USA > Pennsylvania > Washington County > Washington > History of the Presbytery of Washington : including a brief account of the planting of the Presbyterian church in Western Pennsylvania and parts adjacent, with sketches of pioneer ministers and ruling elders ; also sketches of later ministers and ruling elders > Part 12
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Dr. Wylie held a high place, both in the Presbytery and be- fore the public, alike as a preacher and an ecclesiastic. His judgment and advocacy had much weight in local church af- fairs, and also in the movements of the church at large. Though without a pastoral charge, he was called to preach widely through the churches during the first half of his resi- dence at Washington, but during the years 1822-28, he had charge of the church of Pigeon Creck-one of our most his- toric churches-as stated supply. His able and attractive preaching and his personal wisdom and power were greatly blessed in healing the distractions of that people, and turning the bitterness of strife into solid unity and peace. He like- wise prepared the way for the large ingatherings of converts which sealed the labors of his successors. Even the lapse of sixty years has not obliterated the memory of his great work from the cherished traditions of that venerable church.
It was a source of regret to many that Dr. Wylie, in his life,
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felt constrained to transfer his relatious to the Protestant Episco- pal Church. One of his sons, however, Rev. A. McElroy Wylie, of Brooklyn, N. Y., honorably represents him in the min- istry of the church of his fathers. .
THE REV. JACOB COSAD,
A licentiate at the formation of the Presbytery, was ordained and installed January 5, 1820, as pastor of the church of Lower Buf- falo, but also served the Centre Church, of the Presbytery of Steubenville, one-half of his time. His relation to Lower Buf- falo was dissolved April 19, 1827, at which time he was dis- missed to the Presbytery of Steubenville. The traces of his life- work are not sufficiently at our command to enable us to do jus- tice to his memory, but will doubtless appear in the history of the Presbytery to which he was transferred.
Here, under formal limits, would end our sketches of the original members of the Presbytery. But justice to the truth of history demands the introduction of another name not second to any other in the work and influence which have served to make the Presbytery of Washington what it is.
THE REV. MATTHEW BROWN, D.D. LL.D.,
Was not ecclesiastically a member of the Presbytery of Washing- ton. For special reasons of expediency, and according to his own desire, he was at the organization, retained in the Presby- tery of Ohio, as was also the Church of Washington for his sake. Upon his acceptance, however, of the call to the Presidency of Jefferson College, in 1822, and the settlement of his successor, Dr. Jennings, the boundary line was changed, and both the pas- tor and the church were embraced in the Presbytery of Wash- ington, as originally designed.
Dr. Brown was a power in the early religious and educational history of Western Pennsylvania. For what he was, and what he accomplished, as the first President of Washington College, from December 13, 1806, until December 16, 1816, and as President of Jefferson College in the 1822-45, it is enough to re- fer to the excellent paper of Dr. Cunningham, in another part of this volume. But primarily he was settled at Washington as a pastor, and as such he is here presented.
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Of Scotch-Irish descent, born in 1776 in Northumberland County, Pa., graduated from Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa., in the class of 1795, having for his theological instructors succes- sively the Rev. James Snodgrass, Dr. Charles Nisbet, President of his alma mater, and Dr. John King, a distinguished pastor at Mercersburg, Pa., and the fourth moderator of the General As- sembly, he was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Carlisle, October 3, 1799. In the spring of 1805, he was transferred from his first charge over the united congregations of Mifflin and Lost Creek, in the Presbytery of Huntingdon, to Washington, Pa., as the first pastor of the Presbyterian Church there, and also as principal of the Washington Academy, which a year later -- and largely through his influence-was chartered as Washington College. For the ten following years he served in the double character of President of the college and pastor of the church, but, resigning then the former, he continued in the pastorate until his election, September 25, 1822, to the Presi- dency of Jefferson College, a position which he held with great success and usefulness until the annual commencement of 1845, when he retired, because of the infirmities of age, nearly eight years before his death.
