USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Luzerne > History of the Presbytery of Luzerne, state of Pennsylvania > Part 12
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In 1850, Pittston church had become self-sustaining. Scranton also was a self-sustaining church, and Newton and Abington had been taken from Mr. Parke's original field. Three houses of worship had been erected, and paid for, three ministers instead of one, were devoting all their time to the work.
At this time Mr. Parke had been relieved of many of his long rides. He had, during the years of his itineracy, greatly extended his acquaintance with the people. His preaching in his various stations had been well attended. The common people heard him gladly. He preached
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the pure gospel plainly. As he told the writer, his plan was, not to include many thoughts in a sermon, but to make the leading and important theme of his discourse very plain, and impress it on the minds of his hearers. This he generally succeeded in doing. An intelligent lady told me not long ago, that she remembered some things in the first sermon she heard him deliver, forty-six years ago. Among these, he said some people had just religion enough to make them unhappy, but not enough to bring them into the enjoyment of the gospel. He generally wrote his sermons fully out, but used his manu- script with much freedom and fluency. He was a good, plain, forcible preacher. He did not aim at brilliancy ; on the other hand, he was not dull. There was heart in his delivery. And while his bearing was not of the Chesterfieldian order, there was nothing particularly ob- jectionable, except it might have been a habit of tossing his head quickly to adjust the hair on his forehead, which, in former days, was allowed to grow longer than at present.
Mr. Parke was eminently social in his disposition, and equable in his temper. The writer, during a long association with him as a neighboring pastor, never saw him perturbed. He was open to counsel, and respected the opinions of others; yet he was firm in his own con- victions. He had passed through both college and semi- nary without acquiring the habit of using tobacco.
While Mr. Parke wrote no books, he has been, from early life, a frequent contributor to our church papers. In this correspondence we find the same general char- acteristics that we have found in his sermons-clearness, directness and force.
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After the death of Mr. Richard Webster, the pastor of the Pittston church became the efficient stated clerk of the Presbytery, which office he long held. He was a good and faithful Presbyter. The growth of Pittston was rapid in the earlier years of '50, and the building in- creased towards the south, and over the river. The first house of worship was becoming too small, and was some- what out of the center of the congregation. Another, with ampler dimensions, and to be located more favorably, was projected, which meant, with those who had the mat- ter in hand, its erection according to the plans and specifications. This was accomplished in 1857; not, however, without a struggle, for during the years of preparation and work upon the new structure, there had been a season of depression in business. Some of the pioneers who had struggled to build the first sanctuary were still upon the ground, and with unabated zeal and devotion aided the work.
Growth and stability were thus secured at Pittston, and ultimately to the concurrent work of the churches in all the adjacent communities. Presbyterianism, properly understood, teaches that the true prosperity of any part of the family is the enlargement of the whole body, and thereby the more emphatic testimony to the value of the truth as it is in Jesus. We are not to follow to the end, or even to the present date, all the influence of the church we are dealing with, nor the life of its pastor, who has enjoyed the enviable privilege of such a prolonged pas- torate of one ever prosperous church. We have only been able to note the beginnings of salutary and uplifting influences, as, in a few instances, they are observed to crystalize, attracting light and reflecting it in new di- rections with ever increasing intensity.
II
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Washington and Jefferson College conferred on Mr. Parke the honorary degree of D. D. in 1884. He, with Dr. Milo, of Hickok, in 1867, had the honor of repre- senting our General Assembly in the General Assemblies of the Free and the United Presbyterian Churches of Scotland, and Dr. Parke's own people took pleasure in meeting all the expenses of the mission.
He is still with us to see the fruits of his work; Mrs. Parke also. If spared until June 8th, 1897, they will have been married fifty years. Three sons and one daughter occupy honorable positions in the church and in civil life. Three of the children of Dr. and Mrs. Parke have preceded them to the heavenly rest.
At the close of the fiftieth year of Dr. Parke's ministry, he resigned his pastoral charge and was made Pastor Emeritus of the church he had served so long, a position which he still holds. During the session of the adjourned meeting of the Lackawanna Presbytery in Pittston Presbyterian Church, June 4th, 1894, after the adoption of the papers for record of the Fiftieth Anni- versary of the Rev. Dr. N. G. Parke's ministry, a committee consisting of Revs. W. Scott Stites, P. H. Brooks, F. B. Hodge, D. D., S. C. Logan, D. D., and S. M. Parke, Esq., was appointed to prepare the minutes of this meeting for publication, and publish them, to- gether with the adopted report of the committee. This was done in a brief memorial, entitled, " Fifty Golden Years."
