A Rare Treasure Located: A Bible Used by William Tennent at the Log College

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[William] Tennent, the lone teacher at the Log College, earnestly desired to educate men for the ministry. The intended design of the Log College's instruction was to prepare faithful ministers of the Gospel. Therefore, Tennent attempted to maintain a balanced emphasis between 'piety and learning' — complementary components of ministerial training. For Tennent, a theological education without a godly life was useless. — 𝐆𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐄. 𝐒𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐣𝐞𝐫, 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐼𝑛𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝐸𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑀𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔: 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐿𝑜𝑔 𝐶𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑔𝑒 𝑎𝑠 𝑎 𝑀𝑜𝑑𝑒𝑙 𝐹𝑜𝑟 𝑀𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑝 (1994)

𝑊𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑎𝑚 𝑇𝑒𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑇𝑎𝑙𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝐵𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑦 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐿𝑜𝑔 𝐶𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑔𝑒 [Presbyterian Historical Society].

A recent trip to the William Smith Morton Library at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, Virginia led to the finding of a rare treasure held in the archives there: a copy of the Gospels and Acts in both Greek and Latin that was once owned and used by William Tennent for instruction at the original Log College. Director of Archives and Special Collections Ryan Douthat, in particular, was of invaluable assistance in locating this special volume.

A copy of the Gospels and Acts in Greek and Latin once owned by William Tennent, Sr. and utilized by him in his education program at the Log College. Union Presbyterian Seminary Library notes indicate that this volume was published in 1699 (photo by R. Andrew Myers).

This volume contains the inscriptions of William Tennent, Sr. (dated 1736) and John Charles Tennent (great-grandson of William Tennent, Sr., son of William Tennent III) (photo by R. Andrew Myers).

Matthew chapter 1 in Greek and Latin (photo by R. Andrew Myers).

Appended to the volume is a note describing its provenance (it was handed down from one generation of the Tennent family to the next and ultimately presented to the Union Seminary Library in 1907 by Anna M. Tennent, great-great-great-grand-daughter of William Tennent, Sr.) (photo by R. Andrew Myers).

It was a remarkable experience to hold in one’s hands a volume of Scripture that was employed by the founder of the Log College in the education of his students. The book serves as a tangible reminder of the linguistic skills of William Tennent as well as the wedding of piety to education which characterized his method of instruction.

The Planting of Presbyterianism in the Bluegrass State

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As the city of Harrodsburg, Kentucky this month celebrates the 250th anniversary of its founding on June 16, 1774, we at Log College Press pause to remember the planting of Presbyterianism in the Bluegrass State.

It was in Harrodsburg on October 12, 1883, that Presbyterians came together to commemorate the centennial of that event, which has been recognized as a sermon preached by “Father” David Rice at Fort Harrod in October 1783. The addresses delivered on that occasion are notable and worthy of our attention today.

• J.N. Saunders gave an Historical Address;

• E.P. Humphrey gave a necrological report titled The Dead of the Presbyterian Church of Kentucky;

• L.G. Barbour spoke on The Relation of the Presbyterian Church to Education in Kentucky;

• T.D. Witherspoon related The Distinctive Doctrines and Polity of Presbyterianism (Log College Press has republished this address under the title The Five Points of Presbyterianism [2017]); and

• Moses D. Hoge addressed The Planting of Presbyterianism in Kentucky One Hundred Years Ago.

“Father” David Rice is buried in Danville, Kentucky.

As recounted by Saunders and Hoge, David Rice is credited with delivering the first Presbyterian sermon in Kentucky just one month after the Treaty of Paris brought an end to hostilities between the American colonies and Great Britain, and officially granted independence to the United States of America. The text for that sermon (and for Hoge’s 1883 discourse) was: “The people which sat in darkness Saw great light; And to them which sat in the region and shadow of death Light is sprung up” (Matt. 4:16). This signified that the light of the gospel was dawning among a people who lived largely in spiritual darkness.

There is, however, an asterisk to be noted here. Many sources indicate that it was Terah Templin who preached the first Presbyterian sermon in Kentucky perhaps three years before Rice.

Terah Templin is buried in Bardstown, Kentucky.

The First Presbyterian Sermon in Kentucky was by the Rev. Terah Templin, probably in 1781; he was not ordained until 1785. In the spring of 1783, Rev. David Rice (“Father Rice” he was generally called, although only in his 50th year) visited, and in October following immigrated from Virginia to Danville, and became a power in the church and in furthering the cause of education. — Collins' Historical Sketches of Kentucky, Vol. 1 (1878), p. 515

Louis B. Weeks indicates that Templin was the first Presbyterian preacher in Kentucky and that he arrived in 1780, preaching “several times that summer as a licentiate of Hanover Presbytery” (Kentucky Presbyterians [1983], p. 13).

In 1784, the first Presbyterian Church in Kentucky was organized by Rice in Danville; the Transylvania Presbytery was established in 1786 with Rice serving as Moderator; and the rest, as they say, is history.

This is a replica of the original log cabin meetinghouse for the Concord Presbyterian Church in Danville, Kentucky which was organized by David Rice in 1784.

