USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Luzerne > History of the Presbytery of Luzerne, state of Pennsylvania > Part 3
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afforded valuable aid. But when the Pequots had proved incorrigible, and conflict was made necessary, the brave Connecticut men, aided by help from Massachusetts, waged against them a decisive war. They long afterwards lived in peace with the Indians.
Therefore, in view of the past, and the prospects immediately before them, those who first settled on the banks of the Lackawanna and Susquehanna came thither with the expectation of meeting trial and danger, not ease and speedy accumulation of wealth. Nor did they deliberately plan to live a free and easy life outside of properly organized society, and without the aids and restraints of "the means of grace."
In addition to other and expected difficulties, incident to new settlements among untaught savages in Luzerne county, there was, from the beginning, that conflict among the settlers themselves about the proprie- tary right to the land, already spoken of. The Rev. Dr. John Dorrance, a decendant of the Connecticut colony, and of whom it will be our privilege to speak at length as we proceed, says of these settlers on the Susquehanna, in a sermon preached on the 80th anniversary of the settle- ment of the first pastor in Wyoming Valley and the 20th anniversary of his own pastorate over the same church,- after reciting the facts commemorated by the services in progress *:- "Some general remarks on the early religious history of this part of the country will be appropriate. That part of Pennsylvania lying north of the 4Ist degree of latitude was claimed by the then province (now State) of Connecticut. As a natural consequence, a portion of this territory and especially that which is watered by
*Preached in 1853.
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the Susquehanna and its tributaries was originally settled by emigrants from Connecticut, and other New England provinces, with the exception of one township, viz., Hanover. This was occupied, in great part, by emigrants from Hanover, Paxton, Derry and Lancaster, in Dauphin county, Pennsylvania. Those from New England were generally Congregationalists in education and feelings. Those from Dauphin county were of Presbyterian stock, originally from the north of Ireland. Some of them had been engaged in the slaughter of a number of Indians, regarded by some as friendly, but alleged by them to be treacherous and murderous. Whatever may have been thought of this transaction, about which there are widely different views, these inhabitants were as'decided in their religious 'sentiments as in their political,-rigid Presby- terians, and ardent whigs of the Revolution."
"From these two sources was derived the original population of this northern Pennsylvania. Better sources there are not. The ancestors of both the Puritan and the Scotch Presbyterian had been tried in the furnace of affliction, had suffered persecution in the old world and endured hardness in the new. Their principles, confirmed by a long and painful experience of oppression, privation, exile and war, were inherited by their children, our fathers. Those who migrated to this then terra incognita through the howling wilderness, and battled with cold and hunger and poverty, with the hostile white man and the lurking Indian, few in numbers, without resources and far from aid, and who manfully struggled for years against the great commonwealth of Pennsyl- vania, against the combined forces of Briton, Tory and savage; whose wives and children, and aged ones, when
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forced from their lands, after witnessing the terrible massacre by one crushing blow of father and son and every able-bodied man, returned again through the trackless forest, unrivalled in their courage and fortitude, and established for us a happy home, were no common men."
Their labor, their valor, their constancy, are above all praise. Their moral virtues, honesty, sobriety, love of order, humanity and benevolence are abundantly set forth in the laws framed and executed by themselves. The survivors of the massacre bore ample testimony to the character of the original inhabitants. Mr. Burret, himself a pious and trustworthy man, the grandfather of Mrs. H. Alexander, said they were excellent people, whose equals will not soon, if ever, be found here again. The testimony of the late Judge Hollenback was equally explicit. Such, indeed, we might reasonably expect. They were born and raised in the land of steady habits, were the sons and daughters of the honest yeomanry of Connecticut, not therefore of towns ; not gold-hunters or greedy speculators, or reckless adventurers, but the young, enterprising part of a rural population, whose parents were ministers, deacons, and members of evan- gelical churches. They came to fell the forest, cultivate the land and establish society on the banks of the Susquehanna, where, under a more genial sun, and on a more fertile soil they might enjoy all the privileges of their ancestors and transmit to their posterity a home possessing all the characteristic excellencies of New England.