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XI.
OTHER EARLY MINISTERS OF THE PRESBYTERY.
T HE Rev. Charles A. Evans had come to this country in 1839 from Ballybay, Ireland. He had graduated from Belfast College the same year, and after studying Theology for some time privately, spent some two years in Princeton Theological Seminary, These facts would seem to indicate that he was one of that numerous class to which the Presbyterian Church in this country is so greatly indebted, the Scotch-Irish, but his name raises the question as to whether he was not a Welsh-Irishman.
He was licensed by the Newton Presbytery. He was commissioned to labor in the Lackawanna Valley, and in Fallstown, in 1841. Before the organization of the Presbytery of Luzerne, he was engaged in missionary work in its subsequent territory. He was, by the act which constituted the new Presbytery, transferred to it, and his ordination provided for, upon his accepting the call of the Northmoreland Church which was tendered him. Thus his ordination, which took place November 13th, 1843, was the first in the Presbytery of Luzerne. He was the first and the only pastor formally installed over the Northmoreland Church. It had been organized among the earliest of the regularly constituted churches in Luzerne County, viz., Dec. 9, 1821. A house of worship had been erected a year previous. The circum-
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stances of the organization are not, so far as we know, a matter of record. There were, at the beginning, fifteen members. The names of the original elder and deacon are given as Daniel Locke and Leonard House ; subse- quent elders were Jehiel Fuller, Ebenezer Brown, and Isaac Harris.
The first minister, as far as we know, was the Rev. John Rhodes, who seems to have ministered in that community a long time and some of his descendants resided there long afterwards. The Rev. Mr. Corss tells us he came from a Congregational Association in New Jersey (but such associations were not numerous at that time in N. J.), and that he had been brought up among the Moravians. He seems to have been active and energetic. We find him taking part in the organization of several churches, and acting as their supply. He was an earnest worker. The Rev. Isaac Todd supplied Northmoreland for a time, also the Rev. Thomas Owen, and perhaps others, before the Rev. Charles A. Evans was installed pastor in 1848. At this time the church reported thirty-five members.
Mr. Evans continued pastor of Northmoreland till April, 1846. While a licentiate and after his ordination he had given a part of his time to the Lackawanna Church, which included the whole valley, except Carbon- dale, till Dr. Parke came, June, 1844. He is represented as a faithful and successful worker. He was released from his pastorate, April, 1846, in order that he might accept a charge in a Dutch Reformed Church at Durham, New York. He subsequently was pastor of a church of the same denomination at Moresville, N. Y., where his work was greatly blessed. He afterwards returned to the
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Presbyterian Church and became stated supply of the churches of State Line City and Lebanon, Ind., from 1859 to 1862. He was Professor of Anatomy in Ohio Central College (U. P.) 1870-1873 ; after which he resided in South Bend, Ind .; from thence going forth in various directions in the performance of missionary work as he was able. His health for a long time being greatly impaired, he died in his 73d year, confiding fully in the Redeemer. He left a wife, whom he had married in 1844-her maiden name being Miss Sarah Marshall Harris, of Dutchess Co., N. Y .- and two children, all that remained of eight that had been born to them. They are Sarah, the wife of Dr. John C. Wallace, and the Rev. Charles A. Evans, pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church at Lebanon, Pa. Thus he lives in the children whom God had given him.
Mr. George W. Perkins, a licentiate of the Presbytery of Philadelphia, spent a year or two as a supply of the Northmoreland Church after graduating from Princeton Seminary, viz., from 1846 to 1848. He afterwards affiliated with the Moravians.
The Rev. Ashbel Green Harned was the second minister inducted into the pastoral office by the new Presbytery. This took place on the fourth day of May, 1844, he having been ordained at the same time. He was made the first pastor of the Summit Hill Church which, as we have seen, was originally a part of the Rev. Richard Webster's field, but had been formally organized as a church in 1839, and remained under the same ministration till the spring of 1842, after which it was supplied a few months by the Rev. Dr. Wm. E. Schenck, then a young man. He also supplied Tamaqua. He
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was followed for a short time by the Rev. John H. Rittenhouse, a licentiate of Northumberland Presbytery. Summit Church, at this time, had forty-four members.