The memoirs of David Rice, published by Robert Hamilton Bishop 200 years ago in 1824, tell us much about this gifted pioneer minister but only mention Terah Templin in passing. Certainly, it was Rice that left a tremendous legacy for which all Presbyterians are greatly indebted. But he was not alone in building the Presbyterian Church of Kentucky, and the names of many other illustrious men are worthy of note too, such as James Mitchel, Caleb Wallace, Adam Rankin, James Crawford, James Blythe, and James McGready, who played a prominent role in the Great Revival of 1800. Humphrey alludes to the roll call of faith found in Hebrews 11 as he recounts these and many other names.

The seeds planted in the 1780s have borne much fruit in the centuries since, and as Harrodsburg celebrates a very special anniversary, we praise God for his work and for the saints he has raised up in this part of the Lord’s vineyard.

William H. McGuffey Entered Into Glory 150 Years Ago

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The young are on the voyage of life; the old have reached the harbor. - William H. McGuffey

It was 150 years ago today on May 4, 1873 that Presbyterian minister and educator William Holmes McGuffey entered into glory. Author of McGuffey’s Readers, his name lives on in many ways, and today we remember the man who has been referred to as “America’s Schoolmaster.”

Born on September 23, 1800, in Washington County, Pennsylvania, to a family of Scottish emigrants, he was educated at Greersburg Acadamey in Darlington, Pennsylvania. By the age of 14, he was working as a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse in Calcutta, Ohio. In 1826, he graduated from Washington College in Washington, Pennsylvania, and went on to join the faculty there. Three years later, he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister by Robert H. Bishop.

After teaching at Washington College, he joined the faculty of Miami University at Oxford, Ohio. In 1836, he became President of Cincinnati College. Three years later, he became President of Ohio University. In 1843, he became President of the Woodward Free Grammar School in Cincinnati. After serving as a professor at Woodward College from 1843 to 1845, he accepted an invitation to serve as the chair of moral philosophy and political economy in the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he remained for the rest of his life.

It was in 1835, while teaching at Miami University — at the recommendation of his friend Harriet Beecher Stowe — that a Cincinnati publisher asked him to to create a series of four graded readers for young students. Thus, the eclectic series of McGuffey’s Readers was born. He authored the first four readers, while his brother Alexander H. McGuffey authored two more after that. These volumes were the first early reading books to gain wide-spread popularity in the American educational system. The series consisted of stories, poems, essays, and speeches. They included extracts from John Milton, Lord Byron, Daniel Webster and other highly-regard writers, as well as frequent allusions to the Bible. From 1836 to 1960, over 120 million copies were sold, and they remain in print today. They were a favorite of Henry Ford who in 1934 relocated the actual Pennsylvania log cabin where McGuffey was born to Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan to create a McGuffey schoolhouse. Frequently seen in the popular TV show, Little House on the Prairie, McGuffey’s Readers have long been a household name symbolizing Christian education, much like Noah Webster’s Dictionary.

McGuffey spent nearly three decades in Charlottesville where an elementary school built in 1915 was named after him (it is now known as the McGuffey Art Center). His name adorns other institutions and buildings, and a state in his honor can be seen at Miami University. After he died there was some talk of burying his body alongside that of his first wife, Harriet, who in 1850 was buried in Dayton, Ohio, but the University of Virginia prevailed upon his family to have his earthly remains laid to rest at the University of Virginia Cemetery and Columbarium.

For McGuffey, the bond between religion and education was sacred. Christians were people of the Book, and education was essential to reading the Scriptures and understanding the world which God made. We are thankful for his labors in promoting both education and the Christian religion in a busy, productive life on earth, which came to a peaceful end 150 years ago today.

Introducing an American Heroine: Rachel Caldwell

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The names of Alexander Craighead (1707-1766) — “the spiritual father of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence” — and David Caldwell (1725-1824) — of the Caldwell Log College are well known to both North Carolinians and to students of Presbyterian church history. Less well-known, but of great significance to civil and ecclesiastical history, is a woman with ties to both men: Rachel Brown Craighead Caldwell (1742-1825), daughter of Alexander and wife of David.

Alexander was a firebrand Presbyterian — the first Covenanter minister in America — of Scots-Irish descent. He and his family moved from Pennsylvania to Virginia (he was a founding member of Hanover Presbytery) to North Carolina. Rachel was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania just a year before her father renewed the Scottish covenants at Middle Octorara in 1743. Later, Rachel would sometimes speak of her experience growing up in western Virginia during the French and Indian War of the 1750s, as a period fraught with danger. At one point, after General Braddock’s 1755 defeat, Indians were coming in the front door as the family was exiting the rear door.

David, who was older, first met Rachel while attending services led by Alexander; she was four years old at the time. They met again some years later and were married in 1766, the year her father passed away, when David was 41 and Rachel was 24. Alexander had four daughters and two sons, and believed strongly in educating all of his children thoroughly. Rachel was at once devout, intelligent and compassionate, all qualities which served her family and her husband’s students well in the years which followed.

