August 7: Rev. James Milligan [1785-1862]

7 August, 2021 in August 2021 by archivist | No comments

milliganJames_1785-1862James Milligan, a son of John and Margaret Milligan, was born in Dalmellington, Ayrshire,  Scotland,   August 7, 1785.    His early tendencies  were  decidedly religious and, at the age of fourteen, he was a communicant in the Established Church. At six­teen he migrated to America, on account of being dissatisfied with the Government of his native country. He made his way to Westmoreland County, Pa., where he had a half-brother settled, and he became a partner with him in a mercantile establishment. Though he had belonged to the National Church in Scotland, he was led now, as the result of diligent inquiry, to cast in his lot with the Covenanters; and, by the advice of Dr. Black, and some others in whom he was disposed to confide, he determined to aban­don his secular employment, and, if possible, obtain a liberal education. He, accordingly, entered Jefferson College; but his funds were very quickly exhausted, in consequence of which he went to Greensburg, and opened a school there, which he taught with good suc­cess for eighteen months, lie then resumed his place in College, joining the same class he had left, and graduating in 1809 with the first honour. On leaving College he went to Philadelphia, and placed himself, as a theological student, under the care of the Rev. Dr. Samuel B Wylie, and, at the same time, was a Teacher of Languages in the Uni­versity of Pennsylvania. He was licensed to preach by the Northern Presbytery in 1811 and was ordained Pastor of Coldenham Congregation, Orange County, N. Y., by the same Presbytery, in 1812. During his residence here he performed much missionary labour in the State of New York, and organized many congregations which have since become large and influential. In 1818 he resigned his charge, and was installed Pastor of the Scotch Covenanter Congregation in Ryegate, Vt. Here he continued labouring with great diligence, and encountering many hardships, for nearly a quarter of a century. During this period he laboured throughout the whole region, and made many tours into Canada to visit poor Covenanters scattered through the Provinces. He was intensely Anti-slavery in his views, and was always ready to show his faith by his works. He was translated from Ryegate to New Alexandria, Pa., in 1819; thence to Eden, Illinois in 1848; and, in 1855, he demitted his pastoral charge, and, from that time till the close of life, resided with his sons in Pennsylvania and Michigan. He died at the house of his son, in Southfield, near Detroit, Mich., on the 2d of January, 1862, aged about 77. In 1821, he was married to Mary, daughter of Robert Trumbull, a soldier of the Revolution. They had six children,—five sons and one daughter. Three of the sons are in the ministry of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, and the daughter was married to a minister of the same communion. He was honoured with the degree of Doctor of Divinity ; but when or by what College I am unable to ascertain. He published a Defence of Infant Baptism, in a volume of three hundred pages; A Narrative of the Secession Controversy in Vermont; and a Sermon on Grace and Free Agency, and another on the Prospects of a True Christian in a Sinful World.    He was a man of decided ability, intense industry and extensive usefulness.

 

 

Southfield Reformed Presbyterian Church History

The first known organized congregation of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in America (known as the Covenanter’s) was that of Middle Octorara, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1738. In Scotland (where the denomination originated), Reformed Presbyterians had been a separate denomination since the late 1600s.   The Reformed Presbytery of the United States of North American was constituted in its current form in 1798, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

By 1834 there were a sufficient number of Covenanters in Southfield to organize a church. Previous to this, the people had gathered together in a prayer society organized by an early landowner, David Stewart, who came to Southfield in the fall of 1831 from White Lake, Orange County, NY.  David Stewart worked tirelessly to form a church and, through his influence, other Covenanters such as the McClellands, Browns, McKinneys, Lowes, McClungs, Erwins, and Harmons came from New York to settle in Southfield.  In the early years before the church was established the prayer society met for services in barns and vacant log homes belonging to society members such as John Parks and Anthony McClung.

In 1838, a building in which to worship was constructed on an acre of land donated by John Parks at a site on Evergreen Road, just south of Eleven Mile.  In 1861, with the need for a larger and more permanent worship facility, the current church building was constructed.   In the 1950s a basement was dug and the building was moved back from Evergreen Road onto its new foundation. The congregation continues to worship in this historic structure today.  A parsonage was built north of the cemetery in the late 1940s.

In the years leading up to the Civil War, religious and secular leaders increasingly questioned the institution of slavery.  One of the earliest religious organizations that took a direct and firm anti-slavery position on the matter of slavery was the Reformed Presbyterian Church. The Church, without exception, was unified on its disposition regarding slavery, and believed all men were created equal in the eyes of God. By the early 1800s, the Covenanters required all members of the church to free their enslaved African Americans.