Of Captain Stewart, the leader of the Scotch-Irish company who settled in Hanover, his pastor, the Rev. John Elder (who from the singular necessities of the
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times was also colonel commanding in defence of the frontier) writes to the Governor of Pennsylvania: "In the removal of Captain Stewart your excellency has lost a true patriot, an able officer, and a brave soldier. A good Christian, Captain Stewart was a ruling elder in the church, and his companions, or many of them, com- municants."
The white settlers who took possession of the land in the southern part of the territory occupied by the Presbytery of Luzerne, were led thither, for the most part, by the coal trade ; few settlements had been made in the southern part of Luzerne, Carbon, and the greater part of Schuylkill counties, until the production of coal began to attract the attention of enterprising men. None of our churches antedate the coal trade on the Lehigh and upper Schuylkill.
German settlements had been made in the county south of Carbon as early as 1741, at Bethlehem and Northampton 1762. Both of these places were in Northampton county ; Lehigh was constituted a county in 1812, and the name of Northampton gave place to that of Allentown in 1838. From Bethlehem, which has been one of the most prominent Moravian settlements in this country, missionary efforts had been extended to the Indians living north of the Lehigh and on the Susque- hanna, before white settlers had found their way there. These efforts had been fruitful of good, both at Gnauden- hutten and Wyalusing; but both missions were soon broken up by Indian wars. The converts were scattered or slain, and the villages destroyed. The tradition obtains in Plymouth, in Wyoming valley, that Zinzendorf (Nicholas Louis) preached in that locality. It is
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generally believed that David Brainard, the devoted and successful missionary to the Indians, who during the years of 1744-5 made his headquarters at the forks of the Delaware, visited the Wyoming valley. His diary speaks of three visits to the Indians on the Susquehanna, but some of these entries mention Shamokin as a point visited, which is far south of Wyoming; on the other hand Mr. Brainard was especially a missionary to the Delawares who, at that time, although not the original owners of the lands, occupied the Wyoming and adjacent valleys. The writer finds nothing to make it absolutely certain that Brainard's visits were to the upper Susque- hanna. There is the same uncertainty as to the locality visited by the Rev. John Seargent. His journal may refer to the Susquehanna and Delaware north of Pennsyl- vania. It has been claimed that this Mr. Seargent was the first missionary that visited the nothern part of the territory occupied by the Presbytery, which may, indeed be true, but the diary of the Rev. Mr. Seargent, who is said to have been the first minister and a Presbyterian, who preached the gospel in Wyoming valley, does not afford proof of the fact .* The services are described in this diary as having been conducted in Wyoming valley and at Susquehanna on successive Sabbaths, which would have been much easier to do in York State than in Pennsylvania.
*Dr. Parke's History of Pittston Church.
V.
SUSQUEHANNA PRESBYTERY.
T HE Presbytery of Susquehanna, which up to the date of the Luzerne Presbytery's organization, occupied a considerable part of the territory of the new body, cannot be overlooked when we attempt to gather up the facts and influences which gave character and complexion to its lineal successor and to a large part of its functions. It is not enough to understand the general character of the individuals who entered the new organization ; their previous associated relationship must also be taken into the account.
In what has been written above concerning the people who settled in northern Pennsylvania from the original Connecticut colony, and adjacent parts of New England,-especially what we have quoted from the Rev. Dr. John Dorrance's sermon, delivered in 1853,-we learn the general character of these early pioneers, and in the satisfactory history of the Presbytery of Susque- hanna, written more recently by a member of that ecclesiastical body, we learn something of their associated work, in giving the gospel to the new settlements which they made on the Susquehanna and contiguous valleys.
The Rev. C. C. Corss,* author of this history, was born in Greenfield, Mass., 1803, graduating from Amherst college, 1830. He spent some time in teaching,
*Since this portion of the history was written he passed into his rest, May 20th, 1896.
