CHAPTER II

HISTORIC ORIGINS

Conditions in the Northwest Territory in 1798

The annals of any individual Presbyterian Church are best read in the light of that larger past of social, political, economic, and ecclesiastical currents which shaped the thinking and actions of men after 1700. A few references are incorporated here, therefore, to give color and better 'visualization of cause and consequence in the origin and growth of the Presbyterian body in these United States of America. Because this origin was very largely from the northern counties of Ireland, the following paragraphs from "The Scotch Irish", by Charles A. Hanna, are pertinent:

"During the first half of the 18th century (1700 - 1750), Down, Antrim, Tyrone, Armagh, and Derry were emptied of Protestant inhabitants who were of more value to Ireland than California gold mines."

"The famine of 1740 - 1741 gave an immense impetus to the movement and it is said that for several years the Protestant emigrants from Ulster annually amounted to about 12,000. More than thirty years later, Arthur Young found the stream still flowing and he mentions that in 1773, 4000 emigrants had sailed from Belfast alone."

"When in 1772 the Lord Donegal leases fell due and he demanded £100,000 in fines for renewals from tenants - all Protestants - the English House of Commons backed the landlords. Religious bigotry, commercial jealousy, and modern landlordism had combined to do their worst against the Ulster Settlement. The emigration (to America) was not the whole of the mischief. Those who went carried their art and their tools with them, and at the rate at which the stream was flowing the (British) Colonies would soon have no need of British and Irish imports. In the two years that followed the Antrim evictions, 30,000 Protestants left Ulster for a land where there was no legal robbery and where those who sowed the seed could reap the harvest. They went, with bitterness in their hearts, cursing and detesting the aristocratic system of which the ennobling qualities were lost and only the worst retained."

The great flood of emigration from the Old World, therefore, during the 18th century (1700 - 1800) to the Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia areas included individuals and families direct from England, Wales, and Scotland, but was predominantly Scotch Irish from the Ulster Counties of North Ireland; and almost entirely of Presbyterian theological background in one form or another.

Two principal streams of migration in this country developed; one southward through the Valley of Virginia into Georgia and the Carolinas; the other westward through Pennsylvania, over the rugged mountains of the Alleghenies to the Ohio River Valley and the Northwest Territory beyond. With this west bound tide went the teachers and the preachers - active, energetic and aggressive - and always at the very fore front of that thin line of log cabins marking the advance guard of a conquering white "civilization". Among those educational and ecclesiastical pioneer leaders were outstanding Methodists, Baptists, and Episcopalians, but we believe it is historically accurate to say that those of the grim and determined Calvinistic persuasions - (the plural form is used advisedly) - including the Presbyterians, Associate, Reformed, Seceder, Covenanter, and similar denominational groups - constituted not only the most numerous but the definitely dominant element in the geographical areas here considered. Scotch Irish name forms of people and places marked the westward course of Presbyterian empire; and theological concepts based on John Calvin's teachings, strongly shaped religious thinking as well as social and political action with tremendous emphasis on individual freedom and responsibility.

Washington County, Pennsylvania, was originally settled by Scotch Irish from Bedford (afterwards, in part, Huntingdon) and York Counties; from the Kittatinny Valley; from Virginia; and direct from Ireland. (From "Day's Historical Collections")

Rev. Thomas Sherrard (Chambersburg, Penna.) author of "The Sherrard Family of Steubenville", says, p. 67:

"The stream of emigration into Ohio increased very rapidly after the opening of the Land Office (Steubenville) in 1801; and from 1802, particularly in Jefferson County; and it now became necessary to form congregations and religious societies, the material to compose which consisted principally of Presbyterians and Methodists." Baptists from New Jersey are mentioned later; and the Methodists indicated as having come from Maryland and Delaware.

"The Presbyterians (p. 66) who first settled in Jefferson County, Ohio, and the surrounding Counties, were principally from the four western Counties of Pennsylvania - Westmoreland, Fayette, Washington, and Allegheny."

