| This Day In Presbyterian History |
February
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2 |
1981 |
On Feb. 2, 1981, the Rev. Dr. Richard C. Halverson (1916 -  1995) was appointed chaplain of the U.S. Senate. He served as chaplain until Dec. 31, 1994. Rev. Halverson served from 1958 until 1981 as the Senior Pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church, Bethesda, Maryland. |
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3 |
1856 |
On Feb. 3, 1856, the Rev. Robert Hamilton Byers and 11 people formed the First Presbyterian Church of Dallas, TX. Stated supply pastor for Presbyterian churches in Rusk and Henderson counties, Rev. Byers and members met at in private homes, a blacksmith shop, a lumber yard, the courthouse, and a printing shop until the first church building was constructed in 1873. |
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4 |
1810 |
On Feb. 4, 1810, three ministers, who had been in the dissolved Cumberland Presbytery in Tennessee, met in a log cabin home near today's town of Burns, TN, to reform a new Cumberland Presbytery, independent of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. The dispute was over the educational requirements for ministers. The national church insisted on advanced education and the old Cumberland Presbytery was ordaining ministers for the frontier without that education. Rev. Samuel McAdow, Rev. Finis Ewing and the Rev. Samuel King reorganized a new Cumberland Presbytery, which became Cumberland Synod in 1813 and the Cumberland Presbyterian denomination in 1829. In 1906, two-thirds of the Cumberland Presbyterian churches reunited with the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America. The remaining churches continued on as the Cumberland Presbyterian Church denomination. |
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5 |
1723 |
 On Feb. 5, 1723 (in today's calendar, see dating), the Rev. John Witherspoon was born. He was a Presbyterian clergyman, the only clergyman to sign of the Declaration of Independence, a Continental Congress member (1776 - 1782) and president of Princeton University (elected Dec. 1767; took office in August 1768).
Photo courtesy of Independence National Historical Park. |
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7 |
1954 |
 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. |
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10 |
1925 |
 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).
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12 |
1865 |
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. |
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16 |
1817 |
On Feb. 16, 1817, Azariah Smith was born in Manlius, New York. Educated at Yale College, Smith was ordained in the Presbyterian Church in 1842. Educated at Yale College, Smith studied medicine at Geneva, New York. He served as a missionary to Armenia and Turkey for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions from 1842 until his death on June 3, 1851. |
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16 |
1831 |
 On Feb. 16, 1831, The Presbyterian weekly newspaper was launched in Philadelphia/ The first editor was the Rev. John Burtt. The paper survived until June 11, 1925. A June 1865 issue is shown at right.
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17 |
1816 |
On Feb. 17, 1816, Presbyerian minister and hymnist Edward Hopper was born on this date. He graduated from New York University (1839) and Union Theological Seminary (1842). An ordained Presbyterian minister (1842), he served New York churches in Greenville, Sag Harbor and Church of the Land and the Sea, which ministered to sailors. For hymns, he is best known for Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me written in 1870 or early 1871, also known as The Sailor's hymn. |
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18 |
1546 |
 On Feb. 18, 1546, Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther died in his hometown of Eisleben in Saxony, Germany. |
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19 |
1747 |
 On Feb. 19, 1747, the Rev. Samuel Davies was ordained as an evangelist by the Presbytery of Newcastle, which had licensed him on July 30, 1746. Davies was sent to Hanover, Virginia, in Spring 1747. |
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23 |
1850 |
On Feb. 23, 1850, the Rev. Hiram Chamberlain (1797 - 1866) and worshippers founded the first recorded Protestant church in the lower Rio Grade area — the First Presbyterian Church of Brownsville, Texas. |
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26 |
1890 |
 On Feb. 26, 1890, Rev.William Henry Sheppard, an African-American Presbyterian minister ordained in 1888 to serve at Zion Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, sailed on the Steamship Adriatic (at right leaving New York City harbor) with white missionary Rev. Samuel Norris Lapsley. They were on their way to the Congo as Presbyterian missionaries. Reverends Sheppard and Lapsley were members of the Presbyterian Church (US). |
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27 |
2003 |
 On Feb. 27, 2003, Mr. Rogers — Frederick McFeely Rogers — passed away. An American educator, ordained Presbyterian minister, songwriter and television host, Rogers (March 20, 1928 – February 27, 2003) was the host of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, in production from 1968 to 2001.
While working at WQED in Pittsburgh on children's programs, Rogers decided to get his Masters of Divinity from the Pittsburgh Theological Semianry (founded 1794), graduating in 1962. He was ordained by the Presbytery of Pittsburgh in 1963. (Show publicity photo at right )
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28 |
1868 |
On Feb. 28, 1868, New York
Governor Reuben Fenton signed the bill to create the Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. |
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