History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 60

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor
Publication date:
Publisher:
Number of Pages:

USA > Pennsylvania > Westmoreland County > History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men > Part 60

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).

Soon after the Redstone Presbytery was organised there were various and successful attempts made to educate young men for the ministry especially, and in general for secular professions;' and among the pots and skillets of the early pastors' houses the poetry and eloquence of Greece and Rome were taught, and lectures given on dogmatic theology, where half a generation before the crow-legged Delawares sat jab- bering. During the few succeeding years John Mc- Perrin, Samuel Porter, Robert Marshall, George Hill, William Swan, and Thomas Margais were li- censed.'

1 Tas Tie CoLLesas-Jefferson College bages with the Academy and Library Company of Cannonsberg, 1791, with David Johnston its Brot teacher, Dr. MeMulsa transferring bis Latis cobesl to the chartered company. Cel. Canon balls o stoso betifling in 1706; the Pittsburgh Geselle mentions it as a "caceresdal grammar sobeel" in 1708; the tres- tess petitioned the Legislature for an appropriation, and in 1080 got one theessad dellara, sad in 1802 it was granted a charter as Jefferson Col- lege, Bov. Jean Wetsea, to Brot president, followed by Doing, 1000; Wylle, 1012; Willem MeMilles, 1817; Brown, 1823; Dreckdiorides, 1845; Crown, 1847; Alden, 1967 ; Riddle, 1992. The two colleges united Bader act of March 4. 1806, when Rev. Jenethan Edwards was chosen president, sed inangarated April 4, 180%.

Washington College grow out of the condemy; was tacorporated to 1806; the Legislature granted five thousand dollars in 1000, cod in 1099 gare five hundred dollars yearly, for five years, as a gratuity to Jeong men who desired to qualify for teachers. Its presidents have been Brotra, 1896; Wylie, 1817 (closed two years) ; Elliott, 1880; MeCenegher, 1001 ; Clark, 1860; Browneon, 1862; Scott, 1863; Wileos, 1996; Edwards, 1006, -consolidated. These two institutions sad the united college hove beca of inestimable beseit not only to Washington County, but to the whole country, and to all parts of the world; for ministers of the gospel and lawyers and physicians and business men educated in them are found in all parts of the United States, while missionaries gone out from them bave labored or are doing so on every continent.

"SAMUEL POSTES WAS born in Ireland in 1700. His studies woro par- sued under direction of Mr. Smith and Rev. McMillan, the latter making no charge for board or taltion, while a friend provided for his family in the mean time. He was licensed Nov. 12, 1700. In the following year he became pastor of the congregations of Poke Ran med Congruity. Or the formser he wes pastor until 1798, of the latter until his death, Dope. 23, 1825, In the sixty-fifth year of his age.

GEORGE HILL was born in York County, March 18, 1704. He wes le- ceneed to preach Dec. 23, 1791. He was first settled in the congregations of Fairfield, Donegal, and Wheatfeld (northern part of Legender Vol- ley), Nov. 13, 1792. Six years afterwards be resigned the charge of Wheatfield, and accepted a call for Ligonier. In these charges ho le- bored until his death, June 9, 1822, in the sixty-eighth year of Ne oge. He was a man of remarkable vigor of constitution, with o mind to work.

JOHN McPERRIN was born in York County, now Adams Ceanty, Nov. 15, 1757. He learned the languages preparatory to his going to college, under the Rev. Robert Smith, of Peques, and was graduated May 7, 1788, at Dickinson College, Carlisle; Hoeneed to preach Ang. 29, 1788, by the Presbytery of Redstone, and ordained sad installed poster of the united congregations of Salem and Unity on the 23d of September, 1701; resigned the charge of Unity on the 26th of June, 1800, and on the Soch of April, 1803, that of Salem, and having accepted a call from the waited congregations of Concord and Muddy Creek, in the Erie Presbytery, ho was dismissed to that Presbytery. He died Feb. 10, 1822.

WILLIAM SWAR was & native of Cumberland County, Pa., and wne educated at Cannonsburg; licensed to preach Dec. 22, 1701. He had many calls, but finally accepted the one from Long Ran sad Sewickley. April 7, 1793, and ou the 16th of October following was ordained and in- stalled their pastor. Here he labored for a period of twenty-five years. In October, 1718, he obtained leave to resign the pastoral care of the congregations, but in the following spring, April 20, 1819, he was re- called to Long Run. Here be labored for three years longer, but by reason of declining health the pastoral relation was dissolved finally April 17, 1822. Under a slow pulmonary consumption his health con- tinned to decline, and on the 27th of November, 1827, he died, in the sixty-third year of his age.