Mr. Harned was born in the city of Philadelphia, May 23, 1817. His parents gave him the name of one of the most honored representatives of Presbyterianism in that city, "Ashbel Green." This, in connection with the eminent Presbyterian teachers whom they selected to fit their son for college, would imply, in the absence of positive statements to that effect, that they designed him for the ministry of the Presbyterian Church. We find, too, that his own mind was early impressed by spiritual things, for at the age of seventeen he voluntarily took upon himself the covenant which parental faith had recognized in his behalf. At that time he became a member of the Second Presbyterian Church in his native city. He was graduated from the University of Pennsyl- vania in 1838. The next year he taught in the High School at Norristown, Pa. Entering Princeton Theo- logical Seminary in 1839, yet still employing a part of his time in teaching at Norristown, he completed the entire course in four instead of three years, or 1843.
The next year, after being licensed by the Presbytery of Philadelphia, June 27th, 1843, he spent in supplying the Presbyterian Church at Frederick City, Md. After which, as we have already noted, he entered upon his first regular pastorate in the town of Summit Hill. This town was one of the coal producing villages, and was a fair representative of such places in Pennsylvania. The percentage of intelligent, thinking people in such places is rather above than below that of the average village. This at least was the case in the earlier days of Summit
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Hill. Even among the miners proper were found many thoughtful, reading men, and the operators and managers were men of much intelligence and enterprise. And, in these days they were men who gave much encouragement to the work of a devoted minister of the gospel. The church work at Summit Hill had already been well begun by Mr. Webster, and there were many good and faithful Sabbath School teachers there when Mr. Harned took it up. We are told that he labored faithfully and success- fully in this church until released, April 17th, 1856- about twelve years-the membership numbering at this time about 100. In the meantime many had been dismissed to other churches, new coal enterprises had taken whole colonies from this and older mining towns, consisting of operators and miners. This is the discourag- ing feature of such fields as Summit Hill.
Mr. Harned was a man of accurate and extensive learning, but very modest and retiring withal, perhaps somewhat wanting in that self-assertion, which often gives greater currency to men of less ability. He did not seem to have a very strong physical frame, although a person of comely appearance.
Mr. Harned, soon after he was settled at Summit Hill, married Miss Catherine Hugg Fatzinger, daughter of Mr. John Fatzinger. She was an amiable and intelligent lady, whose usefulness and enjoyment were very much hindered by protracted ill health. She was a great sufferer during many years.
After resigning at Summit Hill, Mr. Harned taught a Classical school in Mauch Chunk for several years. At the same time he became stated supply of the Presbyterian church of Slatington, and on June 29th, 1860, was
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formally installed as pastor there, which position he held till October 4th, 1865. He acted as agent of the Pennsylvania Colonization Society during 1866 and 1867, after which he became Principal of the Luzerne Presby- terial Institute, at Wyoming, thus returning to the Presbytery of Luzerne, and supplying the churches of Northmoreland and Lehman in connection with his principalship, during the years 1868 and 1.869. In April, 1870, he began to act as stated supply of the Newton church, and subsequently was installed pastor, Nov. 23rd, 1871. After being released from Newton, 1877, he was for some time a missionary at Grand Tunnel, Pa., and the stated supply of Waldo and Columbia churches. This was his last charge. Being laid aside by nervous prostration, which not only seriously affected his physical strength, but his mind as well, he returned to his native
city for medical aid. Human help, however, seems to have been inadequate, except to soothe in some measure his sufferings and quiet his mind. Oct. 16, 1881, he ended his earthly career, aged sixty-five. The writer of his obituary says of him, "He closed in peace and hope a quiet, unobtrusive life, into which had come many cares and sorrows. He was truly a good man, of warm heart and gentle manners, and an excellent scholar." His wife had ceased from her earthly career five years before him. He left six children to mourn his departure, five daughters and one son.
XII.
REV. JACOB DELVILLE MITCHELL, D. D.