During this critical period leading up to the Civil War (1853 to 1871) the Rev. J. S. T. Milligan served as the pastor of the Southfield Reformed Presbyterian Church.  J.S.T. Milligan was the son of The Rev. James Milligan, D.D. of Vermont who was described as a radical abolitionist.  The Milligan family, along with members of the church in Ryegate, Vermont, helped to create the Church’s foundation to help support the anti-slavery and Underground Railroad movements. Clergy and members of the Church became members of anti-slavery societies, UGRR agents, conductors, and station operators. They sheltered and escorted fugitives to freedom from various locations in America to Canada. The Rev. J.S.T. Milligan and probably other members of the Southfield Reformed Presbyterian Church were active participants in the Underground Railroad network in Michigan.

2009 marked the 175th year of the Southfield Reformed Presbyterian Church as an organized congregation.

 

 

 

 

 

https://southfieldundergroundrailroad.wordpress.com/biography-jst-milligan/

 

Biography of J.S.T. Milligan

James Saurin Turretin Milligan

MilliganJST_rpcna_1826-1912The Reverend James Saurin Turretin Milligan, 2nd Pastor of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Southfield, Michigan was born in Ryegate, Vermont on August 25, 1826.  He was the second son of James Milligan, D.D., a minister in the Reformed Presbyterian (Covenanter’s) church, a lifelong abolitionist, and an associate of William Lloyd Garrison.

J.S.T. Milligan was installed as the pastor of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Southfield, Michigan on November 11, 1853 where he remained until April 11, 1871.

In a letter dated Dec. 5, 1895 to Professor Wilbur H. Siebert, an Underground Railroad historian, Milligan describes how he and the members of his congregation had always sheltered escaped slaves at their homes and farms.  The fugitives came primarily from Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, singly or in groups on their way to freedom in Canada.  Occasionally former slaves would return to live temporarily with the Milligan family in Southfield when they needed work.

“It was not only difficult to support a family in those days, but it was equally difficult to pay the preacher.”  (Edgar) Many early ministers supplemented their income by farming.  In  “The Covenanter Church of Southfield and Its Early History related by Miss Mary E. Thompson” the author reports that the Rev. J. S. T. Milligan owned a farm at the northwest corner of 11 Mile and Evergreen, where the Birney School is now located.   Plat maps of 1864 indicate that the Milligan farm was in that square mile, but located closer to 12 Mile and Evergreen.

“Although the pastor’s salary for 1858 amounted to only $350, there was still great difficulty in raising that sum. One year, after paying all expenses, the [Southfield church] treasurer reported a balance of $0.37. But that was after one of the better years for there were times when the congregation failed to meet its salary payment.”   (Edgar)

In 1871, J.S.T. Milligan went to North Cedar (now Denison), Kansas and established a church, many from Southfield going with him.  He was installed as pastor of the congregation of North Cedar, Jackson County, Kansas, on October 8, 1872.

The Rev. J.S.T. Milligan and his wife, Jane Thomson Johnson had 9 children, 8 of whom were born and reared in Southfield.  They, too, accompanied their parents to Kansas.  Milligan spent his time in Kansas until he retired.  J.S.T Milligan died August 12, 1912 in Pittsburgh, PA.  He was buried in Denison, Kansas.

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July 26: Maria Fearing

26 July, 2021 in July 2021 by archivist | No comments

 

 

 

 

Background material for our post–https://karenangelaellis.com/2017/02/28/ancestors-on-mission-maria-fearing-1838-1937/  :

On July 26, 1838, Maria (Ma-rye-ah) Fearing was born a slave near Gainesville, Alabama. As a house servant, she spent much of her time with her mistress and the other children. Though her owners taught their slaves the Presbyterian catechism, told them Bible stories and tales of missionaries in Africa, they refused to voluntarily free her.

After her legal emancipation in 1865, the newly freed family took the surname Fearing. At thirty-three years old she completed the ninth grade, had learned to read and write, and began working her way through the Freedman’s Bureau School in Talladega (Talladega College) to become a teacher. She taught for a number of years in the rural schools of Calhoun County, and purchased her own home.

Life as a Bible Translator

The stories she had heard on the plantation about Africa left a deep impression. In 1891, Maria heard William Sheppard, a Presbyterian missionary, speak at Talladega College. Sheppard appealed to the audience for volunteers to return with him to the Congo. At the age of fifty-six, Maria applied to work with the Presbyterian missionaries in Africa. Denied at first, she was approved as a self-supporting missionary.

In May 1894, she sold her home and paid her own expenses to sail from New York to the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Once reaching shore, Sheppard, three other African Americans, and Maria traveled another 1200 miles inland on a two-month journey to a mission station at Luebo. After two years, she was recognized as a full missionary and began receiving a salary.

