This Day In History February 7 - 13
(changes weekly; click on title above or on the month navigation link for previous entries on Presbyterian history)
On Feb. 7, 1954, the Reverend Dr. George MacPherson Docherty of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church preached a Lincoln Day sermon titled "A New Birth of Freedom." In the congregation was President Dwight Eisenhower. The sermon helped to convince the President to support pending legislation in the U.S. Congress to amend the Pledge of Allegiance to insert the phrase Lincoln used at Gettysburg, "under God." Congress passed the legislation and Eisenhower signed it into law on June 14, 1954. Photo taken on Feb. 7, 1954 with (left-to-right) Rev. Docherty, President Eisenhower, and unidentified man and woman.
On February 8, 1779, The Rev. Moses Allen was drown while attempting to escape from a prison ship. In 1778, he had entered the American army as chaplain and was taken prisoner. He was licensed to preach the gospel by the Presbytery of New Brunswick, February 1, 1774, and on March 10, 1775, was ordained at Charleston, S. C., and installed pastor of an Independent Church at Wappetaw. In 1777 he resigned his charge and moved to Liberty County, Ga., where he became pastor of the Midway Presbyterian Church; but the next year his congregation was dispersed and his church burned.
On February 9, 1939, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of America voted to change the denominations name to the Orthodox Presbyteran Church, which it retains still today. The Presbyterian Church in the United States of America had filed a lawsuit against the breakaway denomination over the name.
On Feb. 10, 1925, Atlantans kicked off an endowment campaign for $250,000 to seek to move Columbia Theological Seminary from South Carolina to the area. The seminary moved in 1927 to Decatur, Georgia. Started in 1828 in Lexington, Georgia, the Presbyterian Theological Seminary moved to Columbia, SC, in 1830 (Shown is the seminary's historic Columbia building).
On February 12, 1865, the crowded public galleries of the United States House of Representatives were there to hear Presbyterian Rev. Henry Highland Garnet (Dec. 23, 1815 - Feb. 13, 1882), an ex-slave address the House of Representatives. It was the first time an African-American had addressed Congress. Invited by President Lincoln to make the address, Rev. Garnet was pastor of the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C.
Research
Our research library offers onsite and online access to original rare books and documents. Anyone having documents, photos and artifacts are encouraged to contact us.
Presbyterian Heritage Center
Presbyterian Missionaries and Ministers Databases
are
being uploaded to this site, under Bios tab above. You also can click here. These databases are starting with early ministers and missionaries (pre-1860) and are being researched by teams of volunteers and staff at the Presbyterian Heritage Center. We will be adding names and additional information of later ministers and missionaries every week during 2010 and 2011. Our database will eventually include all Presbyterian missionaries and ministers (not listing active individuals with the past 25 years for privacy reasons) from all of the various Presbyterian denominations. If you have biographical information on ministers and misionaries, and especially photos, please email us. Thank you.
Exhibits
We offer interactive computer kiosks, an innovative museum and research facility (onsite and online) presenting Presbyterian history and Reformed heritage, the church’s tradition of worldwide mission. No Turning Back: The American Presbyterian Missions to Africa exhibit is open. This major exhibit explores the religious missions and missionaries to the continent, including Cameroon (PCUSA), Congo (PCUS) and Sudan (UPC), including cultural artifacts from our William H. Sheppard collection and from other renowned collections. Come see!
Another mission exhibit is open —
The Land of the Southern Cross: Sesquicentennial (150th) of the Presbyterian Mission to Brazil. This exhibit looks at the missions by the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (beginning in 1859) and the Presbyterian Church in the United States (beginning in 1869).
Calvin & Presbyterians exhibit is open. Celebrating the 500th Anniversary of John Calvin's birth, the exhibit features rare books published in the 1500s and early 1600s, including a copy of the Scottish Geneva Bible, aka the "Breeches" Bible and a final edition in Latin of Calvin's Institutes of Christian Religion (1568). There are also maps (click below for larger image showing the Reformation spread in Europe circa 1560) including one map and graphic display showing the colonial American spread of Presbyterian and other Reformed Churches circa 1750.
The Presbyterian Heritage Center also has a Montreat history exhibit — Private Land in a Public Place: The Development of Montreat 1897 - 1929. The exhibit looks at existing and lost buildings from the first generation of development in the community, including rare maps. Click on image below for larger photo.
Latest News/Future Events New Exhibits for 2010 The Word: History of the English Language Bible
Opens May 2010
Take a look at how the English Language Bible developed from Wycliffe to Tyndale to Geneva Reformers to the Translation Companies of the King James version to today's translations. Rare Bibles and leaves from Bibles will be displayed. Title page of 1560 Geneva Bible shown below. Religion, Rebellions & Revival: American Presbyterian Missions to China and Taiwan
Opens July 4, 2010
This exhibit will look at the more than 1,700 Presbyterian ministers, evangelists, doctors and school teachers who worked in China and Taiwan from the early 1830s through today.
If you have photographs, documents, letters or artifacts that might be included in this exhibit, please contact the PHC at 828.668.6556 or collections@phcmontreat.org. Henrietta (Nettie) Donaldson Grier, M.D. (seated right), her daughter Elizabeth and Hsuchow (Kiangsu province) pastors in 1932. Dr. Grier kept a home in Montreat.
Montreat & Evangelists
Opens Fall 2010
As the oldest religious conference center in the Southeast, Montreat has always attracted nationally and internationally known preachers and evangelists — Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists and others, who have preached or lived in Montreat. This exhibit looks at some of these noteworthies — through rare audio tapes, film and photographs. Among the people covered will be: J. Wilbur Chapman
Billy Sunday
R. A. Torrey A. C. Dixon
Rodney "Gypsy" Smith
Peter Marshall (below)
Billy Graham and more!
If you have photographs, documents, letters or artifacts that might be included in this exhibit, please contact the PHC at 828.668.6556 or collections@phcmontreat.org.
Oral Histories Audio-visual oral histories have been and are being recorded by the Presbyterian Heritage Center. So far, we have interviewed more than 40 people ranging from missionaries to important Presbyterian leaders, as well as those with special memories of Montreat. Video segments soon will be available both on our onsite multimedia kiosks, as well as on this web site if appropriate. This program is ongoing and long-term.
were there to hear Presbyterian 
