Did You Know?

Samuel Hall Chester (1851-1940)

Samuel Hall Chester, a Montreat resident from 1926 until his death in 1940, served as the Secretary for the PCUS Executive Committee on Foreign Missions from 1893-1926. Chester’s early annual reports reflect his financial frustrations, particularly low church contributions, which meant that he had no funds for missionary travel, let alone his own travel. 

The tide began to turn, however, when in 1902 he first encountered Charles Rowland — one of Montreat’s founders, a strong Presbyterian, an ardent supporter of foreign missions, and the person who organized Montreat’s first Missions Conference. Rowland had met three young Presbyterian seminary students at a national ecumenical missions conference who had been appointed as missionaries but not yet sent out due to financial constraints. He agreed to raise funds to support Leighton Stuart, Lacy Moffett, and Fairman Preston, and to sponsor others to visit churches on behalf of mission work. Thus the Forward Movement was born, an ecumenical effort which Chester embraced and the General Assembly supported, that made direct appeals for the support of foreign mission work. Chester had found an ally. Rowland was appointed to the Committee on Foreign Missions in 1903 and remained a member until 1926, when Chester retired.

The Forward Movement was quite successful. In just five years the annual budget for the Committee on Foreign Missions doubled.  Chester also embraced the Laymen’s Missionary Movement, founded in 1907 to encourage laymen to advocate for mission work in their home churches and to travel as they could to other churches.  Not surprisingly, Rowland coordinated this work for the PCUS. Over the subsequent 19 years the budget grew to well over one million dollars annually, enabling considerable expansion in the foreign mission work of the PCUS.

Chester retired in 1926, at the age of 75, and moved to Montreat. Rowland, who resided in Athens, Georgia, did not have a Montreat home but remained quite active in the life of the community he had helped to found. He especially enjoyed attending the World Missions Conferences. One can only imagine the conversations that these two men must have had on the porch of the Chester home. Rowland outlived Chester by 24 years, attending his final World Missions Conference in 1963.

Thanks to the Presbyterian Heritage Center, especially Nancy Midgette, for this glimpse from the past. Stop by the PHC for additional Montreat history and so much more. Have an idea for a future “Did You Know?”? Let Nancy know at midgette@elon.edu.