April 2015

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April 10: Fairview Presbyterian Church, Fountain Inn, SC [org. 1786]

10 April, 2015 in April 2015 by archivist | No comments

A member church of the Presbyterian Church in America since 1974, Fairview Presbyterian Church in Fountain Inn,South Carolina, was established in 1786 and ranks as one of the oldest churches in the PCA (fifteen are older).

History of Fairview Presbyterian Church
Greenville County
1786-1886

The Fairview Presbyterian Church is located in Greenville County, South Carolina, Fairview Township, five miles west of Fountain Inn.

The above church was organized in the late fall of 1786, the following families composing the organization: John Peden’s, Samuel Peden’s, David Peden’s, James Alexander’s, and James Nesbitt’s.

This church was received under the care of South Carolina Presbytery on April 10, 1787.

There have been four church buildings. The first was built of logs and located, not far from the church spring, on the east side. The second was also a log structure and situated near the spot on which the brick church afterwards stood. The third was the brick building. It was finished in 1818 and dedicated by the Rev. R.B. Cater in August of that year. Its site was just in front of the graveyard, where remains of it may still be found. The fourth is the one now in use. It was completed in March, 1858, and dedicated by Rev. David Humphrey and Dr. E.T. Buist on May 15 of the same year. The occasion was also a season of great spiritual blessing to the church. There were many conversions and the membership much revived.

The Rev. Samuel Edmonson of Virginia, preached the first sermon and organized the church with the following ruling elders: John Peden, Samuel Peden, James Alexander, Sr., and his son, John Alexander. The first minister to serve the church was Rev. John McCosh, for one year. Second, Rev. J. Foster Simpson and Rev. William Montgomery, each preached occasionally until 1794, when Rev. James Templeton was called as stated supply for half of his time and continued for six years.

From 1800 to 1802, the pulpit was vacant, but in 1802, this church, with Nazareth, Spartanburg County, called the Rev. James Gilliland, Jr., as pastor, and continued for ten years.

From 1812 to 1814, Rev. James Hillhouse, Rev. Thomas Archibald, Rev. Joseph Hillhouse, and Rev. Alexander Kirkpatrick were occasional supplies, as appointed by Presbytery.

From 1814 to 1816, Rev. Hugh Dickson served the church for one-fourth his time. Again the Rev. James Hillhouse served for six months, followed by Rev. Thomas Archibald for one year, and Rev. Alexander Kirkpatrick for two years. Rev. Thomas Baird served for two years, 1818-1820. Rev. Michael Dickson served Fairview and Nazareth from 1820-1827. Vacant from 1827 to 1832, Messrs. Watson and Craig holding occasional services as appointed by Presbytery, with Rev. Arthur Mooney.

In 1832, Rev. John Boggs took charge as supply, later, as pastor. He was followed by Rev. David Humphrys for three years. He was succeeded by Rev. William Carlisle in 1838, who was stated supply for six years. He was followed by Rev. John McKittrick for two years, then Rev. E.T. Buist as stated supply for six years.

This brings us to the ministry of Rev. C.B. Stewart, which extended over a period of thirty years, eighteen, as stated supply, and twelve years, as pastor. His worthy successor was Rev. Marion C. Britt, as pastor for three-fourths of his time.

The list of those who have served as ruling elders in the church from 1786 to 1886 is as follows: John Peden, Samuel Peden, James Alexander, Sr., John Alexander, Alexander Peden, William Peden, Robert Morrow, Anthony Savage, Thomas W. Alexander, Lindsay A. Baker, James Peden, James Alexander, David Morton, Alexander Thompson, James Dunbar, Adam Stenhouse, Austin Williams, J.E. Savage, John M. Harrison, A.W. Peden, T.H. Stall, Dr. W.A. Harrison, Thomas L. Woodside, Dr. D.R. Anderson, W.L. Hopkins, Robert Wham, David Stoddard, J.W. Kennedy, and Dr. H.B. Stewart.

The office of deacon was established in 1858, and the following men have served in that capacity up to the year 1886: John T. Stenhouse, T.C. Harrison, William Nesbitt, D.R. Anderson, Thomas L. Woodside, Thomas H. Stall, W.L. Hopkins, C.D. Nesbitt, D.M. Peden, T.C. Peden, E.W. Nash, A.S. Peden, J.T. Peden, M.P. Nash and S.T. McKittrick.

An imperfect roll of communicants from the beginning to 1886, contains about twelve hundred names. The neighboring churches of New Harmony and Lickville are her daughters, and many colonies in other states, who have carried with them her faith and spirit. Two of her sons are in the ministry, the Rev. A.G. Peden of Griffin, Georgia, and the Rev. C.L. Stewart of our own Presbytery. The first hundred years of her existence have been rich in blessings, and we can raise our Ebenezer with thanksgiving and praise for “hitherto the Lord has helped us.”

