| This Day In Presbyterian History |
January
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4 |
1947 |
 On Jan. 4, 1947, the U.S. Senate appointed The Rev. Peter Marshall as chaplain. Reverend Marshall was the pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. |
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6 |
1867 |
 On Jan. 6, 1867, the First Presbyterian Church of Santa Fe was organized with 12 members. The oldest Protestant Church in New Mexico, the church (shown right in its first structure) was served by the
Rev. David McFarland of Mattoon, Illinois (shown below). He was commissioned by the Board of Domestic Missions  of the Presbyterian Church, and arrived in Fall 1866. Supported by the Territorial Governor's wife, Mrs. Jennie Mitchell, the Rev. McFarland held the first Presbyterian service in the Council Chambers of the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe on Sunday, November 25, 1866, with 40 present. On December 10, 1866, he opened a school with ten scholars. |
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7 |
1869 |
 On Jan. 7, 1869, Rev. Thomas DeWitt Talmage accepted the  pastorship of Central Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn. His fiery oratory led the church to a growth in membership to more than 5,000, while his sermons were printed in newspapers across the country. The church's Brooklyn Tabernacle building would burn three times, being rebuilt larger each time (picture right shows the second Tabernacle church, 1873-1889).
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8 |
1907 |
 On Jan. 8, 1907, Montreat was transferred to the control of the Presbyterian Church in the United States. At right is the following day's Washington Post story which mis-identified Montreat as Montreal.
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9 |
1969 |
On Jan. 9, 1969, the U.S. Senate appointed Presbyterian Rev. Dr. Edward L. R. Elson, D.D., S.T.D., Litt.D., LL.D., L.H.D., D.Hum., D.Min. as chaplain. He was pastor of The National Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC. Rev. Elson served as chaplain until February 1981. |
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11 |
1759 |
 On Jan. 11, 1759, the first American life insurance company is incorporated in Philadelphia — the "Corporation of Poor and Distressed Presbyterian Ministers and of the Poor and Distressed Widows and Children of Presbyterian Ministers." Known as the Presbyterian Ministers Fund for Life Insurance, and as the Provident Mutual Life Insurance Company of Philadelphia in the late 1990s, the firm was demutualized and acquired in 2002 by Nationwide Insurance. Pictured is one of the company's sesquicentennial ads in 1909. |
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12 |
1846 |
On Jan. 12, 1846, the New York Herald ran a story describing the new First Presbyterian Church (New York City) building at Fifth  Avenue & 12th St., which is still in use today:
"The interior of the edifice presents a novel and yet a very agreeable and impressive aspect. It is of the perpendicular Gothic Style, without columns to sustain the long extending arch, which makes the seats in a remarkable degree available and unobstructed. This is a new feature in modern architecture. The slips [pews] are of black walnut of native growth, most beautifully and tastefully carved.... The ceiling is formed by a system (if it may be so called) of groined arches, with intersecting ribs and pendants forming the keystone of this massive structure." |
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13 |
1868 |
 On Jan. 13, 1868, James Lennox and a group of Presbyterians met at the First Presbyterian Church in New York to organize a new hospital, which would in February become chartered as the Presbyterian Hospital in the City of New York (an early drawing of the hospital is at right ).
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14 |
1890 |
On Jan. 14, 1890, the Executive Committee of Foreign Missions on the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS) commissioned two ministers, the Rev. William Henry Sheppard (at left) and the Rev. Samuel Norvell Lapsley (at right), to establish the Presbyterian Mission in Central   Africa. The appointment of a black and a white minister to be the first PCUS missionaries to Africa marked the beginning of an interracial mission that was unique in most of Africa.