In 1767, the Caldwells settled on land near what is now Greensboro, North Carolina. They built a homestead, a farm and an academy, which became known as the Caldwell Log College. This school became a nursery, as it were, for both the church and state. Richard P. Plumer wrote (Charlotte and the American Revolution: Reverend Alexander Craighead, the Mecklenburg Declaration & the Foothills Fight for Independence, p. 67):

Caldwell Academy, which Reverend Caldwell began in 1767, became the most well known and longest lasting of any of the thirty-three Presbyterian log colleges that were established before the Revolutionary War. At the time the academy closed, almost all of the Presbyterian ministers in the South were either graduates of or had taught at the college, about 135 ministers in all. Five governors, fifty U.S. senators and congressmen and numerous doctors had attended Caldwell Academy. Rachel got to know all the students at the academy, was extremely kind to them and instructed them in every way possible on their salvation. It was said that ‘David Caldwell made them scholars, but Mrs. Caldwell made them preachers.’

James McGready, the noted Presbyterian revivalist, John M. Morehead, North Carolina governor, and Archibald Murphey, “the Father of Education in North Carolina,” were among those future leaders who studied there. As alluded to above, Rachel Caldwell had a particular gift for encouraging the students and their pastoral studies.

Passionate for the gospel, she was also compassionate towards those in need. David Caldwell, who helped write part of the 1776 North Carolina state constitution, was forced with his family to leave his homestead for part of the War of American Independence (British General Cornwallis placed a £200 bounty on Caldwell’s head, his house was plundered, his library and livestock destroyed, and his family was mistreated by British soldiers). Before and during the 1781 Battle of Guilford Courthouse, Caldwell was forced to hide in a nearby swamp as the British used his property as a staging ground for the Battle of Guilford Courthouse. After the battle, the Caldwells returned and David — who was not only a minister and an educator, but also a physician — and Rachel both tended to the wounds of soldiers lying on the field.

David and Rachel were married almost 60 years, and had thirteen children, some of whom died in infancy. Nine grew to maturity, and at least three of the boys became ministers. Much like Catherine Tennent, who was mother not only to her sons, also students at the original Log College, but also the other students — Thomas Murphy described her as “the real founder of the Log College” — Rachel Caldwell was mother not only to her own children but also to the many students at the Caldwell Log College. A pioneer Presbyterian preacher’s daughter and a teacher’s wife, she not only served her family and the Caldwell academy, but also the church and the cause of liberty in America. She died a year after her husband and their son, Rev. Samuel Craighead Caldwell, both passed away. Rachel and David were laid to rest side by side at the Buffalo Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Greensboro. The David and Rachel Caldwell Historical Center in Greensboro honors their sacrifices and contributions to North Carolina today and keeps alive their memory.

We conclude this brief notice of an American heroine with the words of E.W. Caruthers, who made these remarks in his sketch of the life of David Caldwell:

For good sense and ardent piety, [she] had few if any equals, and certainly no superiors, at that time and in this region of the country. In every respect she was an ornament to her sex and a credit to the station which she occupied as the head of a family and the wife of a man who was not only devoted to the service of the church, but was eminently useful in his sphere of life. Her intelligence, prudence, and kind and conciliating manners were such as to secure the respect and confidence of the young men in the school, while her concern for their future welfare prompted her to use every means, and to improve every opportunity, for turning their attention to their personal salvation; and her assiduity and success in this matter were such as to give rise and currency to the remark over the country that, 'Dr. Caldwell made the scholars, but Mrs. Caldwell made the preachers.’

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In defense of a learned ministry: George A. Baxter

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In his notable ordination sermon for William McPheeters, preached at Bethel Presbyterian Church in Augusta County, Virginia, in 1806, George Addison Baxter, besides noting the necessity of ordination and election, as well as the duties of the gospel ministry, in speaking of the qualifications for the office he also articulated a defense of what later became Samuel Miller’s 1812 clarion call at Princeton for “an able and learned ministry.”

The the text upon which Baxter preached was 1 Tim. 3:1: “This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.” He says that “vital piety” is the chief qualification for such a man. And so it is. But then he goes on to add remarks that lay the groundwork for solid Biblical training for ministers. He joins the head with the heart in his description of the godly minister.

But I think it not only necessary that a minister should possess religion, and that in an eminent degree, he ought to be a man of the most upright, exemplary, and prudent conduct, patient, and forbearing, and able, on all occasions, to command his own temper. I mention this, because there are some professors of religion, of whom charity would teach us to hope well, who are, notwithstanding, subject to a fickleness and inconsistency of conduct, which would be very incompatible with the office of the gospel ministry. Together with the qualifications already mentioned, I think it very desirable, if not absolutely necessary, that a minister of Christ, should possess, in a good degree, the assurance of faith, and a warm zeal for glorifying God in the gospel of his Son.