The church bears no marks of decay, and if her children are only faithful to their heritage, it can be said of her that she has but entered upon her divine mission of “gathering and perfecting the saints.”

By (Mrs.) Cannie H. Woodside. [written circa 1936]

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April 9: Frederick W. Evans

9 April, 2015 in April 2015 by archivist | No comments

evansFWJrFrederick W. Evans, Jr. was born on April 9, 1924 in New York City to the Rev. Frederick W. Evans, Sr. and his wife Grace. He was educated at the College of Wooster, graduating with a B.A. in Classical Languages; honors from that institution included Phi Beta Kappa. Princeton Theological Seminary conferred the degree of Bachelor of Divinity in 1947 and he was ordained to the gospel ministry on April 9, 1947 by the PC(USA) Presbytery of Troy (later incorporated into the Presbytery of Albany). One of his Princeton professors, the Rev. Joseph L. Hromadka, brought the sermon at the service of ordination.

Rev. Evans was installed in his first pastorate, Christ’s Presbyterian Church, in Catskill, NY on 10 February, 1948. He served there just over three years before accepting a call to the Bedford-Central Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn, NY, serving in this pulpit from 1951 to 1953. His last pastoral position within the PCUSA was at the Third Presbyterian Church of Chester, PA (1954 – 1955).

It was at the outset of this pastorate that he married Irene Payne, with the marriage taking place in Brooklyn on 15 May 1954. Rev. Evans and his wife have four children: William, now a professor at Erskine College and adjunct professor at Erskine Theological Seminary; John, an ordained pastor in the PCA and a missionary in Africa; and daughters Mary E. and Martha J.

The years at Third Presbyterian marked the culmination of his convictions regarding the theological decline of the PC(USA) and forced him to transfer his credentials. He had been a member of the Albany, Brooklyn-Nassau and Philadelphia Presbyteries of the PC(USA) from 1948 to 1955. In 1955 he requested the erasure of his name from the rolls of Philadelphia Presbytery.

evansgradHis first three pastorates were within the Presbyterian Church (USA). His last three pastorates were in independent churches. Leaving the PC(USA), he first accepted a call to the Westover Church of Greensboro, NC, where he served from 1955 until 1964. From this post, he next moved to Indianapolis and the pulpit of Faith Missionary Church, serving there from 1965 – 1971. It was during his last pastorate, at the Walnut Grove Chapel of Indianapolis (1971 – 1990), that he began also working toward a doctorate, first receiving an MA in 1974 from Butler University and an S.T.M. in 1978 from Christian Theological Seminary, both of these institutions being located in Indianapolis. Westminster Theological Seminary then conferred the degree of Doctor of Ministry in May of 1984. Of special note was the graduation of father and son together at the same occasion, with son William receiving the M.A.R. degree.

In 1989, the Rev. Dr. Evans was received by the Great Lakes Presbytery of the PCA, and in July 1990 he retired from his pulpit at the independent Walnut Grove Chapel. In his petition for reception into the Great Lakes Presbytery, he noted:

“For better than thirty years I have been without formal denominational ties. At the time when I departed the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. for conscience’ sake I did not feel at liberty to seek membership in either the Bible Presbyterian Church, because of the McIntire influence, or in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, because of my premillennial convictions.
Since the early 1960’s I have been approached by a number of individuals in the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod, and more recently the Presbyterian Church in America, urging me to cast in my lot with them. This I have hesitated to do, not wanting to cause misunderstanding or difficulty for the various independent congregations I have served.
Plans now call for me to lay down my present pastorate in the Summer of 1990. Accordingly I do not feel that my becoming part of the PCA as an individual would create any serious problems for the Council and Congregation of Walnut Grove Chapel.
My motive in making application is simple. I have always subscribed to the Presbyterian principle of being in subjection to faithful brethren and feel that recent events in the religious world have only underscored the importance of accountability. In view of my Reformed convictions and persuasion of the rightness of Presbyterian polity, I believe that the PCA would afford me the opportunity to be subject to those who are true brethren in the Lord…”
[27 July 1989]

Of note here is the sacrificial character of a true pastor, who put consideration for his congregation first ahead of his own needs. He would not take the least action that might be misunderstood.
Upon his death on 12 May 1992, the PCA Messenger commented on the Rev. Dr. Evans’ keen interest in church history. He authored four books during his lifetime. Two twelve-week study courses were entitled They Kept the Faith [a study bringing together faith and history] and They Sought a City! [a survey of American Church history]. Also published were Christ in the Psalms and The God Who Is [a study on the character of God, employing the pattern found in the Westminster Shorter Catechism, question 4].

