USA > Pennsylvania > Cumberland County > Newville > History of the Big Spring Presbyterian Church, Newville, Pa. : 1737-1898 > Part 11
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
208
THE BIG SPRING
cated minister of the Church of Scotland, sent over in answer to overtures from Mr. Makemie, McNish and others, for the express purpose of settling in Virginia, but who after a stay of six months, for the reasons stated, abandoned the attempt and came north and settled in 1710, at New Castle, Delaware; and in 1716 was called to be the first pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in the city of New York; and on the other hand by the arrest, imprisonment and prosecution of the Rev. Mr. Makemie, the father of the Presbyterian Church in America, "as a roving minister" in the city of New York. The tidings of these things went back to Ulster and Scotland, and had the effect of largely preventing the people from going where they could not take their ministers with them. Wherever this people went, they brought their Presbyterianism with them.
The Scotch Irish were far more numerous among the earlier emigrants into Pennsylvania than the Scotch. Not being allied to Ireland by any long standing tra- ditions or sacred memories, and being there greatly oppressed and harassed by the tyranny and exactions of a despotic and profligate monarch, and the restrictions and penalties imposed by an obsequious parliament, and by the intolerance and persecutions instigated by a haughty hierarchy, these things, with the rapacity and greed of the landlords, determined great and increasing numbers of them to come to America. And learning that under the liberal charter and the free laws of the Province of Pennsylvania, equal rights and all the advantages of civil and religious liberty were guaranteed alike to all the settlers, they were attracted in large num- bers to the free Province of Pennsylvania.
As they left their homes with their families, for the reasons stated, to seek new homes across the seas and in the wilderness of another continent, the reasons actuating them had come to be in their minds solemn and grave considerations. They had suffered for the rights of con-
209
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
science and liberty to worship God in both their former homes.
These early Scotch Irish Presbyterian settlers were generally agriculturists. When therefore they landed at Wilmington or Philadelphia, they were not drawn to the towns or cities, but went at once into the rural dis- tricts and settled generally on lands along the streams of water, or in vicinity of the great springs which abounded in the country; as along White Clay creek in Delaware, the Brandywine and Octorara creeks in Chester county, Pa., on the Neshaminy and other streams here in Bucks county, or farther on up as at the Forks of the Delaware in Northampton county; along the Pequea and Donegal streams and springs in Lancaster county, and on the banks of Swatara and Fishing creeks in what is now Dauphin county.
Then when encouragement was given and licenses were granted they began to cross over the Susquehanna at Harris's ferry, now Harrisburg, from 1726 to 1736. Crossing over at Harrisburg they settled along the Cono- doguinet and about the Big Spring, Middle Spring, Fall- ing Spring and Rocky Spring, in the central part of the valley, and on up along the Conococheague and its sev- eral branches, in the vicinity of what is now Chambers- burg and Mercersburg.
Land warrants were sold from 1736 onwards. From that time a great tide of emigration set into all these reg- ions in the valley. From thence this tide of emigration flowed on to the Potomac and on down the valley of Virginia into the Carolinas and Tennessee and across into Kentucky.
When the valley was thus fully open to settlement, its attractions were so great, that a large influx of pco- ple at once set into it. Those who came were princi- pally immigrants from the north of Ireland, Scotch Irish Presbyterians, or people of the same nationality and of the same religious faith and order from the earlier settle-
210
THE BIG SPRING
ments in the Province of Pennsylvania. They were generally substantial farmers, men of steady habits, hardy, energetic, industrious and enterprising, with sufficient capital for the improvement and extension of their farms. They selected their lands with a view to permanent resi- dence and as future homes for their families. Many of the dwelling houses of these first settlers in Cumberland Valley were built of hewn logs, two stories high, well and strongly built, with several apartments above and below. As early as 1744, many stone houses of two stories were erected in different parts of the valley. Some of these are still standing, and are substantial and con- fortable dwellings.
Nine-tenths of all who came thus into the valley at that period were Scotch Irish people. They were a people who had been trained up under the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Cate- chisms. They were generally an intelligent, sincere, honest, Christian people, with a religious character and life based upon the doctrines and duties set forth in the standards of the Presbyterian Church and diligently in- culcated upon their minds from their youth up.