Fearing entered a country that had just endured a bloody war in 1892-1893 between forces controlled by Leopold II and by Arab forces out of Zanzibar. Leopold had been awarded the Congo during the European partition of Africa in 1885, and hist eventual victory over Arab forces left him in total control of what was called the Congo Free State. His troops, led by the Force Publique, brutalized the populace to extract quotas in the rubber and ivory trade, killing thousands and cutting off their right hands as proof of the kills.

The slave trade also was still rampant. Luebo, in the western part of the nation where Fearing was stationed, was somewhat insulated from the conflicts. On at least two occasions, however, the station was threatened, and Fearing had to prepare for evacuation or invasion. Sheppard, who had inspired Fearing to go to the Congo, was one of several Presbyterian missionaries who spoke out publicly about Leopold’s brutality and eventually helped to bring his control of the region to an end in 1908. Nevertheless, estimates of the number of people slaughtered during this period run as high as 10 million.

Fearing undertook to help the husband and wife who were running the mission there, and began learning the local language. As she progressed in her mastery, she began teaching a Sunday school class and translated the Bible into the Baluba-Lulua language. She was given an official position and a salary by the Presbyterian Church.

Justice, and the Pantops Home for Girls

Fearing began asking local families to let their daughters stay with her overnight so that she could begin to educate them. As the word got out about Fearing’s efforts, more and more young girls were sent to live at the mission. Fearing also began ransoming children from the slave trade, from groups that had kidnapped them or to whom they had been sold. She purchased their freedom with goods like scissors, cloth, salt, and other items. She was soon housing 40 to 50 young women.

Using her own salary and donations from home, Fearing oversaw the construction of a multi-room house, with six to eight girls per room, each monitored by an older girl. The girls took part in keeping the facility clean and learned basic sanitation, cooking, sewing, and ironing from Fearing. She also held a church service every day after breakfast. The girls attended the missionary day school to learn to read and write. The home eventually became known as Pantops, after a Presbyterian school in Virginia.

Mama wa Mputu

maria-fearing-in-lueboFounding the Pantops Home for Girls became one of her most lasting contributions. This home helped girls who were orphans, and those who had been kidnapped and sold into slavery. Maria used trinkets, tools and even salt to barter for their freedom. She taught reading, writing, arithmetic, homemaking skills, gardening, and the tenets of the Christian faith. She hoped that these girls would spread these principles of good conduct and Christianity. Her students nicknamed her, “mama wa Mputu,” (mother from far away) as a symbol of their love and appreciation.

Maria Fearing worked tirelessly for more than twenty years among the children of the Congo, and at the age of 78 was encouraged to retire. She was honored in 1918 by the Southern Presbyterian Church. After returning to Alabama, Maria taught at a church school in Selma. She died 1937 at the age of 99.

Mama wa Mputu was inducted into the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame in 2000.

Adapted from:

The African American Registry

The Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame

The Encyclopedia of Alabama 

July 25: Confessional Revision – De Witt on Van Dyke’s Rejoinder (1889)

25 July, 2021 in July 2021 by archivist | No comments

Dr. De Witt on Dr. Van Dyke’s Rejoinder (New York Evangelist, July 25, 1889)

July 19: Thomas Cary Johnson

19 July, 2021 in July 2021 by archivist | No comments

Photograph as found in Calvin Memorial Addresses. Richmond, VA: Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1909.

Photograph as found in Calvin Memorial Addresses. Richmond, VA: Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1909.

Greenbrier County, West Virginia Biography of Thomas Cary JOHNSON

JOHNSON, Thomas Cary, educator, was born at Fishbok Hill, Monroe county, Va., July 19, 1859; son of Thomas and Alinerva. (Hinchman) Johnson; grandson of Barnabas and Sarah (Thomas) Johnson and of William and Mary (Simms) Hinchman, and a descendant of Scotch, Irish, Huguenot, Dutch and English ancestors. He was graduated from Hampden-Sidney college, Va., in 1881, took diplomas in Latin, Greek and mathematics at the University of Virginia, 1883-84, graduated from Union Theological seminary, Va., in 1887, and was a special student at the Yale Divinity school, 1887-88. He was licensed by the presbytery of Greenbrier, W. Va., in May, 1887; was professor of Greek and Hebrew exegesis at Austin Theological school, Texas, 1888-90, and was also assistant professor of mental and moral philosophy at the University of Texas during those years. He was ordained by the presbytery of Central Texas in August, 1890, and was a stated supply and pastor-elect of the 3d Presbyterian church at Louisville, Ky., 1890-91. He was professor of English Bible and pastoral theology at Union Theological seminary, Virginia, 1891-92, and became professor of ecclesiastical history and polity there in 1892. He was elected a member of the American Historical association. He received from Hampden-Sidney college the degree of D.D. in 1891, and that of LL.D. in 1899. He is the author of:

A History of the Southern Presbyterian Church (1894, in Vol. XI. of the American Church History Series);
Alleged Differences Between the Northern and Southern Presbyterian Churches (1894);
Ministerial Training (1896-97);
A Brief Sketch of the United Synod of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (1897);

The Mode of Baptism in the Apostolic Age (1899);
John Calvin and the Genevan Reformation: A Sketch (1899).
He also edited the collected writings of the Rev. Dr. Thomas E. Peck, and contributed numerous articles to periodicals and newspapers.

