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Contributions to the Early History of the Presbyterian

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Contributions to the Early History of the Presbyterian CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN INDIANA TOGETHER WITH BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES OF THE PIONEER MINISTERS BY HANFORD A. CINCINNATI, INDIANAPOLIS, AND CHICAGO WINONA PUBLISHING COMPANY Copyright, 1898, By Hanford A. Edson PREFATORY NOTE. These pages seek to preserve materials which would soon have been beyond reach—diaries, letters, the remi- niscences of pioneers. It will be a satisfaction if any one is prompted to put other such materials into a safe place. Several years since I had occasion to make inquiries about the ministers who laid the foundations of our Indiana church. The study took me into an unknown land. I was surprised at every step. Courage, self-sacrifice, piety, were to be expected ; but I found besides a beau- tiful social life, uncommon learning, undoubted genius for affairs, and gifts of utterance in every way memorable. Such fathers leave for their children the best of all legacies. If in any degree I may have helped to perpetu- ate their memory and light up their example, I shall rejoice. Indianapolis, May i, 1898. — TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Beginnings and Spread of Presbyterianism in America. Genius of the Reformed Churches—Wide Extension of Pres- byterianism—Earliest History of the Church in America Presbyterians in New England, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Virginia—Francis Makemie, Old Han- over, and William Robinson—Samuel Davies—David Rice—Transylvania Presbytery 9 CHAPTER II. The Settlement of Indiana. Discovery of the Great West—Spanish and French Ex- plorers—La Salle and the Mississippi Valley—First White Man on Indiana Soil—Vincennes the Earliest Settlement —French succeeded by English Dominion—Northwestern Territory — Indiana Territory — Character of Early Settlers—A Large Presbyterian Element 20 CHAPTER III. The First Missionaries. 1800-1806. Volunteers from Kentucky—Samuel Rannels—Samuel B. Robertson—James McGready—James Kemper—Thomas Cleland—Organization of First Church—Samuel Thorn- ton Scott the First Settled Minister 30 CHAPTER IV. Hindrances and Disorders Incident to War. 1807-1814. Palmyra Church —James H. Dickey — Lawrenceburgh — Samuel Baldridge—Charlestown—Joseph B. Lapsley Matthew G. Wallace—Tour of Samuel J. Mills—William Robinson at Madison 45 — VI TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. The War Over and the Work Advanced. 1815. More Missionaries—John McElroy Dickey—His Great Use- fulness—Close of the Territorial Period 61 CHAPTER VI. Aid from New England. 1816, 1817. McGready, Cleland, and Lapsley Again—Samuel Shannon First New England Missionaries—Nathan B. Derrow Clement Hickman—William Dickey—Daniel C. Banks John Todd at Charlestown—James Balch 81 CHAPTER VII. A Notable Quartet. 1818. William W. Martin at Livonia—Isaac Reed—Orin Fowler from the Connecticut Missionary Society—Ravaud K. Rodgers Commissioned by the General Assembly Charles Stebbins Robinson on His Way to Missouri . 101 CHAPTER VIII. Better Ecclesiastical Supervision. 1819-1821. Lack of Settled Pastors—David Monfort—Thomas C. Searle —His Brilliant Promise and Early Death 131 CHAPTER IX. Indianapolis. 1821. Seat of Government Transferred from Corydon—First Settle- ment and First Settlers at the New Capital—Coe, Blake, Scudder, Ray—First Presbyterian Sermon—Ludwell G. Gaines—Church Organization Effected—David Choate Proctor 138 CHAPTER X. Extension Toward the North. 1822. Fort Wayne—John Ross—His Unique History—Ezra H. Day at New Albany—William Goodell—Charles C. Beatty . 148 — TABLE OF CONTENTS. VII CHAPTER XI. The Shadow of Slavery. 1823. Joseph Trimble—The Madison Flock again without a Pastor —John Finley Crowe at Hanover—The Slavery Conflict . 156 CHAPTER XII. The First Presbytery. 1823, 1824. Salem Presbytery Organized— Its Original Members—First Records—Tilly H. Brown the First Licentiate—John T. Hamilton 162 CHAPTER XIII. Help from Princeton. 1824. Samuel Taylor Commissioned by General Assembly—George Bush at Indianapolis—Baynard R. Hall in the State Semi- nary at Bloomington—Alexander Williamson 169 CHAPTER XIV. Two Fellow-Travelers. 1824. John Young's Brief Career—James Harvey Johnston . 192 CHAPTER XV. A Period of Increased Missionary Zeal. 1825. Missions at Andover Seminary—Union of Missionary So- cieties—A. H. M. S. —Lucius Alden—Lewis McLeod James Stewart—Samuel Gregg—William Nesbit—Stephen Bliss across the Wabash—Samuel G. Lowry in Decatur County 206 CHAPTER XVI. Organization of the Synod of Indiana. 