As the settlements progressed, congregations were or- ganized. By 1740, there were about one thousand families in what is now Cumberland and Franklin counties, and out of these there were at that time eight or nine congregations organized. These were Silver's Spring and Meeting House (Carlisle), Big Spring (New- ville), Middle Spring, Rocky Spring, Falling Spring (Chambersburg), Upper, Lower and West Conoco- cheague (Mercersburg, Greencastle and Welsh Run).
It was within the bounds of the first of these last three congregations mentioned (Mercersburg, called after Gen- eral Mercer who fell in the battle of Princeton), that the mother of our worthy and excellent Chief Magistrate, Mr. Harrison, who has honored us by his presence here to-day, and the part he has taken in these services, had
211
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
her birth and religious training. All these congrega- tions erected at once church buildings, and not satisfied with licentiates or untrained ministers, they all sought educated, well trained and settled pastors.
The early Presbyterian ministers of the valley were all, with but one exception, of Scotch or Scotch Irish antecedents and all graduates of some college or univers- ity. These people had been trained up under such ministers at their former homes and they would be satis- fied with none other here. They were intelligent enough to know the difference between thoroughly educated ministers, men sound in the faith and skilled in matters of casuistry and those who were mere smatterers in divine knowledge and christian experience.
Simultaneously with the organization of churches, was the erection of school houses in every neighborhood, and the procuring of suitable schoolmasters, men of good moral and religious character and of the other necessary qualifications. In these schools the common branches of an ordinary English education were taught. In all of them the Bible was the standard daily reader and the Shorter Catechism was recited each day and reviewed on Saturday morning.
The government of this extended community in the carly history of these settlements was largely patriarchal in its character. The father of each family was the prophet, priest and king of his own household. He taught and trained his family in the knowledge, worship and service of God. Subordination to parental authority was a matter of universal inculcation, and obedience to parents was the settled rule with respect to the youth of the entire community.
The great instrumentalities for the instruction and training of the young were the home, the school and the church. "Their religion," as Carlisle has somewhere said, "was the chief fact about them." It was the con- trolling thing in the family and in all their social inter-
212
THE BIG SPRING
course and domestic relations. With them the "chief end of man," was practically to serve and glorify God. With Sir William Hamilton, they could have said that "the great end of man is man," realizing that the more highly and perfectly man was developed physically, in- tellectually, morally and spiritually, the more he would honor and glorify his Maker. "They were a people of a book, and that book was the Bible." It was read daily in the family at family worship, and in the schools, and not only read but ably and clearly expounded on the Sabbath. With Dr. Thomas Arnold, of Rugby (but not with his degenerate progeny), they regarded the school not merely as "a place where a certain amount of general learning might be obtained, but as a sphere of intellectual, moral and religious discipline, where healthy and vigorous characters are formed, and where the youth are trained for the duties, struggles and re- sponsibilities of life." With them no system of educa- tion was complete, in which thorough moral and relig- ious discipline was omitted. The great conservator and arbiter of right among them was the well regulated re- ligious and moral sentiment of the community.
As these original settlers were chiefly farmers, they went on improving their farms, educating their children, and in providing for the subsistence of their families and the support of their schools and churches.
As I have said, in 1740 there were in Cumberland and Franklin counties about one thousand families and eight or nine organized churches, none of them nearer to each other than from eight to ten miles. In 1850, as shown by the census, there were in these two counties four thousand and eighty-nine farms, the greater part of which were still in the hands of the descendents of the original settlers.
Now the peculiarity of the Presbyterians of the Cum- berland Valley is, that here for forty years was to be seen a Scotch Irish Presbyterian settlement more uni-
213
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
versal and extended, than was to be seen anywhere else upon this continent, a people not only of the same nationality but of the same religious faith and worship; of the same homogeneous tastes and dispositions, dwell- ing together in peace and harmony, and performing towards each other all the offices of good neighborhood; a people of great integrity and uprightness of character, of pure and lofty patriotism and of intelligent and con- sistent piety. Here was the Presbyterian Church of Ulster transferred to American soil, existing under a government where equal rights were guaranteed to all its citizens, a people knowing their own rights and respect- ing the equal rights of others. To what was their pecu- liarity as a religious community due? Is it to be as- cribed to any peculiarity as to race or blood? to their Celtic sprightliness combined with their Teutonic obstin- acy and firmness? to soil or climate? We answer no. Whatever may be due to these elements of soil, climate, race or blood, their chief peculiarity was due to the prov- idential and religious training which they had received.