It is undoubtedly of great importance, that the work of the ministry should not be committed to weak or ignorant men, who might be unable to teach others; competent gifts, as well as graces are indispensably requisite. I do not mean, that candidates ought to be rejected for the want of preeminent talents, but a gospel minister ought to possess a mind naturally sound, and well cultivated. A liberal education may not in all cases be indispensably necessary - uncommon natural talents combined with certain circumstances, may compensate in some degree for the want of improvement; but generally speaking, I think what is commonly called a liberal education ought to be required. A minister of Christ should certainly attend to all those branches of human learning, which might enable him to deliver his message with propriety; and in order to understand his message he ought to be acquainted with the sacred scriptures, in the original languages. There may be some dispute as to the course of study most proper to effect the first of the purposes, or to qualify a man for speaking, but it is certain that to accomplish both the purposes just mentioned, a considerable course of human learning, is absolutely requisite.

But there are some denominations in the world, who declare absolutely against the necessity of a learned ministry, and in support of their sentiments, allege the example of our Saviour, who chose fishermen and mechanics to be the first ministers of the new testament. Their error however, as happens in almost every case of bad reasoning, consists in comparing things which do not resemble. It is true that our Saviour in the first instance, chose mechanics and fishermen to publish the gospel: but to say nothing of the advantages which these men derived from his personal instructions and example, for upwards of three years; when he sent them in to the world, he endowed them with miraculous qualifications; he enabled them to perform miracles, to speak all languages that were necessary, and by a supernatural inspiration, instructed them what they ought to speak. ‘But when they shall deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in the same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not yet that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you’ [Matt. x.19-20]. Here now, were men, endowed with every qualification, that can be conceived of, or supposed necessary for the purpose. The gift of miracles which arrested the attention and carried conviction to the consciences of the world - the gift of tongues which contributed to the same end, and also furnished them with an opportunity of communicating the treasures of the gospel to all nations - and the spirit of inspiration, which enabled them to give the most appropriate and salutary instructions, on every occasion. I should think, if any thing can be inferred from our Saviour’s example in this case, taking the whole of it together, it would be that a minister of Christ, ought to possess all qualifications necessary for convincing and instructing the world.

But those with whom we contend, will suppose that by possessing real religion, and being taught in the school of Christ, they obtain all the knowledge and qualifications which are necessary. In reply to this, I will readily admit that religion is the best preparative, for understanding the word of God, and I have no doubt the divine Spirit, conspiring with the use of means, greatly assists a pious minister in his studies. But distinct from the qualifications which grace may confer, there are others absolutely necessary, and which may be acquired by a course of human means. It will, no doubt be admitted, as of the first importance, that a gospel minister should have a correct knowledge of the holy scriptures, for without this he is no better than the blind leading the blind. But to understand the holy scriptures, we should be acquainted with them, in the original languages, we should be acquainted with the history of those customs, and events, in the midst of which the inspired penman wrote, and to which they frequently allude; we should be versed in literary science, so as to understand the different modes of writing - the different phrases and figures with which all compositions abound, and the rules of interpretation, to which all writings human or divine, must be subjected, without some knowledge of this kind we shall not be qualified even to follow a good Commentator on the scriptures, or to form any opinion for ourselves. But how is this knowledge to be obtained? It may as already said be obtained by human means, or it might be conferred by the extraordinary inspiration of the divine Spirit. But those who neglect the natural means, and pretend that divine teaching gives them all necessary knowledge, are pretending to an inspiration which supersedes the use of means, and is therefore very distinct from the common operations of grace; for common grace does not supersede means, but encourages and assists in the use of them. But when any one makes pretensions of this kind, he ought to support them by miracles, or some supernatural evidences. The teaching of which he speaks is a secret miracle, and amounts to something like that inspiration which the apostles possessed, and if it be of this kind it needs a public miracle to make it credible. All pretending therefore that we are taught by the divine Spirit what things we ought to learn, as others learn them, should be rejected in the present day, as self-righteous presumption: and if any people give credit to such pretensions, they are manifestly in the high road of error and delusion: and what is worse, they put themselves under the influence of a delusion, which cannot be corrected or reasoned down because they do not profess to be led by reason, or evidence, or scripture, but by the unsupported assertions of a fellow creature. It perhaps would be well to recollect, that the plain line of distinction between impostures, and the real messengers of heaven, has been pretty much the same in every age. An impostor never proves his assertions. Mahomet had his secret miracles and inspirations, but he did not pretend to confirm them by any public miracles; and modern impostors, have their illumination and teachings for which they can give no evidence but their own assertion. On the other hand the real messengers of grace always deal with mankind as with reasonable creatures; when they introduced a divine revelation into the world at first they confirmed it by sufficient and undeniable miracles, and since the age of miracles has ceased they require the belief of nothing but what can be proved from a revelation sufficiently authenticated. These observations will, I trust, be sufficient to show that the improvement or knowledge necessary for the ministerial office are not to be expected in a supernatural way, and therefore that a course of scientific education is absolutely necessary.