THOMAS CARY JOHNSON

Monroe Co. WV

Virginia, Rebirth of the Old Dominion, Vol 5, pg 127, 1929

Thomas Cary Johnson, D.D. LL.D. is one of the best known scholars, theologians and educators in the South. His career has for thirty eight years been closely associated with the Union Theological Seminary at Richmond, where he has held various chairs in the faculty of instruction and has been the man chiefly instrumental in building up the splendid library of that institution.

Doctor Johnson was born at Fishbok Hill, Monroe Co. Va., July 19, 1859, son of Thomas and Minerva (Hinchman) Johnson. His father was a Confederate soldier and after the war lived on a farm in Monroe Co. until his death in Dec. 1894. He was a director of his community bank. Dr. Johnson’s mother died in Feb. 1890. Doctor Johnson was educated in local schools and in Hampden-Sidney College where he graduated with the A.B. degree in 1882. Subsequently Hampden-Sidney bestowed upon him the Dr. of divinity degree in 1891 and the Doctor of Laws degree in 1899. He received diplomas in the schools of Latin, Greek and Mathematics at the University of Virginia, where he was a graduate student in 1883-1884. In 1887 he graduated from the Union Theological Seminary of Virginia and spent the following year as a special student in Yale University.

During 1888-90 Dr. Johnson was a professor of Old and New Testament exegesis in the Theological School at Austin Texas. In 1890 he was ordained in the Presbyterian ministry and for one year was pastor of the third church at Louisville.

Dr Johnson began his long and notable service with the Union Theological Seminary in 1891, first as professor of English Bible and pastoral theology. He was professor of ecclesiastical history and polity from 1892 to 1913 and since August 20, 1913 has held the chair of systematic theology. He became librarian of the seminary in 1907.

He married December 26, 1894, Miss Ella Faulkner Bocock, of Appomattox, Virginia, the third daughter of Thomas S. Bocock, one of Virginia’s able lawyers and for a number of years a member of Congress from the state until the outbreak of the Civil War and during the war he served in the State Senate. Mrs. Johnson, who died in April 1928 was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Society of Colonial Dames and the united Daughters of the Confederacy. Dr. Johnson has three children: Thomas Cary Jr. now an associate professor at the University of Virginia; Eleanor Holmes, an instructor in Queen’s College at Charlotte, N.C. and Miss Ann Faulkner, at home.

Archival Collections—

Papers, Thomas Cary Johnson, 1891-1928, English Archival Material Archival Material 20 ft.

Abstract: Correspondence; journals; sermons; lecture notes and lectures on theology, missions, history of doctrine, church history, biblical studies, and Christian ethics; articles opposing union of northern and southern Presbyterian churches; essays on Christianity and evolution; pamphlets; biographical notes on Robert Lewis Dabney (1820-1898), Benjamin M. Palmer (1781-1847), and James Latimer (1845-1892); report (1912) on Romanism, by Johnson and others to General Assembly of Presbyterian Church in the U.S.; scrapbooks; prayers; photos; and other papers, relating to Johnson’s activities as minister, author, and professor of the Bible, ecclesiastical history, and systematic theology at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia.

Harold Prince, in his Presbyterian Bibliography, indicates thirty titles by Thomas Cary Johnson.

July 19: Service of Uniting, Ascension Presbytery

19 July, 2021 in July 2021 by Wayne Sparkman | No comments

Joining & Receiving (1982) – Ascension Presbytery (PCA), Service of Uniting.
 
Shown below is the program from the Service of Uniting the Presbytery of Ascension (PCA) and the Pittsburgh Presbytery of the RPCES. Official union of the two denominations occurred on June 14, 1982, This Service of Uniting took place about a month later on July 9th, at the First Reformed Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh. With the Joining & Receiving, Ascension Presbytery had a total of thirty churches on its roster. By 1993, growth of the Presbytery allowed the creation of the Pittsburgh Presbytery and then later, in 2010, other Ascension churches were ceded over for creation of Ohio Presbytery. Currently Ascension Presbytery has sixteen churches on its roster.

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