The Frederick W. Evans, Jr. Manuscript Collection is preserved at the PCA Historical Center,

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April 8: First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, MS

8 April, 2015 in April 2015 by archivist | No comments

The First Presbyterian Church of Jackson was organized on a Saturday afternoon, April 8, 1837 by the Reverend Peter Donan and four persons: Mrs. Margaret E. Mayson, Mrs. Susan Patton, and John Robb and his wife, Marion.  The organization meeting was held in “the Old State House,” Mississippi’s first capitol, a small two-story structure on the northeast corner of E. Capitol and N. President Streets.   Peter Donan continued as the church’s pastor for four years.  There were no elders for two years, no deacons for six years, nor a Presbyterian house of worship for nearly nine years.  In the first two years of its existence, the church had but three new members.

In 1841, Reverend Donan was followed by Reverend  S. H. Hazard, who was pastor for little more than one year.  He was succeeded by the Reverend  Leroy Jones Halsey, a dynamic man and preacher, under whose ministry the congregation commenced to grow.  Halsey spurred the building of the first sanctuary on the northwest corner of North State and Yazoo Streets.  When Dr. Halsey resigned in 1848, the pulpit was supplied until February 22, 1849. The congregation then called as pastor the Reverend Isaac James Henderson, who served until he was succeeded by the Reverend L. A. Lowry on December 3, 1853.   Mr. Lowry was a fine pastor and effective preacher, but died of Yellow Fever after but two years service.  The pulpit was supplied from March, 1855, until a call was extended to the Reverend John Hunter on January 24, 1858.

[For more on the history of First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, MS, see the church web site.]

Words to Live By:
Blessed Zion: First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi, 1837-2012, is a wonderful church history, written by Dr. Sean Lucas and published early in 2013. The book’s preface alone would be worth the purchase price, in my estimation. There Dr. Lucas summarizes several lessons drawn from the writing of this history:

1. It only takes one generation for a church to die. The reasons may vary: “a poor pastoral choice; a failure to continue to preach God’s Word faithfully; a transition in the church’s understanding of mission; an inability to see and adapt to the neighborhood around it.” By the grace of God, First/Jackson has been blessed in making many right choices over the many years.

2. The quality of the ruling elders who serve the church. These men who form the Session of the church must be talented, godly men.

3. The value of long-term pastorates, allowing for great stability, space for godly pastors to “to shape the theological and experiential perspective of the congregation in favor of the grand, winsome, evangelical truths of Reformed Christianity,” and enabling pastors to earn the long-term trust of their congregation.

4. What Dr. Lucas calls “The Road Not Taken,” i.e., knowing that mistakes, even disastrous ones, can be so easily made, we must recognize and rely upon God’s mercy and blessing. We note that Rev. Peter Donan, the founding pastor of First/Jackson, later departed from the Reformed Faith, but in God’s providence, that was some years later and by that time he had no influence on the life of this congregation. “Churches that stand faithful through the generations are those that seek men who are faithful to the Scripture, true to the Reformed faith, and obedient to the Great Commission.”

5. The blessings of evangelical Presbyterianism. A great church will not “major in the minors” but will focus on proclaiming Christ and Him crucified.

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April 7: Rev. Thomas Edgar Hughes

7 April, 2015 in April 2015 by archivist | No comments

Influences Often Unseen

The Greensburg Academy, located in Darlington, Pennsylvania, was founded in 1802 by the Rev. Thomas Edgar Hughes. He was born on April 7, 1769, in York county, Pennsylvania. After completing his preparatory studies at the Canonsburg Academy, he later graduated from Princeton College in 1797 and then studied theology privately with Dr. McMillan. Licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Ohio in 1798, he was ordained the following year and installed as pastor of a group of small churches in and around Mount Pleasant and New Salem, in Beaver county, Pennsylvania.

Rev. Hughes was the first pastor to settle north of the Ohio river, and served as Moderator of the Presbytery of Erie, at its session in 1806, when this Presbytery was but five years in existence. It was on this occasion that the Presbytery took up the matter of education and resolved to commit their aid to the establishment of an academy at Greersburg. With this, the Rev. Hughes opened his school at Greersburg in a log cabin, serving as the first teacher of the Academy. He also labored as the fund-raiser for the school, traveling as far as New England in search of financial and material support.

One incident, little known, serves to illustrate the importance of the school, of Rev. Hughes’s ministry, and particularly the essential role of a parent in praying for his or her children. Rev. Hughes was traveling on horseback one evening, when darkness forced him to seek lodging. Passing by one cottage, he heard the voice of a young mother seated in an adjoining garden, pleading in prayer for her little boys, dedicating them to God, and praying that in some way they might be used in the Lord’s service. Not wishing to disturb her prayers, Rev. Hughes moved along to another nearby home, where he lodged that night. There he learned from the family with whom he stayed, something of the story of this young mother and her children. Such was their story that Rev. Hughes made special arrangements for the education of one of the boys at the Greersburg Academy.