But let it be remembered, that although all knowledge may be useful to a clergyman, his principal attention should be turned to the subject of divinity. His business is to understand and teach the doctrines of the word of God, and every man ought to be better acquainted with what belongs immediately to his own profession, than with any thing else. I have now taken a brief view of the principal things necessary to qualify a man for preaching the gospel. What I have mentioned are real and cordial religion, a prudent and upright moral deportment, a good degree of the assurance of faith, a fervent zeal for glorifying God in the gospel of his Son, and a mind sufficiently improved with useful knowledge. These things taken together and connected with a favorable train of providences, constitute what may be termed a divine call to the ministerial office. They are very much mistaken, who suppose a ministerial call to consist in blind impulses or impressions, of which a person can give no rational account, and which have no relation to his fitness for the work. A ministerial call comprehends all the necessary qualifications for the office, both human and divine. And a ministerial call without ministerial qualifications, in the greatest absurdity in the world.

In line with Presbyterians before and after him, Baxter here articulates an understanding of the qualifications for the gospel ministry that show the necessity for a well-rounded education, encompassing many branches of human learning, subordinate to the queen of sciences, that is, divinity. The faithful minister, in the age wherein apostolic miracles have ceased, must join human learning with divine knowledge, to best and most adequately deliver the message of reconciliation between God and man. An able and learned ministry is what God calls men to in accordance with his gracious declaration to mankind: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isa. 1:18).

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His daughter loved to read: a vignette about Rev. David and Lucy Laney

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Lucy Craft Laney (1854-1933) is a beloved name in Georgia. Her portrait hangs in the Georgia state capitol. Her labors for 50 years as principal of the Haines Institute for Industrial and Normal Education — the first school for African-American children in Augusta, Georgia — are treasured. She contributed much to the furtherance of education among African-Americans in her state. She was a life-long Presbyterian, and was also the daughter of a Presbyterian minister, Rev. David Laney (1814-1894).

David was born a slave in 1814 in Sumter, South Carolina, and trained well in carpentry, but purchased his own freedom as well as that of his wife, Louisa Tracey Laney. Lucy was born twenty years later, in Macon, Georgia, the sixth child among ten biological siblings, several cousins and at least one orphan who was embraced by the family. David went on to become the first pastor of the Washington Avenue Presbyterian Church in Macon (ordained in 1866), and helped to found the Knox Presbytery and Atlantic Synod of the PCUSA. Lucy, meanwhile, was prepared from early in life to help educate young minds.

Mary Jackson McCrorey wrote a tribute to Lucy which appeared in the June 1934 issue of The Crisis. One vignette which she relates has to do with Lucy’s love of reading and her father’s encouragement.

Miss Laney was prepared — to begin with, by inheritance. She was bred, born and reared in a Christian family….

Her father was a Presbyterian minister with qualifications of marked leadership. Her mother and father had some education, they were for the times more than ordinarily intelligent, and they had high ideals in living. Both of them read good literature. He in particular read much of it. She handled a great deal of the kind while doing the delicate, careful work in looking after the home of her owner. They bought for their children good books and papers like those bought for their owners’ children. Miss Laney herself had read several of George Eliot’s books, Charles Lamb’s Tales of Shakespeare before reading several of Shakespeare’s plays and she had read other standard literature long before she left home to go to school. Years after when she was at her best in developing her school she would enjoy telling me how she would get away with the other children in the family by her love for reading. She would sit on the woodpile reading while the sisters were washing the dishes and the boys were carrying in the wood for the night. When they complained because she was not helping to wash the dishes, she would say, “Pa, I just must finish reading this book.” And he would say, “Let her alone. I want her to finish her book.” How she chuckled to tell of getting out of washing those dishes. She often said in a modest manner to make me think that her mother and father, and especially her father, were looking for evidences in her life of much they had hoped and prayed and worked for in the making of their family.

A child who reads will often grow up with a love for learning. Certainly this was the case with Lucy Craft Laney, and she passed on that love of learning to many during a long career spent educating the young of Georgia.

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Three African-American Covenanter Ministers: A Tribute

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Today we pay tribute to three African-American Presbyterian ministers associated with Selma, Alabama. Each of these was also a part of the Reformed Presbyterian (Covenanter) Church of North America (RPCNA); two of them later joined the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS). The information we have about their lives is limited, but intriguing. Yet they were ground-breaking pioneers who are worthy of remembrance.

• Lewis Johnston, Jr. (1847-1903) - Johnston was the first African-American ordained to the ministry in the RPCNA, on October 14, 1874, as learn from his entry in William Melancthon Glasgow’s History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in America (see also Glasgow’s The Geneva Book) and William J. Edgar, History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, 1871-1920, p. 57. His father also served as a ruling elder with him at the RPCNA congregation in Selma. He founded Geneva Academy (soon renamed Knox Academy) in Selma, Alabama on June 11, 1874. An educator, a court clerk, a newspaper editor and publisher and a published poet as well as a minister, his death was widely noticed in the newspapers, including John W. Pritchard’s The Christian Nation for June 3, 1903. The following was written by Edward P. Cowan, Secretary of the Board of Freedmen (PCUSA). Tragically, four of Johnston’s sons were later killed in the Elaine Massacre of 1919.