T HE Rev. Jacob Delville Mitchell was the third man ordained and installed by the Presbytery of Luzerne; and made pastor of the Kingston Presbyterian church Sept. 24th, 1845. The sermon of the occasion was preached by a former pastor, the Rev. Alexander Heberton. Mr. Mitchell, like Mr. Harned, was from Philadelphia, the son of an influential Presbyterian family who provided for his thorough and careful instruction in the best institutions. After leaving college he is under- stood to have engaged in secular pursuits for some time, but when it pleased God to reveal unto him His Son, Jesus Christ, he was led to devote himself to preparation for the gospel ministry. He entered Princeton Theo- logical Seminary in 1842, and, as seen above, in 1845 we find him regularly inducted into the sacred office.
From the beginning of his ministry, Mr. Mitchell's sermons were regarded as superior, and were delivered with such an unction as to produce a profound impression, although they were written throughout, and delivered with the manuscript before him .. His appearance showed him to be possessed of a fine physical development, and his utterances indicated the grasp of a strong and well stored mind. His preaching was with the emotion which showed the heart interest of the preacher in the truth communicated and in those to whom he addressed it, as
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well as a due sense of his responsibility as a messenger of Divine truth, and as one who watched for souls ; yet over his emotions, which were intense, he maintained perfect control.
These facts, if we mistake not, account for the fact that, notwithstanding Mr. Mitchell's appearance of great manly strength, his labors were soon interrupted by ill health, much to the regret of his people. For a time during his pastorate at Kingston, he was obliged to call to his aid for several months the Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, at the very beginning of his long, useful and honored ministry, and Dr. Cuyler doubtless learned some lessons in Wyoming Valley which have made his fruitful ministry more so than it otherwise would have been. Kingston church ardently cherished his memory and early instructions, as from time to time it followed him in his work in the great cities where God blessed his prolonged, acceptable, wise and faithful ministry.
It was during the pastorate of Mr. Mitchell that the part of the Kingston congregation which gathered for religious services in the little chapel which had been built on the cemetery grounds, near the village of Troy, (subsequently called Wyoming,) came to the determination to ask Presbytery to constitute them a separate church. This was the first attempt to divide the Kingston congregation; but we learn of no opposition on the part of the mother church or the pastor. The committee that approached Presbytery with reference to the matter consisted of Messrs. Thomas X. Atherton, Peter Barber and Charles Fuller; Presbytery being in session at Berwick, April, 1847. The petition borne by this committee was signed by thirty names. It set forth the
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fact that "the members of the Kingston church residing in the village of Wyoming and vicinity were desirous of securing for themselves and their families more frequent and constant enjoyment of the means of grace, and therefore they requested to be organized into a separate and distinct church." Presbytery, by a unanimous vote, granted the request of the petitioners and appointed Reverends John Dorrance, T. P. Hunt, N. G. Parke and Elder Charles D. Shoemaker to organize the church, if they found the way clear to do so. The committee met
May 4th, 1847. In the absence of Mr. Dorrance the sermon was preached by the Rev. Jacob Belville, of Baltimore Presbytery. Mr. Hunt presided. The organi- zation was effected and completed by the election and installation of the following members as ruling elders, viz., Henry Hice, R. E. Marvine, Charles Fuller, and S. C. Ensign, all of them having previously held the same office in other churches.
The organization of the Wyoming church of course greatly weakened the Kingston church and gave it a much more circumscribed field. Mr. Mitchell's health failing, he was obliged to resign his pastoral charge, but during the summer he so far recovered as to be able to supply the new church of Wyoming, which knew well his pulpit ability and eagerly sought his services. Mr. Mitchell , continued to have charge of the new church till the spring of 1849. At that time. an enterprise was under- taken which had deeply engaged the attention of certain members of the Presbytery of Luzerne and citizens of Wyoming. Prominent, if not principal, among the latter class, was Mr. Thomas F. Atherton. This move- ment had reached such a stage of advancement that it
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called for wise, personal management. It was the opening of the Luzerne Presbyterial Institute at that place. To this work the Trustees elected the Rev. J. Delville Mitchell, and in accepting its principalship he relin- quished his charge of the Wyoming church. Thus Dr. Mitchell became personally identified with the important work which the Luzerne Presbyterial Institute did in behalf of Christian education. While it did not accom- plish all that its founders hoped from it, there are many of its students in various honorable and responsible po- sitions, whose character and usefulness speak emphatically in testimony of the good work which the able and devoted teachers and founders performed during the period of its active operations. Of these agents in carrying forward the school, we will have more to say as we proceed.
