the prosperity of the city, and before I left Wheeling there were four churches of our order in the city, with regular pastors. By the grace of the Great Head of the Church, the "little one had become a thousand." Elected au elder in 1823, I was called frequently to attend meetings of Presbytery and Synod, and in 1823 served my first term in the General Assembly.
In 1827 I was elected by the General Assembly a member of the first Board of Trustees for the location and organization of the Western Theological Seminary. After careful and prayerful consideration of the various sites proposed, this honored school of the prophets was finally given to Allegheny City. It was my privilege to attend the semi-centen- ary of that school, in 1877, at that place. Dr. C. C. Beatty and myself were then the only survivors of the original Board of Trustees. He has since gone to his rest, and I alone remain.
In 1850 I was appointed by President Fillmore to be one of three United States Commissioners to California, to settle the Indian difficulties then existing. In this we were happily successful, and I had the honor of locating six hostile tribes on the first reservation ever allotted to Indians on that coast. At the end of my term of service I concluded to remove my family to California, which I did, in 1852.
It would extend this letter to an unreasonable length were I to detail my participation in the establishment of Sabbath Schools and churches on the Pacific coast. I will mention, however, that the eminently pros- perous Calvary Church of San Francisco was organized in 1854, and from its start I have served, in my feeble way, as a ruling elder through the highly successful pastorates of Dr. Scott, Dr. Wadsworth and Rev. Mr. Hemphill, and still retain my ecclesiastical connection with that church. About the organization of the Theological Seminary of the Pacific coast and the unexampled growth of the Presbyterian church in that part of the country, and about other church matters in different sections of the country in which I have been interested, including the organization of the great American Tract Society in New York, * and my service during five sessions of the General Assembly, I am admonished to forbear further detail.
In conclusion, I beg you to do me the favor to communicate to the meeting a brief summary of the foregoing, and to express my grateful remembrance of the guidance and assistance I received from the pastor
* In 1877, at the Semi-Centennial of the American Tract Society, but four of the founders were known to be living. Three were present, of whom Mr. R. McKee was one. Now, August, 1884, Mr. McKee is the only survivor of the four. Mr. McKee has also received the honor of honorary membership in the Cliosophic Society of Princeton College, because of his pioneer work in behalf of education in West Vir- ginia, Missouri and California.
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and members of the First Church in my youthful days. My prayer is that their successors of the present day may be equally instrumental in advancing the cause and kingdom of the Saviour in the time to come.
Very sincerely yours,
570 THIRTEENTH STREET, OAKLAND, CAL., April 9th, 1884.
DEAR OLD FIRST CHURCH :
It is with sincere regret that I send a letter instead of coming in person to the centennial. I know you will have a glorious time, and I almost repine at not being able to be there.
A visit to the dear old place would at any time call up much of what has gone into the years that are now numbered, but, at such a service as that in which you are now engaged, all the past would be brought up with intense vividness. My earliest recollections of the old home church run back to the days when, accompanying my father to the choir gallery and stepping down toward the front, I was cautioned not to touch the big fiddles,-and I still recall with unfeigned pleasure my admiration of the glories of. " the great chandelier."
Certain days are very distinct. The one on which, in company with one lone deaf lady, whose name I never knew, I stood up to confess the Saviour and to hear the solemn words of our dear Dr. Paxton reminding me that "holy angels were interested spectators of this scene."
I remember well the ordination of father, with Mr. McCord and others, to the eldership,-and last but not least, my first Sabbath School work done between the first and second posts in the old Sabbath School room.
With the exception of my seminary life, it has been twenty-two years since I was part and parcel of the old home church, yet I have never lost my affection for it.
And, indeed, I am more and more coming to feel that it has been the one place whence the holiest and most enduring influences have fallen upon and followed my life.
Dear old church ! 'Let my right hand forget her cunning if I forget thee ! Peace be within thy walls! For my brethren and companions' sake,-Peace be within thee'-is the prayer of
Your affectionate son,
JOHN REA.
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1784-1884.
THE COMMITTEE OF ARRANGEMENTS
Cordially invite you to attend the exercises in connection with the celebration of the
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