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The Rev. Francis Makemie is usually named the first Presbyterian minister in America [but see Rev. Richard Denton]. A native of Donegal county, Ireland, educated at one of the Scottish universities, he was licensed and ordained by the Presbytery of Laggan, with a view to coming to America in response to an appeal for ministerial help which had been sent to that body from Maryland. Shortly after his ordination, the date of which is not known, he came to this country and settled in Maryland in 1683, where he organized the Church in Snow Hill, the first Presbyterian church in America [but see Churches of Hempstead and Jamaica, Long Island]. Several other congregations wer gathered in that region. Mr. Makemie went from place to place as an itinerant missionary, extending his journeys into the neighboring colony of Virginia and as far as South Carolina.
In 1692 he visited Philadelphia, and it is probable that Presbyterians were gathered together and organized as a congregation at that time. Their first place of worship was a frame building on the northwest corner of Second and Chestnut streets, known as "the Barbadoes Warehouse." It belonged to the Barbadoes Trading Company, and had been used by them as a place for the storage and sale of merchandise, but had been abandoned on account of reverses which came upon the company.
In the Autumn of 1698 Mr. Jedediah Andrews, a licentiate from Massachusetts, a graduate of Harvard College, began to preach to them. He was ordained and installed their pastor in the Autumn of 1701, the year Philadelphia received its charter as a city, and Edward Shippen became its mayor. The place then contained 500 houses and a population of 5000.
In 1704 the congregation erected its first church building, on the south side of High (Market) street, corner of Bank street. It was surrounded by large button wood trees, from which it came to be known as the Buttonwood Church. It was enlarged in 1729, rebuilt in 1793, and finally abandoned, on account of the encroachments of business, in 1820, after it had been occupied one hundred and sixteen years. The congregation then removed to the church edifice it still [1884] occupies, on Washington Square. In this first frame church the first American Presbytery was organized, in 1705 or 1706. The first leaf of the records has been lost and the precise date is therefore unknown.
The growth of Presbyterianism in Philadelphia was very slow during the first half century of its existence. The growth of the city during the same period was by no means rapid. In 1750 Fourth street was its western limit; it contained only 2076 houses and 15,000 inhabitants. Presbyterianism received a new implulse towards the middle of the century from the immigration of many Presbyterian families, and also from the labors of the Rev. George Whitefield. Under his preaching large congregations were assembled and many converts were made. The revival was also accompanied with serious discussions. These discussions, together with the growth of the city, led to the formation, in 1743, of the Second Church, which had for its place of worship the Whitefield Academy, on Fourth street, south of Arch, and the celebrated Gilbert Tennent for its first pastor. Its first church edifice was erected and occupied in 1750, on the northwest corner of Third and Arch streets; enlarged and reconstructed in 1809. In 1837 the congregation removed to north Seventh street, below Arch, and in 1872 it took possession of its present building, corner of Walnut and Twenty-first streets.
The third congregation was organized in 1762, though it continued in connection with the First Church until 1771, when the Rev. George Duffield became its pastor. The Fourth Church was not formed until 1799. Thus, at the beginning of the [19th] century, there were in Philadelphia four churches in connection with the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. In this city, during that century, were formed its first Presbytery, in 1705 or 1706, its first Synod, in 1717, and its first General Assembly, in 1789. It had shown a determined patriotism during the War of the Revolution, its ministers and people giving an undivided support to the cause of freedom against the encroachments of British tyranny and oppression. But while the city had made great advances in population and wealth, Presbyterianism had not made a corresponding advance. It began the [19th] century with only four churches and less than 500 communicants in a population of 70,218. . . [In 1884] we safely estimate the whole Presbyterian population as 210,000, or one-fifth of the entire population of the city.