Dr. Brown was a very pungent and effective preacher. His mind was vigorous and his heart was warm. His nervous tem- porament betrayed him at times into eccentricities which gave offense, but the ardor of his piety and the reactions of generosity in his disposition ordinarily repaired the injury and turned enemies into warm friends. Encountering the free manners of early western life at the outset, his persevering zeal gained for him great ascendency over the public mind, and he left the deep impress of an evangelical spirit on the church he so faithfully served. Having a strong taste for metaphysics, his sermons were nevertheless peculiarly marked with scriptural proof and illustration to enforce the saving truth of the gospel. Alike in prayer and exhortation also, he often rose to the highest fervor. His ministry was largely blessed with revivals of re- ligion and the ingathering of converts into the communion of the church. But widest and most abiding of all was his influ-
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ence over students under his care, in winning them in large numbers to Christ and into the church and the ministry.
The mantle of Dr. Brown fell gracefully upon his no less dis- tinguished son, the Rev. Alexander B. Brown, D.D., a noble Christian gentleman, one of the best preachers in the church, and for nine years an honored successor of his father in the presidency of Jefferson College. Another successor was his son-in-law, the Rev. David H. Riddle, D.D., LL.D., widely known and respected for his pulpit eloquence and Christian character, alike in Pennsylvania and his native Virginia. A grandson, the Rev. Matthew Brown Riddle, D.D., holding a foremost rank among the Greek scholars of our church and country, is now the professor of New Testament exegesis and literature in the Western Theological Seminary at Allegheny, Pa.
We turn now from the original members of Presbytery to fol- low the long line of succession of seventy years, which carries us from 1819 to the present time.
Propriety as well as express limitation will forbid the open- ing to view of the men yet living, who have preached the gospel from these pulpits, and who, as under-shepherds, have led the several bands of. Christ's flock into the " green pastures " and " beside the still waters" of gracious instrumentality. Let their history be written when they shall have "fallen asleep." Nor would it be possible, if even desirable, to outline in the present form the life-work of all the heralds of salvation who, within these seventy years, have come into this blessed work in this territory, and have been called from toil to reward and glory. Happily every one of them has a just place in the condensed personal record of our stated clerk. We must of stern necessity limit ourselves chiefly to memories of such brethren of this long and deserving list, as, by time and efficiency of service combined, have made their history more or less inseparable from the his- tory of the Presbytery itself.
No worthier name could head this list than that of
THE REV. OBADIAH JENNINGS, D.D.
He was born December 12, 1778, at Basking Ridge, N. J., and was the fourth son of Jacob Jennings, a physician, who, at
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the age of forty years, became a minister, and settled as pastor of the Dunlap's Creek Church, in the Presbytery of Redstone. After a course in the Cannonsburg Academy, Mr. Jennings studied law in the office of John Simonton, Esq., of Washington, Pa., and commenced legal practice in 1800, at Steubenville, Ohio. At the end of eleven years of brilliant success, he re- turned to Washington and opened an office there, having, one year before, entered the communion of the Presbyterian Church. He continued the practice of his profession several years more, with the highest esteem of the bar and people alike for his ability and his Christian consistency, having meanwhile been made a ruling elder in the church of Washington. But the realized call of the Master, enforced by the convictions of his brethren, led to his consecration to the ministry, followed by his licensure to preach, in 1816, and his settlement the next spring as 'pastor at Steubenville. At the end of six years, however, upon the vacancy made in the Washington Church, by the call of the Rev. Matthew Brown, D.D., to the presidency of Jeffer- son College, he accepted a call to that church, and so was trans- ferred to the other sphere of his former legal practice. The noble tribute thus twice paid to his Christian character by peo- ple familiar with his conduct amidst the conflicts of courts, can well be appreciated. His removal from Washington, in IS28, after five years of the happiest union, to become pastor of the First Church of Nashville, Tenn., was a tearing of the heart- strings of his people, as well as an agony to himself, tolerable only under a sense of mingled duty and pastoral despondency. And yet the decision of change had scarcely been announced, when a powerful revival of religion set in at Washington, and continued for a year under the ministrations of his nephew, the late Dr. Samuel C. Jennings, then a licentiate, when souls were gathered in scores, as precious fruits of the very labors which, to Dr. Jennings' own mind, had been covered with discourage- ment. His preaching is indeed said to have fallen in eloquence below his freer manner at the bar, but a full compensation was found in its richness of truth and experience, whilst his daily life was a continual sermon. In general influence, both in the church and the community, he was not excelled. In discussion
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upon the floor of ecclesiastical bodies, not excepting the General Assembly. he was cqual to the strongest. He presided over the Synod of Pittsburgh in 1826 as Moderator. In IS22 he was Moderator of the General Assembly. His death, January 12, 1832, at the age of fifty-four years, amidst the rapid growth of his reputation, and of the affections of his people for him, brought tears of lamentation in many parts of the land.