Digitized by Google

239

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.

From the necessity of the thing our remarks are more directed to the polity of the Presbyterian Church as it existed in the early Westmoreland than to any other, Its relation to the people now cannot be com- pared with its relation to them then, but it forms such an element in the secular history, that we, to under- stand something at any rate of the customs and man- ners of our founders, are led into an extended article. The Calvinistic tendencies of all the early churches of Western Pennsylvania being in one direction, and their polity somewhat identical, their customs may be called the same. Besides this, much of our early history is illustrated by their records.

The meetings then of the early pastors with the people, before there were regularly-organized congre- gations, were in the open air.

" The groves Were God's first temples, ere man learned to how The shaft, or lay the architrave."

A pulpit of logs was temporarily erected, and log seats resting on the ground upon stones answered for those who wished to sit, but it was commonly. the custom of the men and boys to remain standing, leaning against trees. The pulpit when covered with boards was called a tent. In warm weather, clothing being very scarce, the men frequently came to meeting without coats, and the preacher, before reading the psalm, usually took off his coat and spoke in his shirt-sleeves. In cold or inclement weather the people brought with them blankets and coverlets, and greatcoats, and they sometimes built huge fires. When the catechumens had assembled at the Old Brush Creek Church before one Easter, it being raw and cold, the pastor, Rev. Weber, directed the young men to build a brush-heap near the church and fire it during the intermission between the fore- noon and afternoon sessions, that they might gather around it and warm themselves till they were called back to the cold building.

Preaching in cabins was perhaps cotemporaneous with preaching in the woods, but where they expected to have frequent services, and where they had these, were the places which they called tents. In a com- munity the most accessible, and which marks the site or location of many of the early churches, these per- manent arrangements were made. Here a platform- pulpit like a shed was made to protect the preacher from rain and the sun. This was erected on a declivity among tall trees. A board in front of the preacher was the reading-desk; the back and sides were closely boarded. Logs and puncheon-seats arranged against the incline of the ground served for the congregation. To such occasions of public worship are to be traced those peculiar revivals which are recorded in the ecclesiastical history of Western Pennsylvania and Western Virginia.

None of the earlier churches tell the date of their construction nor of their organization. But the first churches were the round log cabins made double,

with the logs joined to each other along the sides. There are instances of churches being built in a single day. The recess left in the middle of such buildings was occupied on one side by the pulpit. In the earliest buildings no fire was used, and when fire was first utilized it was sometimes made in an earthen vessel in the centre of the building.

On Sept. 18, 1775, Dr. McMillan preached at a meeting-house at Long Run, and Judge Veech, after giving the subject some reflection, states that there were doubtless meeting-houses at Mount Pleasant, Sewickley, Laurel Hill,1 Dunlap's Creek (the scene of Dr. Power's early labors), not later than 1777. The first house in which Mr. Power preached for the Sewickley congregation stood on the road leading from Markle's paper-mill towards Pittsburgh, about half-way between the Big Sewickley and the Little Sewickley. It was a clapboard-roofed cabin, with openings in the logs covered with glazed linen for the windows. The clapboards were kept to their place by saplings or split logs. The seats were cleft logs raised on blocks; the door and windows had been cut out after the house was built, and the door was hung on wooden hinges.

The old translation of the psalms, called Rouse's, was the only one tolerated, and Watts' version was slow in superseding it. The clerk lined out (pre- cented) the lines of the psalm or hymn from his place under the pulpit. He also published the banns of marriage. He managed to sing and talk through his nose in a monotonous monotone. At first all the congregation sang the air only, but gradually the other parts were introduced,-the treble, the counter, and the bass. The number of tunes were few, and were known to all evangelical sects from Virginia to Massachusetts. These were called the twelve tunes of David. Parson, in his "Life of Jefferson," says that the psalmody of early Virginia for almost two hundred years was restricted to a fewer number of airs than this. When the notes to them were used they were such as afterwards were called by an irrev- erent generation "buckwheat" characters; in size these were about the circumference of a grain of buckwheat, which, in truth, they somewhat resem- bled.