Rev. Lewis Johnston, a member of White River Presbytery and principal of Richard Allen Institute, of Pine Bluff, Ark., died on the morning of March 7th 1903.

Mr. Johnston was born in Allegheny City, Pa., December 12th, 1847. His parents were Presbyterians and they brought him up in the fear of God in that faith. He finished in the public schools at an early age and enlisted in the army. At the close of the war he received an honorable discharge, after which he returned home and entered Geneva College, near Bellefontaine, Ohio. After finishing his college education he entered the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Allegheny City and finished his course there in four years.

His first two year’s work as a missionary was at Selma, Ala. Leaving there, he went to Pine Bluff, Ark., where he spent twenty-five years in active and earnest service, teaching for several years in county and city schools. After that he commenced a missionary school, which grew so rapidly that with the good people of Pine Bluff a school building was erected. At that time his work was under the care of the Southern Presbyterian Church. The school continued to grow until friends of the work were compelled to provide a larger building for its accommodation. By this time his work had been transferred to the Board of Missions for Freedmen.

During the years of his ill health he only failed to preach one Sabbath. He did much for his race and worked for the Master even to the last day of his life. He leaves a wife and seven children to mourn his loss. The citizens of Pine Bluff of both races paid marked tribute to his memory. “He being dead, yet speaketh.” [The Assembly Herald, Vol. 8, No. 5 (May 1903), p. 201]

The Richard Allen Institute was founded in 1886 by Rev. Lewis Johnston and his wife, Mercy.

• George Milton Elliot (1849-1918) - While Johnston was the founder and first principal of the Richard Allen Institute (named for Richard Allen, another secretary of the Board of Freedmen, PCUSA), Elliot served as its third principal. Born near Isle of Wight, Virginia, he later studied with Johnston at Geneva College and at RPTS. He also ministered in Beaufort, South Carolina; and founded the St. Augustine Industrial Institute in St. Augustine, Florida, serving as its first principal; among other travels and accomplishments. He was also one of the founders and a President of the Alabama State Teachers Association. Nathan R. Johnston considered Elliot to be a good friend and provides interesting anecdotal information about him, as well as his portrait, in Johnston’s autobiographical work Looking Back From the Sunset Land: Or People Worth Knowing. In one instance, N.R. Johnston speaks warmly of Elliot’s 1888 address to the ASTA where we know, from other sources, that Elliot told his audience: “Teachers, you are the shapers of thought and the molders of sentiment, not of this age and of this generation alone, but of ages and generations to come. You are making history by those you teach….You are the few that are moulding the masses.” biographical details are given to us in Glasgow’s History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in America and The Geneva Book, and in Owen F. Thompson’s Sketches of the Ministers of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America From 1888 to 1930, but Edgar sums up the story (p. 108) of Elliot, who began with the RPCNA, but later joined the PCUS.

The first pastor of the Selma RP Church was George Milton Elliot, a black man born in Virginia in 1849 and a graduate of Geneva College in 1873 and of Allegheny Seminary in 1877. Pittsburgh Presbytery ordained him in 1877, and he was installed as the pastor of the Selma RP Church that year. Elliot had already become Principal of Knox Academy in 1876, so he oversaw both the church and the school in their earliest days. In 1886, Elliot resigned both positions and became a missionary in different locations in the American South for the rest of his life, working with the Presbyterian Church.

• Solomon Ford Kingston (1860-1934) - In addition to tributes about Kingston from the pens of Rev. J.M. Johnston, Rev. R.J. McIsaac, and Rev. W.J. Sanderson which appeared in the May 23, 1934 issue of The Covenanter Witness, Kingston’s biography is told in Thompson’s Sketches and in Alvin W. Smith, Covenanter Ministers, 1930-1963. Further details are given in Glasgow’s The Geneva Book, and in David M. Carson, Pro Christo et Patria: A History of Geneva College, which includes pictures of Kingston and informs us that as a student there he was “a noted athlete and a talented entertainer” (p. 27). Thompson begins:

S.F. Kingston, son of [Benjamin] and Betty Kingston, was born in October, 1860, near Selma, Alabama. His parents were born in slavery and were uneducated. They were members of the Baptist Church. He united with the Reformed Presbyterian Church at Selma, Alabama, in 1877, under the pastorate of the Rev. Lewis Johnston. He attended Burell Academy, Knox Academy and Geneva College, graduating from the latter in 1885. He entered the Reformed Presbyterian Seminary in Allegheny (now North Side Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania, in 1888 and completed the course in 1891. He was licensed to preach the Gospel by Pittsburgh Presbytery April 9, 1890, and was ordained to the Gospel Ministry by the same Presbytery at Wilkinsburg on March 27, 1891. He was appointed to work in Selma, and took up work in that Mission as Stated Supply. Later a regular Gospel call was made upon him by the congregation and on May 13, 1903, he was installed pastor over that congregation by a Commission of Illinois Presbytery. He resigned from that charge in 1927, and has been employed since by organizations engaged in social and charitable service. He was born a Baptist and united with the Reformed Presbyterian Church as a young man. He spent two years in Birmingham, Alabama, as City Missionary. He also taught two years at Greensboro, Alabama. In 1893 he was united in marriage with Miss Anna Rose Patterson of New Brighton, Pennsylvania. Mrs. Kingston died March 1, 1922, at Selma, Alabama, her home.