-
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after which he was graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary, was ordained as an evangelist by the Presbytery of Susquehanna, August 27, 1836, and for more than two years was stated supply of the Kingston church, which is on the west side of the Susquehanna opposite Wilkes- Barre; and he was connected with the same Presbytery until it was dissolved at the reunion, when he became a member of the Presbytery of Lackawanna, doing excellent work for a part of the time, however, in ministering to a Congregational church. This brother has enjoyed the esteem of his brethren, as a man of intelligence of high
order, devotion, and sterling integrity. Therefore, in writing the history of his Presbytery, much of which he was, and nearly all of which he saw, he gives perfectly reliable information. In a communication recently received from him by the writer, his mind seemed to be clear although he is now in his 93rd year; but he said that mental effort was burdensome to him.
Until very recently there were a trio of the early members of the Susquehanna Presbytery, aged respectively -Ebenezer H. Snowden 95, Alexander Heberton 92, and C. C. Corss 92. All of them had been at least acting pastors of the Kingston Presbyterian church, and were alumni of Princeton Theological Seminary.
From Mr. Corss' History of the Presbytery of Susquehanna, the following facts are gleaned: viz.,
The churches organized north of Wilkes-Barre were mostly congregational in their proposed government; there were, however, exceptions to this general usage; a nominal exception among them being the church of Wyalusing, organized by the Rev. Ira Condit, a mission- ary sent out by the General Assembly. This church,
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organized 1793, is believed to be the first Presbyterian church in northern Pennsylvania. In 1809 Wyalusing became Congregational, remaining so till 1831, when it again became Presbyterian.
Perhaps the most steadfast Congregational church was organized by that celebrated colored minister, the Rev. Lemuel Haynes in Poultney, Vermont, Feb., 1801, consisting of three families, about to migrate to what has since been known as Smithfield, Bradford Co., Pa. The first sermon preached to this church was by the Rev. James Wood, of the Connecticut Congregational Missionary Society, in 1802, when, amidst the most primitive surroundings, he administered to the trans- planted church the Lord's Supper, spreading for it a table in the wilderness.
In 1802 the Susquehanna Association was formed, consisting of five ministers. This new association issued a circular to its churches "On the importance of Christian professors being awake to religion." The evidence is wanting that this letter effectually aroused the adherents of the association, for, so far as documentary evidence of the condition of things appears, there was no improve- ment. This was the last general effort of the association, as such, to make its influence felt. But Mr. Corss tells us that on Nov. 2nd, 1810, the Luzerne Association was formed at the house of the Rev. Ebenezer Kingsbury, in Hartford, Susquehanna county, Pa. " It was," he says, called Luzerne Association because all northern Pennsyl- vania was then called Luzerne. At the first meeting there were present Ebenezer Kingsbury, from the church at Hartford; Ard Hoyt, from the church at Wilkes-Barre
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and Kingston ;* Manasseh Miner York, from the church at Wysox, and Joel Chapin, whose field is not designated. Seven churches were represented by delegates, viz., Daniel Hoyt, from the church at Wilkes-Barre and Kingston; Aden Stevens of Wyalusing; William Johnson of Orwell; Moses Thatcher of Hartford; Joshua W. Raynsford, of the Ist church of Bridgewater, (Montrose); Henry V. Champion, of Black Walnut Bottom; and Joshua Mills, of the 2nd church of Bridgewater. This association framed a Confession of Faith which, so far as it goes, is fully in accord with the Westminster standards.
The records of the Luzerne association up to 1817 show an increase in its membership of ministers and churches from time to time, and fidelity and zeal on the part of pastors. The people too, in view of their limited means and arduous toils, seem to have appreciated gospel privileges; and sometimes the hearts of both pastor and people were made glad by reason of refreshment and ingathering; but frequently pastors had to abandon their fields on account of inadequate support. Stately churches were not erected, and in many cases, none at all. The people worshipped in private houses, in barns, and wherever they could find shelter. There is a tradition that a young family named Fawcett, whose first child was the first white child born in Hector, N. Y., rode with it on horseback down the Susquehanna river 175 miles, to secure for it the ordinance of baptism.
From the frequent changes in the names which the brethren in northern Pennsylvania assumed in their associated capacity, we infer the existence of a spirit of
*No ministers from Wyoming Valley appear to have been connected with the Susquehanna Association.