That little boy later grew to become a distinguished minister of the Gospel, a college professor, and the author of many books still used to this day. We have written of before of the Rev. William H. McGuffey, author of The McGuffey’s Readers, but this little account of his rearing, of his mother’s prayers, and the provision for his education, serves to show how the Lord uses one life to influence and guide another.

Words to Live By:
In all that you do in your life as a Christian, you can have no clear idea of how the Lord may use you in His kingdom. Your only duty is to seek to serve Him with all your strength and with all your heart. God will do the rest, and for those who truly seek to serve Him, the blessings that will unfold from faithful service will far outstrip our wildest imaginations.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. – Ephesians 2:9, KJV

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April 6: Birth of the RPCES (1965)

6 April, 2015 in April 2015 by archivist | No comments

In 1965 the 142nd General Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, General Synod, convened at Covenant College, Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, on April 2.  On the same date and place the 29th General Synod of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church was convened.  Each of these synods carried on their work until April 6 when the two denominations were united to become the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod.  The uniting service was held at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, April 6, 1965, and this service was followed by sessions of the 143rd General Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod.  The business of the united synods was concluded on April 8, 1965.

Paul Woolley, long-time professor of church history at the Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, wrote in his foreword to The History Behind the RPCES, 

FOREWORD Three of the liveliest of the smaller Presbyterian Churches in the United States are the children of the action of the General Council of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. in determining to demand in the fall of 1933 that the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions be dissolved. Presumably the General Council foresaw that the demand would not be honored. Probably, therefore, it expected to be the father, as it were, of at least one new Presbyterian Church. Whether it counted on triplets is dubious. Its technology was probably not that far advanced.

Population control was not a watchword in the early thirties but it has always seemed odd behavior to find the General Council crying loudly for ecumenicity and at the same time requiring the formation of at least one new Presbyterian Church and, in the event, three: the Bible Presbyterian Church, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (now a part of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod), and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

This is but one indication of the fact that large Churches are generally much more closely oriented to money and power than Jesus was. It raises the question of whether an increase in the size of a Church is always a blessing. The people who are running things become tremendously interested in their authority and in the means by which they can realize their dreams. Some large corporations have found it advisable to have their divisions compete. Buick and Oldsmobile are each not entirely averse to capturing sales from the other

From Twenty Nine Years of Age to One Hundred and Forty Three Years of Age

A new church was born on this date, April 6, 1965, at ten o’clock in the morning.  Actually, it was not a new church but simply the merging of two historic Presbyterian bodies dating back to the formation of our country.  The Evangelical Presbyterian Church had come out of the stream of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.  The Reformed Presbyterian Church, General Synod had come out of the Scottish Covenanter  heritage.  Both churches had been courting each other from 1957 to 1964 with continual contact.

Each denomination held dearly to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as being the inspired Word of God, without error in whole and part, the only infallible rule of faith and practice.  Each church body held to the subordinate standards of the Westminster Assembly as being a summary of the teaching of the Old and New Testaments.  They proclaimed the good news of salvation to a lost world as the only  hope of reconciliation with the holy God.  The fundamentals of historic Christianity, being only Scripture, only Christ, only grace, only faith, and only to the glory of God, were part and parcel of their belief structure.

Each church had been weathered by internal divisions in their past history.   In the case of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, they had the experience of coming out of the apostasy of the mainline Presbyterian church in the mid 1930’s, where a stand for the fundamentals of the faith translated out to being deposed by the modernists who had gained control of the church.  Then in 1938 and 1956, further issues over eschatology and Christian liberty as well as independent agencies verses synod control agencies, truth in Christian living, and questions about separation from brethren, brought into existence the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in 1961.

In the case of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, General Synod, the issue in 1833 was the relationship of the church to the civil government.  They had no problem supporting the Declaration of Independence in 1776, but the Constitution a dozen or so years later was another matter.  Should its members vote, for example, in a country which did not recognize itself as a Christian nation?  Should they serve on juries, with oaths involved? Should they serve in the armed forces?  Should exclusive psalmody be the standard of  worship services?  All these were questions which were asked, debated, and voted upon by the church.

When the two bodies met concurrently in 1965 at Covenant College, the issues had been faced squarely by godly men for eight years.  Both churches voted to merge with each other, and combining their names into  the Reformed Presbyterian Church Evangelical Synod.  What has been a church of twenty-nine years became a church of one hundred and forty-three years years of age after one meeting!

Words to Live By:  The Psalmist David proclaimed words of wisdom for all church bodies and Christians when  he wrote “BEHOLD, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” (KJV – Psalm 143:1)

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