Smith concludes Kingston’s biographical sketch:

S.F. Kingston, whose biographical sketch appears in Thompson's Sketches of the Ministers up to the year 1930, when that volume was published, was in that year living in Selma, Alabama, and was employed by organizations engaged in social and charitable service. He had resigned his charge as pastor of the Selma congregation in 1927, after having served the Lord and the church in the Southern Mission about thirty-six years. During the years which followed his resignation, there was no letting up of his interest in the advance of Christ's kingdom. He departed this life on March 28, 1934.

Edgar adds the following concerning Kingston (p. 108):

The second pastor of the Selma RPC was Solomon Kingston. The son of illiterate slaves, Kingston joined the Selma congregation in 1877 at age seventeen, attended Knox Academy, finished Geneva College in 1885, and graduated from the Allegheny RP Seminary in 1891. His wife, Anna Rose Patterson from New Brighton, Pennsylvania, conducted Sabbath school at Valley Creek, and their daughter was principal of the East Selma School for a time. Kingston was stated supply in the Selma RPC from 1891-1903 and then its officially installed pastor from 1903-1927, for a total of thirty-six years in Selma.

These three men did much to teach and preach the gospel, and advance the kingdom of God in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Their names are not widely known, but they should be. It is wished that more was known about them, but taking what we have, we give God the glory for their place and part in church history. Let us remember and appreciate their labors for God’s glory. Their legacy in Selma endures.

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An American Jeremiad by David Caldwell

Although his main aim in life was to serve the Lord as a minister of the gospel, by necessity, David Stewart Caldwell, Sr. (1725-1824) often found himself bound to serve his community in other capacities. He established a “Log College” in his home in 1767 in order to teach young people; he studied medicine and worked as a physician to attend to the medical needs of those around him where doctors were lacking; and he served (unsuccessfully) as a mediator at the 1771 Battle of Alamance between Governor Tryon and the Regulators who were resisting unjust British taxes.

Some refer to this battle as the first battle of the American War of Independence. In any case, the behavior of Tryon, who personally and impulsively executed one of the Regulators on the spot without trial, and later executed several captured prisoners, shocked and disturbed Caldwell. Also, in 1766, he had married Rachel Craighead, daughter of the first American Covenanter minister in America, Alexander Craighead, who had preached against British tyranny as early as 1743 and who had inspired the famous 1775 Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. So when Alexander MacWhorter and Elihu Spencer came to North Carolina in 1775 seeking a someone to rouse colonial resistance to British tyranny from the pulpit, they found David Caldwell willing to rise to the occasion. Sometime in early 1776, Caldwell preached a sermon based on Proverbs 12:24 (“the slothful shall be under tribute”) titled “The Character and Doom of the Sluggard.” This sermon, known to history (perhaps regrettably) as “the Sluggard Sermon,” preached shortly before John Witherspoon’s famous “The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men,” has been called “a seven-thousand word Jeremiad detailing the sinfulness of political indifference and the wickedness of cowering before a tyrant” (Robert McCluer Calhoon, Political Moderation in America’s First Two Centuries, p. 123).

Caldwell here aimed to stir up his parishioners, many of whom had previously served as Regulators, to support the early resolutions of the Continental Congress on behalf of independence:

We have therefore come to that trying period in our history in which it is manifest that the Americans must either stoop under a load of the vilest slavery, or resist their imperious and haughty oppressors; but what will follow must be of the utmost importance to every individual of these United Colonies; and should be the hearty concern of every honest American. — What will be recorded on the following page of our history must depend very much on our conduct; for if we act like the sluggard, refuse, from the mere love of ease and self indulgence, to make the sacrifices and efforts which the circumstances require, or, from cowardice and pusillanimity, shrink from dangers and hardships, we must continue in our present state of bondage and oppression, while that bondage and oppression may be increased until life itself will become a burden; but if we stand up manfully and unitedly in defence of our rights, appalled by no dangers and shrinking from no toils or privations, we shall do valiantly. Our foes are powerful and determined on conquest; but our cause is good; and in the strength of the Lord, who is mightier than all, we shall prevail.

This sermon had the rousing effect that was intended (on April 12, 1776, the Halifax Convention authorized North Carolina’s delegates to the Continental Congress to vote for independence), and North Carolina did much to embrace and support the Patriots’ cause during the War. Caldwell and his family suffered greatly for their adherence to the cause of freedom: British General Cornwallis placed a £200 bounty on Caldwell’s head, and his house was plundered, his library and livestock destroyed, and his family was mistreated by British soldiers. Before and during the 1781 Battle of Guilford, Caldwell was forced to hide in a nearby swamp. But Caldwell and his wife Rachel outlived this war and the War of 1812.