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unrest. These brethren were earnest and conscientious men. They aimed to be consistent with the sentiments and usages to which they subscribed, therefore they found themselves, at times, embarrassed and restrained in following the courses which seemed to be demanded by the wants of their field. Independency in church government, and especially in the aggressive work of the church, runs contrary to Christian consciousness and experience. Wherefore wherever the advancing army of the Lord makes conquests over the powers of darkness, there the theory of Independence has yielded to the demand for co-operation and for mutual control and responsibility, at least so far as to recognize voluntary association, which becomes efficient according to the approximation which it makes toward the recognition of fixed law, providentially or scripturally indicated. Congregational associations, local, state, or national, move so far in the right direction, and testify against the theory of Independency. The noble work of the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions testifies to the advantage of such law, as against Independency.
In the year 1817, our brethren of the Luzerne association seem so far to have recognized the law which calls for combined operation of the whole body of associated believers, and the subordination of the parts to the whole, that they took the following action, of which they had for two years been considering the expediency : "At a meeting of the Association at Colesville, a village in Windsor township, N. Y., September 16, 1817, they resolved to change the name of the Luzerne Association to that of the Susquehanna Presbytery." It appears,
3
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however, that so far as the local churches were concerned, this action was followed by no change in their manage- ment; even such as had been organized as Presbyterian, but had coalesced with the Congregational usages, continued in the same manner of administration. Mr. Corss says, "We find no Presbyterian church in the body till March 3rd, 1821, when the Rev. Manasseh Miner York, and the Rev. Simeon R. Jones organized one with the Presbyterian form in full, in the township of Wells, Bradford county, Pennsylvania." The Presbytery of Susquehanna met in Wells on June 19th, of the same year, and the body seems to have been greatly cheered by reports of revivals in quite a number of its churches. The Lord seems to have blessed the labors of his servants, although their places of worship were of the rudest kind, and far from convenient, yet the people heard the word of the Lord gladly.
Mr. Corss says further, "The Association had borne the name without the form of a Presbytery for four years. By this time the people had become accustomed to the name of Presbyterian, and would be less disinclined to take the form. Accordingly, at a meeting in Hartford, September 18th, 1821, a resolution was passed to seek admission into the Synod of New York and New Jersey." The following is an extract from the minutes of that meeting :-
"The Susquehanna Presbytery, consisting of six ministers able to labor and two unable, and having under its care twenty-four feeble churches, and covering nearly one hundred square miles,* and embracing about forty thousand inhabitants, lamenting the needy state of these
*The meaning must be, one hundred miles in every direction.
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precious souls, and conscious of their own weakness and inability to afford the requisite relief, one year since took under its serious consideration the subject of seeking a connection with the churches under the care of the General Assembly. After much inquiry and prayerful reflection, not being able to devise any plan of equal promise to increase the means of sound Christian instruc- tion in their needy and extensive region, and to advance the interests of their Redeemer's kingdom:
"I. Resolved, That we will seek a connection with the churches under the care of the General Assembly.
"2. Resolved, That this body will adopt the Confession of Faith and Book of Discipline of the General Assembly.
"3. Resolved, That we will seek a connection with the Synod of New York and New Jersey, and endeavor to have the minutes of the Presbytery so formed that they may be accepted by the Synod, provided the individual churches be allowed to manage their own concerns in their usual, or Congregational, manner.
"4. Resolved, That the Rev. Cyrus Gildersleeve, Rev. Simeon R. Jones, Rev. Lyman Richardson, and brother Henry V. Champion, be a committee to carry forward an attested copy of the minutes of this Presbytery to the Synod, at its ensuing session in Newark on the first Tuesday of October, and use their endeavors to obtain the connection desired."
The desired action of the Synod was secured, "the plan of union" then being in operation, and while the Presbytery or body received by the Synod was not so thoroughly revolutionized as might have been expected,
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the movement was significant, and ultimately determined the ecclesiastical status, not only of the Presbytery we are considering especially in this narrative, but of a multitude of churches in northern Pennsylvania, and finally secured for the destitute territory, over which the petitioners yearned so intensely, what they prayed for, and for the Presbyterian church important and efficient factors in her divinely appointed work.