Dr. Mitchell was not allowed to continue long with the infant institution, as his services as a preacher and pastor were wanted in developing the work which had been so auspiciously begun in the coming city of Scran- ton. The development of the Presbyterian church there, was to keep pace with the advance in business and the growth of civic institutions in that remarkable city, under the leadership of the men who had explored the wilder- ness where it was to be built, laid out the railroads, sunk the deep shafts that opened up the valuable minerals, the coal and the iron, erected the furnaces, and, as the peo- ple increased, built homes for themselves and others, and gave care to the municipal regulations of the rising metropolis. These men, many of them at least, loved the church of God and cared for the souls of men. Mr. Mitchell is called to identify his efforts with theirs in church work, and for the present we leave him till we come to speak of the Scranton church and its pastors again.
XIII.
REV. B. F. BITTENGER, D. D.
A S we have seen, the Rev. Richard Webster extended his missionary labors to the Schuylkill Valley, at a number of points, notable among them, Tamaqua, on the Little Schuylkill river. This point had long been cared for by Mr. Webster and such young ministers as from time to time came to his assistance. Yet no organized church of our denomination is found there till July 11th, 1846, nor do we learn of a settled minister in Tamaqua till 1847, when Benjamin F. Bittenger is found on the ground. On the second of November of the same year he was ordained as an evangelist at that place. The probability is that he had been there some months before his ordination. Tamaqua early enjoyed railroad commu- nication with Philadelphia, and was quite a centre of coal operations in that part of Schuylkill county. These operations were largely in the hands of Philadelphia capitalists. A number of these were Presbyterians who deeply interested themselves in the religious welfare of that general region. Messrs. Newkirk and Buck, es- pecially, generously assisted in the planting of the Pres- byterian church in Tamaqua. At their own expense, or nearly so, they erected a commodious and handsome church there, which is still standing and doing good ser- vice. But it must be confessed the cause languished not a little when this firm ceased to do business in Tamaqua.
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What they had done, however, greatly aided in holding together the things that remained when they were no longer at hand to foster the cause.
Mr. Bittenger was born at Waynesboro, Penn., and while we have learned little of his earlier years and edu- cation, we find he had at least one brother who was a Presbyterian minister and who was educated in Columbian College, D. C. Benjamin F. was a faithful student in Princeton Theological Seminary, where he took the full course, and after graduation located in Tamaqua as his first charge. The church grew under his ministration. Mr. Bittenger, however, was never formally installed at Tamaqua, and only continued to supply the church till 1850, after which he was a stated supply, in Winchester Presbytery, Va., of the Lewinsville church ; subsequently pastor from 1852-1857 ; then pastor of the Seventh street church, Washington, D. C., from '57-'63, when he be- came pastor at Elliott City, Md., continuing till '67; then taking charge of the Westminster church, Wash- ington, D. C., where he still holds the fort. In 1877 the Pennsylvania College conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. He has been from the beginning a rising man, useful and successful in his several fields. He has long been stated clerk of his Presbytery,* and has published several useful books.
The Rev. Darwin Cook, of whom we have written above, and whose ordination in Feb., 1846, was the fifth by the Presbytery of Luzerne, had performed missionary work in the vicinity of Tamaqua, and had also, during the first years of his ministry, as his special field, the villages of Donaldson and Fremont, where houses of
* Washington City Presbytery.
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worship were erected. A church was organized at Donaldson. The work at these points was fostered by friends of our church in Philadelphia, who were also interested in coal operations in this region, but seems to have had no great measure of success. This, no doubt, was owing to interruptions and changes in the mining operations, and the fact that the original settlers, the permanent part of the population of Schuylkill county outside of the larger towns, were Germans and did not readily affiliate with the Presbyterian church. Therefore, the Donaldson church, while it continued on the roll of Presbytery till 1867, was only irregularly supplied and often vacant, and was finally dissolved ; its property, consisting of two churches, was sold to the Lutherans.
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