THE REV. JOHN STOCKTON, D D.,
Was for many years one of the leading and influential members of the Washington Presbytery. He was born near Washington, Pa., November 18, 1803; was graduated from Washington Col- lege October 3, 1820; studied theology under the instruction of Dr. John Anderson, and Hebrew and church history under Dr. Andrew Wylie ; was licensed by the Presbytery of Washington April 20, 1825 ; after a supplementary ycar at Princeton Semi- nary, was ordained and installed as pastor of the Church of Cross Creek June 20, 1827 : and, at his own request, was re- leased from his charge June 20, 1877. the fiftieth anniversary of his settlement. Jefferson College had done double honor, to herself and to him, in the degree of D.D. conferred upon him in 1846. He died at his home May 5, 1882, and two days later, after solemn funeral exercises in the church hallowed by his impassioned and eloquent proclamations of the gospel, his body was borne in reverent silence to the company of sleepers whom he had guided and helped heavenward.
The handsome volume issued on the occasion of Dr. Stock- ton's retirement from pastoral work five years before his death, to commemorate his " Half Century Pastorate," is so largely in circulation as to render needless, on this occasion, the repetition of his honorable and useful history. Scholarship consecrated at the Lord's altar, animated and pungent words loaded with saving truth; assiduous vigilance and labor to win souls ; wis- dom, prudence, consistent example and tender sympathy among the people-these were the leading characteristics of his long ministry. Powerful revivals put the seal of heaven upon his work; more than fifteen hundred souls were led to the cross by his gentle hand; two-score ministers of the gospel were debtors
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to him for the instrumentality of their consecration; and not less than one hundred ruling elders scattered among the churches learned of him, first how to serve and then how to govern in the house of God. He was eminently a friend of liberal education. Few if any names will occupy a more conspicuous place in the annals of our Presbytery.
THE REV. JOHN MCCLUSKEY, D.D.
Was, for a full quarter of a century and more, the active and suc- cessful pastor of the church of West Alexander. . He came to it a licentiate from the Presbytery of Philadelphia, at thirty-three years of age, and was ordained by this Presbytery as pastor October S, 1828. Chester County, Pa., claims the honor of his birth, June 17, 1795, though the discipline of his youth came from Washington County, the future sphere of his chief labors. Jefferson College sent him forth in the class of 1822, adorned with her culture, and better still as a new man in the purpose of his life; for while an undergraduate he made his confession of Christ in the Chartiers Church, then under the pastoral care of Dr. John McMillan. Not a little of his mental development, before and after his collegiate training, came through his own efforts as a teacher, and the habit thus acquired increased and widened his influence throughout his pastoral work. He re- ceived his theological training partly under the instruction of Dr. Ezra Stiles Ely, of Philadelphia, and, for one year, in the Princeton Seminary.
Dr. Mccluskey, though far from deficient, was more a man of action than of severe study. His preaching was plain, scrip- tural, sound and spiritual, abounding in illustrations from daily life. It was attended with steady ingathering to the commu- nion of the church, and often with special revivals. He was pre-eminently a man of affairs, ever taking the temporal as well as spiritual interests of his people into his carc. Thus, under his influence, the general advancement of society around him kept pace with the progress of the church. He was a special friend of liberal education. He established the West Alexander Academy, and conducted it with much success and reputation during most of his pastorate, sending forth from its walls about
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fifty students who became ministers, besides many candidates for the other professions. Like Dr. Stockton, he was also an active trustee of Washington College.
Dr. Mccluskey's resignation of his charge, April 15, 1854, in the fifty-ninth year of his age, was not for the purpose of in- glorious ease, but rather for a change of work. After a year spent in the service of the Board of Education, he supplied the pulpit of the church of Neshaminy, Pa., and afterwards that of Smyrna, Del., through a period of five years. In 1859 he founded a church-school in West Philadelphia. In 1864 he es- tablished an institution at Hightstown, N. J., for the free tuition of the children of ministers, and especially of missionaries. Returning to Philadelphia in 1870, he acted for a time as asso- ciate principal of the Mantua Academy. The evening of his declining life was spent among friends at Wooster, Ohio. On March 31, 1880, in the eighty-fifth year of his age, his life- work came to its end in Philadelphia, and he ascended to the upper skies.