The first innovation in psalmody is blamed to those Yankees of New England who passed the winter of 1788 along the Yough awaiting to embark in the spring for the new lands along the Ohio, and whom Dr. Hildreth has made famous. These had among them the proverbial Yankee singer and fiddler, whe followed in the wake of their great prototype, Ichabod Crane, to smash hearts, and, Orpheus-like, " to wake the woods of Rodope, when rocks and trees had ears to rapture." These, it is said, first introduced the bass viol to chord with the human voice in the choir; whence we have an idea of the effect of this innovation in the

1 Now Connellsville, Fayette County.

Digitized by Google

240

HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

direction of the old minister to "let us feedle and sing" such and such a psalm. Those people of pas- sage introduced here a wonderful variety of tunes, and first, from among the hidden mysteries, disclosed the beauty of the "fugue" tunes in which our old people when they were young took so much enjoy- ment. The peculiarity of the fugue tunes will be re- membered by those who have heard them, but it is hard to explain. After the four parts into which the music was divided had been passed over together for the first two lines of the verse, they were separated, each portion of the congregation then singing for itself, and each following the other and taking up the line as the preceding portion ended on it. The nicety of it was that they all managed to come out together, and in this was the art. We have heard some very respect- able old persons say this manner of singing could not give a reverently- and spiritually-inclined creature.a very forcible notion of the celestial harmony of the beatific spheres, for each part had to sing the highest, the loudest, and the strongest.

The Presbytery of Redstone, increasing in popuia- tion and in the number of pastors and churches, was from time to time changed in bounds and extent. In 1880 the Presbytery of Blairsville was erected from the territory of Redstone, embracing the ministers and congregations north of the Pittsburgh and Stoys- town turnpikes, viz. : Rev. Messrs. J. W. Henderson, Francis Laird, David Barclay, James Graham, John Reed, Samuel Swan, Jesse Smith, Thomas Davis, John H. Kirkpatrick, Samuel McFarren, Elisha D. Barrett, James Campbell, and Watson Hughes, with their respective charges. The new Presbytery held its first meeting at Ebenezer, Rev. Francis Laird, pre- siding.

The old churches in the county which originally belonged to the Redstone Presbytery, but which now belong to the Blairsville Presbytery, are Fairfield, Donegal, Salem, Unity, and Poke Run. Those in ex- istence in 1880, when the Presbytery was organized, were Greensburg, Plum Creek (first called Ebenezer), Congruity, and Ligonier. Those which have since been added are Murraysville, New Alexandria, La- trobe, Penn, Parnassus, Irwin, and Derry.

The Presbyterian Churches in Westmoreland County are as follows :

Name of Church.

Name of Minister.

No. of Members.

Laird ..

Rev. John Kerr, 8.8 ...

Fairfield ..

W. M. Donaldson, P.

130

Union.

New Alexandria ..

F. L. Lenour, P ..

215

Pine Run ...

" John M. Jones, P.

147

Harrison City

Vacant

106

Manor ..

Rev. James Kirk, P.

100

Unity

" D. W. Townsend, P.

157

Greensburg,

W. W. Moorhead, P.

400

Poko Run.

44 Henry Bain, P.

360

Latrobe.

" Thomas B. Anderson, P.

225

Livermore

James 8. Woodburn, P.

121

New Salem

" J. L. Thompson, P ..

212

Ligonier.

E. G. Mckinley, P.

120

......

180

Long B ........

W. P. Moore, P .......

175

West Nowtos ......

John C. Meloy, P ....

170

Bootsdal .............

J. H. Stevenson, P.

111

Mt Pleasant.

191

Sewickley ...

Vecast ...........

100

Pleasant Uaity ..

Bwv. A. A. Hough, P .........

Rehoboth ...

- A. F. Boyd, P ..........

REFORMED CHURCH.

The German settlers on coming out did not bring ministers with them, nor did they have any for many years; but they had in nearly every settlement, after the German custom, a schoolmaster who instructed the children in the catechism, and taught them read- ing and writing, who baptised the babes and read the prayers at the grave, who married young couplee and who visited the sick. The school-house, later, was erected alongside of the church ; or if the school-house had been first the church was erected near it, so that services were often held in those buildings before they had church buildings.

And so it was the custom long after this to make the house or outbuilding of some prominent Lutheran or German Reformed the centre of a congregation for . place of worship. Hither the pastor came and preached, held communion services, and catechised. These periodical services sometimes lasted for a week.