The two of them, meanwhile, resumed their Log College labors with tremendous success. “Caldwell Academy, which Reverend Caldwell began in 1767, became the most well known and longest lasting of any of the thirty-three Presbyterian log colleges that were established before the Revolutionary War. At the time the academy closed, almost all of the Presbyterian ministers in the South were either graduates of or had taught at the college, about 135 ministers in all. Five governors, fifty U.S. senators and congressmen and numerous doctors had attended Caldwell Academy. Rachel got to know all the students at the academy, was extremely kind to them and instructed them in every way possible on their salvation. It was said that ‘David Caldwell made them scholars, but Mrs. Caldwell made them preachers’” (Richard P. Plumer, Charlotte and the American Revolution: Reverend Alexander Craighead, the Mecklenburg Declaration & the Foothills Fight for Independence, p. 67).

An Educated People and Ministry

“The Nineteenth Century was a great century for collegiate education in America. Colleges by the score were founded across the country, most of them by some church group. Among the churches which took the lead in this enterprise, the most outstanding were the various Presbyterian bodies. Their emphasis on an educated ministry, which was one of the universal characteristics of the Presbyterian system, made it imperative that colleges be available to train the church leadership. The high cost of travel and the relatively low cost of starting a college led to the formation of a large number of rather small colleges wherever the church became established. The United Presbyterian Church offers an excellent example of this trend. Though its constituency numbered only a few thousand, by 1890 it had a close association with no fewer than twelve colleges, not including Knoxville College for Negroes or the mission colleges overseas. Of this dozen, to be sure, there were many which were never under complete denominational control, but they all had been organized by ministers of the Church and felt a close relationship to it.” — Wallace N. Jamison, “An Educated People and Ministry,” in The United Presbyterian Story, p. 144

“The Presbyterian and Reformed Churches take pride in the fact of a trained ministry. This has marked their record. It was seen that the sum of Christian truth could be unfolded and applied only by cultured thinkers and mouth-pieces. There was also the realization that, with their democratic government, an effective leadership must be had, a leadership fitted for intelligent direction. For these reasons a thorough ministerial education was planned and sought after in all ecclesiastical bodies of the Presbyterian and Reformed type.” — John McNaugher, Theological Education in the United Presbyterian Church and Its Ancestories (1931), p. 4

Lady of the Covenant: Katherine Heath Hawes

When Moses Drury Hoge was seeking the right person to lead a Sunday school program at his pastorate, the Second Presbyterian Church of Richmond, Virginia, he called upon Miss Katherine Heath Hawes (1875-1956), then about 20 years old.

Miss Katherine Heath Hawes of Richmond, Virginia, is credited with beginning Presbyterian youth ministry in the Southern Presbyterian Church. After Hawes returned from boarding school in 1895, the pastor of Second Presbyterian Church, Dr. Moses Drury Hoge, asked Miss Hawes to teach either a boys or girls Sunday school class. She chose the boys class (they were ages eight to ten!). Seeing how few boys attended Sunday school, Miss Hawes opened her home to them on Friday evenings for games and music, to provide them a place for fellowship with their peers. The following March, Company No. 1 of the Covenanters was born. Officers were elected, and a badge, watchward, and flag provided symbols of the Covenanters. Reports from and offerings for missionaries proved to be the focal point of the group. They eventually developed a choir and orchestra, then a fife and drum corps, followed by an emphasis on service projects.

As the boys grew older, their enthusiasm for the Covenanters brought about a desire in other Presbyterian churches to have such a ministry. By 1900, Presbyterian churches in nine other states and the District of Columbia registered as Companies of Covenanters. Soon Miriams, a companion group for girls, was added. (Mark H. Senter, When God Shows Up: A History of Protestant Youth Ministry in America, pp. 180-181)

Katherine Heath Hawes pictured in 1895.

The daughter of Samuel Horace Hawes, a member of the Confederate “Immortal 600,” Miss Hawes was also known, among other things, for her concern for the plight of blacks (particularly, black women) in her day. A student from her Social Service class in the 1920s wrote in 1986: “Miss Katherine was the first to awaken my conscious [sic] regarding the sorry plight of the negroes - especially the black woman sending off her children to school not knowing what insult, injury, or slight they might meet with during the day . . . .Their courage!" Compassion for the needs of the young and disadvantaged was a hallmark of Miss Hawes’ labors of love. She never married but she gave a life of service to the youth of the Presbyterian church, and the community around her. After her passing, her body was laid to rest at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia.

Robert Pollok Kerr wrote a book-length history and tribute to the Scottish Covenanters. Published in 1905, The Blue Flag, or, The Covenanters Who Contended for 'Christ's Crown and Covenant', this volume was

DEDICATED TO
Miss Katherine Heath Hawes,

Who conceived and carried out the idea of
organizing the Presbyterian boys of the
United States in companies of “Covenanters”
to work for Christ and his Church, infusing
into them the spirit of those splendid heroes,
of whose toils and sufferings for liberty and
truth this book is a history:

And to the

Covenanter Companies:

May they keep the Old Flag flying, and be
faithful soldiers of Christ and his Church.

The Author