In May 1890, Sheppard and Lapsley landed at Banana Point in the mouth of the Congo River and began seeking a suitable field for work in the Congo Free State. Their quest eventually led them almost a thousand miles inland to Luebo, a small Belgian trading post on the banks of the Lulua River in the Kasai Valley, where they established the first Protestant mission station in inland Congo. |
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16 |
1832 |
On Jan. 16, 1832, the Executive Committee of the Western Foreign Missionary Society appointed John Brooks Pinney, a student at Princeton Seminary, to be the first American Presbyterian missionary to Africa. On January 1, 1833, Pinney sailed alone from Norfolk, Virginia, arriving in Monrovia, Liberia, on February 16. Pinney soon would be followed by several other associates, including James Temple, “a young Negro who has been taken under the care of the Presbytery of Philadelphia as an assistant missionary.” Pinney served in Liberia for the next four years, during which time he was acting Agent and Governor of the Board of Managers of the American Colonization Society, “who had been favorably impressed by his character and ability.” However, he was forced to retire from the field in 1837, broken in health. |
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16 |
1920 |
 On Jan. 16, 1920, Prohibition became the law of the United States. Ever the showman, Presbyterian minister and evangelist Billy Sunday and 10,000 of his followers met a special train from Milwaukee carrying John Barleycorn’s simulated coffin. The noted evangelist and former major league baseball player then conducted a "burial" with the words: ”Goodbye, John. You were God’s worst enemy, and Hell’s best friend, I hate you with a perfect hatred.“
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19 |
1736 |
On Sunday, Jan. 19, 1736 (Old Style Julian calendar), ordained Presbyterian minister John McLeod from the Isle of Skye opened a worship service in Gaelic on that mild winter day along Coastal Georgia. Attending the service, were some of the 177 Highlanders who had newly emigrated to the new colony. "Thus was born Presbyterism in Georgia, and Darien became its cradle," wrote Savannah Presbytery historian, the Reverend Frank C. King. The Scots had just landed at "Barnwell's Bluff," one mile east of today's Darien, GA. On Sunday, February 22, 1736, General James Oglethorpe visited Darien and participated in worship. Oglethorpe later spoke of this group as his "favorite colonists." |
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20 |
1905 |
 On Jan. 20, 1905, the Bell Green Orphanage in Montreat burned. This partially finished building was located on Oak Lane. (see article at right, click on it for a larger image). The orphanage was run by the sisters Whalen. An earlier rented house occupied by the orphanage also burned in 1904, according to the news story.
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21 |
1918 |
On Jan. 21, 1918, Nurse Annabel Roberts death was reported in The New York Times. A member of First Presbyterian Church of Madison, NJ, she was serving with the New York Presbyterian Hospital unit which treated American troops in France during World War I. |
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21 |
1924 |
 On Jan. 21, 1924, fire broke out around 9 a.m. in the Montreat Hotel, the conference center's original hotel built iin 1900-1901 and opened for business in 1901. The fire destroyed the building, although the Annex was saved as well as some furnishings. Assembly Inn was built on the location of the old hotel.
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22 |
1818 |
In 1817, Rev. Elias Cornelius had been sent on a missionary journey by the Conecticut Missionary Society through the Southwest, with special instructions to visit New Orleans. He arrived in New Orleans on Dec. 30, 1817. On Jan. 22, 1818, Rev. Cornelius was joined by the Rev. Sylvester Larned, and their their efforts led to the establishment of the First Presbyterian Church of New Orleans, which laid its corner stone of which was laid on January 8, 1819. |
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23 |
1825 |
On Jan. 23, 1825, The First Protestant Society in Detroit adopted Articles of Faith and became the First Presbyterian Church. The initial congregation consisted of 12 male and 37 female members. The Rev. Noah M. Wells bacame the first minister in May 1825 for the new church. |
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24 |
1949 |
On Jan. 24, 1949, Rev. Peter Marshall died. Reverend Marshall was the pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church and the chaplain of the U.S. Senate (1947 - 1949). |
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25 |
1818 |
On Jan. 25, 1818, the Rev. Benjamin Morgan Palmer was born. (Portrait circa 1845, courtesy of  the Louisiana State Museum). In addition to serving in numerous churches, he also was a professor of church history and polity at the Theological Seminary in Columbia, SC, and the moderator at the formation of the Presbyterian Church of the Confederate States of America (later the Presbyterian Church, U.S.). He served as a director at Columbia Theological Seminary, Southwestern Presbyterian University (Clarksville, TN) and Tulane University. He co-founded The Southern Presbyterian Review (1847). He died on May 28, 1902. |
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29 |
1827 |
 On Jan. 29, 1827, the Rev. Jeremiah Gloucester (1799 - 1827), pastor of the Second African Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, died. (Shown at right) Second African Presbyterian Church was a small congregation originally located at 2nd & Norris Alley; it moved to 7th & St. Mary Street before being burned in Philadelphia’s August 1842 anti-black riots.
 His father, John Gloucester, was a slave in Tennessee, who was freed by Rev. Gideon Blackburn, who also arranged for Gloucester's education. Rev. John Gloucester (at left) became the minister for the First African Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. Freeing his wife and sons, including Jeremiah, John Gloucester and his family became well known.
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30 |
1841 |
On Jan. 30, 1841, the Republic of Texas legislature chartered the second college in the state — Galveston College — organized by Presbyterian minister W. L. McCalla in December 1840 with five students. By the end of 1841, the school had 100 students. McCalla served as the first president. After a brief time, he went to England, then returned to Philadelphia to promote Texas. The college was short-lived and ceased operations by the 1850s. |
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