The German branch of Protestantism which rose from the Reformation in the sixteenth century ro- solved itself into two distinct communions, the " Re- formed" and the " Lutheran." The Reformed Church in the United States, up until the General Synod held in Philadelphia in 1869, was officially known and is sometimes yet popularly called the German Reformed Church, but at that meeting of the Classis the word "German" was officially dropped from the title of the church. The Reformed is sometimes confounded with the Presbyterian Church, by being considered the German branch of that church, but they differ chiefly in this, that the latter is less liturgical and more rigidly Calvinistic than the former.

The original members of both the Reformed and Lutheran Churches came from the German nations of Europe, and they were bound together by many ties, of which the strongest were lineage, language, inter- marriage, a commonality of liturgies, of pastoral, au- thority, of profession of faith, and of symbolical ob- servances and formulas. It would appear to a dis- interested observer that the theology of the Heidel- berg Catechism was not so strictly taught then as later, and that in its views of the sacraments of the Lord's Supper and of baptism the church differed not so much from the Lutheran, for it now professes to be in

Name of Chersh.

Meme of Minister.

No. of

Bwv. D. R. MeCelta, P .....

DerTy ... ....

Congruity ..

- B. B. Robinson, F ...!!

Irwia ............

A. & McGogary, P.w

Murrayiville

John I. Black burn, P.

Pleasant Grove .........

Mr. E. H. Dickinson, 8.8 ....

Centreville ...

Mt. Pleasant Reunion.

w. Spencer L. Flaney, P.

Digitized by

Google

241

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.

these two questions more with Geneva than with Augsburg. But we make these remarks merely as an observer and without authority, and advance them to explain the commonality of these two communions as it is observed of their respective histories in our county in the primordial days.

In the government of their churches they are both Presbyterial, in distinction to Episcopal, Papal, or Congregational, and so called because it is a govern- ment of elders; that is, as they say, by the " minis- ters and the congregational officers elected by the respective congregations for certain temporal and spiritual needs." These form the first body for church organization and business, while larger bodies formed together in a representative capacity, which larger bodies are called by some Presbyteries, but by these, "Classis," and so on.

In the early days of the colony, and particularly in the region outside of the more thickly populated parts, the rising generation of the German Protest- ants first found little in these two different churches to disagree in. They therefore frequently intercom- muned together, the common or nearest pastor per- formed the first and last rites of their ministerial functions to those in need without regard to church connection, and they both mutually assisted each other.

There was originally in both these churches a great disparity between the population holding these religious preferences and the number of pastors to supply their spiritual wants.1

At an early date the members of the two German churches, the Reformed and the Lutheran, were ac- customed to meet in respective localities at the houses of some of their members,. and here they held re- ligious services. These services were at first con- ducted without a minister, and consisted in singing from their German hymn-books, reading the Bible, and offering prayers from their German prayer-books. Among the Lutherans especially, and also, as we have seen, among the Reformed, when they had a school- master, who they usually brought with them, it was part of his duty to catechise and to administer the sacramental rite of baptism. By this means they got along for some years, and when each denomination at first got its pastor he was sufficient to supply the spiritual wants of a large district. Thus, when the pastor at the old Brush Creek congregation gathered his class of catechumens, the settlers brought or sent their children a distance of above twenty miles. Hither they came for catechisation from the Ale- mann settlement in Butler County, from Puckety, and beyond the Kiskiminetas.

1 Bev. Schlatter, who arrived in America in 1746, brought the congre- gations together and formed a Synod. At the first meeting of that body, Bopt. 29, 1747, it consisted of five ministers and twenty-six eldera, and yet the Reformed population was estimated to be about 30,000.

" History of Reformed Church within the Bounds of the Westmore- land Clasele." We have consulted this publication, and it is our au- thority for local data and statistics.

The two churches likewise bought nearly all their church property in common. They worshiped to- gether in one house, and not infrequently performed and administered the sacraments of the church each for the other. The members of their congregations intermarried, and were buried side by side.

The distinctive congregational polity of the ortho- dox German churches is nowhere more apparent than it is among those older congregations. They at first secured land at moderate rates sufficient for church purposes, and frequently glebe-land for the pastor's support; they built a house for their schoolmaster; they erected their churches with their own hands, and nearly every congregation had a stone-cutter who raised head- and foot-stones over the graves of the dead.

