USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Luzerne > History of the Presbytery of Luzerne, state of Pennsylvania > Part 8
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 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22
The power of Dr. Dorrance never waned in his church, or in his Presbytery,* but he evidently sustained many trials, and some heavy losses or disappointments, towards the close of his ministry. The loss of children and that of their mother followed each other in rapid succession ; but these trials were borne by him as few men could have borne them. The development of the coal and other industries brought into the quiet and
*The largest accession to his church in any one year was 75 in 1858.
99
PRESBYTERY OF LUZERNE.
peaceful valley a great increase of population, of diverse character which, with the increase of wealth and fashion, tended to magnify material prosperity and sensual pleasures, and to deaden piety where it was already feeble. These causes greatly increased the difficulty of reaching those who were ignorant of the gospel and of the glorious privilege of the children of God, and such a condition of things must have been very depressing to the faithful pastor. The deaths of so many of his children, terminating careers which gave peculiar promise of honor, usefulness and earthly happiness, were especially afflictive. The first called away was the first born, a lovely daughter, who had married Lieut. J. C. Beaumont, of the U. S. Navy. Then the eldest son, Benjamin C. Dorrance, who, after having graduated with honor in Princeton College, studied theology at Danville Seminary (hoping for benefit from the genial climate of Kentucky) and, having been regularly licensed by his home Presby- tery, Luzerne, entered the work of the ministry in Minneapolis, Minn.
The Westminster Presbyterian Church of that city had been organized August 23, 1857, principally through the agency of the Rev. J. G. Rihildaffer, D. D., pastor in St. Paul, who was able to give the new organization but one day's service during the subsequent six months, when Benjamin Dorrance, under a commission from the Board of Domestic Missions, took charge of the new enterprise, Dec. 6, 1857. Of him while yet in the academy, one of his teachers writes in connection with a statement con- cerning Dr. Dorrance : "Benjamin was my pupil, diligent and blameless. ' I should judge that physically and mentally he was cast in much the same sort of a mould as
100
PRESBYTERY OF LUZERNE.
his father." Of Mr. Dorrance's brief ministry in Min- neapolis, the history of Hennepin County says, "Mr. Dorrance was a pleasant and forcible preacher. By his public ministrations, as well as by his affectionate, cheer- ful and exemplary Christian deportment, he endeared himself to all. It was a sad day to the little church when their beloved minister, with the shadow of death on his face, bade them farewell, never to return." This public loss not only to the infant church in Minneapolis, but to the church at large, must have been vastly keener to the parents of the young minister. But, alas, these were not all the trials to which the honored pastor of the Wilkes- Barre Church was subjected. Three other promising sons, "the light of his eyes," faded from view, in the course of a few years. It is not wonderful therefore that in the midst of such trials, past and prospective, the tone of the anniversary or quarter century sermon of 1858 bears a tinge of sadness and deprecates increasing vanity and worldliness in others. Still he did not lose his cheerfulness, nor relax his labors. Evidently Dr. Dor- rance's heart was not set upon worldly acquisitions, for with abounding opportunities and facilities to avail him- self of them, he avoided pecuniary speculations. He regarded such ventures as likely to imperil his usefulness in the great work to which he had devoted his life. It is true, he was not stimulated by the pressure of want to increase his worldly gains. Through his whole ministry he had been enabled to make the burden of his support light upon the local or general church by sharing it about equally with his congregation, and doing so cheerfully. In this he possessed an advantage over his brethren generally, and yet his administration seems to have been
IOI
PRESBYTERY OF LUZERNE.
so wise that those who came after him did not suffer, as is sometimes the case, from his relations and generosity to the church he served. The co-operation of this church with the Boards of the general church was, through the intelligent and faithful instruction of the pastor, constant and cordial; moreover its giving increased with the increase of its members and their increase of wealth.
Dr. Dorrance was a true Presbyterian, but far remov- ed from bigotry. He maintained the most fraternal relations with his brethren of other denominations. He has especially left us his testimony with regard to the honorable, fraternal and considerate Christian spirit of the Rev. Dr. May, the Episcopal rector in Wilkes-Barre, with whom, perhaps, intimate and brotherly relationship was longer maintained than with his other fellow workers in the pastoral office.
As a pastor in the local church, he was faithful, con- siderate and beloved of all his parishioners. The late Judge Collins, a member of the Wilkes-Barre session during his ministry, in an obituary published soon after his death, after stating facts that have already come before the reader says of him: "Those that knew the extent of his persistent labors can best appreciate their worth. As a pastor, few men have succeeded better in acquiring friends, and retaining them. In talents, Dr. Dorrance stood much above mediocrity. His sermons were logical and practical ; always true to our standards and frequently of a high order. In pastoral duties he was judicious, and discreet. Prudence with him was a cardinal virtue. His piety was calm and uniform. In his intercourse with the session, he was always cordial and respectful, and during his whole ministry there was no single instance of a want
IO2
PRESBYTERY OF LUZERNE.
of harmony in the action of the session. In Presbytery, his counsel was sought and respected. In domestic relations, he was happy, but sorely afflicted by sickness in his family. The loss of a devoted wife, after a long and pining sickness, and of four pious children just as they were ripening for usefulness in the church, were sad and painful bereavements. 3 In his last sickness, he gave a patient illustration of the sustaining power of the religion which he had professed and preached. In his sickness, surrounded by his friends, in the last extremity, calm and collected, he declared that he could trust wholly in the Saviour in whom he had believed, and that he felt in his own soul the sustaining power and consolation of that religion which he had preached to his people. He retained an unclouded intellect, and fully understood his condition until he was called by the Master to rest from his labors and sleep in Jesus."
The following is the estimate of one who was provi- dentially brought into intimate relationship with Dr. Dorrance in the midst of his pastoral career, viz., the Rev. S. M. Osmond, D. D., who writes-"In the spring of 1850 I took charge of the Wilkes-Barre Academy. My recollections of many things in connection with my brief sojourn in the beautiful valley of Wyoming are, of course, somewhat faded with the lapse of 45 years, but the memory of Dr. Dorrance and his interesting, genial family and of their kindness to the youthful teacher and stranger, abides with me very vividly still.
"The Doctor was then in the prime of his vigorous life and eminent usefulness. I saw at a glance that he was no ordinary man. Closer acquaintance only deepen- ed the impression of his solid and practical qualities, as a
103
PRESBYTERY OF LUZERNE.
man, and minister. He had a somewhat quiet, self- absorbed air. He was an inveterate reader of pretty much all sorts of books, not excepting the best novels of the day, so keeping his mind freshened, quickened, and enriched by contact with current literature. He evidently had a strong hold on the esteem and affection of his people, and I think of the community generally. His preaching was uniformly good, not brilliant, I should say, but earnest, instructive, altogether evangelical and far from commonplace ; well adapted to his congregation, in which all classes of people, and grades of intellect and culture were represented.
. "He was public spirited and deeply interested in the politics of the day; and especially identified with, all proper movements for the progress of Wilkes-Barre. As President of the Board of Trustees, he gave close atten- tion to the interests of the Academy, which was an institution of the town and not under any ecclesiastical control. He must have been in many respects an ideal pastor, and to his influence and efforts during his long and successful pastorate, the subsequent high character, strength and fruitfulness of the church to which he gave his life and labors, are doubtless to be attributed."
The Hon. Steuben Jenkins* who has the reputation of being better acquainted with the history of Wyoming Valley than any living man and whose ancestors were identified with the settlement from the first explorations of the valley with a view to its settlement, in a public address, at Forty Fort in 1888, said of Dr. Dorrance : "He was a man of much more than ordinary talents and character, all of which he devoted unstintedly to the
* Now Deceased.
104
PRESBYTERY OF LUZERNE.
service of the Master, and the upbuilding of His Kingdom on earth. His manner was mild and attractive, inspiring confidence in every word and work. In the councils of the church, his moderation prevailed over the most violent and vehement appeals of his brethren. In times of excitement, when words and feelings ran high, his cool manner and good common sense suggestions were always accepted as safer and more to be relied upon than extreme measures. He had the unlimited confidence of all his associates, and his word was law among them. They always found his counsel to lead in the prudent and safe path. He became a tower of strength in his church throughout all the lines of its organization. He was grave without austerity ; firm without obstinacy ; mild without weakness, and in his intercourse with the world, blameless." This verdict of a highly intelligent public man Dr. Dorrance's co-presbyters unanimously sanction.
He ceased from his labors on earth during the first year of the war of the Rebellion, and before he knew its fearful magnitude his spirit passed into rest, with loved ones of his own household who had preceded him. His death occured April 18, 1861. It was calm and peaceful to him, but universally mourned by all who knew him, especially by his church and Presbytery, to whom he has left a precious memory.
Of his large and interesting family there are only two survivors, viz : Mrs. G. M. Reynolds, to whom we are indebted for many valuable facts of her father's history, and her sister Augusta, wife of Alexander Farnham, Esq., of Wilkes-Barre.
VIII. KINGSTON CHURCH AND ITS PASTORS.
T THE reader has already been made familiar with the general facts in the history of this church up to the year 1833, when it ceased to be served by the pastor of the Wilkes-Barre Church. When Dr. Dorrance took charge of the latter congregation, the Rev. Alexander Heberton became pastor at Kingston. They were also classmates in the Theological Seminary. He was born in Philadelphia, 1803, and a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. He was ordained by Newton Presbytery, and had served the Allen Township Presbyterian Church some six years. When Kingston Church was accorded a separate pastor, the Susquehanna river became the natural boundary or dividing line between it and the Wilkes- Barre Church, which made the former church mostly responsible of the greater part of the Wyoming Valley, and back to Lehman and up Bowman Creek where some of its members resided, while the latter had all the interests of the east side and the whole of the valley of the Lackawanna to look after. Both had ample fields, and set themselves diligently to their cultivation.
While Kingston Church had such an ample field, it had no house of worship of its own when Mr. Heberton took charge of it. Many of its Sabbath services were held in private houses, especially those of elder Daniel Hoyt and Mrs. Elijah Reynolds. At Forty Fort there
106
PRESBYTERY OF LUZERNE.
seems to have been a kind of union house of worship, and Mr. Jacob Shoemaker erected a small building for public worship on what is now a cemetery lot near Wyoming *. All these places, with others, more remote, were occupied according to convenience. In such a wide field the services of the minister must have been scattered, and of necessity less frequent than is generally expected from a settled minister, but it is gratifying to know that neigh- borhood prayer meetings were maintained throughout the extended field, and the way was being prepared for Kingston to become a mother of churches.
Mr. Heberton did not retain charge of the Kingston church long, although it is understood that he was popular. He went from Kingston to Salem, N. J., but returned to the Susquehanna, at Berwick, in 1845, where he remained till 1850, and was in connection with the Presbytery of Luzerne. After filling other charges, he returned to the city of his birth, Philadelphia, where he was City missionary from 1868 to 1884, and where he died in 1895, at the advanced age of 92, after a long, useful and honored life, leaving ministerial successors in his sons.
His immediate successor at Kingston was the Rev. Charles Chapin Corss who also died a few days ago at the age of 93. Mr. Corss was born May 22, 1803, in Greenfield, Mass. His parents died when he was but eleven years old; he and eight brothers and sisters were left to the care of their grandparents. Early in life, however, Charles seems to have assumed the privilege of self-support, in a great measure, nor was he satisfied to simply secure the ordinary supply of his wants. He *Formerly Trov.
107
PRESBYTERY OF LUZERNE.
aspired to secure a liberal education, and his perseverance was rewarded by the diplomas of Amherst College and Princeton Theological Seminary. He was licensed to preach by the Hampshire Association of Mass., Feb., 1834. The following December he became stated supply of the Kingston church, which he served two years in connection with a more general missionary work in adjacent regions. During this time he was ordained by the Susquehanna Presbytery, of which he continued a member till the reunion of the Old and New School branches of the Presbyterian church. He was highly respected by his brethren, whom he greatly aided in all their enterprises, although for some thirty years he was pastor of the East Smithfield Congregational church. Mr. Corss was especially active and influential in es- tablishing the "Susquehanna Collegiate Institute" at Towanda. As we have already stated, he wrote a history of his Presbytery. The Rev. C. N. Phelps, in an obituary notice of Mr. Corss, published in the Presby- terian, June 17th, 1895, tells us that he was of Huguenot descent ; and after speaking of the various posts of usefulness he occupied, says of him, after a lifelong acquaintance with his public career : "He was the first minister of the gospel I ever knew ; I think the first one to whom I ever listened. Probably no one ever lived, or ever will live hereafter, in Smithfield who will exert such an influence upon human character and human thought in Smithfield as he did. Both the times and the man were
such as to make this possible. It was a stirring time in the intensely religious thought of the community, and there were thinkers in Smithfield in those days when he was in the prime of his manhood. A master of faultless
-
108
PRESBYTERY OF LUZERNE.
English, a mind given to mathematical formulas, and a soul always having the courage of its own clear-cut convictions, coupled with an active pastorate of thirty years, an unblemished reputation and a most kindly daily life, which never failed to win the hearts of men to whom his theology might have seemed forbidding, -what could follow but such a result as we have intimated ? Men might not agree with him, but no man could follow him in his thoughts, Sabbath after Sabbath, and not be made to think earnestly; to think to the end of the problem."
Mr. Corss married, while in charge of the Kingston church, Miss Anna Hoyt, who died in 1857, leaving five children, four of whom, survive their father and occupy prominent and influential positions in various communities. "In 1866, he married Miss Lucelia Phelps, of Smithfield, who died only a few weeks before him. At her funeral her husband paid a most worthy tribute to the many virtues of the departed, who had so kindly cared for his children and blessed him in his home life for so many years."
The Rev. Ebenezer Hazard Snowden, the next pastor of the Kingston church, who came to it in the year 1837, was then a man of about forty years. This was six years before the organization of the Presbytery of Luzerne, of which he was destined to become an important member. Born June 27, 1799, in what has long been regarded the Mecca of Presbyterianism in this country, Princeton, N. J. His father, a Presbyterian minister bearing the name of one of the fathers of Presbyterianism in America, Samuel Finley Snowden, was one of five
109
PRESBYTERY OF LUZERNE.
brothers, all of whom graduated at Princeton College. Dr. Samuel Finley was one of the honored presidents of this college, and Samuel Finley Snowden was the first pastor of the Princeton Presbyterian church. The grand- father of the subject of this sketch was a prominent citizen of Philadelphia, a patriot of the Revolution, His name was Isaac Snowden. The mother of Mr. Snowden was Susan Bayard Breese, daughter of Samuel Sidney Breese, of Shrewsburg, N. Y. She was a granddaughter, on her mother's side, of the Rev. James Anderson, the first pastor of the First Presbyterian church of New York city.
The Rev. Samuel Finley Snowden removed from Princeton, when Ebenezer was an infant, to New Hartford, N. Y., where he remained eleven years, after which he accepted a call to Sackett's Harbor, and remained there during his natural life; consequently we find Ebenezer, instead of being in Princeton, in Hamilton College, from which he was graduated at the age of nineteen, in the class of which Gerret Smith, the famous abolitionist, was an honored member.
Mr. Ebenezer H. Snowden devoted three years to the study of law, after leaving college, and was admitted to the bar at Utica, N. Y., and entered upon the practice of his profession in Nashville, Tenn., in the midst of influential relatives ; but he was not happy, and almost immediately abandoned the law to enter on a course of study in Princeton Theological Seminary, in preparation for the gospel ministry.
Mr. Snowden was ordained as an evangelist by the New York Presbytery, Oct. 11, 1826, and went immediately to St. Augustine, Florida. After serving the
IIO
PRESBYTERY OF LUZERNE.
church there some time as stated supply, he was duly installed pastor, and occupied the field till 1836, in connection with the Presbytery of Florida or Georgia. The cause of Presbyterianism was by no means strong in that region. It must, therefore, have gladdened the heart of the pioneer of that cause to know, before his departure from this life, that the St. Augustine church was made the recipient of a quarter of a million dollars as a memorial fund from a Mr. Flagler, millionaire, to erect a magnificent church to cherish the memory of a beloved daughter, Mrs. Benedict, who died on board a yacht opposite that city, which she had been visiting in pursuit of health.
In 1836, Mr. Snowden returned north, to Brownville church, N. Y., where he became pastor. This relation seems to have been cut short by the troublesome questions which were then agitating the Presbyterian church, especially in New York. Being in attendance at the General Assembly, in 1837, the crucial time in the great controversy which had been pending in the church and which seems to have turned Mr. Snowden's attention to another field, he listened to overtures from the Kingston church, and was soon after installed as its pastor. His whole time, however, was not demanded ; for one Sabbath in four was given to Nanticoke and other places, and during the week, in addition to pastoral work in his congregation, he did missionary work in many neighboring places, e. g., Plymouth, Lehman and points in the Lackawanna Valley.