Coming as they did out of those fierce and protracted persecutions which they and their fathers had endured in Ireland and Scotland, they came with their Bibles and Confessions of Faith in their hands, and well stored away in their minds.
They came ready to inscribe in bold characters upon their banners here, the three great fundamental princi- ples of Presbyterianism and also of religious and civil liberty, for which they had so bravely struggled, viz .: loyalty to Christ as the supreme and only head of the church, the parity of the ministry, and the right of every congregation to choose its own officers. Of the truth and importance of these fundamental principles, the Scotch and Scotch Irish Presbyterian ministers and peo- ple, were so fully pursuaded that no sacrifice was too great to be endured, rather than either renounce or be- tray them.
214
THE BIG SPRING
The Presbyterians of Scotland and Ireland having been called as they had been to contend amid the most cruel and bloody prosecutions, under which many thou- sands of them had sacrificed their lives for the supreme headship of Christ over his church, and as a consequence for its freedom from kingly and priestly domination, they became the foremost friends, advocates and defenders of religious and civil liberty, as against the usurpations and tyranny of both ecclesiastical and civil rulers.
The union of church and state had been so close and dependent, and the relations of religious and civil liberty so intimate in their bearing on each other, that those who contended for the former, soon forfeited the favor of the kings and prelates. No portion of the early settlers of this country so clearly comprehended the separate spheres of church and state, as the Scotch and Scotch Irish Presbyterians; and, as a consequence, while they were unwilling to allow the church to be interfered with or controlled by the secular power; so for fear of such usurpations as they had already suffered from, they would neither ask nor receive aid from the state nor submit to its dictation or authority in matters of relig- ious faith and worship.
In their past experience, the natural and constant al- lies of civil despotism had been the Romish and Episco- pal hierarchies, and the Presbyterians of Ireland and Scotland in their resistance to tyranny and oppression had suffered more from the latter than from the former, for the reason that the Episcopal Church was more fre- quently in the ascendancy and her prelates had much greater influence over their civil rulers and oppressors.
The greatest friends and promoters of religious and civil liberty in this land, history shows, were the Scotch and Scotch Irish Presbyterians, the Puritans of England, the Dutch of Holland and the Huguenots of France.
Presbyterianism, as it came therefore into the Cum- berland Valley a century and a half ago, was not a thing
215
PRESBYTERIAN £ CHURCH.
crude in its principles and chaotic in its elements, but on the contrary was a clearly defined and thoroughly devel- oped system of religious faith and order. It did not come here as something that was passive and plastic, to be determined in its character and history by the force of circumstances, or by the accident of its mere environ- ment, but its earliest propagators came with positive opinions, with well settled principles and with deep and strong convictions of truth and duty and with clear con- ceptions of their mission in laying the foundations of the church in this new world.
The early Presbyterian ministers came with a system of doctrine that was distinct and sharply defined, with a. form of government conformed to the word of God, and with a mode of worship that was at once simple, Scrip- tural and spiritual.
In tracing back, however, the lines of influence that entered into the formation of our earliest Churches and Presbyteries in this land, the student of history cannot stop at Ireland or Scotland or England or France or Holland. All the lines along which the faith of the Reformed churches and also of religion and civil liberty and popular education, are traceable, stop not in any of these countries, but all run through and beyond them to that valley which lies embosomed in the mountains of Switzerland and to the banks of that beautiful lake on which stands the city of Geneva, which has for its great- est distinction, and will have through all time, that it was the home and the scene of the labors and achieve- ments of John Calvin, the great theologian of the Refor- mation. Here it was that John Knox, many learned English Puritans in the bloody times of Mary, as well as the Huguenots of France, fleeing from the persecutions at home, found their way, and there acquired a more thorough knowledge of the great doctrines of the Re- formed faith and of the principles of religious and civil liberty, and there beheld a people governed by laws of
216
THE BIG SPRING
their own making, a commonwealth without kings or nobles, a church without priests or prelates, and which acknowledged no head but Christ, and whose doctrines, government, laws and officers were all drawn directly from the word of God, and which had no authority to bind the conscience of any one, any further than they were sustained by the express statements of the Scrip- tures, or by plain inference from their expressed teaching.
It was thence that our earliest ministers received their chief impress. They were cast in the mould of that system of religious faith and worship known as the "Calvinistic," a system, says Froude, "which has ever borne an inflexible front to illusion and mendacity, and has preferred rather to be ground to powder like flint, than to bend before violence, or melt under enervating temptation." To Scotland belongs the great distinction of having perhaps more fully and clearly perceived and held fast the Reformed Calvinistic faith than any other country. Says Macaulay : "To the attempt to enslave Scotland, England owes its freedom," and it may be added, the United States their religious and civil liberty. This was due to their rigid adherence to the principles of Knox and Calvin. These were the principles which revolutionized Western Europe, emancipated the masses of the people from civil and religious despotism and secured civil and religious liberty for the United States of America.
Let some people think and talk as they may, the American revolutionary war was a Presbyterian war, waged chiefly by the English Puritants (half of whom were originally Presbyterians), and the Scotch Irish Presbyterians, for the securement of independence of Great Britain and the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty. As soon as the trouble rose at Boston, with the mother country, the cry rang out from the Presbyterians of North and South Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Jer- sey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia in favor of inde-
217
PRESBYTERLAN CHURCH.
pendence. The immortal Witherspoon voiced the sen- timent in the Continental Congress. Patrick Henry re-echoed it in the valley of Virginia. The Presbyteri- ans of the Cumberland Valley rose up enmasse and min- isters and people joined the war of independence. Gen- erals Armstrong, Irvine and the gallant Mercer com- manded the troops, Reverends John Steel and John Craighead went forth as captains of companies, and Drs. John King, Robert Cooper and George Duffield as chaplains in the army.
The reason of all this readiness to go, over and above the love of liberty and their sense of right and justice inspired by their religion and regulated by the Divine law, was that they held in remembrance the grievances which they had endured. They had come through the fires of fierce and prolonged persecutions. They had forsaken their homes as the President has so well said to-day "for God and liberty," and by the help of God, they were determined that the shackles of oppression should not be rivited upon them here.
Such is the estimate which in this brief and hurried survey, we place upon the character, principles and hab- its of the Scotch Irish Presbyterians of the Cumberland Valley. We do not claim for them perfection by any means. We do not deny that they had their defects, which neither we nor they would seek to palliate or justify. But like the sun, which has its spots, so what- ever defects they may have had, they were all over- powered and obscured by the greater effulgence of the mass of excellencies which adorned their characters, and were exemplified in their lives.
Without any disparagement of the Quakers or the Germans, the other two general divisions of the early settlers in the Province of Pennsylvania, we speak thus more earnestly with respect to the Scotch Irish Presby- terians, from the conviction that as a people, justice has not yet been done them either in the history or the liter-
218
THE BIG SPRING
ature of the country.
THE LOG COLLEGE.
Now what of the relation of the Presbyterians of the Cumberland Valley to the Log College?
Soon after the withdrawal of the New Side party from the Synod in 1741, the people of Hopewell, which in- cluded Big Spring, Middle Spring and Rocky Spring congregations, and the New Side portions of Derry, Up- per Pennsboro, Conococheague and other parts of con- gregations, sent supplications to the New Side Presby- teries of New Castle and New Brunswick for supplies, and Revs. Campbell and Rowland were sent to visit them.
Rev. John Rowland was an Alumnus of the Log Col- lege and licentiate of the Presbytery of New Brunswick. Although his licensure was irregular and became the occasion of a violent controversy, which issued in the division of the church, yet he was a strong and impres- sive preacher, and his ministry was extraordinarily blessed in what is now Lawrenceville and Pennington, New Jersey, to the bringing about of a great revival of religion in both congregations. When he came into the Cumberland Valley he came fresh from these revival scenes, and much in the spirit of Whitefield and the Tennents. Mr. Rowland's preaching is represented as having been with great power and marked results through all these congregations.