Because appropriate here and so vivid a word picture, we quote, in part, from an address captioned "Character of the Early Settlers", by Rev. Robert Alexander, D.D. - then Minister, St. Clairsville Presbyterian Church, St. Clairsville, Ohio - on occasion of the Centennial Celebration of the Mt. Pleasant Presbyterian Church, held August 31, 1898:

"We know what they (the early settlers) found when they came to the Ohio River and crossed over. They entered an unbroken wilderness. Wearied with their toilsome journey from the east, some from Virginia just across the Ohio River, some from Washington County, Penna.; and some from beyond (east of) the Allegheny Mountains; traveling over poor roads - mere paths through the forests. Who were the people who would come to such a wilderness. Some of them were of the Society of Friends, coming from North Carolina and the Valley of Virginia, and forming small colonies here (viz. Mt. Pleasant) and elsewhere in this area (Jefferson, Belmont, and Harrison Counties), people mainly of English ancestry. But the great body of the early comers were a Scotch and Irish people, either coming directly from the Old Country; or from Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey, where they dwelt for a time. From 1795 (Gen. Anthony Wayne had defeated the Indians in 1794) to 1800, the tide of population flowed in steadily (the land Office in Steubenville was first opened in 1801) through all this region taking possession of all the available farming land with in 25 miles of the Ohio River. The Old Indian Trail, where the National Road (No. 40) is now located - also called Zane's Trail - was a great outlet from the Ohio (River) westward. They were a hardy and determined people with the clearest idea of civil and religious liberty of any people on earth. They were a people of deep convictions. They must have the Church and ordinances of religion administered."

The following reference is included here,

from J. A. Caldwell's "History of Belmont and Jefferson Counties", published in 1880:

"Lands first settled in Warren Township, Jefferson County, between Rush Run and Yorkville - thence gradually penetrating the forests westward."

"From 1785 to 1808, emigration continued to flow into this (Warren) Township, until the public lands were all taken up and the Township was settled with an enterprising and industrious population," The following is from clipping of a newspaper - not identified - on file, believed to be on or near date, August 21, 1898:

"It was on Short Creek (Big Short Creek believed intended) that the first settlers 'squatted" as early as 1776, for there is a record that Jesse DeLong was born on the headwaters that year and lived to the age of 106. These squatters were dispossessed of the land thus taken, by American troops, but many of them returned, purchasing the land from the Government, at least we know that there were considerable settlements in the valley previous to 1798, at which time Dr. John McMillan, that powerful apostle of Presbyterianism in Pennsylvania - that giant, mental and physical - organized a church on Little Short Creek (known also as Indian Short Creek), the organization taking its name from the stream; the site being about four miles east of Mt. Pleasant on the Kenworthy Hoge farm."

"That the population of this valley (we think Big Short Creek) grew rapidly is evidenced by the fact that within five years two other churches were organized being Beech Spring (Harrison County) and Cross Roads, now Crab Apple, (Harrison County)."

The flow of Scotch Irish and other emigration from east to west in this country was dominated by two basic motives - First (and we place this "first" advisedly) the economic motive; the urgent desire to better their material condition, acquire possession of property, and financial independence. This motive was stimulated by the promise and fact of cheap lands, and was a powerful factor inducing the persistent penetration of the wilderness regardless of danger from Indian raids and the ordinary privations and hardships of frontier life.

"Land was the object which invited the greater number of these people (settlers along the Monongahela, and between that River and the Laurel Ridge in 1772) to cross the Mountains - largely from Maryland and Virginia - for, as the saying was 'It was to be had here for the faking up'; that is, the building of a cabin and raising a crop of grain, however small, of any kind, entitled the occupant to 400 acres of land and a preemption right to 1000 acres more, adjoining, to be secured by a Land Office warrant." (Day's Historical Collections.)

Second. The early settlers sought civil and religious liberty and freedom for the individual, political independence and relief from the dominance of arbitrary Government. Practically all historians give the Scotch Irish major credit for supporting if not inspiring the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, against the rule of Great Britain, and the successful prosecution of the War of the Revolution. Their political principles were well grounded in religious faith. Next to the Bible they adhered to the Confession of Faith and the Catechisms. These strong doctrines entered into their hearts and lives and helped to make them the brave and determined men and women they were. They had training for generations in their struggles in the Old Country, then in the conflicts of the Revolution of 1776, and still later in the Indian Wars in which they were engaged so frequently, until they became a hardy and self reliant people.