Up to this time the Kingston church held its Sabbath services in the old Academy, as the centre of its operations. Mr. Snowden, however, raised and ad-
III
PRESBYTERY OF LUZERNE.
vocated the question of building a sanctuary, a home exclusively for stated worship and around which sacred associations only should cluster. In consequence of the widely scattered membership of the church,- not large in the aggregate,- together with the fact that up to this time demands for the productions of the farm were limited and money consequently scarce, the building of a house distinctively for worship had not been accomplished. It was therefore some time after Mr. Snowden's advent before the work of church building was inaugurated. Doubtless many precious memories and sacred associations bound the people to the old Academy ; and their loving intercourse in social worship in each others houses tended to delay what seems to us a pressing duty, viz., that of building a house for God, whom they had now worshiped for more than a generation in private and secular buildings. With such an experience, it is not wonderful that the full significance of the Psalmist's longings and beautiful expressions with regard to the amiableness of the tabernacles of God should not have had their full force with these tried and scattered people. Then, too, by this time, a much greater diversity of religious sentiment had come into the valley. These divergent sentiments had been greatly restrained and modified by prevalent influences that came with the first settlers, so that a better type of dissent obtained and continued in the beautiful Wyoming Valley. This is seen in the way the Kingston community was then prepared for the establishment and wonderful prosperity of that noble institution, the Wyoming Seminary. It reaped untold advantages from the prevalence in that community of the Puritan idea of education. The denomination which projected this
II2
PRESBYTERY OF LUZERNE.
successful institution had not been long in the field as the special pioneer of education, but it had not been a careless observer of the efforts of others, and doubtless noted the danger to which even Christian foundations are exposed in the absence of strict constitutional and ecclesiastical control of educational institutions which rise upon such foundations. Therefore when our Methodist brethren became the patrons of education, they applied their ecclesiastical methods with a rigor to which Congre- gationalists and Presbyterians were in the beginning strangers.
The Wyoming Seminary from the beginning enjoyed such control, and while it was thus more safely held to evangelical teachings, on the other hand it was made more pointedly the exponent of Methodism and, of course, more a rival of sister denominations. In plain English, it gave our brethren of the Methodist Episcopal faith a great advantage over their Presbyterian neighbors in Kingston, especially in the beginning of its career. This fact, in connection with the long delay in the building of a Presbyterian house of worship in Kingston, made the growth of the Kingston church slow for many years. Mr. Snowden saw his building enterprise completed in 1842, the year before the erection of the Luzerne Presbytery. The edifice was a comely one, seating about three hundred, and costing about $2,500. It saved the life of the Kingston church and tended greatly to secure for it ultimate prosperity. Therefore, and for other reasons, Mr. Snowden's pastorate marked an era in the history of the Kingston Presbyterian church.
It enters the new Presbytery as an important factor in its new local home and habitation; and equally, if not
113
PRESBYTERY OF LUZERNE.
more significant, is the work it fostered and developed at various points in its extended original field, as it, from time to time, gave segments of its membership to constitute new organizations and multiplied centres of spiritual light and life. One of its early elders appears with efficiency in two new organizations in the bounds of the Presbytery of Luzerne, and was signally honored after he had served in the last and third church twenty- five years. In meriting and receiving this honor personally, he has honored the church which set him apart as an overseer in the house of God.
Mr. Snowden supplied Nanticoke for a part of each month, till 1843, when the Rev. Wm. Huntting became the stated supply of that part of Mr. Snowden's field. Mr. Snowden was released from his pastoral charge at Kingston, returned to the Presbytery of Susquehanna, and was pastor of the Warrenham church from 1849 to 1852, having been engaged in looking after some of the mission fields of Luzerne Presbytery from 1845 to the fall of 1849. Returning to his home in Kingston after resigning his charge in Susquehanna Presbytery, we find him engaged in supplying Plymouth, Larksville, and other places, diligently preaching the gospel until the infirmities of age incapacitated him for work, which was not until he was about ninety years old. In his varied labors, the attention which he gave to Plymouth during many years, beginning when he was pastor of the Kingston church, resulted in such vital effects to that place and congregation, that it seems to the writer we have reached the point from which we may properly introduce the history of the Plymouth church, and its relations to the Presbytery of Luzerne.
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.