Among the twenty-four churches of the Susquehanna Presbytery Wilkes-Barre and Kingston are included; they occupied the southern limits of the Presbytery, the northern part being the New York state line. The churches of Salem and Palmyra, in Wayne county on the east, and Wells and Bradford county on the west.
The few faithful and devoted men in charge of this extensive field, cultivated it, as well as it was possible with their numbers and appliances for work. From time. to time additional help was secured. Some ministers were raised up in their own bounds. In their urgent need of more ministers they were not careless about the men they accepted, but seem to have subjected every new comer to a rigid examination as to his qualifications for the gospel ministry. Nor was discipline in the local churches relaxed, but faithfully administered. The purity of the church was regarded as an absolute necessity.
The evidence of the vitality and aggressiveness of the Presbytery of Susquehanna appears in the fact that, while obliged to give up some of its ministers to other Presbyteries because its own churches could not sustain them, we find it organizing new churches, receiving from time to time more ministers, and licensing young men, among them Joseph Huntington Jones, a graduate of
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Harvard University, in 1822. The same year Mr. Jones entered Princeton Theological Seminary. He was ordained April 29th, 1824. After performing some missionary work in the region of Wilkes-Barre, Mr. Jones became stated supply of the Woodbury church, N. J. Subsequently his career as a prominent and honored minister of the Presbyterian church is well known. He died Dec. 22nd, while secretary of the Assembly's "Disabled Ministers' Fund."
At the same time the Presbytery licensed Mr. Jones, two others were also licensed, viz., Ambrose Eggleston and Erastus Cole. The latter was ordained and dismissed to the Presbytery of Columbia, N. Y., September 24th, 1824.
We find the Susquehanna Presbytery, in April, 1826, licensing two young men from two of the most important families in Wyoming valley, both connected with the Wilkes-Barre church and prepared for college at the Wilkes-Barre Academy, subsequently graduates of Prince- ton College and Theological Seminary. This event was significant, when it occurred, as it then indicated the conditions that had preceded it in the church, in the families, and in the community to which these young men belonged ; and significant to us now, who look back over the career of these young men who were then receiving the sanction of this Presbytery, to go forth to make trial of their ability to preach "the glorious gospel of the blessed God." They were, respectively, Zebulon Butler and John Dorrance. They began their work in the same general region in the far south and were fully inducted into the ministry in Mississippi, where God blessed their labors from the beginning. Mr. Dorrance
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was ordained November, 1827, at Baton Rouge. Mr. Butler was ordained April 5th, 1828, pastor at Port Gibson, where he remained till his death, which took place Dec. 23rd, 1860. In 1849 Lafayette college had conferred on him the degree of D. D. The Rev. John Dorrance returned north to the Presbytery which had licensed him in 1831, and became pastor of the Wysox church. In 1833 he became pastor of the Wilkes-Barre church which he served till called higher, April 18th, 186I. In 1859 the College of New Jersey honored him with the degree of Doctor of Divinity. Of him we will have more to say, as one of the founders and honored members of the Presbytery of Luzerne.
The reports from the churches of the Susquehanna Presbytery, presented April, 1832, were generally of an encouraging character; times of refreshing had been enjoyed by many of them, and the tendency indicated in the Presbytery seems to have been in the direction of stricter Presbyterianism. The questions which were then agitating the Presbyterian church at large attracted attention, and party lines began to appear. The brethren of Susquehanna Presbytery generally, sympathized with the party denominated "Old School"; but there were exceptions, especially in the more eastern counties of the Presbytery, and when a division of the territory was asked for, the Presbytery of Montrose was formally constituted by the Synod of New Jersey, Oct., 1832,* consisting of the counties of Pike, Susquehanna and Wayne, leaving in the original Presbytery Bradford and Luzerne (Wyoming was not then constituted). This
*The Synod of New York and New Jersey had been divided by the General Assembly in 1828 and the Synod of New Jersey was formally constituted in Oct., 1828.
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