1826. Condition of Indiana—Truman Perrin—James Crawford Samuel E. Blackburn—James Duncan—Isaac A. Ogden Joseph Robinson—Synod Organized—First Records Calvin Butler—Leander Cobb—William Lowry—William Henderson—James Thomson 214 Vlll TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVII. Indiana Presbyterians and Education. The First Schools—The State Seminary and College at Bloom- ington—Hanover Academy and College—Indiana Theo- logical Seminar}-—Wabash College 22S APPENDIX. I. Missionary Agencies at Work in Indiana previous to 1826 255. II. Ecclesiastical Relations of the Indiana Congregations previous to 1826 258 III. Bibliography 260 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EARLY HIS- TORY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN INDIANA. CHAPTER I. Beginnings and Spread of Presbyterianism in America. " Go ye into all the world " is a command suited to the genius of that community of Christians to which Presby- terians belong. Nothing is more striking in a general view of the history of the Reformed Churches than the variety of countries into which we find their characteristic spirit, both in doctrine and polity, pene- trating. Throughout Switzerland it was a grand popular move- ment. There is, first of all, Zwingle, the hero of Zurich, already in 1516 preaching against the idolatrous veneration of Mary, a man of generous culture and intrepid spirit, who at last laid down his life upon the field of battle. In Basle we find CEcolampadius, and also Bullinger, the chronicler of the Swiss reform. Farel arouses Geneva to iconoclasm by his inspiring eloquence. Thither comes in 1536, from the France which disowned him, Calvin, the mighty law-giver, great as a preacher, an expositor, a teacher, and a ruler ; cold in exterior, but burning with internal fire ; who produced at twenty-four years of age his unmatched "Institutes," and at thirty-five had made Geneva, under anal- most theocratic government, the model city of Europe, with its inspiring motto, "Post tenebras lux." He was feared and op- posed by the libertines of his day, as he is in our own. His errors were those of his own times ; his greatness is of all times. Hooker calls him "incomparably the wisest man of the French Church" ; he compares him to the "Master of Sentences," and says "that though thousands were debtors to him as touching divine knowl- edge, yet he was to none, only to God." Montesquieu declares 9 ; IO EARLY INDIANA PRESBYTERIANISM. that "the Genevese should ever bless the day of his birth." Jewel terms him "a reverend father, and worthy ornament of the church of God." "He that will not honor the memory of Cal- vin," says Mr. Bancroft, " knows but little of the origin of Ameri- can liberty." Under his influence Geneva became the "fertile " seed-plot of reform for all Europe ; with Zurich and Strasbourg, it was the refuge of the oppressed from the British Isles, and thus indoctrinated England and ourselves with its own spirit. The same form of faith was planted in the German Palatinate, modified by the influence of Melanchthon, receiving an admirable exposition in the Heidelberg Catechism and the writings of Ursinus, and forming the German Reformed Church. Holland accepted the same system of faith with the spirit of martyrdom ; against Charles and Philip, against Alba and the Inquisition, it fought heroically, under the Prince of Orange, of imperishable fame. In contending for freedom in religion it imbibed the love of civil freedom, which it brought also to our shores; and though Guizot does not once name Holland in his "History of European Civilization," we can never name it but with honor and gratitude itself oppressed, it became the refuge of the oppressed. In Eng- land, God overruled the selfish policy of Henry VIII. to the furtherance of the gospel ; the persecution of Mary, 1553-8, sent forth the best of England's blood to Zurich and Geneva, there to imbibe more deeply the principles of the Reform and to bring back the seeds of Puritanism, which germinated in spite of the High Court of Commission and the Acts of Uniformity of 1559 and subsequent years. The universities were Calvinistic in their most vigorous period, when Bucer and Peter Martyr taught in them a pure faith. "The Reformation in England," says the Christian Remembrancer (1845), "ended by showing itself a decidedly Cal- vinistic movement." "The Reformation produced Calvinism; this was its immediate offspring, its genuine matter-of-fact expres- sion." And need I speak of Scotland, where the towering form of John Knox, also taught in Geneva, stands out severe in doc- trine and morals, in vivid contrast with the loveliness of the frail and passionate Mary? Her chivalry could not stem the tide. Presbyterianism prevailed, never to lose its hold of the Scotch nation. Their "fervid genius " was well pleased with this strong theology. Tenacity like that of the Burghers and of the Anti- Burghers, both New and Old Light, and the indomitable spirit of religious independence go with them wherever they go. The Free Church battles in the nineteenth century for the principles of 1 SPREAD OF PRESBYTERIANISM IN AMERICA. 1 its sires. The Solemn League and Covenant reappear in our own land, transferred from religion to politics in the Mecklenburg Declaration. 1 Upon the earliest history of the Presbyterian Church in America a degree of obscurity rests. The few feeble con- gregations on the new continent were scattered over an immense breadth of territory. 2 Probably the French Huguenots were the earliest Presbyterian immigrants. These came under the auspices of Admiral Coligny to the Carolinas in 1562 and to Florida in 1565.
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