Tender memories spring up at the mention of the name of
THE REV. JAMES WILSON MCKENNAN, D.D.
He was born in Washington, Pa. He was the youngest son of Col. William McKennan, an officer of the Revolution, and a brother of the Hon. Thomas M. T. McKennan. After gradua- tion from Washington College, in the class of 1822, he pursued the study of law, and practiced his profession for a little season at Millersburg, O., but grace took possession of his heart, and he dedicated himself to the ministry, when he placed himself under the care of Dr. John Anderson, of Buffalo, along with John Stockton, Samuel McFarren, William C. Anderson, John L. Hawkins and H. M. Koontz, all candidates for the sacred of- fice. Licensed October 8,1828, and ordained and installed De- cember 9, 1829, by the Presbytery of Washington, he labored, for five years, as pastor of the churches of Lower Buffalo and Short Creek (West Liberty). Afterwards, with an interval of prostrate health, during which he spent two years in the South- ern States and Cuba, he had charge successively of the First Church of Indianapolis and the churches of Circleville, O.,
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and later of Florence, Lower Ten Mile and Frankfort, in this presbytery. He also engaged for a time in teaching, in Wheeling, later at Moundsville and for several years as rector of the Preparatory Department, and Adjunct Professor of Lan- guages in Washington College. That institution gave him the honorary degree of D.D. in 1860.
Advancing disease suspended the service of Dr. McKennan for the last year of his life. It was during a visit to a relative, Mrs. Charles Neave, at Clifton, a suburb of Cincinnati, that he came to a peaceful and triumphant death, July 19, 1861, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. His body was brought home, and laid with kindred dust in the Washington Cemetery, to await the resurrection. "Devout men carried him to his burial, and made great lamentation over him." Our beloved brother was a model of candor, meekness and benevolence, as well as of faith, fervor and zeal. His sermons were without pretension to learn- ing or eloquence, yet, in evangelical truth, directness, earnest- ness and pathos, they were powerful and effective. He espe- cially excelled in exhortation. Common sense, fired with affec- tion, was the secret of his force. Careless of his worldly interests to a fault, he was unsurpassed in generosity. Ever ready to occupy a subordinate position, none rejoiced more than he in the promotion of his brethren. We remember him as "an Is- raelite, indeed, in whom was no guile." He left no earthly possessions ; he cared not for fame ; but his memory abides in the church as that of a beloved disciple.
THE REV. DAVID HERVEY,
A junior brother of Dr. James Hervey, and class-mate of another honored brother, the Rev. Henry Hervey, D.D., a leading pastor and educator at Martinsburg, Ohio, spent nearly his whole min- isterial life in connection with our Presbytery. He was born October 29, 1794. He commenced business life as a farmer, and in ISIS was married to Dorothea, daughter of Adam Faris, of Ohio County, (West) Virginia. But realizing the Lord's call to the ministry, he entered Jefferson College as a student in 1820 and was graduated as a member of the class of 1825. His theological studies were pursued under the instruction of his
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brother, Dr. James Hervey, and he was licensed to preach, by the Presbytery of Washington, December 13, 1827, One year later, viz., December 21, 1828, he was ordained and installed by the same body as the first pastor of the newly formed church of Mount Prospect. In this field he labored with great acceptance and usefulness until June, 1835, when pursuant to a call, dated March 2, of that year, he was installed as pastor of his native church of Lower Buffalo, devoting, however, one-third of his time to Wellsburg, where, in 1839, he organized a church com- posed of twenty members. Meanwhile he had resigned his charge in October, 1838, to accept a call to the church of Crab Apple, in Ohio, but resumed it in the following spring, and ceasing to preach at Wellsburg in 1840, he contined in active service at Lower Buffalo until October 3, 1849, when he was re- leased for chosen retirement. He shortly afterwards, however, spent a couple of years in missionary labor in Illinois and organ- ized several churches.