In 1742, Big Spring, Middle Spring and Rocky Spring churches united in calling Dr. John Blair, an alumnus of the Log College and licentiate of the Presbytery of New Castle to become their pastor. Mr. Blair continued pastor of these three congregations until 1748, and most probably until 1756, when the incursions of the Indians led to his withdrawal. In 1757 he succeeded his de- ceased brother Samuel, at Faggs Manor. In 1767 he was chosen Vice President and Professor of Divinity in Princeton College, from which position he modestly re-
219
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
tired in 1769, in favor of Dr. Witherspoon. He died in Walkill, New York, in 1771 in the fifty-second year of his age.
John Blair, like his brother Samuel, was among the most talented and gifted ministers of his day. He is believed to have had no superior as a theologian at that time. He was a man of clear and strong convictions with respect to the doctrines of grace, and preached them with great clearness and force. His ministry to the three congregations in the Valley was eminently blessed to the awakening of the impenitent and the edification of the people of God. Its influence in favor of an ortho- dox faith and a warm evangelical piety, is felt in these congregations until this day.
Few men in the history of the church have had so many distinguished persons named after them. Dr. Samuel Stanhope and Dr. John Blair Smith were the children of one sister, and the Rices of Virginia were the children of another sister. Dr. William Linn was his son-in-law and Dr. John Blair Linn his grandson. Francis P. Blair, the editor of the Globe in Washington, and father of Montgomery and General Frank P. Blair, was also a grandson. In the inscription upon his tomb, he is spoken of as a man of genius, a good scholar, an excellent divine, an eminent Christian, a man of great prudence and a laborious and successful minister, who lived greatly beloved and died greatly lamented.
Rev. John Roan, an alumnus of the Log College, and a bold and fearless preacher was settled over the united New Side congregations of Paxton, Derry and Conewago in 1745, and labored there until his death in 1775, and lies buried in the graveyard at Derry. On his tomb is inscribed, "Here lies the remains of an able, faithful, courageous and successful minister of Christ." And finally, Dr. Benjamin Rush and Governor John Dickin- son, pupils of Dr. Samuel Finley, an alumnus of the Log College, while at Nottingham, Maryland, and therefore
220
THE BIG SPRING
grandsons of the Log College, were the founders of Dick- inson College.
Few parts of the Church or country therefore received a more direct or deeper impress from the Log College than the Cumberland Valley.
Notwithstanding the distractions and the divisions oc- casioned by two violent religious controversies, the deso- lations caused by three protracted wars, and that great- est of all calamities, the loss of Dickinson College to the Presbyterian cause, the Churches of the Valley continue their existence and many of them have had a steady and solid growth. They have been distinguished all through their history generally for a strict adherence to the West- minster Standards, for a warm evangelical piety, for zeal in the promotion of revivals of religion, for their mis- sionary spirit, and for their regard for higher Christian education. And although these churches have been subject to a constant depletion from the great attraction of the larger towns and cities of the older states; to a perpetual stream of emigration to the more fertile prairie lands and growing towns of the great west, and to the steady influx of the German population from the Ger- man settlements in the State, still the general roll of membership has not been diminished, and the highest point of Christian benevolence ever attained was reached the past year.
What Ulster has long been with respect to the whole religious world, the Cumberland Valley has been in re- lation to all parts of this wide spread land. A perpetual stream of emigration has gone out from it to strengthen the churches of the older towns and cities and to form new ones in all parts of the Great West.
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 221
CHURCH ORGANIZATION 1898.
PASTOR. REV. EBENEZER ERSKINE, D. D.
RULING ELDERS.
EDWIN R. HAYS, ROBERT MICKEY,
JOHN F. KENDIG, GEORGE W. SWIGERT, ELIJAH J. ZOOK, M. D.
TRUSTEES. W. ALEXANDER MCCULLOUGH, PRES., ROBERT H. SOLLENBERGER, DANIEL LECKEY,
HON. HARRY MANNING, ATCHISON LAUGHLIN, W. LINN DUNCAN, JOHN S. ELLIOTT.