The increase of the Presbyterian Church through the interior of the State, on to the Susquehanna, as in Philadelphia, was not greatly disproportional to that of the population. As immigration pushed its way towards the West, the blue flag floated over the advancing tide. With such noble men as Anderson, Bertram, Latta, Boyd, Irwin, Grier, Smith, Carmichael, Foster, McFarquhar, Mitchell, Blair, Craighead, Finley, Sample, Cathcart, Snodgrass and others, the cause was carried forward in steady line and solid progress. Prominent among the churches which sprang into existence, was the Church in Abington, which was organized in 1714, by the Rev. Malachi Jones, and of which the Rev. Dr. William Tennent was pastor for twenty-nine years; the Church in New London, of which Dr. Francis Alison was one of the first pastors, having, in connection with his pastorate, the charge of an academy, at which many young men were trained for usefulness and distinction in the various vocations of life; the Church of Upper Octorara, which has been blessed with a succession of faithful pastors during all its long history, and which, in addition to the local influence it has exerted for good, has sent out a number of able ministers and several devoted missionaries; the Church at Brandywine Manor, which has been blessed with the faithful labors of John Carmichael and Nathan and John Nathan Caldwell Grier (father and son), and from which, also, many have gone forth to the work of the ministry, to do noble service for the Master; the Church at Pequea, which was for forty-two years the pastoral charge of that able theologian and profound casuist, Dr. Robert Smith, whose school, which he established, acquired a great reputation, but who is better known to posterity as the father of those two great lights of the Church, Dr. Samuel Stanhope Smith, of Princeton College, and Dr. John Blair Smith, of Union College, both of whom succeeded their father in the Moderator's chair in the General Assembly; the Church at Chestnut Level, which was long under the care of that able divine, the Rev. James Latta, D.D., Moderator of the General Assembly in 1793, and father of four sons who entered the ministry, the Revs. William, Francis, James and John E. Latta, the last of whom was for a considerable time permanent clerk of the General Assembly; Donegal Church, located in one of the most important Scotch-Irish settlements in the county of Lancaster, upon the banks of the "Shecassalungo" creek, in 1714, and invested with peculiar historic interest; Old Derry Church, Paxtang Church and Old Hanover Church, around which cluster many sacred memories.
Other churches in this region include: Upper West Conacocheague, Welsh Run, Falling Spring, Rocky Spring, Middle Spring, Big Spring, Carlisle and Silvers' Spring.
In 1766 we find Mr. Charles Beatty, in conjunction with Mr. Duffield, performing his Western mission. At Fort Pitt (Pittsburg) he was invited by McLagan, Chaplain to the Forty-second Regiment, to preach to the garrison, whie Mr. Duffield preached to the people who lived "in some kind of a town without the fort." The missionaries, on their return, reported "that they found on the frontiers nubers of people earnestly desirous of forming themselves into congregations, and declaring their willingness to exert their utmost in order to have the gospel among them," but their circumstances were "exceedingly distressing and necessitous," in consequence of calamities inflicted by the war.
It is impossible to determine how far the measures of the Synod for mission labor in Western Pennsylvania were cried out with each successive year, but they were regularly made at each annual meeting, and in some cases, at least, were successful. The war of the Revolution, however, interrupted the further prosecution of the plan, and year before its close (1781) Redstone Presbytery had been organized on the field.
The Rev. W.F. Hamilton gives the following graphic description of the first meeting of this Presbytery, September 19th, 1781 at Pigeon Creek:--
Of the three ministers, the oldest is James Power. He is thirty-five, of fair complexion, medium height, erect and rather slender in person, noticeably neat, though plain in dress, courteous and easy in his manners, but not lacking gravity, rather combining affability and dignity in dure proportion. Next in age is Thaddeus Dod, four years younger. He is considerably taller than Mr. Power, but equally slender. His dress hangs more loosely. He has a sallow complexioun, black hair and black eyes, keen, piercing, but not unkindly. His whole general appearance is in contrast with that of Mr. Power, and by no means give such promise of longevity. The other minister still younger, is John McMillan, not yet turned twenty-nine. In complexiont, abrupt, impatient of formality. His look stern, almost harsh, were it not attempered by benevolence. His person nearly if not quite six feet high, with head and neck inclining forward, giving already slight promise of corpulence, setting off to good advantage the cocked hat and broad-skirt coat with doublet, and the breeches with knee buckles, which constituted the conventional costume of the day. If there is either of the three that would be adjudged at once a man of commanding energy and force fo character, a man of superior executive ability, it is certainly McMillan. Of the three elders the first noticed, perhaps, is Demas Lindley, from Ten Mile, a man of stalwart frame and great physical strength, yet one who sits as a child at Jesus' feet. He is in the vigor of manhood, aged forty-eight. Patrick Scott, of Pigeon Creek, is one year younger, as is also John Neel, from Mt. Pleasant. They are good specimens of the better class of early settlers. Presbytery is opened with a sermon by Mr. Dodd, from the words, 'I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth the. Wherefore I abhor myself in dust and ashes.' Presumably a plain, searching, gospel sermon, good alike for ministers and elders and people, good for all, young and old, who have gathered to hear it. Mr. McMillan is then elected Moderator, and Mr. Power clerk. There is but little business demanding attention, and so more time for prayer and conference. Another session is held the next morning, then they adjourn. They are glad they have seen each others' faces, they are proud to be an independent Presbytery, and having pressed each others' hands with a parting grasp, they are ready to return to their homes.
See, Marriages by the Rev. John King, of the Upper West Conococheague Presbyterian Church, Mercersburg, Franklin co., Pennsylvania (1769-1812), part of the US GenWeb archives. See, also, Record of Graves at the Derry Presbyterian Church, Hershey, Dauphin (formerly Lancaster) Co., Pennsylvania, part of the US GenWeb archives. See, also, Bethel Church, Jefferson Co., Pennsylvania.