Mr. Hervey spent the remainder of his life on his farm near Wellsburg, but found great delight in preaching the gospel in vacant churches and destitute places, as well as in assisting his brethren at their call. To the end of his life he sustained his well earned reputation as a heroic defender and zealous pro -. claimer of the truth and grace of God, as found in the inspired word, and embodied in the standards of the Presbyterian Church. He was also a vigilant and useful member of the courts of the Church. His peaceful death occurred June 19, ISSI. His un- broken record illustrates the courage of deep conviction, whether called forth in the peaceful work of the church, or in her stormy conflicts with error and sin. Nor was he a less pronounced patriot when through the bloody strife of Civil War, the flag of the nation was dishonored and its integrity was sought to be overthrown. "The memory of the just is blessed."
THE REV. JOHN EAGLESON, D.D.,
Next claims our notice. The mention of his name recalls the sacred memories of thirty-nine years of able and successful la- bor as the pastor of the venerable church of Upper Buffalo, and of active membership in the Presbytery of Washington. Ohio
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claims the honor of his birth, on the 12th of February, 1809; Jefferson College numbered him among her honored Alumni of the class of 1829, and in 1859 added the degree of Doctor of Divinity; the Allegheny Seminary gave him, in part, his theo- logical training; the Presbytery of Steubenville sent him forth January 8, 1833, as a licentiate, to make trial of his gifts; but his life-work had its beginning and end just here. He was or- dained and installed December 24, 1834, about a year and a half after the retirement of Dr. John Anderson, on account of the infirmities of age, and only a month before the latter's decease ; and on this Mount Zion, he stood in his lot, until called to his seat in glory, January 23, 1873, in the sixty- fonrth year of his age. Six hundred and twenty-three members were added to this church during his pastorate, making an an- nual average of sixteen.
The older members of the presbytery readily unite with the fathers and mothers of this congregation in honoring the mem- ory of Dr. Eagleson as among our best ministers and presby- ters. Earnest in piety and exemplary in conduct, he was stu- dious in preparation for his work and constant in its execution. His sermons, if not oratorical, were rich in Biblical material, · lucid and compact in style and solemn and fervid in utterance. At his hands the people were habitually fed with truth, and stimulated with motives drawn from Christ and eternity. In their homes, also, they were wont to receive the kind personal attentions of a true under-shepherd and friend. He was wise in counsel, careful in speech, faithful in service, and now his works do follow him.
It is among the tender memories of Dr. Eagleson's close of life that the first use of this excellent building, upon the erec- tion of which he had so much set his heart, was the funeral service of song and prayer and the study and application of the lessons of his death, ere we bore his cold body to its resting- place, in the company of his honored predecessors, Smith and Anderson, and of the generations of saints, whom they and he had been permitted to lead and help in their heavenward way. Let the shadow of God's temple still fall gently upon their graves, and the songs of other generations continue to swell up-
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ward to the throne from beside the silent city of their waiting, until the trumpet peal of the resurrection glory shall summon the whole church of the redeemed to the joy of their Lord. Though he speaks not with audible voice, he is represented by two sons in the work of the ministry.
THE REV. DAVID ELLIOTT, D.D., LL.D.,
Spent seven years of his most active service as pastor of the First Church of Washington, having come to it in the autumn of 1829, from a pastorate of seventeen years, at Mercersburg, Pa. In the midst of the highest esteem of his people, he was called by the voice of the General Assembly of 1836, to a chair in the Western Theological Seminary, a position which he held with distinguished success and the entire confidence of the church until his death, March 18, 1874, in the eighty-eighth year of his age. During his happy pastorate at Washington he reorganized Washington College in 1831, which had been sus- pended in 1829, and for eighteen months acted as its president and Professor of Moral Philosophy. From his resignation un- til 1865 he was president of the College Board of Trustees. His degree of Doctor of Divinity came from Jefferson College in 1835, and that of LL.D. from Washington College, just twelve years later. The same qualities of talent, piety, wisdom and conscientiousness which so distinguished him as a seminary professor, were as conspicuous in his pastoral service and general work as a minister. He was also an eminent leader in the several courts of the church, and was Moderator of the General Assembly of 1837. Those who desire a full account of his life and service, are referred to the memorial volume, published at his death, by the authorities of the seminary, which he had served so long and well.
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