TREASURER. JOHN S. ELLIOTT.
CHOIR MASTER. ORGANIST. WILLIAM J. LAUGHLIN, REBECCA WAGNER.
SUPT. OF SABBATH SCHOOL. EDWIN R. HAYS.
ASSISTANT SUPT. SABBATH SCHOOL. GEORGE W. SWIGERT.
SUPT. OF INFANT SCHOOL. MRS. MARY ELLEN AHL.
SEXTON. JOSEPH WILT.
222
THE BIG SPRING
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Introduction by Rev. E. Erskine, D. D.
Pastorate of Rev. Thomas Craighead, . 10 .
Pastorate of Rev. John Blair, D. D., . 12 .
Pastorate of Rev. George Duffield, D. D., 14 .
Pastorate of Rev. William Linn, D. D., .
15
Pastorate of Rev. Samuel Wilson, ·
·
.
16
Call of Rev. Samuel Wilson, . .
.
.
20
Members Received into the Church by the Rev. Samuel Wilson,
22
Petition for the Election of an Elder,
26
Proceedings of a Meeting of Session,
·
·
.
27
Members and Adherents of the Church in 1789, .
·
· 28
John Carson's District, .
.
29
William Lindsay's District, .
.
31
John Bell's District, : ·
.
37
Robert Patterson's District,
. 38
Robert Lusk's District,
42
Samuel McCormick's District,
· 4-4
David Ralston's District,
·
46
Hugh Laughlin's District, .
49
John Robinson's District, ·
50
John McKeehan's District,
.
· 52
Marriages by Rev. Samuel Wilson, · . 55
Address in the Marriage Ceremony of Rev. Samuel Wilson, 61
Pastorate of Rev. Joshua Williams, 61
Members Received into the Church by Rev. Joshua Williams, D.D., 65
Baptisms by Rev. Joshua Williams, D: D., .
76
Marriages by Rev. Joshua Williams, D. D., .
78
. Members of the Female Bible Class in 1817, .
92
Members of the Male Bible Class in 1817, ·
92
Districts, Elders and Heads of Families in 1808, .
93
Pastorate of Rev. Robert MeCachran, . 98
· Marriages by Rev. Robert McCachran, ·
. 90
Baptisms by Rev. Robert McCachran, .
.
. 105
·
. 16
Subscribers to the Salary of Rev. Samuel Wilson,
·
.
·
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 223
Pastorate of Rev. James S. H. Henderson, 128
Pastorate of Rev. Philip H. Mowry, D. D.,
. 129
Pastorate of Rev. Ebenezer Erskine, D. D., 130 .
Church Buildings,
. 132
Occupants of Pews in 1790,
138
The Glebe, .
143
Ruling Ellers and Societies of the Church,
. 150
Sons of the Church who have Entered the Ministry,
155
Pastors of the Church,
158 ·
Rev. Thomas Craighead,
158
Rev. John Blair, D. D ..
159
Rev. George Duffield, D. D.,
. 161
Rev. William Linn, D. D.,
163
Rev. Samuel Wilson,
164 .
Rev. Joshua Williams, D. D.,
165 167
Rev. Robert McCachran,
Rev. James S. H. Henderson,
17]
Rev. Philip H. Mowry, D. D.,
172
Rev. Ebenezer Erskine, D. D. 173 .
In the Grave Yard, 177 .
Our Father's Resting Place (Poem), 178
Inscriptions from Tomb Stones, 179
Soldiers Buried in the Grave Yard, 199
Appendix A, 202
Appendix B. Address by Rev. E. Erskine, D. D.,
203
.
Church Organization 1898, 22]
.
.
ERRATA.
On page 105, marriage of John M. Woodburn and Lucinda Stewart, should be Feb. 26, 1857.
On page 143, "This trust was called Reliance," read, This tract was called Reliance.
On page 110 "John T. Dunfee," read James T. Dunfee.
On page 191, "McCulloch Jane Henderson," read McCulloch Mary Henderson, wife of James.
Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries 1 1012 01217 2013
DATE DUE
1
GAYLORD
PRINTED IN U.S.A.
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.