The old graveyard of the Harrold congregation, with its mural remains of memorial tablets, rudely carved tombstones and modern monumental pillars, tells the whole story. For many years, and until very lately, it supported its own stone-cutters, who on the dressed flag-stones of the neighboring quarries carved the most grotesque figures, and made for weeping friends most melancholy epitaphs which soothed the widow's anguish, and even at this day bid the by- passer stop and ponder. These graven images did not conduce to idolatry, for they were not the like- ness of anything in heaven above, in the earth be- neath, or in the waters under the earth. Touching the designs on the pyramids and obelisks, on the mausoleums and sarcophagi of all people who hold the dead in memory, these are all in a sense symboli- cal. The moderns follow in the footsteps of the an- cients, and the latest is but a refinement on the earliest. Thus on these you have stars for the Chaldeans, trian- gles for the Hebrews, corbels for the Parsees, the sacred lotus for the Egyptians, urns for the Greeks, and for the Latins, lilies such as Father Anchises in Elysium, speaking to the pious Æneas, wanted to scatter over the shade of the youthful Marcellus. The commonest ornamentation of these tombstones is a curling vine around the upper disk terminating in broad leaves. In the centre where these begin is a flower which we incline to think was intended for an imitation of the tulip; a flower that carried the memory back to the straight walks, the trim gardens, the cozy cottages, and the bridal wreaths of the bride along the Rhine. These flowers and vines have been painted, and some are green, some blue, some yellow, and others red.' Dear friends have scattered the seed of summer-savory and coriander, which springing up in thick beds scarce allows room for the periwinkle and golden-rod, and which when trod upon emits a strong odor.

" For fear some antiquary should in future time attribute some om. blematic significance to these characters, we would hint that they were merely put upon the stones for ornamentation. These old ones, covering many years' time, were blocked out and chiseled upon by a man named Hines, as appears by the token.

Digitized by Google

242

HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

" Yet even these bones froms insult to protect Some frail memorial still erected nigh, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless soulptare deck'd, Implores the passing tribute of a digh.

"Their nashs, their years, spelt by the unletter'd mues, The piece of fame and elegy supply ; And many a boly text around the strewn, To teach the rustic moralist to die."1

The first German Reformed congregation in the county was the Harrold congregation. Balthaser Meyer, their schoolmaster, has left some of the records of the names of the children baptized by him before they had a minister. Among the first in the list was "Peter the son of Antony and Elizabeth Walter born 11th September, 1771-Baptised, August 2d, 1772." The last child baptized was "Susanna, daughter of John and Christina Rudabaugh, born 80th May, 1782, baptized 4th June, 1782."

In 1782 or 1788 requests were sent from the county to the Coetus (or Synod) for a Reformed minister to be sent them. Answering them, the Rev. John Wil- liam Weber .ame as a missionary, and remained their firat pastor. In June, 1783, when he entered on his work he had four congregations to serve,-Harrold's, or Saint John's, and the Brush Creek, both in Hemp- field township; Kintig's, in Mount Pleasant town- ship ; and the Ridge Church, about one mile south of Pleasant Unity, in Unity township. He also preached at Pittsburgh. Besides these regular places of ser- vice, he held services and gave instructions in Ligonier Valley, and to the scattered Germans of both his own church and the Lutheran Church all over the south- ern part of the county in nearly every locality where later has been a congregation.

In respect to its church organization, all those of the Reformed Church in Western Pennsylvania be- longed to the Old Synod of the United States. The first missionaries hither were the Revs. John William Weber, Henry Habbiston, and William Winel, who were sent to Westmoreland County and the con- tiguous regions by this Synod, and reported to it from year to year. The first Classis was formed by the ministers and charges located west of the eastern line of Bedford County, and was named the Western Pennsylvania Classis, and was part of the Synod of the United States. In 1886 this Classis was allowed to unite with the Synod of Ohio and adjacent States. In 1839 the name of this Classis was changed to the Eastern District Synod of Ohio. In 1842 this Synod

1 On a tombstone in the Brush Creek graveyard is the following line (inter alia).

fair

"She was young, she was poor"

" Poor" has been engraved for fair, and then crossed out and "fair" engraved above.

In another graveyard, a widow, after telling of the virtues of her de- ceased husband, reminds the world that,

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.

History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 60

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor Publication date: Publisher: Number of Pages:

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor
Publication date:
Publisher:
Number of Pages: