Irish Presbyterians and the Shaping of Western Pennsylvania, 1770–1830 [Hardcover ed.] 0822945436, 9780822945437

Citation preview

i r i s h  p r e s b y t e r i a n s  a n d  t h e  s h a p i n g  o f  w e st e r n  p e n n s y l va n i a

1770–1830

irish presbyterians and the shaping of

western pennsylvania 1770–1830

P E T E R E. G I L M O R E

U N I V E R S I T Y O F P I T T S B U R GH P R E S S

Published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15260 Copyright © 2018, University of Pittsburgh Press All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Printed on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Cataloging-in-Publication data is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 13: 978-0-8229-4543-7 ISBN 10: 0-8229-4543-6 Cover art: “Sacramental scene in a western forest.” Lithograph. In Joseph Smith, Old Redstone (Philadelphia: P.S. Duval & Co., 1854), p. 310 Cover design: Joel W. Coggins

For David W. Miller, scholar, teacher, friend, Without whom this book would be inconceivable 

And for my parents, Philip E. Gilmore (1920–2017) and Dorothy F. Gilmore, Whose love and faith have been unconditional and immeasurable

CONTENTS 

ac k n ow l e d g m e n t s

xvii in t roduc t ion

xix 1: “A Great Many Have Come from Ireland” 3 2: “A Social Combination” 17 3: Irish Presbyterian Ritual and Discipline in the Pennsylvania Countryside 31 4: Defining a Doctrinally Distinct Community 47 5: From Insurrection to Revival 61 6: Revivalism, Psalmody, and “Satanic” Ministry 79 7: The Sabbath, Temperance, and Market Revolution 96 conclusion

113 notes

119 b i b l i o g r a ph y

185 index

215

MAPS 

Map 1. “Proportion of the Presbyterians to the aggregate population.” From Statistical Atlas of the United States, based upon the results of the eleventh census (1890). Throughout the nineteenth century and beyond, western Pennsylvania had a particularly notable concentration of Presbyterians. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division. Map 2. Pennsylvania in 1796. From Heads of Families at the First Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1790: Pennsylvania. Post-frontier western Pennsylvania consisted of just four counties. Waterways featured more prominently than roadways. Courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin. Map 3. Melish-Whiteside 1817 map of Washington County. The MelishWhiteside maps created between 1816 and 1821 drew upon county surveys and included information such as geographic features, roads, dwellings, and mills. This map is notable for the indication of Presbyterian churches, including those of dissenting denominations (e.g., Seceders). The location of Presbyterian churches suggests a heavier Presbyterian (and likely Irish) population away from the Monongahela Valley and in the county’s western townships. Pennsylvania State Archives. Map 4. Fielding Lucas Jr. Map of Pennsylvania, 1823. By the third decade of the nineteenth century, roads linked the principal towns of the region’s counties. Historical Maps of Pennsylvania.

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PROPORTION OF THE PRESBYTERIANS  

TO THE AGGREGATE POPULATION :

1890

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

O

nce upon a time, I experienced the excitement and tedium of research for a dissertation. The writing of a dissertation followed. Then came nearly a decade of sculpting a book from the vastness of those words. Eventually, this volume came into existence. I accrued many debts in that drawn-out process. Notably, thanks are due to the history faculty of Carnegie Mellon University. First and foremost, I am deeply appreciative of my advisor and mentor, David W. Miller, and the other members of my dissertation committee: Scott Sandage and Richard Maddox, and Kerby A. Miller of the University of Missouri. I am grateful to Katherine A. Lynch, who was tasked with overseeing my fledging forays into academic research, and Wendy Z. Goldman, both for the year-long assignment at CMU in Qatar that allowed me to begin dissertating and the counsel that led to the University of Pittsburgh Press. Marcus Rediker of the University of Pittsburgh kindly helped nudge me onto the publication path. At Carnegie Mellon I benefited from discussions with other graduate students, among them the late Sonya Barclay, whose archival experience was an inspiration and generosity a gift, and Lou Martin, Shera Moxley, and Cian McMahon. As my academic universe slowly expanded, my understanding became immeasurably enriched through collaboration and discussion with younger scholars, especially Joseph S. Moore and Rankin Sherling. My tentative explorations were challenged, confounded, and occasionally confirmed by not-so-young scholars: Warren Hofstra, Richard MacMaster, Michael Montgomery, Kerby Miller, David Wilson, and the late David Noel Doyle. This volume is but a feeble effort when compared to their accomplishments. Encouragement, assistance, and comradeship emanated from the Mellon Centre for Migration Studies, Omagh, County Tyrone, particularly from director Brian Lambkin and lecturer Patrick Fitzgerald. I have been among the many beneficiaries of their scholarly investigations of Irish migration. My understanding was deepened through collaboration with William Roulston of the Ulster Historical Foundation. A special shout-out is deserved by Carlow University colleagues and xvii

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friends Joel Woller, Kenan Foley, and Bill Stewart, whose intellectual integrity and depth have been guiding lights. Recognition is also due to Matt O’Brien, an admirable scholar of Irish America remarkably willing to share coffee and conversation when not commuting over three state boundaries. Over long years of trying to make sense of early Presbyterianism and its various, distinctive, and querulous expressions, I benefited immensely from the vast knowledge of Reid W. Stewart. I am grateful to know Reid and Alice and for our years together in the Presbyterian Historical Society of the Upper Ohio Valley. Thanks are due also to three expatriate families who, during my repeated assignments in Qatar, graciously invited me to eat, study scripture and worship Almighty God with them and listened patiently as I worked through my formulations about the interstices of faith, politics, and society. I have been fortunate to work with Sandy Crooms, editorial director, and her colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh Press. The book (and I) are immeasurably better off as a result. Countless hours of research have yielded enumerable debts of gratitude to the staff of many libraries and archives: the Library and Archives of the Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh; Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh; Carnegie Mellon University Libraries, in Pittsburgh and in Doha, Qatar; Grace Library, Carlow University, Pittsburgh; Archives of Industrial Society, University of Pittsburgh Libraries; Archives of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary; Manuscripts and Archives of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia; Library of the Court of the County of Washington, Pennsylvania; Historical Collections, Washington and Jefferson College; Washington County Historical Society; and the Westmoreland County Historical Society. Special acknowledgment is due to Thomas G. Reid Jr. of the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary library for his assistance. All of the above have helped me on this journey; none of the above are in any way responsible for the limitations of either my understanding or the arguments of this book. Those who know and love me best have been unfailingly supportive— and content to remain on the sidelines, safely and sanely. If unwilling to share my obsession with Ulster folk and the Westminster Standards, my parents, brother David and his family, and Bridget nonetheless shared both confidence that a book would be forthcoming and that somehow despite my shortcomings, I matter. You will never know how very grateful I am. xviii

INTRODUCTION 

T

his is the story of Irish immigrants who sought to recreate an OldWorld ethnoreligious culture and in so doing established Presbyterianism in western Pennsylvania. This study attempts to understand their translation of religious belief and practice from the north of Ireland to western Pennsylvania, how ritual and that translation functioned, and how and why change occurred. Although there have been numerous books on “Scotch Irish Presbyterians” (variously styled), this is the first sustained examination of Irish Presbyterian religious culture in the early national period, and in a region that saw a heavy concentration of Presbyterians from Ireland. Such a book is long overdue.1 This is both a historical study of an American region transitioning from the colonial to the early republic eras and an examination of an Irish diaspora. The Presbyterians who contributed the making of western Pennsylvania at the turn of the nineteenth century largely understood their faith through the prism of Irish experience. By the second half of the eighteenth century, Ireland’s Presbyterianism encompassed numerous, fractious, competing denominations and tendencies. Despite differences, Irish Presbyterians shared distinctive commonalities, especially within Ulster, Ireland’s northern province. Fundamental ideas of Presbyterianism, both creed and church governance, came from Scotland and that nation’s protracted reformation. So, too, did many Presbyterian families. But they shared more than a common Scots legacy: their communities also had the experience of being Scots Presbyterians in Ireland, contributing to change in Ireland that altered their understanding of Presbyterianism even as Presbyterianism in Scotland underwent change. The Irish experience was a defining moment for the Presbyterians. Situated between the disenfranchised Catholic Irish majority and the Anglican ruling minority, Ulster Presbyterians clung to their distinctive creed while creating through their church structure a kind of state within a state.2 Through their attachment to a very Scottish brand of Presbyterianism in an Irish context, Ulster Scots created a regional particularism xix

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that set them apart. The differences within their Presbyterianism became a hallmark of the Ulster Presbyterian system. Among Ulster Presbyterians, Irish conditions created loyalty to and understanding of their “Scottish” creed, which was not always readily accepted or recognized by American or Scots Presbyterians in the Pennsylvania backcountry. When Presbyterians left Ireland, they did so for Irish reasons, their values, politics, and aspirations shaped by Irish history and experience. In the American colonies and new United States, these Presbyterians may have been distinguishable from immigrants of native Irish background who were Catholic in religion. But they were also distinct from Scots.3 Experiences in Ireland and migration across the Atlantic and into the American backcountry from 1770 to 1830 shaped the outlook of networks of individuals, families, friends, and old and new neighbors whose ethnoreligious culture gave rise to a robust regional Presbyterianism. Presbyterians predominated in Irish migration in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. And western Pennsylvania figured as a preeminent destination. In a study published in 2016, Rankin Sherling makes a convincing argument that Irish Presbyterian clerical migration is a reliable indicator of Irish Presbyterian migration overall. Pennsylvania (as a whole) accounted for more than half of the known places of settlement for Irish Presbyterian ministers between 1770 and 1810.4 Those with origins in the north of Ireland, both lay and clerical, built regional Presbyterianism congregation by congregation. They brought with them organizational structures, rituals, and theology. Leaving an Ireland in which they were “second-class subjects in a second-rate kingdom,” Presbyterians settling in western Pennsylvania looked to create a new Ulster free from the encumbrances and restrictions of landlordism and the episcopalian church establishment. Settlement in the transappalachian West meant economic opportunity, political liberty, and creation of godly communities according to the particular vision of various Irish Presbyterian tendencies. In his study of Irish Presbyterian migration to eastern Pennsylvania earlier in the eighteenth century, Patrick Griffin proposed, “Pennsylvania appeared to men and women of the north as a perfect Ulster, one where opportunities coexisted with religious freedom. In these years, therefore, as they looked inward to make sense of profound change, they also looked outward to reconstruct their vision of Ulster.”5 We argue here that something similar occurred in western Pennsylvania among later generations of migrants. Presbyterianism represented the chief cultural marker of the majority

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of Irishwomen and Irishmen who settled in the transappalachian West. The region, still home to a disproportionately large Presbyterian population, became a long-standing denominational bastion in the early republic and site of a Presbyterian-dominated Irish diaspora.6 Irish Presbyterians and the Shaping of Western Pennsylvania seeks to build on recent studies of Irish and Presbyterian migration to North America, including some volumes to which I contributed. Of particular relevance to this project are David Wilson, United Irishmen, United States (1998); Patrick Griffin, The People with No Name (2001); Kerby A. Miller, Arnold Schrier, Bruce D. Boling, and David N. Doyle, editors, Irish Immigrants in the Land of Canaan (2003); David A. Wilson and Mark G. Spencer, editors, Ulster Presbyterians in the Atlantic World (2006); Kerby  A. Miller, Ireland and Irish America (2008); Warren Hofstra, editor, Ulster to America (2012); Joseph Moore, Founding Sins (2016); and Rankin Sherling, The Invisible Irish (2016). In numerous ways, the various scholars participating in these projects strove to produce insightful, evidence-based studies that looked at Irish Presbyterians of Scottish origin in the context of change within the Atlantic archipelago and wider Atlantic world. The authors’ awareness of contextual dynamism help produce work often unlike the “Scotch Irish” studies of previous decades and generations. As this book emphasizes the Irish origins of western Pennsylvanian Presbyterianism, I have relied on and benefited from the relevant historiography of Irish Presbyterianism. In particular, a debt is owed to Andrew Holmes and The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 1770–1840. Holmes offers a substantive portrayal of traditional Ulster Presbyterianism before the nineteenth-century triumph of evangelicalism, allowing for its internal differences while demonstrating its common contours. Holmes’s book represents the “control” to this experiment, this exploration of diasporic religious belief and practice. In Ulster, Holmes concludes, “Presbyterians saw themselves as a separate community and as a covenanted people.” As the following pages will make clear, this author makes a similar claim for those in western Pennsylvania.7 The present volume is not another book on the Scotch Irish (or, if one prefers, the Scots Irish). “Irish Presbyterian” as used in this book generally refers to the people often regarded as “Scotch Irish,” “Scots Irish” or “Ulster Scots.” Those terms, with their considerable and oftentimes misleading ideological baggage, do not appear in this study except within quotation marks. “Scotch Irish” is largely anachronistic with respect to the colonial and early national periods, as the immigrants tended to

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refer to themselves as Irish.8 In earlier publications, “Scotch Irish” is often used only in connection with the colonial era. A leading twentiethcentury historian of the group proposed that “the story of the shaping of the Scotch-Irish people and of the part they played in American life ends .  .  . with the Revolutionary War.” James Leyburn said that although migration from Ulster resumed after the Revolution, newcomers “did not seek out Scotch-Irish communities in their country of adoption.” These conclusions are demonstrably false with respect to western Pennsylvania. Leyburn’s consideration of postrevolutionary migration ignores (and in ignoring, misjudges) the volume of that migration.9 Most problematically, the term “Scotch Irish” is an invitation to overemphasize Scottish origins at the expense of the Irish realities that defined the group and its religiosity. “Scotch Irish” tends toward a homogenization of Presbyterianism that ignores the distinctiveness of Irish conditions, especially the civil penalties and political and economic subordination imposed on Irish Presbyterians and a religious life that often emphasized a hypertraditionalism. The “Irish Presbyterian” designation employed throughout this study emphasizes the Irish dimension of the subjects’ transatlantic migration and the Irish origins of their worldview and cultural practices, in particular their Presbyterianism. “Presbyterian” is used for the obvious reason that the study is concerned with faith life and religious practices. What does “Presbyterian” mean? In its most essential meaning, the term refers to a form of church government. A Presbyterian church structure, from the bottom up, consists of ever larger judicatories: session, presbytery, synod, assembly. A session consists of a congregation’s minister and elected elders. A presbytery is a representative body consisting of ministers and elders from several congregations with the responsibility of assisting and coordinating the work of the church within a specific geographic territory. Synods are church councils with representatives from presbyteries and broader geographic responsibilities. But “Presbyterian” means more than the historic substitution of representative bodies for the episcopal hierarchy that had long dominated Western Christianity. As the collective product of the more radical variant of Protestantism that challenged Lutheranism in the sixteenth century, Presbyterian belief emphasized the sovereignty of a triune God, the insufficiency of fallen humanity to achieve salvation, and the indispensable role of grace. The preaching of the Word and the two sacraments prescribed by the Reformed tradition—baptism and communion—

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became understood as the means by which humans receive grace. Presbyterians embraced scripture as the revealed will of God. Reformed Protestant formulations of belief, especially the Westminster Confessions of Faith (1646), served as reverenced summaries and applications of scripture. The Presbyterianism that came to western Pennsylvania grew out of experiences and struggles—spiritual, ecclesiological, and political—in Scotland first of all but later and especially in Ireland. For the purposes of this study, “Presbyterian” refers to the communicants and institutions of several denominations.10 A majority belonged to the Presbyterian Church in the United States, or General Assembly church, the mainstream American equivalent of Ireland’s General Synod. But significant minorities belonged to the organizational expressions of a more traditionally orthodox or doctrinally strict (or, as some would maintain, faithful) Presbyterianism: Associate Presbyterians (or “Seceders”), Associate Reformed Presbyterians (“Union Seceders”), and Reformed Presbyterians (“Covenanters”). And there were other, smaller variants, almost always with a clear connection to Ulster Presbyterian religiosity. Communicants of these differing and frequently warring theological and ecclesiological tendencies constructed the region’s Irish Presbyterian ethnoreligious culture. Individual place of origin in Ireland, the year and circumstances of departure, migration experiences, timing and places of settlement, and consequent social standing all contributed to shaping differences. So too did the particular variety of Presbyterianism to which they adhered. Presbyterianism, its meaning derived from Old-World practice and reinterpreted by American experience, united and divided migrants of Irish origin. The story of early western Pennsylvanian Presbyterians is necessarily a narrative of negotiation and contest among Presbyterian disputants and Irish immigrant cohorts—among those who arrived at different times and under differing circumstances. Discord and disagreement, transported in their cultural luggage, direct our attention yet again to commingled Irish and Presbyterian legacies. Their Presbyterianism became a means by which the Irish in western Pennsylvania ordered their lives and understood the world. By locating the beginnings of western Pennsylvanian Presbyterianism within Irish communities, this book can address an unspoken but open question: what exactly was a “Scotch Irish Presbyterian,” as referenced in studies of the Pittsburgh region and colonial and early national periods? The answers can be found in the actual lived faith experiences of Irish

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Presbyterians, within thick webs of interpersonal connections, Irish and migration experiences, and a wealth of rituals and beliefs which infused a communal worldview. Presbyterians—both in the north of Ireland and in western Pennsylvania—understood and shaped their world through the preaching and study of scripture, recitation and reference to the confessions of faith believed to aptly summarize scripture, and regular ritual performance. Irish Presbyterians participated in family worship, catechesis, prayer meetings, community worship, sacraments and related rituals of chastisement, inclusion and exclusion, and observance of Sabbath and fast days. Their Reformed Protestant faith formally dispensed with the ritual of confession, yet informally they practiced such a rite in preparation for communion. Their Reformation forebears rejected pilgrimage, but they trekked miles to partake in sacred events. The belief that they were a covenanted people gave particular urgency to Presbyterians’ prescribed ritual practices. Basic to their outlook was the understanding that they were collectively committed in mutually binding relations with the Supreme Being. Such a relationship, they believed, had immediate and eternal implications. Along with familiar religious practices, early Irish immigrants to western Pennsylvania brought with them the sensibilities of protoindustrial peasant society. In frontier and postfrontier transappalachian society, their translated communalism was reinforced by the exigencies of subsistence farming and new settlements. (The suggestion that the migrant “Scotch Irish” of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were “rugged individualists” would have come as a surprise to families who built their economic and religious lives around cooperation with each other.) Economic and social change altered the context for the practice of their faith. The intensified economic development of western Pennsylvania following the failure of popular struggles that culminated in the Whiskey Rebellion gradually facilitated a transformation of Presbyterian religiosity. Most western Pennsylvanians in the period under study lived in the countryside, in protoindustrial (if not, at times, precapitalist) farming communities. To be sure, Presbyterians from the north of Ireland also settled in the market towns of Pittsburgh, Washington, and Canonsburg, where some worked as shopkeepers, artisans, and laborers. But overall, the experiences of townspeople were not those of the rural majority. Washington County had the largest population of any county in western Pennsylvania for most of the period, and substantial Irish Presbyterian xxiv

introduction

settlement. Buoyed by the growth of Pittsburgh, the recorded size of Allegheny County’s population surpassed that of Washington for the first time only in the 1830 federal census. The town of Washington had a population of fewer than two thousand in 1830—less than 5 percent of the total population in a county. By “western Pennsylvania” I refer to the territory west of the central Pennsylvania spine of the Appalachian Mountains (and west of Laurel Ridge), the region known as the Upper Ohio Valley—the territory drained by the Ohio’s major tributaries (Allegheny, Monongahela, and Beaver) and the myriad creeks and streams feeding those rivers. The focus of this study is largely on the southwestern counties of Allegheny, Washington, and Westmoreland, then as now the region’s population centers. The period covered by this study, 1770–1830, begins with the transappalachian migration preceding the Revolutionary War and ends during the first administration of Andrew Jackson, the son of Irish Presbyterian immigrants and the first Irish American president. These years saw high levels of Irish Presbyterian migration to North America, much of the early development of western Pennsylvania, and the formative phase of regional Presbyterianism. The period ends before the completion of a transportation infrastructure (canals and railroads) vital for the region’s full integration in the market, Pittsburgh’s transition from a commercial to an industrial center, the immigration of large numbers of Irish Catholics, and the schism in mainstream Presbyterianism—and near the apogee of institutional change within Irish Presbyterianism.11 The first two chapters describe the Irish migration to western Pennsylvania from 1770 to 1830 and the institutional beginnings of Presbyterianism in the region during those years. Chapters 3 and 4 discuss the content of Presbyterian practice. Chapter 5 examines the revivalism that occurred in the wake of the Whiskey Rebellion. Chapter 6 uses the lens of revivalism to look closely at doctrinal differences among Presbyterians. The final chapter considers the effect of increased commercialism on precapitalist religious understanding and practices. This study relied heavily on Presbyterian Church records, immigrant letters, contemporary publications (including newspapers, sermons, and polemical pamphlets), and civil records. The church records are mostly minutes kept by sessions and presbyteries of various denominations. Although an (approximate) end date of 1830 limited the range of available session minutes, those examined provided indispensable windows into religious and community life in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Examination of records of western Pennsylvania presbyteries xxv

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of the mainstream church and other Presbyterian denominations provided information on local and regional activities and concerns. Records of synods and assemblies completed the survey. Congregational and presbyterial histories also offered up valuable information; those written in the nineteenth century were often derived from interviews with older communicants and sometimes drawn from records no longer available. Although the names of major players in early regional Presbyterianism occasionally appear in the pages, the research for this book attempted to uncover facets of the lives of women and men seldom referenced unless in sweeping statements. Repeated searches of the sources yielded instances of faithfulness and foolishness, reconciliation and recalcitrance: the repeated warp and woof of the Irish Presbyterian fabric woven from 1770 to 1830. Due in large part to their appearance before sessions, we have the names of otherwise obscure individuals—farmers, artisans, laborers—whose lives intermeshed with others in the migration into western Pennsylvania and the creation of settlements and congregations. Who, exactly, were these Presbyterians, and what did they want? Andrew Holmes, in his definitive study of Ulster Presbyterianism, suggests that “being a Presbyterian for some people had little to do with attendance at meeting. Their identity signified attachment to certain cultural, ethnic, and political ideals that were informed but not necessarily beholden to the peculiar doctrines of Presbyterianism.”12 Something similar seems true for western Pennsylvania and its Presbyterian-dominated Irish diaspora. But if formal membership mattered less than a shared sense of peoplehood, then ministers, elders, and communicants—with all their hopes, pieties, and anxieties—provided a collective sense of meaning and direction. Some migrants had arrived in the region seeking to create a new, godlier Ireland and a more perfect Ulster, a place where humble social origins and simple faith could be exalted, and material and spiritual existence uplifted. For Joseph and Mary McClorg, living in the near-wilderness of the Shenango Valley in the 1820s, western Pennsylvania seemed “a land of liberty and Gospel Light.”13 West of the Alleghenies, a constellation of factors—rebellion, economic dislocation, weekly prayer meetings, electrifying sermons, conviction of sin, yearning for “right relations” with God—repeatedly triggered a more heightened sense of connection to a Presbyterian tradition informed by Irish experience.

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1770–1830

1 

“A Great Many Have Come from Ireland” 

Presbyterian Migration to Western Pennsylvania, 1770–1830

A

great many of the inhabitants have come from Ireland,” observed a traveler passing through western Pennsylvania near the end of the eighteenth century. “They seem to be an industrious people, and many of them religious.” These religious-minded Irish-born settlers largely belonged to Presbyterian denominations and would soon be joined by additional family, friends, and former neighbors.1 The “great many” Presbyterian Irish arriving in western Pennsylvania helped create both the institutional infrastructure of Presbyterianism and a discernable Irish American community. The Presbyterian migration from Ulster, Ireland’s northern province, to western Pennsylvania in the last three decades of the eighteenth century and the first three of the nineteenth is remarkable because of the sheer volume of individuals and families who made the move; the networks of families, friends, and neighbors involved; the self-organization of Presbyterian congregations; and the varieties of Presbyterianism represented. 3

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Noteworthy, too, is the distinctiveness of the migrant cohorts—a point often overlooked in reference to a monolithic “Scotch Irish” identity. Western Pennsylvania’s substantial pre-1830 Irish population consisted of various and distinct migrant streams linked by networks of family and friends and commercial connections: colonial-era migrants and their children who relocated west of the mountains, those crossing the Atlantic following 1783, political refugees and politicized economic migrants in the 1790s and early 1800s, and post-1815 farmers and shopkeepers, laborers and artisans. Their Presbyterianism distinguished them from their neighbors in Ireland and in America. In their country of origin, their religion had defined their place in society. Legally they were classified as “Dissenters” due to their refusal to conform to the kingdom’s only legally established religious institution, the Church of Ireland. As heirs to Scotland’s lengthy Reformation, with its Calvinist creed, covenantal theology, and opposition to episcopacy, Presbyterians settled in Ireland could not conscientiously conform. Instead, they regarded the official church with suspicion and distaste.2 The Church of Ireland, after all, was modeled on the Church of England in ecclesiology and theology. The communicants of the state church were usually persons of English origin and often landlords and their retinue. In Ulster “Presbyterian” effectively served as a synonym for “Scotch.”3 Further, a majority of Ulster Presbyterians were defined by their status as tenant farmers and weavers. Ulster Presbyterians in the eighteenth century lacked both political power and standing in the courts of the official church. At least in a legal sense, they were not even regarded as Protestants because of their nonconformity. These were, as one historian has concluded, “second-class subjects in a secondclass kingdom,” subordinated to an Anglican landowning elite.4 In western Pennsylvania as in Ulster, they would largely be defined in terms of their Presbyterianism, by themselves and by others. The “Scotch Irish” routinely sought the company of family and friends and coreligionists in settling the frontier, valuing a sense of community that counters the typical expectation of robust individualism. (A contemporary observer reported the frontier Irish Presbyterians were “somewhat gregarious in their habits.”)5 Their group cohesiveness in pursuit of political goals impressed observers in eighteenth-century America as it had in Ireland. The attachment of the “Presbyterian Party” to a radical interpretation of democracy corresponded to the goal of a more godly society. To contemporaries in colonial Pennsylvania, Irish Presbyterian aspi-

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rations to godliness seemed at best insincere when compared to their insatiable hunger for cheap land, their querulousness, opposition to authority, and murderous violence directed at Native Americans. The most infamous example of the latter, two massacres of peaceful Indians in Lancaster County in 1763, led Benjamin Franklin to famously declare the mostly Presbyterian attackers were inferior to “Heathens, Turks, Saracens, Moors, Negroes, and Indians, in the Knowledge and Practice of what is right.” Provincial Presbyterians—backcountry farmers and urban merchants alike—had already aligned politically against the Quaker-controlled assembly and the Quaker quest for replacement of the provincial proprietor with royal governorship. (Although not a Friend, Franklin was a principal spokesperson of the Quaker party.) The massacres perpetrated by the backcountry militia and the subsequent march of the Paxton Boys on Philadelphia fueled Quaker fears of the Irish Presbyterians’ insertion into provincial politics. A propaganda war waged by Quaker pamphleteers denounced Presbyterian claims to governance in terms that would have been familiar to Ireland’s Protestant ascendancy. “Presbyterianism and Rebellion, were twin-Sisters, sprung from Faction,” proclaimed the author of A Looking-Glass for Presbyterians. This pamphlet denounced the Paxton Boys’ massacres and likewise condemned the contemporary agrarian protests of the Hearts of Oak in Ulster. On the basis of both “Experience and undeniable Instances from History,” the pamphlet proposed that Presbyterians were manifestly unfit for government.6 The earliest immigrants to the western country had been mocked and derided as Presbyterians, as “Irish rebels,” and as “white savages.”7 Gibes and denunciations also underscored the humble station of most. Those trekking westward across Pennsylvania’s mountains would have heard taunts from neighbors and newspapers that their farms were slovenly; customary Presbyterian and Irish disinclination to display prosperity on occasion obscured questionable farming practices.8 Many Irish Presbyterians came to colonial Pennsylvania in family groups, their passage financed through the payment by incoming tenants for the value of improvements (the time-honored “Ulster custom”) and linen sales. But a considerable and growing number of Presbyterian lower-class aspirants lacked the means for emigration due to loss of tenancies and downturns in the linen trade. Between 1730 and 1775, perhaps half of all Ulster migrants traveled as individuals and as bound labor. Socially superior contemporaries held that servants could never “wash out the stain of servility”; Irish Presbyterians migrating west carried the burden of perceived

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social inferiority as baggage. Notices in eighteenth-century newspapers requesting recovery of runaway Irish servants reminded all of migrants’ status as social outcasts and economic underlings.9 Social conflict and economic disturbance in eastern Ulster fueled the increased volume of migration. In the early 1770s, Presbyterian tenant farmers and weavers combined under the name of the Hearts of Steel (or Steelboys) in violent responses to rent increases and evictions. Arthur Young, an English writer on agriculture who traveled through Ireland in 1776–1777, assigned the causes of the Steelboy revolt to “the impudence and levelling spirit of the Dissenters.”10 The immediate cause of this uprising was the decision in 1770 of a principal landowner in County Antrim to renew leases expiring that year at the former rents but with the addition of heavy fines to subsidize the construction of a stately home in England. Adding to rural anger, Lord Donegall chose to offer leases to speculators and middlemen instead of incumbent tenants, many of whom had held sizeable tracts. These feared “the melancholy prospect of being turn’d out of their possessions and obliged to remove their numerous families to America.” Inability or unwillingness to pay the higher rents and fees led to evictions, which removed the recalcitrant and impossibly impecunious, particularly those among the lowest strata of the tenantry. Subtenants and cottiers filled the ranks of the Steelboys. Fearful of official retaliation, thousands left for America. An Irish newspaper reported in 1774 that in the wake of agrarian protests, “numbers are now flying to Belfast to take shipping to America,” signaling the quickened pace of emigration.11 Meanwhile, Ulster’s important linen trade had experienced a devastating downturn. Exports fell precipitously in 1771 and 1772, leading to a substantial decline in production in 1773. A third of the province’s weavers found themselves without work. The depression in the linen trade coincided with a period of high food prices, pushing many into a desperate and bitter poverty. All of these factors contributed to the emigration of some thirty thousand Ulster Presbyterians between 1770 and 1775. Altogether, the numbers of Ulster Presbyterians migrating in the first half of the 1770s surpassed the totals of any single decade in the colonial era. Probably most had a connection to the linen industry. “The spirit of emigrating in Ireland,” wrote Arthur Young, “appeared to be confined to two circumstances, the presbyterian religion, and the linen manufacture.”12 These numbers added to the noticeable movement of Presbyterians of Irish origin westward across the southern tier of the colony of Pennsylvania in the 1770s.13 While traveling through south-central Pennsylvania, 6

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missionary David McClure observed, “Great numbers .  .  . have come from Ireland.” Irish Presbyterians at times predominated within the settlements pieced together in mountain valleys immediately to the west of Ulster enclaves in south-central Pennsylvania’s Cumberland Valley. McClure famously observed in his diary in 1773: “The inhabitants west of the Appalachian mountains are chiefly Scotch Irish presbyterians. They are either natives of the North of Ireland, or the descendants of such and removed here from the middle Colonies.”14 The first arrivals in the region, those who searched for land near the forks of the Ohio after the cessation of major hostilities between Britain and the French and Native Americans, journeyed from eastern and central Pennsylvanian valleys, from other colonies, and from the old country. Some were the children and grandchildren of Presbyterians who had left Ireland during the previous half century; some had emigrated in the 1760s, others in the last great prerevolutionary migration of the early 1770s. Irish Presbyterians were significantly numerous and cohesive enough to subsume Presbyterians of various ethnicities and others with Irish origins. John Wilkins, eventually a Pittsburgh Presbyterian prominent in the town’s political and economic life, was born in Lancaster County and lived for many years in Carlisle. The grandson of immigrants from Wales and Ireland, Wilkins was born in Donegal Township, Lancaster County, and schooled in the local variant of Ulster Presbyterianism. Another family with a prominent future in Pittsburgh offers a similar example. The Dennys may have been Anglo-Irish, but their settlement among Irish Presbyterians resulted in the American-born generation being regarded as “Scotch Irish.”15 The absorption of native Irish and Anglo-Irish elements in colonial-era migration resulted, David Noel Doyle writes, from “socio-cultural familiarity, inter-marriage, co-settlement and at times the strong arm!”16 Backcountry arrivals from Ireland in the 1770s and 1780s would have to contend with the near-continual threat of border warfare, the intense physical labor required to clear and plant land and build homes, and the ambitions of land speculators. Their struggle with American elites over access to land and power framed their political engagement in those decades. Ulster Presbyterians hoped to achieve economic and political independence and create a moral order west of the Appalachians that seemed impossible in landlord-dominated Ireland. Historians have called attention to the continuities in migration immediately before and after the American Revolution: a majority of Irish 7

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emigrants continued to be Presbyterians from the northern province of Ulster.17 And economic concerns continued to loom large among the reasons for leaving. Economic difficulty in Ireland extended the life of a colonial institution, the trade in Irish indentured servants—albeit briefly— furthering the perception (and reality) of the lower-class status of immigrants.18 Johann David Schoepf, a German physician who traveled in Pennsylvania following the war, caustically noted: Of the quantity of merchandise, which since the peace has over-stocked the American markets, there was one article apparently which showed no rapid falling off in vogue, that is to say, Irish Servants. Within a brief space many hundreds, men, women, and children, have been brought hither, where they looked to make their sudden fortunes, and to have their cost for passage and keep paid by Americans. Most of these people were by false and illusory pretenses inveigled into emigrating, and they find themselves deceived no little when on their arrival in America the skipper compels them to bind themselves out for several years to any person soever, who, on their making good the cost to him, will set them at liberty. This sort of Irish adventurers were at the time being offered for sale in the newspapers everywhere, and were being dragged about from place to place with this in view.19

The large numbers of hopeful settlers with Irish origins who reached the forks of the Ohio in the 1770s and 1780s did not escape the notice of the new nation’s elite. In 1784 Virginian Arthur Lee, brother of two signers of the Declaration of Independence, notoriously described Pittsburgh as “inhabited almost entirely by Scots and Irish, who live in paltry log houses, and are as dirty as in the north of Ireland.”20 By 1790 individuals of Irish birth or descent may have comprised as much as one-third of the some seventy-five thousand people living in Pennsylvania west of the mountains. The majority of the Irish were almost certainly Presbyterians, with the total number including Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists, and others. However, in some settlements, townships, and valleys, Ulster Presbyterians would have been the largest single group.21 Estimates of the ethnicity of the United States population at the time of the first federal census in 1790 probably overestimated the Scottish origins of the western Pennsylvania population at the expense of Ulster immigration. Even if settlers of English origin predominated in the region (as some scholars believe) the Ulster contingent would have been considerable.22 In Westmoreland County, Irish Presbyterian migrants and their children probably formed a majority of the county’s population of barely six8

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teen thousand at the time of the 1790 federal census. The author of an 1832 Pennsylvania gazetteer claimed that Irish and Germans predominated among the earliest settlers.23 Whatever their origins, in the 1780s and 1790s, Westmoreland County voters regularly elected and reelected Ulster-born advocates of radical democracy. In the extreme southwestern corner of Pennsylvania, Irish Presbyterians had a particularly strong presence in Washington County, described as the “most distinctively Scotch-Irish community in Western Pennsylvania.”24 (Washington County incorporated present-day Greene County until 1796.) Traveling north from Virginia (which claimed the region until 1781), many of the earliest arrivals settled along the rich river bottoms of the Monongahela, the county’s eastern boundary, and its tributaries. Many of the Irish Presbyterians settled in the interior of Washington County, particularly in the Chartiers Valley, and expanded outwards. Again banding together, Presbyterians represented a majority in some Washington County settlements reminiscent of their numerical dominance in some parishes in northern Ireland.25 Political crisis and political persecution increasingly drove emigration in the 1790s. In Ulster, Presbyterians provided much of both the leadership and membership of the Society of United Irishmen. Founded in 1791 as a pressure group for parliamentary reform, in two years the United Irishmen became an underground revolutionary movement seeking an Irish republic. The official suppression of the United Irishmen in 1794 and the martial law imposed on Ulster in 1797 added a sharp edge to the reasons spurring migration. In the immediate aftermath of the 1798 rebellion, Ulster Presbyterians fled repression and recrimination. The core of the Irish American community in western Pennsylvania during the early republic period appears to have been formed by those impelled to leave Ireland by contemporary political and economic difficulties. The 1801 Act of Union (creating the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland) contributed to an economic depression and the failed uprising of 1803, adding to migration.26 In Pittsburgh and its hinterland, as in Philadelphia, between 1783 and 1800, the Irish settled in such great numbers that “their arrival .  .  . spawned a more ethnocentric and self-conscious expression of their roles and identities in all aspects of life in their new homeland.”27 Republicanism melded several cohorts into a discernable, largely Presbyterian Irish diaspora in the United States. As elsewhere in the United States, increasing numbers of Presbyterian immigrants in the 1790s contributed personnel, leadership, and a strong ideological commitment to republicanism and the party associated with 9

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Thomas Jefferson. “Both contemporary observers and modern historians agree that a continuing and major source of Republican electoral strength from the early 1790s onward was provided by the votes of the foreign born,” wrote Edwin Carter II. “Among this group none were more determined or effective in their support of the Jeffersonian Republican Party than the Irish of the seaport cities of Baltimore, New York, and Philadelphia.”28 The numbers crossing the Atlantic were considerable. A recent attempt at scholarly consensus suggests that more than 250,000 arrived in the United States from the north of Ireland between 1783 and 1830— a number greater than the estimate of migrants who came during the colonial era. This follows earlier estimates of between 100,000 and 150,000 individuals from Ireland arriving in the 1783–1814 period, at least twothirds of whom were from Ulster and most of whom were Presbyterian.29 These immigrants tended to follow the settlement patterns of earlier arrivals, bringing many Irish Presbyterians to Pennsylvania. A 2016 historical study that convincingly argues that the migration of Irish Presbyterian ministers tracked the movement of the entire group states, “by the end of the 1790s, Pennsylvania had reasserted its dominance as the preferred place of settlement for immigrant Irish Presbyterian ministers, and the trend continued into the first decade of the nineteenth century.”30 While precise numbers are unavailable, travelers’ impressions convey a substantial Irish Presbyterian population in western Pennsylvania. A Scottish missionary passing through Pittsburgh in 1798 wrote home that “a great many of the inhabitants have come from Ireland. They seem to be an industrious people, and many of them religious.” Thomas Ashe, an Irish tourist who lingered in Pittsburgh for some months in 1806–1807, described the city’s inhabitants as largely Irish or of Irish origin. “The 9/10 of the people of pittsburg is Irish and the[y] are flocking here Every day,” a Methodist immigrant wrote home to Ulster in 1810.31 Many of the new arrivals followed the example and routes of relatives and friends from Ulster, encouraged by letters from home.32 By the early nineteenth century, the fact of Irish immigration into western Pennsylvania seems to have become familiar to an Ulster audience. The Belfast News-Letter in 1817 printed detailed advice to migrants offered by Clements Burleigh, a County Antrim man who settled in Westmoreland County at the turn of the nineteenth century. Burleigh counseled emigrants who he assumed would eventually arrive “at Pittsburgh, or Greensburgh, or any other town in the western parts of Pennsylvania.”33 A description of Pittsburgh’s population in 1824 listed the Irish first among the 10

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nationalities represented in the city, which was reported as having eight churches: four Presbyterian and one each for Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans, and Methodists. Significantly, the Presbyterian congregations included those of the Associate and Reformed Presbyterian denominations favored disproportionately by recent immigrants.34 Religion and ethnicity became near-identical and certainly mutually interdependent in the spate of the population movement. The Englishborn patron of Pittsburgh’s tiny, beleaguered Unitarian congregation lamented the dominance of “Irish Presbyterianism” in the western country.35 In 1810 an advertisement placed in a Washington, Pennsylvania newspaper announced the availability for sale of a three-hundred-acre tract in Westmoreland County. Among its other attractions, the “plantation” was reputed to be “within ten miles of a navigable stream of water” and located “convenient to two merchant mills, and a Presbyterian clergyman.” Presbyterians, it appears, were sufficiently numerous for the availability of their clergy to display advertising potential.36 The number of immigrants surging into and through western Pennsylvania led to notices seeking lost relations, sometimes decades before Irish-interest newspapers published “lost-friends” columns. Through an 1802 advertisement in the republican Tree of Liberty, relatives recently arrived in Baltimore sought contact with Robert Wiley, who was “from near Loughbricklands, in the county of Down, in Ireland.” The Pittsburgh Mercury attempted in 1814 to locate James McDowell, Drummaron, Parish of Tullylish, County Down, believed to have sailed to Philadelphia in 1787 and later living near French Creek in Pennsylvania.37 Census data on nationality did not become available until 1850, limiting a definitive judgment on the number of earlier cohorts of Irish immigrants in the region. Analysis of those immigrants applying for naturalization papers in Allegheny County courts from 1798 through 1840 suggests that an absolute majority of such immigrants—56  percent—had been born in Ireland.38 This is exactly the proportion reported for Philadelphia in 1789–1806.39 Further, 78 percent of applicants with identifiably Scottish surnames had been born in Ireland, underscoring the association between Irish migration and areas of Scots Presbyterian settlement in Ulster.40 Analysis of those listed as applying for naturalization in the courts of Washington County yields even more suggestive results. The absolute numbers for Washington County were lower, but the proportion was even more definitively Irish. In each of five years between 1802 and 1820, immigrants with Ireland as their place of birth represented the overwhelm11

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ing majority of those seeking naturalization in Washington County courts—from a low of 61 percent to a high of 98 percent. In 1802, for example, 70 immigrants became naturalized citizens. Of these, 58, or 83 percent, were listed as Irish-born. Of the 8 (11 percent) for whom no place of birth was listed, many, if not all, were likely of Irish origin. The 4 individuals recorded as having been born in France, England, and Great Britain comprised just 6  percent of the total. Most of these Irish-born immigrants had surnames that appear to have been of Scottish origin.41 Looking at the five years as a whole, of the twenty-four immigrants seeking naturalization in Washington County courts for whom a more specific place of birth is indicated, all hailed from the northern province of Ulster but two (born in County Sligo in northern Connacht). The documents do not contain information on cultural heritage or religious affiliation. But as in the case of the Allegheny County data, the frequency of Scottish surnames—one immigrant carried the suggestive moniker John Knox—tends to indicate a strong Presbyterian presence.42 The cohorts of Irish Presbyterians arriving in western Pennsylvania in the 1770s and 1780s replicated cultural practices exhibited by coreligionists from Ulster who settled in Pennsylvania and other colonies earlier in the eighteenth century. Such practices—including the use of placenames, the creation of ethnically discrete communities, intermarriage, and chain migration—link western Pennsylvania to colonial-era settlements and to Ulster. The communities built along Sewickley Creek in Westmoreland County or Chartiers Creek in Washington County became extensions of the new Irelands established on Pequea Creek in Lancaster County or Conodoguinet Creek in Cumberland County. In establishing homes in the western backcountry, Presbyterians continued what was already a decades-old practice in Pennsylvania of assigning names of Irish derivation to new settlements. The use of place-names of Ulster origin across the Appalachian chain represents a continuum in time and space, spanning the eighteenth century, Pennsylvania, and the Atlantic. The migrants who traversed the ocean, traveling along the margins of empire, faced the challenge of reorganizing their world symbolically. Identifying specific elements in their new environment—hills, streams, rock formations, particular fields—led to choices no less deliberate than decisions about which tree to fell or which acre to plow. Irishborn migrants understood and made sense of their new surroundings by reimaging their former Irish environments.43 Political jurisdictions received familiar Ulster place-names such as Derry, Donegal, Rostraver, Strabane, and Tyrone. Late eighteenth-century 12

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settlers frequently named their newly warranted land after homes in Ireland such as Antrim, Downpatrick, Fermanagh, and Newry. Among the earliest European settlers in what became Allegheny County, John McCullough obtained a farm on Turtle Creek for five pounds sterling and called it Armagh after his native county in Ireland. Farms in the Peters Creek valley, on the border of Allegheny and Washington Counties, were called Enniskillen, Saint Johnston, and Carrickfergus. Some farmers made use of the names of townlands, Ireland’s smallest territorial designation. Land grants in Westmoreland County received designation as Castleward and Balgowan, while two farms in Washington County sported variants of Ballymoney. And more than one hilltop had the designation Irish Ridge as a result of settlers’ perceived ethnicity.44 Migrants to western Pennsylvania after 1780 who arrived directly from Ireland and from Ulster-American enclaves in eastern and central Pennsylvania generally chose to create communities exclusive of others in what was notably, confusingly—and possibly alarmingly—an ethnically heterogeneous state. These decisions to congregate with other Irish Presbyterians—to settle, farm, and worship, and to drink, trade, and politick—suggests a means of establishing order and moral cohesion in a disorderly and often violent world.45 While the ethnoreligious boundaries by which Irish Presbyterians defined themselves should not be considered rigid, impermeable, and unchanging, individuals were conscious of the group’s uniqueness. Irish Anglicans and Quakers might be regarded with suspicion because of their religious views and previous histories of antagonism and possibly because of their differing and usually higher social status. However congenial the theological similarities might seem in retrospect, contemporary Ulster immigrants saw considerable religious and ethnic differences between themselves and New England Congregationalists. When David McClure visited and preached in Hannastown in the early 1770s, some “rigid presbyterians” objected that the missionary “did not belong to a presbytery, but was a N. England Congregational minister. To remove this objection in the minds of some zealous and worthy people of the presbyterian persuasion,” the peripatetic preacher produced papers from the Presbytery of Donegal (Pennsylvania) to demonstrate his legitimacy. Similarly, even the ethnic identity and religious background of Scots Presbyterians set them apart from their Irish-born brethren. If anything, the war years called greater attention to the development of separate Scots and Irish Presbyterian identities. As Ulster-Americans embraced the struggle for self-rule amid a developing sense of “Irish” ethnicity, they and other 13

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American patriots tended to perceive well-known Scots in Britain and in the rebellious colonies as reactionaries.46 Reconstituted communities provided immigrants with economic, social, and political aid, relieving the anxiety of isolation in the midst of strangers. Traveling in the vicinity of Hannastown, the missionary-diarist David McClure was struck by the warmth and friendliness of the Irish, which was in marked contrast, he thought, to their German neighbors. “Thankfull to the athur of our Beings,” exulted David Pollock in 1790 in a letter to Ireland from Westmoreland County, “and although in a Distant Country from my Relations have Not Been without good friends.” Later arrivals repeated the pattern of ethnic cohesiveness as settlement advanced north and west of the initial Monongahela basin settlements.47 Irish Presbyterian farms and meetinghouses became focal points of transplanted networks of families and friends, networks that bound together and linked discrete ethnic communities. When William Findley arrived in America in the 1760s, the future leader of backcountry democracy sought out those who, like him and his family, were Covenanters from County Antrim. Then in his early twenties, Findley first settled in the Ulster settlement of Octorara in Lancaster County, where he found friends of his father and acceptance by the local Covenanter society. After some months he moved westward to the Cumberland Valley, an area settled almost exclusively by Ulster migrants. There in 1769 he married Mary Cochran, the daughter of Irish Covenanters who had been present in the valley for nearly two decades. In Ireland Findley had been “intimately acquainted” with Matthew Linn. The Covenanter minister’s immigration to Pennsylvania in 1773 renewed their relationship.48 Findley’s experience is indicative of an early form of chain migration, the process in which those who have relocated assist family and friends to make the move through advice and encouragement if not financial support. Gradually improving eighteenth-century communications between Ireland and America facilitated further movement as migrants offered counsel and instruction.49 Letters home to Ireland had long extolled the advantages of western Pennsylvania and encouraged migration. Writing from Westmoreland County in 1794, David Pollock encouraged his nephew’s emigration (however hedged with qualifications): “this is a good country for a young man to come to who can behave himself discreetly and is inclined to industry.”50 The staged movement of an entire extended family embodied chain migration at work, as uncles and aunts, brothers and sisters gave detailed advice and encouragement to those still in Ireland. The Mellon family 14

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exemplified this extended-household chain migration in its own gradual transfer from Ireland to the United States over the course of nearly two decades. First, Thomas Mellon’s grand-uncle John Mellon immigrated to Pennsylvania in the 1790s, settling in Westmoreland County and later relocating to Crawford County in the northwest. Uncles Armour and Thomas reached Westmoreland in 1808. Eventually, Thomas Mellon wrote, “the time came when my grandparents and the residue of the family, excepting my father, concluded to follow those who had gone before to America.” Andrew Mellon, the father of Thomas, long pondered emigration. “Letters from America were eagerly looked for, and gazetteers and books of geography descriptive of the country and its resources eagerly read.” Thomas and his parents made their move in 1818, completing the extended family’s relocation.51 Inheritance encouraged chain migration. In colonial Pennsylvania as early as the 1740s, Ulster immigrants bequeathed property to relations in Ireland. Kevin Yeager suggests that such bequests of property by Pennsylvania residents to family members in Ulster reflected a continued “transoceanic bond of kinship” that prompted posthumous assistance and extended contemporary Irish inheritance practices to the American backcountry. Before 1815 Ulster farmers typically divided their holdings among their sons. In the transmontane Pennsylvania backcountry, the wills of immigrant Ulster farmers might likewise provide “for all the family” regardless of spatial distance.52 Such migration inducement and assistance are well attested in the postrevolutionary period. John Hays and four of his five sons arrived early in western Pennsylvania; in 1775 the elder Hays acquired several hundred acres on the headwaters of Chartiers Creek in Washington County. He left his property to his second son, who had remained in Ireland, and to two sons in Washington County. The beneficiaries of the 1797 will of Thomas McFadden included family and friends in County Down, including a Presbyterian minister.53 Ongoing communication between Ireland and America gave rise to other “transoceanic bonds of kinship,” as witnessed by cemetery memorials in County Down erected by the children of immigrants to western Pennsylvania.54 Immigrants and their children sustained a sense of community and a separate ethnic identity through intermarriage. Patterns of sociability, economic exchange, and religious life provided familiarity with potential life partners. Both communal labor (inevitably followed by “rustic jollity”) and religious rituals facilitated in-group marriage by bringing neighbors together for extended and intense periods. The backcountry Presbyterians’ emotionally intense communion seasons of sev15

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eral days, recalled Rev. Joseph Smith in 1854, served to promote “Christian friendship, and [enlarge] the sphere of their social intercourse and of their Christian sympathies. They paved the way for many happy marriages, and many auspicious nuptials.” The children of immigrants frequently sought others like themselves—with endogamous marriage occasionally taking the form of marriage to relatives or at least to those of the same surname.55 In cabins and fields and in the lanes leading to meetinghouses, mills, and markets, Irish Presbyterians spoke in the comfortably familiar accents of their former homes. Their Ulster Scots speech became a principal substratum of the regional dialect of American English associated with Pittsburgh. Like their distinctive creeds, their speech defined them as a people apart, a distinctive language community noticeably unlike the majority. A runaway servant of Ulster origin, like Charles Barr, could be identified by his “broad” speech. Although Hugh Henry Brackenridge wrote poetry in Scots, he ridiculed the speech of his political nemesis, the County Antrim–born William Findley. Following a reprimand by fellow Pennsylvania legislators for use of “personalities,” Findley reportedly assured Brackenridge, “I will not noo be pearsnal, for when I was pearsnal before, it was na weel tawken.” The Irish Presbyterian farmers who opposed the federal excise tax on distilled spirits, as Findley did, could be distinguished by their speech as well as by their politics. When hastily aroused militiamen fired the opening shots of the brief insurrection, a federal official attempted to remonstrate with the angry farmers. To his confusion, the marshal discovered the menacing militiamen “answered in a language peculiar to themselves.” With their language, customs, networks of family and friends, oppositional politics, and above all, their devotion to their Irish interpretations of Reformed Christianity, Ulster Presbyterians were a people “peculiar to themselves.”56 Between 1770 and 1830, noticeable if not substantial numbers of Irish Presbyterians arrived in western Pennsylvania. They chose to leave Ireland and come to America at different times and under different conditions, in response both to developments within Ireland and perceived advantages across the Atlantic. In western Pennsylvania the newcomers often gave their new homes the names of places associated with childhood, family and friends left behind in Ireland. They farmed, traded, socialized, and married other Irish Presbyterians. And in replicating an experience central to their lives in Ireland, they met together for worship.

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“A Social Combination” 

Constructing Presbyterianism in Western Pennsylvania

It was pleasing to find [in the new settlements] some zealous and pious persons, who came forward, and willingly devoted their time and labours to form the people into society, for the purpose of the public worship of God . . . a social combination among the disconnected settlers, from whence Churches of Christ afterwards arose, and ministers and ordinances settled and maintained. DAVID MCCLURE, NOVEMBER 1772

I

n both the north of Ireland and in Pennsylvania’s frontier west, Presbyterians consciously and intentionally set themselves off from others by organizing a local religious institutional infrastructure. The initial “social combinations” for prayer and worship became congregations, which in turn established the presbyteries basic to the Presbyterian ecclesiological system. From early in the eighteenth century, when they represented about one-third of the population of about 1  million inhabitants in Ireland’s most populous province, Ulster Presbyterians defined themselves through attachment to Reformed theology and a geographically extensive institutional apparatus. Congregations, sessions, presbyteries, subsynods, and a synod worked together to create and maintain a distinct ethnoreligious community across the province while reinforcing differences between Presbyterianism and both the official Church of Ireland and Roman Catholicism. Ireland’s “Presbyterian Revolution” in the early 17

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eighteenth century in effect erected an unofficial, semilegal national church, a state within a state. Here, Peter Brooke writes, was “a whole community organised according to its own principles.”1 Traveling across the Atlantic, migrants brought with them varieties of Presbyterianism developed out of their Irish experiences as “second-class subjects in a second-class kingdom” subjected to civil penalties and economic subordination.2 From the beginning, Irish Presbyterians who settled west of the Appalachian Mountains attempted to create a new Ulster in the backcountry—and succeeded to the extent of replicating most of the Old World’s querulous Presbyterian varieties. From their experiences in Ulster and in Pennsylvania, they sought to build a new, God-fearing Ireland in the transmontane West, one untrammeled by an established church and suspect religious practices. Early in that process, they gathered together as worship societies and constructed meetinghouses, reconstructing principal elements of their lives in Ireland. Their meetinghouses and gatherings for praise, prayer, and worship were at the centers of their new worlds. The Presbyterian congregations organized within the years of the earliest settlement and later in response to ongoing arrivals from Ireland represented the living, pulsating hearts of immigrant communities. Meetinghouses served as focal points of social interaction. Congregations became centers of treasured rituals of integration and reconciliation, sources of instruction, and keepers of the standards of the creedal confessions that differentiated these immigrant Irish families from those around them. Their Presbyterianism linked migrants settled in western Pennsylvania back to communities across the mountains to central and eastern Pennsylvania and thence to Ulster. Within each migrant cohort, newcomers from Ireland created opportunities for worship and joined faith communities. The organization of Presbyterian congregations is the most crucial continuity between prerevolutionary and postrevolutionary migration streams. As worship communities, congregations expressed a communal faith that divine providence would equip newcomers to endure in the midst of hardship. And the migrant cohorts arriving in the 1770s and 1780s confronted elementary challenges to their survival, particularly arising from both vicious border warfare and the dangers and difficulties inherent in transforming the environment. The creation of faith communities represented both the hope of survival and a means to survival. To those of European origin, western Pennsylvania represented a place of both great danger and limitless opportunity. The perceived pos18

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sibilities west of the mountains trumped the uncertainties of the frontier for the families and individuals who trekked over the Alleghenies in the 1770s and 1780s. Transatlantic migration resumed with the formal conclusion of hostilities, adding to the numbers of Irish Presbyterians crossing the mountains. But border warfare persisted, bringing further tragedy to indigenous people and newly arrived Irish alike.3 Frontier residents often had little recourse but to look to each other for mutual defense and encouragement. Settlers took refuge in blockhouses, fortified farmhouses, or any stoutly constructed home in the neighborhood that might provide a modicum of protection.4 The exigencies of war encouraged neighborliness, mutual aid, and reliance on faith—all conducive to the organization of religious societies. Some settlers embraced confession of sin and appeals to divine providence as effectual responses to fear and suffering. Amid the retaliatory bloodletting and terror evoked by Native American raids, clusters of Irish Presbyterians engaged in communal prayer. Fervent expressions of faith countered dread. At least one revival occurred within a frontier fort where families, huddled for protection, had organized a prayer society. Responsible for the conversion of perhaps ten persons, this revival occurred intermittently between 1775 and 1777 within and near Vance’s Fort in the Cross Creek region in Washington County.5 A wave of revivals occurred in late 1781 against the backdrop of continuing fears of sudden death and destruction at the hands of raiders. All but two of the eleven congregations organized within Washington County before 1785 experienced revivals.6 For a time, uncertainty created by the perceived threat shaped the rhythms of homestead farming and communal worship, giving rise to an indigenous Ulster-American folklore. Some dutiful but cautious Presbyterians among the early settlers agreed that on the Sabbath, “if the hoot of the night owl was heard until late in the forenoon [morning] there were Indians in the neighborhood, and there would be no preaching that day.” “I have often witnessed the consternation of a whole neighborhood, in consequence of a few screeches of owls,” wrote a one-time child of the frontier. Likewise exercising caution, the organizers of the Presbytery of Redstone in 1781 made a last-minute decision to move the site of the inaugural meeting from Laurel Hill Church in Fayette County to the more centrally located Pigeon Creek Church in Washington County, “by reason of the incursions of the savages.” Alarm over Indian raids forced cancelation of the second and third meetings planned by the new presbytery.7 19

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Family traditions recalled victims and survivals of incursions. Rev. James Power, a founder-member of the Redstone Presbytery, was repeatedly reported slain by native warriors as he traveled between his home and the congregations he served in Fayette and Westmoreland Counties. Power preached at Proctor’s Tent at the time of the 1782 Indian-British raid on Hannastown, less than ten miles from that destructive melee. Power’s family heard of the raid hours before they learned he was safe. In Washington County stories were told of how “meetings and revivals went on while Indians were swarming in the surrounding woods and laying waste the settlements.”8 The youthful immigrant Thomas Mellon heard such reports in his rural Westmoreland County neighborhood in the 1820s. He wrote, “The old people yet living when we came there were never tired of relating the local horrors of the settlement: how certain families were massacred and burned in their cabins; how at one time when the Indians had come suddenly upon the settlement and the children were at school, the teacher dismissed them to hide in the woods and thickets as best they could, and fled to take his chances for life or death under similar conditions.” These incidents, Mellon thought, called to mind “similar atrocities in the massacres in Ulster by the native Irish, in 1641.”9 Whatever the perceived dangers of Native American incursions, the earliest migrants faced the strenuous requirement of constructing homes and creating farmland by leveling and clearing forests. The earliest migrants looked for cheap land and good neighbors to fulfill their dream of independence from landlords and the gentry’s government in a recreated Ulster Presbyterian society. Whether from east of the mountains or arriving directly from Ireland, settlers had no choice but to make do with the available resources within the forests. Rough tillage and hastily built, rudimentary structures preceded cleared land and log cabins constructed to be more secure and long-lasting.10 Gradually, cabins modeled on the plan of Ulster cottages gave way to wood-frame houses and then structures of brick and stone.11 The Presbyterian meetinghouses built in the Pennsylvania backcountry followed the same trajectory: from Pittsburgh to the most remote valley, the earliest church buildings were constructed of logs. Most rural congregations met in oversized log cabins constructed with notched logs. Floors consisted of puncheons split from logs, the seats split logs with legs. Already status conscious in 1786, the Pittsburgh congregation refined the rural design: village dwellers boasted a meetinghouse with squared timber. The original Montour Run meetinghouse in western 20

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Allegheny County, though somewhat sophisticated in its cruciform shape when constructed in 1789, was nonetheless built around a tree stump chosen as a pulpit. Some larger buildings were built in cruciform shape with twelve sides, apparently for no other reason than strength and convenience. The ubiquitous log structures of early settlement would be replaced by wood-frame and brick buildings generally during the second quarter of the nineteenth century.12 Initially some congregations met in the woods, perhaps sitting on split logs and providing a crude wooden shelter (called a “tent”) for the preacher and Bible. Unintentionally referencing ancient Celts, several early congregations met for worship under canopies of oak leaves. For two years members of the Associate Presbyterian Congregation of Deer Creek in Mercer County worshiped “at the traditional ‘tent’ in a thick grove” until the agreed-upon day in 1810 when each family hewed and delivered logs, then collectively raised the congregation’s first church building.13 Organizing a congregation and building a meetinghouse represented essential components of constructing community. Church buildings arose when land and hands could be assembled. The communal labor that constructed meetinghouses, often in a day or two, also erected barns. Neighbors gathered for house buildings, barn raisings, flax pullings, hay making, and corn huskings as they did to raise the meetinghouses that would be the physical embodiment of community and faith. Such communal labor was essential to their communities’ early sustainability materially, emotionally, and culturally. “The intense and indispensable neighbourliness” of such events, David Noel Doyle has observed, provided a basis upon which society could be re-created in the backcountry. Assistance received in building a barn or cabin, or in log-rolling or stump-grubbing, helped secure the basics of life while creating a sense of community. So did the convivial gatherings that followed communal labor—opportunities for exchanges of news, storytelling, music and song, “rough and even violent sports,” and frequent recourse to the whiskey jug.14 The power asserted by a community through communal labor—to assist and in assisting to integrate an individual into the community, or to ostracize by denying assistance—paralleled the power exercised by a Presbyterian congregation’s ministers and elders in controlling access to integrative ritual. Such communalism was crucial to the authority of Presbyterian congregations in defining the boundaries of the community. Distinct ethnoreligious communities owed their existence both to prerevolutionary and postrevolutionary cohorts of Irish Presbyterian 21

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migrants to western Pennsylvania. The proliferation of Presbyterian churches across Pennsylvania and the number of congregations in western Pennsylvania resulted largely from eighteenth-century migration of Irish Presbyterians, who were already conspicuous in the colonial Pennsylvanian backcountry. A 1775 enumeration of congregations (but not congregants) in the state ranked Presbyterians third after Lutherans and German Reformed, respectively. A Presbyterian population increase in western Pennsylvania after 1770 came as a steady stream of settlers entered the region from eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia, as well as Ireland.15 In predominantly Irish communities in the valleys of western Pennsylvania rivers and creeks, Presbyterian congregations became the earliest and, for a time, the only religious organizations. Near the west-flowing Buffalo Creek in what became Washington County, Irish and Scottish Seceders worshiped together among oak trees on a hill. They formally organized the Buffalo Associate Presbyterian congregation in 1775. The Presbyterian Congregation of Upper Buffalo built its log meetinghouse in 1779, four years before the organization of Washington’s Hopewell Township. For more than a generation, the only other church in Hopewell was the Associate Reformed congregation organized in the village of West Middleton.16 As the taxable population in western Pennsylvania expanded overall by an estimated 121.2 percent between 1779 and 1786, Washington County became the most populous in southwestern Pennsylvania. That county’s nineteen Presbyterian congregations were organized between 1774 and 1798, thirteen of them before 1790: “the largest proportion of Presbyterian churches to be found in any county west of the Alleghenies,” according to Wayland F. Dunaway. The location of Presbyterian congregations reflects the uneven distribution of Irish settlers within that ethnically heterogeneous county. Bordered on the east by the Monongahela River, the easternmost townships of Fallowfield and Pike Run received settlers predominantly of English origin; the earliest religious organizations included societies of Baptists, Friends, Episcopalians, and Methodists. However, settlers of Irish origin predominated along Chartiers Creek and its tributaries in north-central Washington; a map published in 1817 indicates only Presbyterian churches there, in stark contrast to the detail shown for the two riverine townships.17 Early settlers in Westmoreland County organized seven Presbyterian congregations before the Revolutionary War and five more before 1795. Salem Presbyterian Church in Derry Township, among the earliest, had 22

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been organized by several interrelated families who left the lower Bann Valley of northern County Derry in 1772. All had been members of the Presbyterian congregation in the Parish of Dunboe.18 Ten Presbyterian congregations were organized in Allegheny County between 1771 and 1794, seven of them by 1790. An overwhelmingly Ulster settlement near Peters Creek—which included individuals who gave their newly acquired farms Irish place-names—by 1779 had organized a Presbyterian congregation in what would later become Allegheny County. For convenience of travel on the Sabbath, the congregation split into two—Bethel and Lebanon—in the mid-1780s. (Rules promulgated in 1789, likely based on such experiences, specified that churches were to be at least eight or nine miles distant from one another.)19 The expansion of the backcountry population and consequent growth of Presbyterian congregations led the Synod of New York and Philadelphia in May 1781 to approve the creation of the first presbytery west of the Allegheny Mountains. The Presbytery of Redstone took its name from a Monongahela River outpost and nearby creek in Fayette County. However, three of the four ministers who attended the first meeting of presbytery in September 1781 lived and worked in the more densely populated territory that became Washington County.20 As in Ulster the organization of presbyteries in eighteenth-century America represented a means of achieving cohesion and order through the creation of a Presbyterian system. Ulster’s early presbyteries faced a struggle with an uncertain outcome in their efforts to impose discipline upon sessions; eighteenth-century Pennsylvania presbyteries faced tasks equally daunting in attempting to regulate the growth of Presbyterianism over an extensive, thinly populated territory and within geographically diverse settlements. Based in the older Ulster settlements east of the mountains, the Donegal Presbytery had attempted to organize congregations, regulate sessions, and dispatch ministers throughout the vast territory to the west before the organization of the Redstone Presbytery.21 The western Presbyterian population’s rapid expanse over the following decade necessitated the erection of the Presbytery of Ohio out of Redstone Presbytery in 1793. The Ohio Presbytery’s five ministers in that year had responsibility for more than twenty congregations west of the Monongahela River in western Pennsylvania and parts of what are now Ohio and the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia. Continuing population growth within the region and among Presbyterians led to further reorganization in the early nineteenth century.22 The search for more readily available land by thousands of newcom23

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ers, including Presbyterians of Irish origin, helps explain the creation of new presbyteries north and west of Pittsburgh. The west-central counties of Butler and Mercer saw 102 and 65 rural churches, respectively, organized in the nineteenth century. Of these, Presbyterian churches represented a relative plurality (42 percent) in Butler and numbered second in Mercer (34 percent). Heavily rural in 1830, both counties appear to have had substantial populations of Irish origins.23 In May 1802 the mainstream church organized the Presbytery of Erie, with responsibility for congregations north and west of the Ohio and Allegheny Rivers. A further recognition of growth came later in 1802 when the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States created the Synod of Pittsburgh, comprised of the Redstone, Ohio, and Erie Presbyteries. Additional presbyteries followed: Hartford (1808) and Allegheny (1820), to better accommodate the congregations in northwestern Pennsylvania and Ohio; in 1819 the Washington Presbytery assumed responsibility for congregations in southern Washington County and Greene County in southwestern Pennsylvania and the more remote areas of West Virginia’s backcountry (including the Northern Panhandle). The Ohio Presbytery continued to coordinate the work of ministers in northern Washington and southern Allegheny Counties. From Redstone, which (on paper) stretched from the New York border into Virginia, came the Blairsville Presbytery in 1830. The new presbytery was composed of congregations in eastern Allegheny County, northern Westmoreland County, and those to the north in Armstrong and Indiana Counties.24 As in the colonial-era settlements east of the mountains, Presbyterianism in postrevolutionary western Pennsylvania encompassed denominations with origins in Old-World controversies. These sects were relatively small in numerical terms, often querulous and focused on the theological issues of another time and place. But it was precisely their old-country style and concerns and their attachment to traditional confessional standards that won them a following among Irish Presbyterian immigrants and an amplified voice within the region. The Seceders—so-called because of a 1730s secession from the Church of Scotland—organized the Associate Presbytery of Pennsylvania in 1753 and a New York Presbytery in 1776. In the old countries the Secession Church had split into two factions, but in the colonies Burgher Seceders and Antiburgher Seceders largely agreed to put aside the OldWorld divisions. Meanwhile, the Reformed Presbytery in America came into existence in 1774 with the arrival of two Covenanter ministers from

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Ireland in the early 1770s to assist a Scottish missionary long at work in the colonies. The Revolutionary War created a climate conducive for amalgamation by the scattered congregations of largely Irish migrants. Both Covenanters and Seceders supported the military struggle that began in 1775; Seceder ministers served as chaplains in the American army.25 Disavowal of British sovereignty facilitated the parallel disconnection between the American churches and their Scottish institutional parents. A merger in 1782 created a new denomination, independent and free from foreign control: the Associate Reformed Church.26 In western Pennsylvania the new denomination became popularly known as the Union Church and its adherents as Union Seceders. Old-World antagonisms were not so easily dispelled by New-World optimism, however. The refusal of two Seceder ministers to enter the union became the basis of a surviving Associate Presbytery. The arrival of a new cohort of migrant Irish Covenanter clergy in the politically tumultuous 1790s made possible the reorganization of the Reformed Presbytery. These denominations all benefited from the post-1783 resumption of Irish immigration. Associate Reformed, Associate, and Reformed congregations became the spiritual homes in the United States of immigrant Irish Presbyterians dissatisfied with the mainstream American church. These traditionalist faith communities especially attracted those immigrants who in Ireland had been communicants of one of the two varieties of the Secession Church in Ulster, where the Seceders represented the “growth sector” of Irish Presbyterianism in the second half of the eighteenth century.27 Recent immigrants especially felt uncomfortable in American Presbyterian services in which hymns had replaced traditional psalm singing. The abandonment of familiar ritual and points of doctrine threatened the cohesion of the Irish Presbyterian community by seeming to blur ethnoreligious boundaries in Ireland and America. The decision of the reconstituted Presbyterian Church to alter the Westminster Standards in 1788 seemed to some a troubling deviation from fundamental principle, the creedal equivalent of upending the ordered Presbyterian ecclesiology of sessions, presbyteries, and synods. The difficulties missionary David McClure encountered in Hannastown in the early 1770s due to his New England background are suggestive of the suspicion with which those recently arrived from Ireland viewed American (and specifically Congregationalist) influences on Presbyterianism. The perception of declension

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and deviation within American churches prompted many Presbyterians, especially new immigrants, to affiliate with the more traditionally minded varieties of Presbyterianism.28 In western Pennsylvania as in Ulster, Seceders and Covenanters flourished by offering a traditional-minded alternative to the mainstream church and by responding to the needs of underserved areas of late settlement. The sects contended theologically and ecclesiologically with the mainstream church in competing directly with their larger rival for the hearts and minds of Irish Presbyterians. From the late eighteenth century onward, mainstream congregations existed in close proximity with those of the dissenting denominations, often the product of schism. Many congregations of the dissenting denominations existed on the margins—and beyond the margins—of early European settlement in the region, even at a time when Presbyterianism was a largely rural phenomenon. Associate and Associate Reformed congregations at times outnumbered mainstream Presbyterian congregations in Washington County west of Chartiers Creek. The hills and valleys surrounding Pittsburgh became the heartland of Associate Presbyterianism in the early nineteenth century. Growing numbers of immigrant Antiburgher Seceders made possible organization of the Associate Synod of North America in 1801, with two of the five constituent presbyteries—Chartiers and Ohio—based in western Pennsylvania. Thirty percent of all Associate Presbyterian communicants in 1815 lived within Chartiers Presbytery; 58.5  percent lived within the bounds of Chartiers and Ohio. Those 2 presbyteries claimed 61 percent of the reported number of families and nearly half of the 33 ministers. Ten years later, 3 western Pennsylvania–based presbyteries (Allegheny, Chartiers, Ohio) had nearly half of the denomination’s 50 ministers, 45 percent of the one 104 congregations, 78 percent of the 3,245 families, and 57 percent of all 8,813 communicants.29 The Associate Reformed Church grew more slowly at first, eventually becoming significantly larger than either than its Associate or Reformed Presbyterian relatives. The American-made denomination was riven by expulsion and secession in the first two decades after its founding in 1782. Irish immigration became crucial to its expansion in the nineteenth century, especially as immigrants who had been in communion with the Burgher Seceder Synod in Ireland (the larger of the two Secession churches) tended to join the Associate Reformed Church. And Burgher Seceders, clergy and laity both, were more inclined than their Antiburgher brethren to join the United Irishmen in the late 1790s and to seek American exile 26

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as a result of political difference and persecution. As many as ten Burgher Seceder ministers who came to Pennsylvania within a few years of the Rebellion of 1798 may have had some connections with the revolutionary movement.30 Two Irish-born ministers, John Riddell and Joseph Kerr, emerged as capable regional (and national) leaders of the Associate Reformed Church in the early nineteenth century. Growth became possible with the addition of other recently emigrated Irish ministers and a decisive break from a national church viewed as temporizing and Americanizing. The secession in 1821 from the General Synod by western Pennsylvania’s Monongahela Presbytery and the Presbyteries of Kentucky and Ohio created the Associate Reformed Synod of the West. The creation of new presbyteries led to the subdivision of the Synod of the West into two synods in 1839. By 1845 a recent immigrant could describe the Associate Reformed Church in western Pennsylvania as “exactly the same as the Presbyterian church in Ireland”—an American home for newly arrived Irish Presbyterians.31 Similar to the two other minority Presbyterian denominations, emigration from Ulster fueled expansion of the Reformed Presbyterian Church. The Reformed Presbyterians, or Covenanters, derived from the remnant in Ulster and Scotland who insisted on the continuing validity and necessary implementation of the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643. This document, a compact between Scots Presbyterians and English Parliamentarians regarded by some as an irrevocable agreement with God, required the imposition of Presbyterianism throughout the British Isles. Covenanters believed that official failure to fulfill this holy bargain condemned governments as immoral and damned those churches that condoned such apostasy. The effects of emigration, death, and disagreement brought about the collapse of the first Reformed Presbytery in Ireland in 1779. The reorganization of the Irish presbytery in 1792 with six ministers and twelve congregations owed much to the leadership of Rev. William Stavely.32 Under Stavely’s leadership Reformed Presbyterians explored interstices among republicanism, the social, economic, and political grievances of Presbyterians in Ulster, and their denomination’s historical theological critique of the British constitution.33 As a result, Irish Covenanters seemed to have been disproportionately in sympathy with the United Irishmen. Rev. James McKinney, a native of Cookstown, County Tyrone, was among those whose bold advocacy of biblically derived rights provoked consternation among the authorities and accusations of connection to the United Irishmen. He fled to the 27

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United States in 1793.34 Rev. William Gibson followed four years later. He ministered first in northern Vermont before making his home in Pennsylvania’s Washington County, where a same-named cousin had previously settled.35 In Ulster, probationers John Black and Samuel Brown Wylie contributed to the Covenanter protests against immoral government, which they regarded as exemplified by the abuses under martial law in 1797. They hurriedly left Ireland together with Rev. Gibson, his family, and other Covenanters.36 Reuniting in Philadelphia in the spring of 1798, the brothers-in-law McKinney and Gibson constituted themselves as the Reformed Presbytery in North America—despite the lack of any authorization to do so from either Ireland or Scotland. Black and Wylie, taken under the care of the new presbytery, were licensed to preach in 1799. The following year Wylie became the first Covenanter minister ordained in the United States.37 The new presbytery became a spiritual home for recent immigrants and a rallying point for those Covenanters unhappy with the 1782 union with the Seceders, which had formed the Associate Reformed Church. Three regional committees existed in 1802—New York and Vermont, Pennsylvania and Maryland, and the Carolinas. In 1809 the committees became presbyteries, and the Reformed Presbytery became the General Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church. A western presbytery was established in 1816, out of which the Pittsburgh Presbytery emerged three years later.38 None of the three denominations enjoyed large numbers of members compared to the mainstream Presbyterian Church. The three Seceder presbyteries with congregations in western Pennsylvania reported 23 ministers and a total of 5,021 communicants in 1825. By contrast, in 1831 the mainstream Blairsville Presbytery consisted of 13 ministers, 23 congregations, and more than 3,000 communicants—after only one year of existence and encompassing a much smaller territory. At the turn of the nineteenth century, western Pennsylvania Presbyterianism was as overwhelmingly rural as the region’s population. Presbyterian meetinghouses could be found in villages and towns, many of which grew up around these churches. Artisans, laborers, merchants, and professional men, including Presbyterians often of Irish origin, settled in market towns and contributed to their rapid growth in power and wealth. Presbyterian churches in towns such as Washington and Pittsburgh enjoyed enhanced prestige as the market revolution transformed the significance of urbanization.39 The election of Ebenezer Denny, a prominent 28

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member of First Presbyterian Church, as the first mayor of Pittsburgh in 1816 confirmed the political, economic, and social dominance of an emerging elite. As in the countryside, the development of Presbyterianism in Pittsburgh relied on continuing immigration from Ulster, relocation within Pennsylvania, and natural increase. In Pittsburgh, that development was especially driven and shaped by social class, economic differences, and political rivalries. Pittsburgh’s mainstream Presbyterian congregation split in two in the early 1800s, a division that seems to have been based as much on political as religious disagreement. In the first decade of the nineteenth century, Pittsburgh had a noticeable Irish presence and two Presbyterian churches and a Reformed Presbyterian meetinghouse among the town’s six church buildings.40 Pittsburgh’s Third Presbyterian Church came into existence in 1833, serving an urban population in the expanding city’s downtown. What became Fourth Presbyterian began in 1828 as a Sunday school mission of Second Presbyterian. In 1830 the congregation was formally organized as the Presbyterian Church of the North Liberties, a working-class and industrial suburb of Pittsburgh, which was then an independent borough. Within a few years, however, the North Liberties became attached to Pittsburgh, the Presbyterian Church became Fourth Pittsburgh, and the former suburb became the malodorous Fifth Ward, a densely packed assortment of workshops, factories, slaughterhouses, and homes of recent immigrants. Pittsburgh’s mainstream congregations coexisted—and competed— with congregations organized by Associate Presbyterian, Associate Reformed, and Reformed Presbyterian denominations.41 Urban Seceders and Covenanters largely spanned the range of Pittsburgh’s social strata but were generally poorer than average members of the mainstream church. Numerous immigrants, artisans, and laborers found a spiritual home in Pittsburgh’s Seceder congregation. To be sure, the congregation’s elders and trustees boasted a merchant and a tallow chandler and included the borough collector of taxes, a justice of the peace, the town sheriff, and a town councilman. However, two of these politically prominent individuals worked as carpenter and cabinetmaker, respectively. Among other trades, the Associate congregation attracted a couple of merchants, a tavern owner, a widow who kept a boarding house, a wagonmaker, a shoemaker, machinist, bricklayer, iron founder, and drayman, as well as tin- and coppersmiths, coopers, and several laborers and weavers. In the same decade, the original officers of Pittsburgh’s Associate Reformed congregation included a brewer, a distiller, a carpenter, a white29

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smith, and a boot- and shoemaker.42 As the urban expression of a largely rural phenomenon, the Associate Reformed Church grew slowly. Although a congregation had been organized (more or less) in Pittsburgh from the early 1790s, the first pastor was not called until 1816. Union Seceders across the river in Alleghenytown organized an Associate Reformed congregation there in 1831; a few years later came Pittsburgh Second and Third (the latter based in the clamorous, congested Fifth Ward).43 The Seceders’ and Covenanters’ traditionalism appealed to lower-class immigrants. The urban elite may have regarded these denominations’ predilection for comfortably old-country religion a barrier to assimilation and grounds for disdain, heightened, perhaps, by lower-class status. The Pittsburgh Humane Society, organized in 1813 to “alleviate the distresses of the poor,” included seven clergymen, none of them Catholics, Lutherans, or Covenanters. “Unlike the First and Second Presbyterian Churches in Pittsburgh,” writes Joseph Rishel, “the Covenanters were a sect, lower-class and doctrinally strict. To the clergymen of the Pittsburgh Humane Society, they were socially unacceptable. Like the Catholics and Lutherans, Covenanters were not of their class.”44 In towns, villages, and the rolling farmland wrested from forests, Presbyterians from Ireland organized congregations that served as the nerve centers of ethnoreligious communities and the interpreters and transmitters of rituals and values brought from Ulster. Their variants of Presbyterianism largely defined the denomination’s normative culture in western Pennsylvania. The continuing immigration of Irish Presbyterians into the region during the early nineteenth century became central to the future of all the various denominations. Each gained new clergy, new communicants, and an expanded audience. The often pedantic concerns and peculiar theologies, fastidious and already old-fashioned, may have limited the smaller denominations’ appeal to the general public, but their disputations did not remain nor necessarily take place only within the narrowly circumscribed ranks of true believers. Rather, these fervently believed and fiercely argued polemics sliced through denominational lines; controversies gained life by capturing the attention of wider audiences within intersecting American-born and Irish-born Presbyterian communities.

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Irish Presbyterian Ritual and Discipline in the Pennsylvania Countryside 

O

n 13 July 1782, a raiding party of native warriors and British troops torched the village of Hannastown in Westmoreland County, a largely Irish Presbyterian settlement which served as the administrative capital of western Pennsylvania. Later that year, families in the neighborhood safely brought in their harvest and gathered together to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Rev. James Power, son of an Irish farmer, administered the elements of communion. Rev. John McMillan, the son of immigrants from County Antrim, assisted Power and preached throughout the four-day sacramental occasion. A month earlier, Covenanters living in scattered settlements around western Pennsylvania met in the forks of the Youghiogheny and also shared in the sacred feast of bread and wine, the Forks of Yough society having purchased more than two gallons of the beverage for this purpose.1 Emotive and uplifting and occurring only a few times a year, these

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occasions figured prominently in the lives of Irish Presbyterians settled in western Pennsylvania in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Through its communal nature, the celebration of the Lord’s Supper became a primary means by which immigrant Irish Presbyterians recreated a sense of the proper relationship with their God they believed a covenanted people ought to know and experience. Their Reformed theology recognized two sacraments, communion and baptism. But nonsacramental expressions of piety and communal faith—discipline and punishment, family and social worship, public covenanting, and observance of fast days—similarly served as rituals that both reintegrated and excluded members of the community. Sacramental occasions and other transplanted, collective rituals became instrumental in the renewal and formation of an ethnoreligious identity. Elders elected from within congregations together with ministers made the decisions about when communion would take place and who would be eligible for the sacraments. Known as “sessions,” these councils imposed church discipline, organized rituals, and invoked the traditions that reminded believers of their sacred obligations and communal responsibilities. Such actions required the consent of a community committed to abide by a sense of covenant. Sessions thus helped to identify and create a community as Presbyterian, relying on Irish experience. Pulpits of newly organized congregations often went vacant in periods of expansion and growth, particularly in early days of transition from frontier to settled rural society. Committees of elders elected by their neighbors in the settlements taking shape along scattered waterways created a sense of discernable Presbyterian order and custom. Sessions, through their communications with presbyteries, provided the necessary link to wider communities of faith. But more than presbyteries or synods, sessions helped give expression to a local community’s sense of ethnoreligious identity through the immediacy of their deliberations and judgments. Sessions thus represented the heart of early nineteenth-century Presbyterian religious life, the point of exchange between institutional imperative and exigencies of rural life, between pulpit and pew, published precepts and folk religion, dogma and custom. The work of sessions pulsated with rhythms of sowing and harvest, baptism and communion. The symbolic power of sacrament and the practical power of sessions lay ultimately in community. Rituals directed by sessions possessed an ability to reintegrate and reinvigorate only to the extent that elders and ministers chose to insist on church standards and laity consented to some-

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times humiliating punishment and time-consuming rites inimical to worldly pursuits. The Lord’s Supper represented the community’s most significant, uplifting, and unifying event. Presbyterians in the United States, Ireland, and Scotland eagerly anticipated these times of communal repentance and prayer. The Donegal congregation in Westmoreland County recalled the communion season as “the greatest days of the year.”2 Deep associations with family, friends, and homes past and present gave these occasions considerable emotional power.3 Western Pennsylvania Presbyterians followed the Ulster practice, adapted from earlier Scottish custom, of an extended sacramental occasion consisting of “a fast-day on Thursday, spiritual preparation on Friday, public worship and the examination of communicants on Saturday, communion on Sunday, and services of thanksgiving on Monday.” Like Presbyterians in Ireland, those in western Pennsylvania celebrated the Lord’s Supper two or three times a year. The timing followed the rhythms of the agricultural year. Communion seasons took place in late spring (April through June) and early autumn (September or October), with some congregations celebrating the Lord’s Supper in February or March. In the early years of European settlement, the paucity of settled clergy reinforced custom to constrain frequency, as an ordained minister was required to administer the sacrament.4 The infrequency of communion seasons heightened their role as sociable, even festive, and symbolic events. Those from other congregations, and especially those traveling from outlying areas, would stay overnight during the five-day period. Families living closest to the communion site prepared food for guests and opened their homes to travelers. Livestock would be butchered to provide fresh meat for visitors. The commensality surrounding communion served as an extension of the sacrament itself, symbolizing participation in the ethnoreligious community as well as membership in the body of Christ.5 Hundreds sometimes gathered from congregations close by or a day’s journey away. Perhaps as many as sixty people attended a communion season in the late summer of 1805 on the farm of Samuel Scott on Campbell’s Run in western Allegheny County, some traveling as far as thirty miles on horseback. Scott apparently provided food and drink; many slept in Scott’s house or in his barn during the sacramental occasion. As extended, multigenerational families experienced five days of heightened togetherness, the very sociability of communion seasons tended to

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strengthen ethnoreligious bonds by facilitating endogamous marriage. Rev. Joseph Smith, writing in 1854, recalled how sacramental occasions “paved the way for many happy marriages and many auspicious nuptials.”6 Due to the crowds, communion season preaching often took place out of doors. Before frontier communities constructed meetinghouses, the faithful often gathered in the woods and sometimes worshiped under oak trees. Ministers spoke from platforms, shielded from the elements by “tents,” which were simple coverings of boards. Thomas Mellon recalled “Duff’s Tent” from his Westmoreland County youth in the 1820s: “an eight by ten, box-shaped structure boarded up and roofed, for a pulpit.”7 Elders guarded the entrance to the tables containing the communion bread and wine, a practice known as “fencing the tables.” Coin-like tokens, usually made of lead and often bearing the initials of the church or its minister, served as a kind of admittance ticket. Inside or outside, communicants sat down to the Lord’s Supper at long tables; inside meetinghouses, the tables were set up in the aisles and in front of the pulpit. At each table communicants would share in a cup of wine and, recreating a detail of their spiritual life in Ireland, a loaf of unleavened bread. At First Presbyterian Pittsburgh, “communicants were served at tables; one of which occupied the aisle running crosswise in front of the pulpit, and another, the middle aisle, extending back almost to the door. The benches placed on either side of these tables accommodated less than one half of the members.”8 All varieties of Presbyterianism in western Pennsylvania in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries universally restricted admission to the Lord’s Supper. Only those regarded as worthy received a token. This ritual of controlled admission emphasized the uniqueness of the congregation as God’s covenanted people.9 As in Ulster, elders decided who would be admitted based on examination of beliefs, unimpeachable moral conduct, or a written statement of their worthiness issued by the session or minister of another congregation. Ministers and elders met together in the session as gatekeepers, obliged by published rules and custom to determine who would gain admittance to the table. Sessions followed the strictures of the seventeenth-century Directory for Publick Worship against admission of “the ignorant and the scandalous.”10 By the early nineteenth century the evolving theological concerns of American Presbyterianism began to reshape standards. Candidates for the ministry had to satisfy presbyteries of their “experimental acquaintance with religion,” that is, their ability to affirm an intimation of saving 34

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grace or conversion experience. Although the Westminster Confession of Faith did not require “experimental acquaintance,” many mainstream Presbyterian congregations by the 1830s apparently expected would-be communicants to make such a profession of faith.11 But while mainstream Presbyterians began to emphasize conversion experiences, traditionalists—Associate Presbyterians, Associate Reformed, and Reformed Presbyterians—continued to insist on knowledge of distinctive denominational creeds. In 1829 Pittsburgh’s weekly mainstream Presbyterian newspaper satirized the Associate Synod for admitting individuals to communion on “the simple grounds of their doctrinal knowledge.” The American-born editor of the Christian Herald proposed instead that church membership be based on lived experience of spiritual rebirth.12 Congregations professing orthodox Calvinism regularly made basic doctrinal knowledge and adherence to creed requisites for admission to communion. The session of the Associate congregation of Mount Pleasant in Washington County delayed admission of Irish immigrant John Young in 1822 because he was “not as yet sufficiently acquainted with [the denomination’s] standards.” The Unity Associate Reformed congregation in eastern Allegheny County in the 1840s and 1850s took special pains with the examination of applicants from the “General Assembly Presbyterian Church” with regards to “moral character,” as well as psalmody and other possible “points of difference.” (Mainstream congregations had no such hesitation about granting admission to those from the Associate or Associate Reformed churches.) Leaving certificates from Ireland stressed denominational affiliation as well as character. When Margaret Arnold emigrated with her husband, Rev. Joseph Riddell, in 1794, she bore a certificate testifying to her “regular membership” in the Burgher Seceder denomination in Ireland for the consideration of American elders.13 The absence of a leaving certificate could complicate recent immigrants’ efforts to become integrated into new communities. Not only had John Young failed to display sufficient understanding of American Seceders’ beliefs, according to the Mount Pleasant Session, he had not been “properly certified from Ireland.” In October 1794 the session of the Associate Reformed congregation of the Forks of Yough took up the case of Ezekiel Wilson, who claimed he had a leaving certificate from Ireland but had lost it. Wilson assured the elders that he could produce instead a statement from a York County acquaintance “willing to testify, and that upon oath if required, that it was a good certificate, Sign’d by a minister, who was his minister while he lived in Ireland.” The Mount Pleasant 35

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Session in 1821 chose to admit Thomas Forsythe following submission of a document written by Robert McGee of Miller’s Run, who had known Forsythe as a youth in Ireland. Forsythe also had to undergo examination to demonstrate his knowledge of Antiburgher Seceder principles.14 As gatekeepers obliged by published rules and custom to determine who would gain admittance to the table, ministers and elders often scrutinized the moral conduct of those seeking admission to communion carefully. Suspicions led to investigation by sessions, often followed by disciplinary procedures. Cases came before the session by the voluntary, self-initiated confession of the guilty, by a formal complaint, or by public report—fama clamosa or current scandal. Elders, who had responsibilities for families within a defined geographic area, might either report the “common fame” of a scandal to their sessions or be delegated to make quiet inquiries about problems that had reached the ears of their brethren.15 Interrogation by the session, free confession by offenders, and their submission to the prescribed punishment served to restore to the community the peace and harmony elders and ministers believed should prevail among a covenanted people. The ensuing drama of accusation, confession, repentance, admonition, and restoration together represented a ritual of penitence and absolution. Although not recognized in those terms by Reformed theology, this penitential rite nonetheless operated as a necessary component part of the wider ritual of the Lord’s Supper. Presbyterians understood that sinners’ acts of penitence did not affect their salvation and that ministers and sessions had no power to offer absolution. Nonetheless, Presbyterians gained restoration to the body of Christ (the church) with admittance to the communion table.16 In Ulster and western Pennsylvania, the enactment of this Reformed penitential ritual allowed for reintegration of those whose actions had placed them outside the community’s moral bounds.17 Elders took seriously the biblical injunction that those angry with one another should be reconciled before participation in sacraments.18 In assessing the sins of their neighbors, elders promoted the goals of peace, harmony, and unity within family and community. Elders looked for evidence of “good behaviour and christian deportment” in granting admission to communion while investigating reputed episodes of quarreling, backbiting, abusive language, and other forms of “unchristian conduct.” Such disciplinary cases dominated the dockets of congregational courts as sessions made an effort to replace conflict with reconciliation in conformity to Gospel principles. 36

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Sessions therefore responded to complaints of quarreling and fighting, incidents that could take place at harvest and militia musters when crowds and rye whiskey–inspired bouts of braggadocio or released pent-up hostility. The White Oak Flats Session found fault with David Wilson for brawling with William Thompson and John Little following a militia muster in early May 1810 at George Muckelhany’s farm. After hearing testimony the session concluded that Wilson should be admonished for his unchristian conduct, with this judgment read to the congregation. Wilson duly submitted.19 A belief that harsh words and blasphemous expressions disrupted community harmony as surely as whiskey-fired threats and fisticuffs also prompted action by sessions. In August 1790 Forks of Yough cited John McNaughton to appear to answer a fama clamosa that he had publicly denounced an individual as “Damn’d a Rascal as ever was out of the Local pit of Hell.” Such expressions, the session said, “are very inconsistent with the christian character.”20 Sessions judged lying and slander to be grievous crimes. The session of the Long Run congregation in western Westmoreland County in 1794 suspended Eloner Donaldson when she admitted to having consciously incriminated herself by signing a false statement. A charge of lying might itself be slander: the Unity Session in Westmoreland County suspended Col. Charles Campbell for circulating the claim that a neighbor lied. Prolonged disputes likewise merited sessions’ intervention.21 Ministers and elders generally worked consciously and often assiduously toward reconciliation, placing their emphasis on healing societal wounds rather than on imposing punishment as an end in itself. An 1821 dispute between the McCarrolls and the McRaineys in Washington County, based on the allegation that one had removed eight shillings from the home of the other, could have disintegrated into formal charges and countercharges and a lengthy ecclesiastical trial. Instead, the Mount Pleasant Session could report with satisfaction that the parties were “reconciled to one another.” Well into the 1840s, the rural Unity Session demonstrated a willingness to mediate disputes between congregants. David Coon Jr. had accused Andrew Farsans “with propagating reports” regarding his “moral character.” Following their joint appearance before the session, the moderator pronounced the affair “amicably settled.”22 Reconciliation by sessions could seek to restore congregants to a sense of spiritual union with each other and to reintegrate former disputants into the community. For farmer John Reed, the latter goal in particular meant restoration of privileges at the neighborhood flour mill. Reed and miller Thomas Caldow had previously quarreled about the amount of his 37

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rye to be milled. The farmer thought the issue had been resolved. But Reed told the Forks of Yough Session in June 1791 that Caldow continued “to refuse to admit him the priviledge of his mill as he did his other Neighbours,” in apparent violation of their previous agreement and inconsistent “to that brotherly dispositions that should exist between Christian Brethren.” The elders mediated. After several difficult sessions, “the parties they were brought to an amicable agreement” in which Caldow “promised to admit said Reed to all the priviledges he allowed to his other Neighbours.”23 Sessions generally attempted to reach reconciliation in cases involving elders much the same as they did when faced with similar disputes among other congregants. This proved to be the case in 1826, when a very angry James Young brought a charge of slander against Mount Pleasant elder David Reed, accusing him of “false and malicious slander.” Young asserted he would prove this allegation on the basis of his standing as a church member and through the testimony of several named witnesses. Despite reservations on the part of elders in taking on this potentially explosive case, the session successfully mediated. The two men pledged not to mention this ruckus in the future so as to not “disturb the peace of this Church or as to mar christian fellowship.” A satisfied session resolved to have the moderator announce the settlement at Sabbath services, as the countryside had been buzzing with stories of the dispute.24 In the north of Ireland and in western Pennsylvania, church sessions investigated and prosecuted cases of intemperance and premarital sex, among other sex-related moral infractions. But there are interesting and possibly illuminating differences between Old World and New World. As in Ulster, the frequent appearance of charges of illicit sexual conduct in western Pennsylvanian session minutes testifies to the seriousness with which elders and ministers regarded such behavior. Presbyterians on both sides of the Atlantic agreed that premarital sexual relations threatened the peaceable order of society. Among Ulster Presbyterians, according to Andrew Holmes, fornication ranked with slander and habitual intemperance as “gross offences” that required sessions’ immediate attention.25 But while Presbyterians in western Pennsylvania regarded sex-related cases seriously, sexual misconduct did not dominate church dockets. Instead, incidences of drunkenness and cases arising from myriad forms of interpersonal conflict appeared more frequently on sessional agendas. In attempting to build a covenanted community among displaced Irish Presbyterians in a backcountry society with limited resources, western Pennsylvania elders found greater threats to neighborly 38

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harmony in intoxication and quarreling than in sexual activity before marriage.26 Elders regarded intemperance as a contributing factor to a myriad of disciplinary matters and as a problem in its own right. No stigma attached to drinking as such; western Pennsylvanians tipped their jugs morning, noon, and night. Excessive drinking could be viewed as the inevitable although deplorable consequence of an abundant supply of “God’s good creature.” Only drinking to impairment represented a subject of public concern or comment. Testifying before the White Oak Flats Session in November 1811, Jane Moore swore she saw Elisabeth Figley in such a state that the accused must have “taken a dram but not so as to hinder her from performing her common household business.” Church records before the rise of the temperance movement confirm that sessions viewed overindulgence, and not drink itself, as the problem. When Joseph Edgar of Logstown Bottom congregation came before the session in June 1812, he faced a charge of having displayed “such a measure of intoxication as is unbecoming a professing Christian” the previous February. His crime was not in drinking alcohol but in becoming so drunk that he might have forgotten his duties and obligations as a member of a covenanted community.27 Possibly because heavy drinking inevitably led to drunkenness, sessions seem to have treated those judged guilty of intemperance with a degree of leniency. Sessions chose to rebuke and admonish miscreants. Suspension from communion was reserved especially for repeat offenders. The response of the Pittsburgh Associate Session in May 1817 to alleged intemperance seems typical. The session summoned coopers John Morris, John Brown, and John Boyle to answer accusations of intoxication. When each of the three admitted his guilt, the session accepted the trio’s confessions and promises to be more guarded in future conduct.28 One session deeply divided in its approach to the recidivism of alcoholaddicted communicants in 1829 appealed to the Synod of Pittsburgh for direction. Should a session accept as a basis of continued church privileges professions of sorrow and solemn promises “to shun the degrading practice in the future,” regardless of how “often as the crime may be repeated”? With apparently little discussion the synod simply answered, “No.” However, the reality of hard-drinking in their midst tempered the severity of penalties imposed by many ministers and elders who continued to view excessive consumption of spirits as an unfortunate outcome of customary, community-sanctioned imbibing.29 The patience of one session in dealing with a recalcitrant drinker 39

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demonstrates the tenacity of elders and communicants in trying to find common ground. In early 1834 the Cross Roads Session heard John Brown charged by common fame with having been intoxicated several times and various places during the previous several months. Brown denied the charges but failed to meet with the session as promised. The session again cited Brown to appear, indicated the time and place when he was seen intoxicated, and provided a list of witnesses. Brown refused to attend and instead sent a letter to Rev. John Moore, the moderator, again declaring his innocence and bitterly accusing the church officers of spying on him. For that reason, Brown announced, he was withdrawing from the congregation.30 But the session was not willing to abandon Brown. Reverend Moore met privately with Brown, hoping to convince the alleged drunkard to sign a temperance pledge. Hoping for the best, the session decided to postpone any further action. By the following April, Brown had repudiated his church membership and joined the Methodists. Still the session persisted: after all, Brown continued to live in their midst. In April 1836 the session appointed a committee to speak with Brown in response to reports of “unchristian conduct in embezling some of the funds of this church when in the office of collector, and of occasionally using intoxicating liquors too freely.” The committee reported that once more Brown had agreed to appear. And this time, on 1 October 1836, he did. Brown admitted excessive drinking and pledged to stop altogether. He admitted to having taken money from the church and had made restitution. Brown was restored to full communion with the Cross Roads congregation. The penitential ritual, though prolonged, had been completed.31 Even as the mainstream Presbyterian Church joined the emergent temperance movement, sessions could demonstrate remarkable tolerance of congregants’ weaknesses. Common fame charged James Cooper with the crime of intemperance in December 1829. For nearly a year Cooper avoiding meeting with the Cross Roads Session. But when he did and acknowledged his guilt and promised to change his behavior, the session expressed satisfaction. A congregant admitted to the Bethany Session in December 1830 that he drank too much at harvest time and subsequently used inappropriate language while under the influence. With a profession of sorrow, he was admonished by the session and allowed to retain his “privileges”—access to the sacraments of communion and baptism.32 The recidivism and recalcitrance of hard-drinking communicants often left sessions with little choice but suspension. John McNeal voluntarily came before the Forks of Yough Session in March 1792 to confess 40

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repeated incidents of intoxication and profess his sorrow. The session, which had heard such professions from him previously, suspended McNeal from church privileges. When later that year McNeal confessed that he had again been “overtaken with Spirituous liquor,” he was rebuked and the action publicly announced to the congregation. James Bell admitted bouts of drunkenness to the Bethany Session and pledged “to abstain entirely from ardent spirits in the future.” Unimpressed, the session voted to suspend Bell. Spared from suspension in 1830, James Cooper did not fare so well when charged by common fame in May 1831 “with being drunk at different times and places during the past winter.” A committee of Cross Roads elders appointed to meet with him reported that Cooper admitted his guilt but said “he did not expect to do better in future than he had in times past.” His suspension was read from the pulpit.33 If western Pennsylvania sessions dealt with incidents of premarital sex less frequently than those in Ireland, elders in the Upper Ohio Valley also tended to judge perpetrators more harshly. Suspension from sacraments predominated as a penalty. The Poke Run Session withdrew church privileges from John and Agnes Gordon, whose child arrived some six months after their wedding. Sessions may have felt constrained to act when a transgression was widely suspected by the community or made obvious by pregnancy and childbirth. Such may have been the circumstance facing the White Oak Flats Session in 1811: on the same day that Hugh and Sarah Scott and their two children received baptism, Sarah Scott was rebuked for fornication. Penalty became the price of admission to the sacrament.34 Sessions’ reliance on “common fame” in sexual matters often acted to assume the guilt of the accused; this could happen regardless of gender. In 1812 a man named McElroy sought reinstatement of privileges withdrawn by the Pittsburgh Associate congregation due to the “report of a girl who said that he had sinful dealings with her.” McElroy brought with him a physician who testified that he “suspected she had some intercourse with men,” a claim the girl denied. Unimpressed by this new evidence, the session directed McElroy “to endeavour to procure more exculpatory proof” before restoration of privileges could be considered.35 But common fame more often than not pointed the finger of blame at women. The gentle reproach and repeated forgiveness extended to intemperate men is much less evident when women were accused of participating with men in illicit sexual liaisons. Sessions rarely indicted men for sexual transgression, either individually or together with women likewise accused. In 1810 White Oak Flats elders rebuked Phebe McDonald, 41

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whom they found guilty of “unchristian [and] impudent and base conduct.” Two young men had been with her on a Sabbath when she absented herself from services, claiming illness, and remained at home. Both men had been in her room; one had been found in bed with Phebe, his suspender buttons undone. Neither male was cited in connection with this incident; possibly, neither of them were congregants and thus subject to church discipline. In any event, the elders clearly perceived Phebe as morally culpable and likely the instigator.36 Rumors of wrongdoing, limited evidence, and the difficulty of finding witnesses to offer reliable testimony about intimate acts combined to circumscribe the course of justice for elders and accused women alike. The presence of children born out of wedlock and the difficulty in ascertaining paternity absent the father’s confession complicated women’s defense. Appeals to presbytery by women judged guilty of fornication foundered on lack of evidence, even as women named their babies’ fathers. Four such appeals heard by the Redstone Presbytery between April 1796 and April 1800 were dismissed for “insufficient evidence.” On the other hand, in October 1795 a man who had been found guilty of fornication prevailed in his appeal to Redstone Presbytery by blackening the reputation of his accuser. Presbytery found “satisfactory testimony respecting the good character of John McCrakan and also concerning the very attrocious character of Barbara Walters,” with whom he reportedly had a child. McCrakan was restored to privileges. By contrast, more than a half century later, the session of Saltsburg Presbyterian Church suspended three men and two women for the crime of fornication in a seven-year period.37 Sessions’ general failure to confront male transgressors and to make substantive effort to obtain evidence suggests that male elders tended to assume female guilt. Whatever their culturally based biases, however, elders generally seem to have taken seriously the requirement to procure evidence and witnesses and proceeded to trial with some appearance of impartiality. On occasion, the failure to indict complicit men may have resulted from the elders’ reluctance to further disrupt community peace. Quite possibly, too, sessions may have faced difficulties in obtaining adequate evidence and witnesses. Even if elders themselves attempted to be impartial, the same may not have been true of neighbors unwilling to suspend culturally conditioned suppositions or to breach the bonds of familial relationships and male sociability to testify against a male suspect. Further, guilty men had an easier time of quietly slipping away than did accused women, especially if pregnant.38 42

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Cases of adultery seem to have been relatively rare among sessions’ disciplinary actions and were not always easily dealt with when on the docket. The transitory nature of frontier life involved absent parties in such cases. The session of the Forks of Yough Associate Reformed congregation dismissed a case of adultery directed against Robert Richey in 1794 when his alleged partner submitted an exculpatory letter asserting his exemplary character. The Loyalhanna Session ruled that George Hutchison could be charged with adultery, as he had married a woman whose husband was still alive. Redstone Presbytery in 1798 advised the Rehoboth Session that Elizabeth Kyle and her new husband could receive communion. Kyle had remarried, her previous husband having been missing for two years and presumed dead.39 Church courts investigated a number of adultery cases alleging men married in America had living wives in their native Ireland.40 Distance in time and space confounded efforts by sessions and presbyteries to ascertain the truth in cases of alleged Irish wives. The session of the Salem congregation in Westmoreland County denied John Coleman church privileges, “having left his wife in Irland, and married another in this country, his former wife being yet alive.” Coleman appealed to the Redstone Presbytery in April 1788, asserting that his first wife’s wrongdoing had effectively ended the marriage. Testimony by acquaintances who had been in Ireland since his emigration corroborated his claims of adultery and estrangement and led to reconsideration of his case by the session.41 Sessions intervened when marriages appeared to violate church rules or scriptural law. In so doing they inevitably entered into conflict with the complex of (sometimes contradictory) economic, cultural, emotional, and physical factors involved in marriage decisions. Pregnancy and economic decision making rather than ecclesiastical guidelines and religious custom could dictate the timing of a wedding or the choice of partners. Attempts to protect the religious significance or cultural norms of marriage often placed sessions in the invidious role of censuring the couple’s actions after the fact.42 In eighteenth-century Ulster a marriage could be deemed “irregular” in the absence of proper announcement, because of elopement, or if the ceremony had been conducted by an inappropriate person. The seventeenth-century Presbyterian Directory for Publick Worship required ministers to announce the impending marriage to a couple’s congregation on three Sabbaths beforehand. The ensuing ceremony had to occur in public, in a place appointed for public worship. All Presbyterian de43

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nominations in western Pennsylvania incorporated this policy into their own constitutions.43 The Associate Church took a particularly hard line against irregular marriage.44 Pregnancy as a justification for irregular marriage surfaced in a Washington County controversy as a Seceder session claimed its prerogatives superseded those of the state.45 In the early 1820s the Mount Pleasant Session not only chastised several couples who failed to give proper notice of their marriages but also disciplined a civil magistrate who violated the Associate Synod’s Directory.46 The session formally admonished Matthew Acheson in August 1824 for marrying couples without previous publication in his capacity of justice of the peace. Acheson appealed, claiming that the bride’s advanced pregnancy made the wedding advisable. He also asserted both his autonomy as a public official and the absence of “incestuous practices” that formed a fundamental reason for notice.47 The Chartiers Presbytery upheld the Mount Pleasant Session, but directed Acheson, his minister, and the elders to meet again in an attempt at resolution. Acheson refused to submit.48 Congregations within mainstream Presbyterianism policed communicants’ recourse to unaffiliated clergy or those not sanctioned by church judicatories for marriage ceremonies. (Contemporary Ulster judicatories similarly complained of couples’ recourse to degraded clergymen.) Redstone Presbytery found itself in 1785 confronted with problems alleged to Rev. Robert Hughey, an Irish immigrant deposed from the Presbyterian ministry in Pennsylvania in December 1776 after a lengthy suspension. Redstone Presbytery reported that “many difficulties arise from marriages celebrated by Mr. Hughy and such Persons who have no authority, either civil or ecclisiastic for so doing; do therefore judge that such marriages be discountenanced, and people cautioned against them as unlawful.”49 Charges that married couples were guilty of “incest”—usually meaning union with a close relative of a deceased spouse—appeared frequently in early nineteenth-century church records. A Washington County session barred from communion a couple related by marriage—the husband had married his deceased wife’s niece. Appeals to presbytery, synod, and General Assembly all proved unsuccessful.50 In August 1803 the Associate Presbytery of Chartiers pondered the case of a man named McKeg who, following his wife’s death, “lived in an incestuous connextion with her sister for many years.” Although McKeg confessed and agreed to submit to censure in order to be restored to communion, the case went back before session and presbytery before McKeg was given the chance to be 44

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restored to church privileges: a public rebuke on three consecutive Sabbaths. In policing marriages, sessions occasionally acted on problems that seem closer to modern definitions of incest. In 1830 the Bethany Session suspended John McKown “on account of this incestious connexion”— marrying and cohabiting with his sister’s daughter.51 For Presbyterians in Ulster and western Pennsylvania, baptism represented inclusion in the visible church and induction into the community of believers. Baptism reminded family and neighbors of other baptisms and the sacrament’s significance. The Directory for Publick Worship obliged ministers to ask those present to recall their own baptism and their covenant with God. The Directory also required that baptism take place soon after birth, avoiding extensive delay. The parents of a future elder of the Glade Run Presbyterian Church early in the nineteenth century carried their baby son some distance from remote Armstrong County to Unity Church in Westmoreland County for baptism. Ministers exhorted parents to raise the child in knowledge of doctrine. In what was intended to be a public ritual, the father presented the infant. Indeed, a minister could face objections from session and presbytery alike if he conducted private baptism when a public ceremony was possible. The Associate Reformed Church, following the precepts of the Directory, emphasized the importance of timely and public baptism (without godparents). The sacrament was both a personal and a communal rite of passage that helped reconstruct and redefine the ethnoreligious community.52 Those seeking baptism of their children, like those applying for admission to communion, faced the scrutiny of sessions. To better govern this procedure, the session of the Pittsburgh Associate congregation instituted a new rule in 1817 that those wishing to have children baptized should state their intention a week in advance “to that Elder . . . who lives nearest him.” Not only applicants came under sessions’ anxious care: ministers could face objections from scrupulous elders if they failed to properly enquire into the parents’ “moral character” or knowledge of the confession of faith before baptism. One minister’s decision in the early 1780s to baptize the child of a man known for his “drinking and swearing” caused uproar in a frontier congregation; nearly two decades later another minister was penalized for baptizing children without inquiring into the parents’ moral character or insisting upon regular conduct of family worship. Despite the potential rigor of such inquiries, the desire to have children baptized in a Presbyterian tradition could become a powerful inducement to suffer the indignity of disciplinary action.53 Baptism had particular significance in ritually defining infants as mem45

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bers of a particular denomination and in reaffirming ethnoreligious identity. Elizabeth Beaty agreed to publicly confess prenuptial fornication in order to secure baptism for her children. Married by a justice of the peace to a man outside the Associate Reformed Church, Beaty willingly came before the Associate Reformed Forks of Yough Session to set matters right for her children. The sacrament became an opportunity for public profession of faith as determined by denominational tradition. To underscore their commitment to the historic Scottish covenants, the Seceders’ ministers and elders attending the 1821 Associate Synod meeting in Pittsburgh resolved that those seeking baptism would have to profess “the solemn covenant engagements” along with other statements displaying the denomination’s uniqueness.54 Voluntary submission to communal judgment as well as joyful, even ecstatic, participation in communion signaled the significance of the ethnoreligious community. Men and women from Ulster and Americans raised within the Irish Presbyterian tradition understood their proper relations with each other and with God in terms of this complex of belief and practice. The ongoing conversation among elders, communicants, and the shifting numbers beyond the “fenced” communion tables helped to realize a community recognizably Presbyterian based on Irish experience.

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Defining a Doctrinally Distinct Community 

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hrough a number of rituals conducted in the home, the meetinghouse, and the cluster of homes and farms that constituted rural neighborhoods, western Pennsylvania Presbyterians of Irish origin delineated the acceptable boundaries of their ethnoreligious community. Like “fencing the tables,” practices such as catechism and family worship, prayer meetings, covenanting, and thanksgiving days helped define the particular variety of Presbyterianism through which these Presbyterians understood their proper relations with one another and with God. In establishing the boundaries of the community such rituals revealed who could be considered insiders and who could be regarded as outsiders. Anxious ministers and elders faced the continual problem of seeking and shunning, reclaiming and rejecting those whose actions removed them from the citadel of inclusion. Increasingly in the nineteenth century, the growing power of the market, improved transportation, and enhanced

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geographic mobility together had the effect of weakening community solidarity and the viability of transplanted ritual. Church and family shared responsibility for educating the young. As in Ulster, elders and ministers looked after the spiritual development of the laity of all ages. Catechism represented a linchpin of the sacraments, necessarily preceding admission to communion. In Reformation Scotland, catechism represented both a continuation of earlier Catholic practice and, in combination with examination, a key mechanism by which Scots internalized the new Calvinist creed. The seventeenth-century Westminster Confession and Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms became indispensable instruments for inculcating religious principles, a ritual through which members of the ethnoreligious group acquired access to its own particular language. “Catechizing,” writes Andrew Holmes, “provided the framework in which to assess and understand the doctrinal distinctiveness of the community.” This process had particular significance for Seceders and Covenanters, for whom the subjects of catechizing included the documents elucidating their own unique understanding of Presbyterianism.1 Western Pennsylvania clergy and elders had responsibility for catechizing and were obliged to fulfill traditional expectations. In the late 1780s, Rev. Samuel Barr came under criticism for choosing to catechize youth together in the meetinghouse following services in the summer instead of individually during family visitation. Higher judicatories displayed particular concern over congregations without settled ministers. In 1798 and again in 1818, Redstone Presbytery urged ministers to catechize in such congregations. Demand for the Westminster Shorter and Larger Catechism suggests the prevalence of its use; in 1810 the Washington Reporter advertised that copies were available for sale at the newspaper’s office.2 Particularly in the early years of settlement, family worship became an important first step toward the creation of a sense of community. As in Ulster, family worship contributed to a sense of ethnoreligious identity as well as spiritual growth and knowledge of doctrine—all of which were fostered further by social worship. This communal psalm singing, praying, and Bible reading served as the foundation for congregations and a continuing sense of Irish Presbyterian identity.3 Social worship helped facilitate the organization of congregations. Presbytery minutes throughout the period contained numerous requests for the services of ministers (as “supplies”) from groups of neighbors already meeting regularly for worship. In Washington County, the Vance’s 48

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Fort and Irish Ridge societies became the basis of the Cross Creek congregation, organized in 1779. Those who helped organize these worship meetings often became elders when congregations were formally constituted. On his first missionary trip west of the mountains, Rev. John McMillan preached at the home of John McDowell on Chartiers Creek, where prayer meetings may have been a regular occurrence; the Irishborn McDowell later became an elder of the Chartiers congregation. Ongoing prayer meetings and social worship could help sustain newly organized congregations. Late eighteenth-century settlers in Westmoreland County’s hilly northeastern corner regularly conducted family worship and met with neighbors for community prayer. The stream that ran two miles between the spring of James Gageby, a Presbyterian elder, and Hendrick’s Creek in Fairfield Township became jocularly known as “‘Hypocrite Run’ because every man living on it with one exception was a Presbyterian, maintained family worship and took active part in social prayer, or ‘society’ as it was then called.” Weekly social worship took place at the home of an Irish-born elder.4 With or without a formally organized congregation and settled minister, the Lord’s Day enjoyed special status. Irish Presbyterians brought with them—and refined—an old-country reverence for the Sabbath. The standards adopted by the Church of Scotland required regular attendance at worship services and obligated Presbyterians to regard the one day in seven as holy.5 Similarly in Ulster, as Andrew Holmes explains, “the Sabbath was a time when the people of God were to meet, irrespective of social rank or wealth, to worship God and encourage one another in faith.” In western Pennsylvanian communities, the faithful sought to make adequate preparations for the Sabbath. “Usually, the regular business was suspended early on Saturday afternoon, in order that there might be time to arrange the affairs of the household,” recalled Rev. Thomas Sproull, who had been raised in an immigrant Covenanter family. “Fuel was put in a convenient place, the water was brought in, and all the food, so far as it could be done, was prepared.” Labor was strictly limited to narrowly defined acts of necessity and mercy. Those who openly profaned the Sabbath by engaging in any unnecessary labor or who absented themselves from worship faced censure by church courts.6 The growth of cities and towns, especially Pittsburgh, called for stratagems for religious education and worship unimaginable a generation earlier. In 1829 Pittsburgh’s Presbyterian weekly newspaper, the Christian Herald, carried articles promoting innovations such as Sabbath schools and Bible societies—both indicative of a decline in formerly normative 49

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family worship. Bible societies hoped to ensure that every indigent family had a copy of the Bible for individual study and family devotions. Recognizing that fewer families conducted household worship, reformers proposed substituting formalized weekly religious instruction for that formerly entrusted to parents. Some rural congregations looked to traditional solutions, however. The elders and moderator of the Mount Carmel Presbyterian Church in November 1831 noted the “low and languishing condition of religion” in their midst and resolved to take several steps to restore the congregation to spiritual health: social prayer meetings in each of the districts comprising the church, a “Monthly Concert for Prayer,” and meetings of session every two weeks for prayer. In April 1843 the Poke Run Session resolved to “earnestly recommend to the congregation to hold weekly social meetings for the glory of God and edification of the people.” Such gatherings, the session said, should consist of singing psalms, scripture reading and prayer, and discussion of a religious question.7 Traditionalist Presbyterians clung to covenants—formal pledges of obedience to God—as a means of expressing ethnoreligious identity and enforcing religious norms. Such unique statements of faith appeared early in western Pennsylvania settlements. However, a joint confession of faith—effectively a covenant—entered into by mainstream Presbyterians in Washington County in the 1780s would not be repeated by other groups within their denomination. This extraordinary declaration, first signed by eighty-six individuals in February 1782, considered “the many abounding evils in our own hearts and lives” and enumerated various “open and secret violations of the holy law of God.” These including Sabbath violations, “bad thoughts,” profanity, slander and gossip, “vexatious wranglings, and law suits,” disobedience to parents, “defraud, deceit, over-reaching in bargains, gaming, horse racing, cock fighting, shooting for prizes, lying, covetousness, discontent,” failure to catechize and instruct children and slaves, and neglect of family worship. In the minds of the signatories, such misdeeds had caused God to withhold his grace and bring down “heavy judgments” on the western frontier. Confessing their complicity, sorrow, and shame, the signers pledged to combat these failings in themselves and others. A second clause and twenty-eight further signatories were added to the document. The addendum recognized God’s favors, meaning revivals, and resolved to help extend them, “knowing that some do oppose the work, and aspersing it as a delusion”—a reference to Seceder neighbors critical of revivalism. A final complement of twelve signed in 1787.8 50

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A separate Seceder covenant also appeared in 1782 in Washington County, which by then already had three Associate Presbyterian congregations. Signed by men and women and entire families, this document similarly contained “a lamentation over the sins of the day, as Sabbath desecration, profane swearing, promiscuous dancing,” and bound the Covenanters to “discountenance these evils and live uprightly to the honor of God.”9 Like the Reformed Presbyterians, the Seceders “claimed direct descent from the seventeenth-century Kirk,” accepting the terms of the covenants as binding on subsequent generations and insisting covenanting to be a “moral duty.”10 Reformed Presbyterians tenaciously defended both the continuing validity of Scotland’s seventeenth-century covenants and the ongoing duty of public covenanting. The denomination’s 1806 Declaration and Testimony proclaimed that “Public Covenanting is an ordinance of God, to be observed by Churches and Nations under the New Testament Dispensation.” The Reformed Presbyterian Synod in 1823 gave approval to the drafting of a covenant for American use. However, the paucity of early congregational records makes it impossible to know with certainty if western Pennsylvania Covenanters in fact engaged in the practice of covenanting they zealously upheld. Increased mobility made possible by territorial expansion and improvements in transportation, and the privatization of spirituality accompanying the accelerating pressures of commercialization, together threatened old practices and understandings. Seceders responded to such threats with attempts to revive their covenanting tradition despite the decline of public covenanting in Ireland.11 The Associate Presbytery in 1791 proclaimed public covenanting as a basic tenet to be included in the denomination’s testimony. The Associate Presbyterians’ A Display of Religious Principles (1813) affirmed the duty of public covenanting and insisted that covenanting served to unite church members. In its Book of Church Government and Discipline, approved at a meeting in Pittsburgh in 1817, the Associate Synod of North America reaffirmed the importance of public covenanting, going so far as to designate as a “censurable offense” any expression of opposition to the duty. For Seceders, covenanting had become an important badge of their religious identity; it was simultaneously a means to an end and an end in itself.12 Seceder interest in public covenanting reached its apogee with a meeting of the Associate Synod in Pittsburgh in 1829. To lead by example, Synod itself formally drew up and signed a public contract with the Almighty: “Twenty-nine ministers, fifteen elders, five probationers and two students engaged in this act of covenanting.” Ministers specially chosen 51

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for the tasks read the Act of Covenanting and the Acknowledgment of Sins. “Mr. [Andrew] Heron preached from the oft-used covenanter text, ‘vow and pay unto the Lord your God’ (Psalm 76:11)”; an appropriately militant scriptural passage, “And I will bring a sword upon you that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant (Leviticus 26:25),” formed the basis of the evening preaching. Not all members of Synod agreed with this grandstanding of Seceder traditionalism. Synod appointed a committee to speak with the dissenters and “bring them to their sense of duty.” Covenanting at the 1830 meeting appears to have been little more than a continuation of the previous year’s occasion.13 Unlike covenanting, days of fasting, humiliation, and thanksgiving continued to be observed more consistently over a longer period by all varieties of Presbyterianism in western Pennsylvania. All drew upon the seventeenth-century Directory for Publick Worship which advised that “publick solemn fasting . . . is a duty that God expecteth from that nation or people” in times of “great and notable judgments,” “extraordinary provocations,” or “special blessing.” This ritualistic expropriation of productive time underscores both Presbyterians’ persistent perception of themselves as a covenanted people and a degree of dissidence from emerging market values. Such occasions were meant to be day-long and marked by total abstinence from food as well as “all worldly labour, discourses, and thoughts, and from all bodily delights.” Scrupulous Christians were enjoined to spend such days in congregation for preaching, public reading of scripture, psalm singing, and prayer.14 In seventeenth-century Ulster, Presbyterians “observed fast days as a means of asserting communal solidarity in the face of political and economic hardships.” In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, fast days represented both special appeals to a God actively intervening in the world and a connection to earlier religious practices perceived as more correct and godly.15 Irish Presbyterians in the Upper Ohio Valley continued to observe days of fasting and thanksgiving, usually following the harvest in fall or winter. In proclaiming its first day of fasting and prayer, the region’s first presbytery recognized “the unspeakable goodness of God in planting his Church in this, not long since, an howling wilderness, the habitation of savages.” As the benefits bestowed by God could be withheld if careless settlers continued to harden their hearts, through their day-long fasting Presbyterians ought to ask for “a more plentiful out-pouring of divine influences” on the region’s new religious communities. Early western Pennsylvanian Presbyterians fasted and prayed to

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ask God for deliverance from Indian war, for relief from immorality, for assistance in overcoming “spiritual sloth” and doctrinal error. In the 1790s the Whiskey Rebellion and an outbreak of yellow fever on the East Coast led to fasting.16 (The Presbyterians’ sacred calendar, highlighting the Lord’s Day, sacramental occasions, and fast days, conspicuously did not include Christmas. The Redstone Presbytery heard that the fast day the previous month had been observed as planned—at its meeting on 24  December  1793. The meeting continued the next day. The minutes did not attach any significance to the dates.)17 Among mainstream Presbyterians, however, the role of fast days seems to have declined as laity assumed a more active role, and positions of responsibility, in politics and the economy. A subsistence-oriented society could better accommodate day-long abstinences than could workshops and farms producing for the market. Presbyterian churches observed fast days less frequently in the first three decades of the nineteenth century than in the last two decades of the eighteenth century. The Redstone Presbytery called five fast days between 1785 and 1795 and a sixth in 1799; in addition, Presbytery enjoined congregations to honor four such days called by Synod of Virginia and one called by the General Assembly, all in the 1790s—eleven fast days within a fourteen-year period. After 1800 Redstone Presbytery observed eight fast days in a thirty-year period. Between 1800 and 1830, Redstone on its own appointed only one day of fasting—in July 1821, in response to “the low state of vital piety in their bounds”—while taking part in seven fasts called by the Synods of Virginia and Pittsburgh and the General Assembly.18 Early nineteenth-century fast days seemed designed to enlist powerful backing for ongoing projects rather than meekly supplicating an awe-inspiring deity. Fast days among mainstream Presbyterians, at least, increasingly became specialized components in action plans for moral reform. In declaring “a day of humiliation, fasting and prayer” for 20 January 1802, the Ohio Presbytery hoped people would confess their sins and seek God’s aid in reviving religion and preventing “the spread of errors and schisms.” This call for a fast day signals a moment of transition. After a decade-long gap in fast days among mainstream Presbyterians in the 1810s, the church connected their resurgence to a growing interest in personal and social reformation. Redstone Presbytery’s fasts in 1821 looked for spiritual revitalization, fast days declared by the General Assembly in 1828 and 1830 were linked specifically to the contemporary

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social ills of intemperance and Sabbath-violation, and the fast day appointed by the Synod of Pittsburgh in 1829 took special aim at “the vice of intemperance.”19 “Occasional hearing”—the practice of attending preaching by ministers of other denominations—tended to scandalize those sessions affiliated with the Scottish dissenting tradition. But mainstream Presbyterian sessions could also be aroused to action when communicants showed interest in inappropriate preachers. The session of Unity congregation in 1793 took offense when Robert Dickey went “to hear a certain Mr. Dun a preacher of immoral character”; the case eventually went to the Redstone Presbytery. Redstone Presbytery appointed a committee in 1812 to assist the Salem congregation with the vexing problem of congregants who neglected services to hear Methodist preaching—and yet wished to remain Presbyterians.20 Scrupulous Seceders and Covenanters regarded occasional hearing as a violation of their own denominations’ unique witness against the errors of the world, a contradiction of their own profession of faith. The Associate Reformed Forks of Yough Session discovered in August 1790 that some congregants had a vexatious interest in preaching by Baptists. The elders decided “they would not take Cognisance of it. But that it be Intimated in the face of the Congregation that if any such thing take place hereafter in this Congregation, the Session was determined that they would make it a matter of Judicial Cognisance.” The session delegated elder John Patterson to speak to the offending persons. True to its pronouncement, in September 1792 the session called John White when fama clamosa charged him with hearing a Baptist preacher that spring. He confessed to the offense and agreed to be rebuked in the session.21 The presence in their neighborhood of Thomas and Alexander Campbell formed a particular problem for the Mount Pleasant Session; father and son had abandoned the Secession Church first for an alliance with Baptists and then launched their own movement aimed at restoring Christianity to the purity of the early church. That the Campbells and many Mount Pleasant congregants hailed from County Armagh and had mutual personal associations likely added to the session’s difficulties. The session took action against several communicants who attended jubilees of Thomas and Alexander Campbell on Little Chartiers Creek and at Noblestown.22 If the excitement of social reform and revival ignited expectations of millenarian proportions among mainstream Presbyterians, earnest observation of the “signs of the times” suggested to Seceders and Covenant54

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ers that the final days would be ushered in by traditional Presbyterian precepts, not Sunday schools or temperance societies. Within these denominations the frequent declaration of fast days in the 1810s and 1820s assumed a decidedly millenarian tone. In 1816 the day of humiliation and fasting called by the Associate Presbytery of Chartiers for 1 February 1816 looked to “the glorious latter days.” The peace and prosperity of the United States gave Christians reason to rejoice, Covenanters proclaimed in 1817. Not so the nation’s widespread apathy, “lukewarmness” and false doctrine, which required “fasting, mourning and humiliation before God.”23 The Reformed Synod’s Committee on Fasting and Thanksgiving, charged with writing the drafts of such declarations, became the Committee on the Signs of the Times in 1821. The expanding ranks of the Covenanter church in the United States (due largely to Irish immigration) had set off an explosion of optimism, which combined with a growing millennialism. Alexander McLeod’s 1814 Lectures upon the Principal Prophecies of the Revelation, an elaboration of a fast-day sermon, argued that the United States would figure prominently in the global struggles preceding the approaching latter days. The Reformed Presbyterians believed, David Carson explains, that “the millennium was near; the one needful thing was the faithful witness to the headship of Christ over the nations, a principle which the Covenanters especially espoused.” In their own lifetimes, they might yet see “the complete and final victory of their cause, the vindication of the truth for which they contended.”24 Covenanters and Seceders justified their frequent fast days in the 1810s and 1820s with often lengthy statements more universal in scope and less narrowly pragmatic in function than those of the mainstream church. Both presumed that a variety of human failings threatened imminent punishment by a wrathful God. “We have reason to fear that the day is not far off,” declared the Associate Synod of North America in 1818, “when the land will mourn under the judgments of God”—for crimes such as lying, killing, stealing, adultery, profanity, “rioting and drunkenness,” and vanity in apparel. The statement referred further to “impious laws” such as those licensing theaters and the failure of government to enforce existing laws against Sabbath profanation and “clandestine marriage.” The authors of the Act for a Day of Fasting acknowledged the failings of their own denomination in not speaking out forcefully enough against such evils and by not engaging in public covenanting. The Associate Synod expressed the hope the Seceders’ fast would usher in “a covenanted reformation” in Ireland and Britain and beyond, the fall of 55

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the papacy, and the conversion of Muslims and Jews, all of which would be followed by the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. This would not be a single-issue fast day.25 Brief comments in minutes suggest that most ministers, at least, followed through with the fasts at the turn of the nineteenth century and that many communicants joined them. Seceders and Covenanters may have placed greater emphasis on days of fasting and humiliation and appointed them more frequently than mainstream Presbyterians, but for a time fast days were routinely observed by all. Among mainstream Presbyterians in western Pennsylvania, if not Presbyterians in general, the significance attached to fast days declined as a sense of communal solidarity dissipated. By 1800 or so, farm laborers would have welcomed a day free from nonessential chores—and fewer commercial farmers and shopkeepers would have willingly forgone a day of operation. Ultimately, even the ability of sessions to discipline fast-breakers declined as Presbyterians withheld their consent.26 As part of their overall effort to maintain a spiritual and creedal unity within their communities, sessions policed violations of the Sabbath and designated fast days. The Forks of Yough Session, for example, charged Samuel Laromore in 1795 with “breach of the Lords day in traveling on said Day.” As commercial activity and transportation expanded together, the White Oak Flats Session investigated a report in 1810 that William McDonald “at different times came home with his boat from Pittsburgh on the sabbath.” In 1827 common fame charged Robert Wilson with abuse of the Sabbath “by sending his boy for hay.” In 1821 the Mount Pleasant Session issued a stern warning to those who failed to keep the fast day called by the Associate Synod and threatened future violators with censure. The same session formally admonished John Buchanan and wife Polly Lavery in 1826 when the couple kept their mill operating on a fast day. Bethany Session expressed its unhappiness with a congregant who held a “promiscuous dance” in 1831 on the eve of a day of fasting and humiliation called by the General Assembly, eventually suspending the culprit when he proved unrepentant.27 Failure to regularly attend Sabbath services could threaten one’s place at the communion table. At times, as elders and ministers recognized, absences signaled dissent from congregational practices. In 1786 Delap’s Creek Session cited Armstrong Porter for absences from public worship; Porter failed in an appeal to Redstone Presbytery, which agreed with the session that “his reasons do not appear sufficient.” The Mount Pleasant

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Session questioned whether John Stewart should receive a communion token because of his absences from public worship in 1824. The following year, learning that “Joseph Henderson who tho’ he was in ordinary health had been very absent from public worship,” appointed an elder to meet with him. In his explanation, Henderson expressed concerns about the session’s firm stance on publication of marriage banns and the Seceders’ dedication to public covenanting.28 Unease with traditional creeds and rituals represented an unwelcome sign of the times for Old-World religion. Associate Presbyterian clergy and elders had difficulty convincing the membership to embrace public covenanting despite the revered place of covenanting within the Seceder canon. A poll conducted at the 1817 meeting, which decided that any expression of opposition to the moral duty of covenanting would be a “censurable offense,” found that few ministers and probationers and none of the divinity students present had covenanted. The most frequent reason: “want of opportunity.” So while at its national level the denomination emphasized the importance of public covenanting, Associate Presbyterian congregations had largely abandoned the practice. Faced with this discovery, synod resolved that ministers “when about to engage in the duty of public covenanting in their congregations” inform their presbyteries ahead of time. Neglect of public covenanting registered among reasons for a fast the following year, despite synod’s repeated avowal of the practice as “an important and seasonable duty.”29 A few congregations in the Presbytery of Chartiers in the Seceder heartland of western Pennsylvania reported engagement in public covenanting in the 1820s.30 Mount Pleasant was not one of them. The elders of that Chartiers congregation received a discouraging result when they polled congregants in their individual jurisdictions in early 1825. After deferring action several times, the session concluded at its October meeting that a majority of the congregation were not prepared to fulfill their duty to engage in public covenanting.31 The Associate Synod’s 1820s effort to revive public covenanting throughout the denomination came precisely as ministers and elders struggled to justify their increasingly anachronistic devotion to this once-cherished ritual. To create a contrast to the perceived temporizing of the Associate Reformed Church, leading Seceders attempted to bring their members to a greater commitment to their denomination’s continuing existence through formal participation in orchestrated demonstrations of support for time-honored ideals. But by 1830 Seceders in western Pennsylvania seemed quite willing to limit

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their participation to the weekly and seasonal rituals of the Associate Presbyterian Church; these had become a sufficient badge of difference and distinction. Social covenanting had lost its force and meaning. For many Presbyterians of all varieties in the 1820s, the neglect of family worship represented a decline in traditional practices due to the materialism and competing demands of a busier, bustling world. In a satirical article that appeared in a Covenanter magazine in 1823, the traveler “Titus” queried the landlady of a mountain inn about family worship in her Westmoreland County locale. She knew of only a couple of elderly men who prayed at home in the evenings. “I have heard the old folks say that twenty years ago they nearly all did it,” their hostess continued. “But we haven’t much of it now-a-days. There isn’t the time for it now. I suppose people pray by themselves, that’s enough ain’t it?” Titus’s traveling companion disagreed. “‘No, madam,’ said Donald, ‘it is not enough. While the people are growing richer, they become more irreligious, forgetting their Maker who blessed their labor.’” The heretofore silent landlord agreed: “You know your father and mine did pray in their families when we were young, but it was so many years ago that we have also forgotten what it means.”32 The falling away of previously cherished practices paralleled the gradually diminished symbolic power of the sacraments and, with it, the authority of sessions. Probably at no time did everyone accused and judged guilty of misdeeds accept verdicts, penalties, or sessions’ authority. But church records frequently hint at declining respect for elders as arbiters of community standards in the second quarter of the nineteenth century as market forces eroded communitarian values. John Cooper and his wife Elizabeth had been cited by the Mount Carmel Session in Beaver County for repeatedly missing communion and for slandering church members. The couple’s “obstinate” and “pernicious” refusal to appear, together with a declaration of independence from the session’s authority, led to their suspension in October 1831. John McAllister initially admitted his guilt and professed his sorrow when the Poke Run Session learned in August 1842 that he had been seen drunk in Greensburg. Session decreed a rebuke before the congregation. But within a month McAllister had affiliated with another denomination. Session voted to strike his name from the rolls.33 Disenchanted with their parents’ faith, some American-born Presbyterians drifted away from Irish Presbyterian churches and communities. Economic hardship and economic opportunities called both the desperate and the hopeful to cities and greener fields. Catharine Connor had 58

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stopped attending services at the Cross Roads meetinghouse in northern Allegheny County for four or five years before leaving the neighborhood. The Cross Roads Session struck her name from the rolls in November 1834. Economic depression and perceived opportunities elsewhere, perhaps more than disputes over doctrine and practice, may have led White Oak Flats congregants to quit Beaver County altogether. Where one congregant had applied to the White Oak Flats Session for a leaving certificate between April 1818 and April 1819, three left without the formality. Eight had similarly abandoned the congregation the previous year, reducing the rural congregation to fifty-five communicants.34 Perhaps more surprising than individuals refusing to acknowledge sessions’ authority, ignoring services, or simply moving away is the persistence with which many daughters and sons of the Irish Presbyterian Church continued to embrace the strictures of their faith. In May 1831 the Cross Roads Session intervened in acrimonious wrangling between neighbors. Common fame had charged James McClelland and his wife “with unchristian conduct and conversation” because of accusations made against “the widow Ramsey’s family.” When the McClellands balked at the session’s involvement, the elders barred the family from the communion table until they had either repented or agreed to an investigation of the case. Even after losing a civil suit for slander, the McClellands continued to resist the session’s efforts at reconciliation. Perhaps aching for the spiritual solace found in the Lord’s Supper, perhaps hoping to regain their standing within the community, the formerly recalcitrant couple sought restoration to the communion of the church in May 1834. Session readily agreed “on the grounds of good character” demonstrated in the months that followed the civil court’s verdict.35 If the impulse felt by some to rebel seemed near-absolute, the recalcitrance of others remained locked in the embrace of a living tradition. As long as congregants empowered this system, the dialectic of accused and accusers, penitent and absolvers, held each side in a tension that permitted no release except community-sanctioned mutual resolution. Pennsylvania Presbyterians’ willingness to participate in this disciplinary system is perhaps a measure of the power of rural peer pressure. It might also suggest the strength of desire to be reconnected to God and community. Communion seasons shaped and defined community by bringing Presbyterians together once or twice a year for five days of fasting, examination, prayer, reflection, sharing, and thanksgiving—as well as feasting, conversation, romantic assignation, and other forms of conviviality. Admission to the sacraments of communion and baptism allowed an in59

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dividual entry into a relationship with God constructed according to a particular historical and cultural understanding. To “be in communion” defined one as a member of a particular ethnoreligious community. By defining who belonged, the communal ritual also became the measure of who did not: those who had, in the eyes of the appointed keepers of tradition, broken faith with their God and with their community. They would be known by their absence from the communion tables. Participation in family instruction, social worship, covenanting, and days of fasting and humiliation likewise proclaimed membership in the ethnoreligious community. Those who did not (or could not) participate did not belong. Or did they? Every congregation had its penumbra of the disaffected, indifferent, and suspended. In 1821 the three southwestern Pennsylvania presbyteries reported to the mainstream Synod of Pittsburgh fewer than five thousand communicants combined, a seemingly insignificant portion of a total population in southwestern Pennsylvania numbering 271,000 in 1820. And yet in the inescapable intimacy of urban neighborhoods and farming communities, with their indispensable ties of family and neighborliness and transplanted immigrant networks, relationships among communicants and noncommunicants would have been manifold and multilayered. The personnel of each side might change slightly from communion season to communion season: As some lost their place or walked away in disgust, others repented and gained admission. Some absented themselves from meeting only to join with another variety of Presbyterianism down the road. And newcomers arrived from Ireland.36 The ensuing clash of rituals—of the covenanted and uncovenanted, for example—and the myriad arguments of pamphleteers, harvesters and dram drinkers, flax sellers and cloth sellers, comprised differences very real to participants but also a dialectical unity of lived ethnoreligious experience. The web of these relationships, integrating the multiple varieties of Presbyterianism, formed the totality of immigrant Irish Presbyterian life in western Pennsylvania.37 These relationships changed over time, due not only to the acculturation of the existing populations and the constant arrival of new immigrants with varying religious experiences, beliefs, and expectations but also to the expansion of the market revolution and market ideologies. New work rhythms, whether in profit-driven agricultural production or urban workshops, militated against traditional rituals such as five-day communal seasons, family worship, and fast days.

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From Insurrection to Revival 

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he sometimes violent opposition to the 1791 federal excise on distilled spirits divided western Pennsylvania Presbyterians, especially as protests reached a crescendo in the summer of 1794. For many ministers and elders the shocking opposition to constituted authority signaled the urgent necessity of spiritual reawakening. For many laypeople, the mingled individual and collective crises of confidence and certainty propelled a search for deeper religious meaning through traditional ritual. Although clergy urged submission and elders counseled lawful protest, most of the region’s Presbyterians opposed the excise, some even condoning violence.1 In the end, the outcome of what a land developer labeled “this unhappy insurrection” brought little satisfaction to many farmers, laborers, and artisans of Ulster origins.2 Rebels had destroyed the sumptuous mansion of John Neville, the most prominent tax official and the region’s largest landowner and slave-owner, but the politically 61

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well-connected elite associated with him continued to dominate western Pennsylvania’s politics and economy. The triumph of the law-andorder party only sharpened the uneven and painful effects of the region’s transition from a subsistence to a cash-driven, commercial economy. The presence of a sizable army in southwestern Pennsylvania strengthened the hand of the “Neville connection” by rapidly multiplying the number of cash transactions for whiskey and other commodities.3 In the decade following the Whiskey Rebellion, older cohorts of Irish migrants joined newer cohorts in continuing the fight against the influence of the Neville combination through the Democratic-Republican Party.4 At the same time, the trauma of the insurrection and its outcome also gave intensity to emotionally powerful expressions of Presbyterian religiosity. On an autumn Sabbath in 1802, Elisha Macurdy preached from atop a wagon to a large crowd gathered on the grounds of the Upper Buffalo meetinghouse in Washington County. In what became known as his “war sermon,” Macurdy counseled reconciliation and spiritual submission. During the eight years after the collapse of the Whiskey Rebellion, the region had continued to be roiled by recriminations from the insurrection, by the accelerated commercialization that followed the rebels’ defeat, by political and social divisions, and by the frustrations of those who could not secure land ownership. For those western Pennsylvania Presbyterians who found peace through Macurdy’s communion sermon, the insurrection finally reached an end. Convinced by Macurdy of their rebellion against God, hundreds of his listeners fell to the ground writhing and wailing.5 Like the iconic Cane Ridge revival in Kentucky and other moments of spiritual intensity in Washington County, the scenes in Upper Buffalo took place as rural Presbyterians of often Irish origin gathered for the celebration of communion. These “sacramental occasions” together with the rituals of confession and discipline linked to communion helped to reintegrate and sustain the ethnoreligious community. The riotous behavior of westerners in the early 1790s, the open defiance of law, the condemnation of clergy, and the painful foreclosure of economic opportunity for many in the region following the insurrection’s collapse called into question Presbyterians’ actions, assumptions, loyalties, and perceptions. Events had produced an intense need for a sense of connection with God and covenanted community. The Upper Buffalo sacramental occasion represents a western Pennsylvania highpoint of the series of events known collectively as the Great Revival of the West. These deeply emotional expressions of piety 62

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spanned the final years of the eighteenth century and first years of the nineteenth and occurred most flamboyantly in recent postfrontier areas of the transappalachian West. The “falling work” at Upper Buffalo and the Cane Ridge revival in Kentucky the previous year erupted, more or less spontaneously, out of Presbyterian communion celebrations. The intense emotionalism and excitement that occurred at Upper Buffalo in November 1802 had not been planned or advertised as “a revival.” Those who fell to the ground and rose to seek church membership were often nominal Presbyterians. Presbyterian ministers trained in the Keystone State by “New Side” clergy—those inspired by the American revivals of the 1730s and 1740s—guided and encouraged, organized and prayed for revivals in Kentucky and western Pennsylvania.6 The backcountry Great Revival occupied an intermediary stage between the colonial-era revival movement known as the Great Awakening and the largely urban Second Great Awakening that flourished in the 1820s and 1830s.The Great Revival can be seen as anticipating the Second Great Awakening as a moment of transition from collective to individual sanctification. Although sacramental occasions brought together thousands in a traditional ritual of renewing an implicit covenant and reintegrating the community, the claims for individual salvation asserted at these communion celebrations also reflected and anticipated a privatization of religious experience indicative of broader social transformation. The western Pennsylvanians who experienced spiritual rebirth during a communion event, older immigrants and newer immigrants, Irish-born and American-born, struggled to understand their relationship with the new republic and the deity to whom they gave allegiance. A series of incidents involving brief, intense periods of piety and religious fervor created an association between revivalism and spiritual growth on the part of transmontane Presbyterian clergy. Revivals occurred in the formative period of several early congregations and aided the development of regional Presbyterianism by fostering a sense of spiritual community. A religious society based in a frontier fort experienced intermittent bouts of religious enthusiasm between 1775 and 1777; the Vance’s Fort society became a founding component of the Cross Creek congregation in Washington County.7 Beginning in late 1781 revivals occurred over the next six years in all but two of eleven frontier-era congregations, in some cases preceded by “week-day and night sermons and meetings for social worship.”8 Settlers’ decisions to organize Presbyterian congregations within a decade or so of initial European occupation speaks to the significance of 63

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their religious faith as a signifier of meaning and identity. The timeline suggests that revivals accompanied communities’ social development: religious enthusiasm occurred not in the initial frontier phase but as communities fitfully and painfully shifted from bare subsistence to more complex economic relationships. If revivals facilitated the formation of Presbyterianism, the growth of the Presbyterian-inclined population provided the critical mass that made revivals possible. As Paul Conkin suggests, revivals of this size could not have taken place in frontier conditions “among the first scattered white settlers in any area of the West.” Rather, revivals occurred once conglomerations of settlers formed congregations. These events, Reverend George Stevenson concluded, were a gift of the Holy Spirit “greatly strengthening the feeble churches.”9 Washington County, the location of all the western Pennsylvania revivals, was the region’s most populous county, with numbers of Presbyterian congregations and significant concentrations of residents with north of Ireland connections. Even as the growth rate slowed, Washington County remained the region’s population center.10 From an estimated 15,900 white inhabitants in 1784, Washington County encompassed a white population of 23,617 in 1790 and 27,874 in 1800.11 Children represented a significant portion of the population in the census year 1800. In Hopewell Township, for example, the scene of the Upper Buffalo and other revivals in 1802, young people under the age of sixteen represented nearly 50 percent of the population in 1800.12 The replacement of the frontier by a more settled rural community is also suggested by the growing alignment of the numbers of men and women.13 In 1799 the Ohio Presbytery reported nine settled ministers and fifteen vacant pulpits. Largely as a result of the education of local candidates for the ministry, the presbytery could claim an increase to sixteen ministers (one without a charge) but twenty-seven vacancies in 1802.14 In a region notoriously short of specie, ministers were typically paid in kind. Nevertheless, congregations were frequently in arrears.15 John McMillan had been promised a salary of about £100 per annum; like the shopkeepers of nearby Canonsburg, he was frequently paid in country produce. In April 1796 McMillan reported to the Ohio Presbytery that his Chartiers congregation, with some 150 members, owed him about £30; the following year the congregation’s indebtedness to its minister had grown to more than £83. Complaints of meager contributions toward the Canonsburg Academy’s building fund came forward at the presbytery’s meetings in 1794 and 1796.16 The revival of religion that occurred in conjunction with the “many 64

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sweet, solemn sacramental occasions” during the formative period of Presbyterianism had the goal of strengthening the region’s “feeble churches.” “The few pious who were in these infant congregations, were at this time [1781] earnestly engaged for additions to their numbers,” recalled a minister during a later revival.17 The revival’s goal, however, cannot be reduced to head counts and finances. Ministers and elders anxiously considered the fate of the young and the many unchurched within their communities. The latter included individuals who expressed their identity with drinking, brawling, and enthusiasm for the Jeffersonian party. Anxious congregants contemplating the challenges of a postfrontier society worried about their own souls and the state of their communities. But in response to these concerns, the events hailed contemporaneously as “revivals of religion” were neither scrupulously planned nor wholly spontaneous. Presbyterian revivals in early nineteenth-century Washington County derived their strength and meaning from traditional, daily religious practice. Following well-established Reformed practice in North America and in the British Isles, weekly worship services and less formal, more intimate prayer meetings together helped build commingled piety and religious excitement.18 To be sure, revivals helped congregations attain “additions to their numbers” essential to “greatly strengthening the feeble churches.” Implicitly, sustaining the new congregations and church structure represented a principal goal of the revivals. As happened elsewhere in the early nineteenth century, revivals provided congregations with the critical mass of adult membership needed to sustain institutional existence. The work of the Spirit in opening westerners’ hearts would necessarily result in strengthened institutions. In the short term, communions tended to offset indebtedness by considerably improving upon the regular Sabbath offerings.19 In the long term, increased numbers would guarantee a congregation’s ability to maintain a full-time minister. Both goals were far from being met at the turn of the nineteenth century. The founders of western Pennsylvania Presbyterianism were predisposed to revivalism. The four ministers who organized the frontier Presbytery of Redstone—Thaddeus Dod, John McMillan, James Power, and Joseph Smith—were all born and educated in America. Theirs was a church in which the evangelical New Side had triumphed over the Old Side as an outcome of the 1740s Great Awakening. The career of McMillan, who was revered and disparaged during his lifetime as the “Patriarch of the Western Church,” exemplifies that triumph. Born in Lancaster County in 1752 to Irish immigrants, McMillan studied at two 65

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eastern Pennsylvania academies founded by New Side clergymen and at the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University), also a New Side institution. The New Side regarded experiential religion as a ministerial requisite. Significantly, McMillan had his first profound religious experience in a Pequea Academy revival and another during a student revival in his first year at the College of New Jersey.20 McMillan combined his revivalist outlook with theology that owed much to the Calvinism of his background. As a revivalist, his preaching proclaimed the certain torments awaiting those who flouted the ordinances of a wrathful God. “Oh! but did he riddle the sinners over hell,” an elderly lady remarked when asked for her recollection of McMillan’s sermons. McMillan was no Arminian: he seems to have accepted the fundamental Reformed doctrine that salvation is a gracious gift of God unaffected by human agency. His contemporaries regarded his theological views as sufficiently orthodox (in Calvinist terms) for McMillan to be claimed by the Old School following the 1830s schism in the mainstream church.21 McMillan tutored James McGready, the preacher most closely associated with the Cane Ridge revival. The student reflected both this teacher’s evangelical emphases and Presbyterian theology. Born in Pennsylvania and raised in North Carolina, McGready boarded and studied with McMillan and helped on his farm. He then studied with Joseph Smith at Cross Creek. McGready was licensed by the Redstone Presbytery in 1788. McGready’s theological studies coincided with western Pennsylvania revivals; he experienced his own spiritual rebirth at such a sacramental occasion. McMillan and Smith helped foster his belief in the necessity of a conversion experience. McGready’s revivalism exemplifies the transitional nature of the Great Revival of the West. A scholar who examined McGready’s sermons concludes that the camp-meeting preacher was theologically an eighteenth-century Calvinist in the mold of his mentors McMillan and Smith.22 Elisha Macurdy’s upbringing paralleled those of other revival preachers as well as those of many in his audiences. The grandson of an Irish immigrant, Macurdy was born in Cumberland County in 1763. He moved with his family to the Ligonier Valley in Westmoreland County in the early 1780s when he was about twenty-one. There Macurdy heard such visiting ministers as the revivalist James Hughes, who had studied under McMillan alongside McGready, and John McPherrin, a recent Dickinson College graduate. Macurdy had a conversion experience and publicly professed his faith during a revival in the Salem congregation in the early 66

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1790s. Macurdy then helped organize Fairfield congregation in the Ligonier Valley and construct its meetinghouse. Encouraged to study for ministry by Fairfield minister George Hill and others, Macurdy entered Canonsburg Academy in 1792 and studied theology with McMillan and the latter’s son-in-law, John Watson. He was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Ohio in 1799.23 Revival thus followed revival. The Ligonier Valley revival reportedly facilitated the spiritual rebirth of others who became Presbyterian ministers, among them the Irish-born John Boyd and Pennsylvanian Richard McNemar, who became a notable figure in the Kentucky revivals. As the Whiskey Rebellion reached its zenith of violence, Macurdy studied at an academy founded by McMillan. By the time of the Upper Buffalo communion in 1802, Macurdy became known as “the man who knocked the people down” due to the numbers who collapsed in response to his preaching. His “war sermon” at that sacramental occasion represented a continuation of McMillan’s work for order and stability in the postfrontier West.24 Presbyterian clergy regarded the 1790s as period of spiritual deadness among Presbyterians in transmontane Pennsylvania. A chronicler of revivals for the Western Missionary Magazine acknowledged ruefully that between the revivals of the 1780s and early 1800s, “some sad degrees of declension” occurred. These misgivings arose in part from profound differences of political opinion between pulpit and pew. The Presbyterian clergy in Pennsylvania (and elsewhere) largely shared a commitment to American liberties and republicanism understood in terms of the order and stability sought by Federalism. George Washington seemed to many ministers the model of a virtuous civil magistrate. And they found evidence of religious decline and success of irreligion in the raucous, disrespectful, and even violent opposition to Washington and the ordered political society over which he presided.25 Presbyterians of Irish origins in western Pennsylvania had been notable in their opposition to the United States Constitution and policies of the Washington and Adams administrations. Prominent in the region’s Jacobin societies, Presbyterians by 1800 had become virtually synonymous with the region’s Democratic-Republican Party. Ministers worried that their inability to meet the institutional and spiritual needs of a growing population contributed to the growth of irreligion. The Mingo Creek settlement in eastern Washington County represented a case in point. Organized in the 1780s, the Mingo Creek congregation lacked a settled minister until 1796. A “Jacobin Club” met in the Mingo Creek congre67

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gation’s log meetinghouse in the early 1790s. Assigned a leading role in regional opposition to the federal excise on whiskey, the organization was condemned by authorities as a “cradle of insurrection.” (The organization’s formal name, the Society of United Freemen, is strongly suggestive of contemporary Ulster Presbyterian support for the radical Society of United Irishmen.) Similarly, the town of Washington, Pennsylvania, in the 1790s had both a radical society and a vacant pulpit.26 Out of a sense of pastoral responsibility provoked by these developments, John McMillan offered his congregants both the Gospel and Federalist politics. The Chartiers Valley clergyman, already well known for his determined opposition to the Whiskey Rebellion, became a major figure in western Pennsylvanian Federalism in the 1790s. Notably, McMillan actively campaigned for the treaty with Britain negotiated by Chief Justice John Jay on behalf of the Washington administration, which was strongly supported by the Federalist party and vigorously opposed by Irish immigrants.27 Irish immigration in the 1790s produced a contrary trend: recent immigrants strengthened the Presbyterian tendency toward the DemocraticRepublican Party in that decade. Imbued with a republicanism influenced by the American and French Revolutions and derived from Irish experience, these immigrants overwhelmingly opposed Federalist policies. In return, the Federalists feared the immigration of “wild Irishmen” infected with Jacobin ideas as a major source of Republican strength statewide and a contributing factor to the “terrorism” in southwestern Pennsylvania during the Whiskey Rebellion.28 The antagonistic hopes and fears of clergy and recently arrived laity clashed in Pennsylvania’s bitter 1799 gubernatorial election. The Democratic-Republican gubernatorial candidate, Thomas McKean, the son of Ulster immigrants, faced among other claims the rumor he intended to import “Twenty Thousand United Irishmen” into the state to influence the outcome. The election assumed crucial importance because of its presumed impact on the following year’s presidential contest. By gaining a majority in the lower house of the state legislature, Republicans hoped to deliver Pennsylvania’s crucial eight electoral votes to Thomas Jefferson in 1800. With the stakes so high, Washington County Presbyterian elders entered the political arena. In 1799 they provided James Ross, McKean’s Federalist opponent, with testimonials attesting his religious values. Significantly, Ross was a protégé of John McMillan, who no doubt encouraged the elders’ efforts to sway the voters. Nev-

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ertheless, McKean won, signaling that the tide had turned against the state’s “friends of order.” In 1800 Pennsylvania had a deciding role in the outcome of the bitterly fought presidential election between Jefferson and Federalist John Adams. The contest for the state assembly, held on 14 October 1800, ensured the Republicans’ national triumph. The state election “was a crushing defeat for the Federalists,” and Washington and other southwestern counties gave hefty majorities to the Jeffersonians.29 The Presbyterian clergy regarded the gubernatorial election year of 1799 as a time “when the graceless became more bold in sin and impiety,” “the floods of vanity and carnality appeared likely to carry all before them; most of the pious became very weak and feeble in the cause of Christ, much buried in, and carried away with the things and pursuits of the world, and in some places a spirit of contention and animosity crept in, which appeared to lead into a great degree of contempt of ordinances, and government in the church and in families.”30 The first stirring of revivalism that year failed to keep Presbyterian voters from their ringing endorsement of Thomas Jefferson. Macurdy’s biographer noted that a period of “painful declension” followed the 1799 revival. Likewise, John McMillan also feared that religion was in steep decline. The headlong rush for riches personified by Pittsburgh’s elite, the rise of DemocraticRepublican politics in the countryside, and the Whiskey Rebellion itself seemed to McMillan and his coterie as obvious causes for alarm to Zion’s watchmen. By the end of the 1790s, Federalist clergymen in western Pennsylvania as elsewhere had concluded that the Christian foundations of the new republic would be secured through evangelicalism rather than politics. The traditional communion celebrations among Irish Presbyterians represented a particular opportunity to reach hearts and minds of unregenerate members of the ethnoreligious community.31 Communion celebrations themselves were formal rituals of collective renewal as well as emotion-laden moments of individual expectation of salvation within the covenanted community. But not all who attended gained admission to the communion table. If hundreds gathered for communion, many others assembled out of spiritual hunger, conviviality, or curiosity. In renewing their covenant with God, the presumed elect simultaneously avowed their separation from unregenerate neighbors not yet worthy of the sacrament. This was the Presbyterian paradox: the backcountry churches required greater numbers of congregants for survival, but doctrine decreed that only those examined and found to be free from ignorance and scandal (and potentially among the elect) could

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be admitted into communion and subject to church discipline. Ministers therefore worked especially hard to assist the Spirit in bringing nominal or lapsed Presbyterians to a conviction of sin and hope of salvation. Revivals in a few of the older, better-established congregations in the 1780s and 1790s created the basis for a more generalized revival atmosphere at the turn of the nineteenth century. Chartiers, the Washington County congregation of John McMillan, experienced “a considerable reviving and ingathering of souls” in 1795, the year after the Whiskey Rebellion. The death of a student at nearby Canonsburg Academy the previous winter appears to have enhanced the impact of that revival. In the Big Forks of Wheeling and Three Ridges congregations in late 1798, “a number [were] awakened . . . to a serious concern about their souls.” Frequent prayer meetings, especially during the winter months, helped maintain a sense of change. At this time young people in particular were reported to be undergoing “a considerable awakening” in the congregations of Rev. James Hughes.32 Bursts of religious enthusiasm brought sinners to a realization of their sin and to church sessions seeking admission to communion. Ohio Presbytery clergy were heartened by reports of a revival that enflamed new settlements between the Little and Big Beaver Rivers northwest of Pittsburgh beginning in the fall of 1798. Thomas Hughes, younger brother of James and a ministerial candidate, particularly affected young people there. The Irish-born Joseph Patterson followed Hughes, “and a number more were awakened.” The newly awakened reportedly spent several weeks “in great distress” due to an overwhelming sense of guilt and unworthiness before obtaining comfort. Participation in a prayer society and the assistance of pious neighbors appear to have been the vehicles of longed-for solace. Further to the northwest, in what is now Lawrence County, a young minister administered the sacrament a week after his ordination in September 1800; “some evident tokens of the spirit of God [were] operating on the minds of several. . . . The season was both animating and encouraging.”33 Older settlements, too, experienced revivals of religious feeling, among them the Montour Run congregation in western Allegheny County. Along Mill Creek, a tributary of the Ohio River northwest of Pittsburgh, many were said to have become aroused in the winter and early spring of 1799: “numbers are crying, what shall they do to be saved, and earnestly inquiring for the means of grace.” Reports circulated in spring 1799 of a “glorious work” in the congregations of Reverends John Brice and Joseph Patterson; a minister-correspondent added that within 70

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his own flock, “a number appear to be deeply impressed with a solemn sense of their sin and danger, and some few have come forward to the Lord’s table for the first time.”34 A time of declension followed, from 1799 through 1801, “when the graceless became more bold in sin and impiety”—a period corresponding to Democratic-Republican electoral victories in the state and nation. As of 19 June 1802, members of the Ohio Presbytery continued to deplore the state of religion within their bounds and so declared the following day one of “humiliation, fasting and prayer.” The assembled elders and ministers reflected on their coreligionists’ “backslide far from God,” their “state of barrenness and unfruitfulness in matters of religion, while the Spirit of God is poured out in such plentiful showers in other places.” During the day of fasting, the presbyters resolved to “confess their sins and the sins of their people, to implore the outpouring of the Spirit of God upon them and the churches under their care, to prevent the spread of errors and schisms; and that religion may be revived in its power and purity.”35 A revival of religion would follow, inspired by events further west. The “plentiful showers in other places” cited by the presbytery referred to the revival underway in Kentucky, epitomized by the Cane Ridge communion of August 1801. From Kentucky, Rev. James McGready wrote to his mentor McMillan with accounts of the revivals. Rev. James Hughes, a peripatetic evangelist, visited Kentucky in the fall of 1801 and participated in three communions. Hughes had been closely associated with the stirrings of revival in western Pennsylvania in late 1798 and 1799. Prayer meetings and religious societies, and the exhortation of the clergy, prepared the way for southwestern Pennsylvania’s full-fledged participation in the Great Revival. As Paul Conkin observes, “only after Cane Ridge did any communions [in western Pennsylvania] rival those in Kentucky.”36 “About the latter end of the year 1801, and beginning of 1802,” wrote a member of the Ohio Presbytery in chronicling the intensification of the revival, there was a remarkable attendance upon ordinances; meetings for the worship of God, both publick and social, were generally crouded; and there appeared an increasing attention to the word of God, and great solemnity in the assemblies.—The people of God became more sensible of, and affected with the low state of religion, and the dangerous, perishing condition of sinners. It appeared that God made use of the intelligence we had of the revival of religion in other places, to excite a longing and praying for the 71

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Lord’s returning with power to our languishing churches; that we might experience with displays of his power and grace which he was making in other parts. Desire and prayer for this great favour increased through the following winter in many of our congregations; and in the spring and first part of the summer of 1802, there was a considerable rising of expectations, that the Lord would not altogether forsake or pass us by, but that he would yet favour us with a gracious visitation; and indeed we were blest with some tokens of his presence in his ordinances; not only the children of God were more quickened and aroused, but also in many instances there appeared to be an alarm, and some concern amongst unregenerate sinners.

Communion celebrations in June 1802 drew larger crowds and greater interest, particularly in Cross Creek and Lower Buffalo, the congregations of revivalists Thomas Marquis and James Hughes, respectively.37 The momentum led to a revival of Kentucky-style proportions later in 1802: “the first singular and extraordinary manifestations of the divine power” took place in the Three Springs congregation of Elisha Macurdy during celebration of the Lord’s Supper that September. The previous weeks had been characterized by greater “solemnity and serious exercise.” On the Sabbath before the sacramental occasion, some fifty individuals remained in the meetinghouse for social worship after the afternoon service. Saturday, the third day of the sacramental celebration, saw a number of people collapse and be carried off the grounds. “Most of that night was spent in social worship; and the work remarkably increased until Monday morning. When the congregation was dismissed, some hundreds remained on the ground; several attempts were made to part, but all in vain. They remained all night on the ground; and this night far exceeded anything that had been before: many were prostrate, crying for mercy.” Later that week “many instances of new awakening” were reported when the Cross Roads prayer society had its monthly meeting. (Cross Roads was also under the pastoral charge of Macurdy.)38 “Something similar to what you have heard of in Kentucky and the Carolinas, has taken place in our neighborhood,” a Washington County resident reported to a friend in New Jersey shortly after the Three Springs event. “A few weeks ago the most remarkable revival of religion ever known in this country, made its appearance here. It first began at a sacrament of the Rev. M’C. fifteen miles from this place, it is spreading rapidly in every direction.”39 Ministers and enthusiastic laity maintained emotions at a high pitch

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over the next several weeks. The Synod of Pittsburgh held its inaugural meeting the week after the Three Springs sacramental occasion; inspired by the news from Washington County, the assembled clergy and elders voted to launch the Western Missionary Magazine as a revivalist organ. Some ministers returned with Macurdy to see the spiritual transformation firsthand. Numbers of the hopeful and curious came to Three Springs from neighboring congregations for worship that Sabbath and stayed into the evening, when “many were affected—numbers sunk down—the cries and groans of the distressed were almost incessant.” Intense emotion swept through a prayer meeting in the Cross Creek congregation on 5 October 1802; tears and wailing accompanied prayer late into the night. “So many were in distress, and their cries so excessive, that a speaker’s voice could scarcely be heard.” The next day another prayer meeting in Washington County was similarly affected, with the result that numbers were “admitted to the table of the Lord” and to church. Also that week a prayer meeting of the Short Creek (West Liberty) congregation of James Hughes, on the Pennsylvania-Virginia border, had its own extraordinary occurrence: “many were much engaged and seriously exercised, the pious present were much quickened and revived.”40 The scenes of greatest intensity occurred at celebrations of the Lord’s Supper in October and November 1802. Joseph Patterson’s Raccoon congregation observed communion the second week of October, with many attending from Cross Roads, Three Springs, and Cross Creek. By the conclusion of worship on Sunday evening, a sense of sin caused many to collapse and cry out. On Monday, the final day of the sacramental occasion, many in attendance moaned in agony; “some of them very notorious in vanity and profanity were struck to the ground.” Several individuals ostensibly part of the Raccoon congregation were for the first time “awakened.” Immediately following the close of the Raccoon communion services, numerous participants retired to one of three locations for further communal worship. Among these were two hundred individuals who collected at the home of prominent Cross Creek elder Judge James Edgar. Their “extreme sense of the dreadfully evil nature of sin” left many of them “prostrate on the floor,” crying aloud for mercy. Among those overwhelmed by their distress were individuals regarded as skeptical if not disdainful of the revivals’ physicality. The two other locations—the home of Cross Roads elder John Riddle and the Raccoon meetinghouse—likewise experienced intensity of emotion, though without physical collapse. The same week, both Beaver County congregations

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under the pastoral care of Rev. George Scott felt the effects of revival: at the Flats congregation during a prayer meeting and at Mill Creek during the Lord’s Supper.41 The Cross Roads congregation’s autumn celebration of communion, around the final Sabbath of October, represented another highpoint of the Great Revival’s sweep through the Ohio Presbytery. Anticipation of dramatic events swelled the size of the crowds arriving on the grounds of the meetinghouse near King’s Creek in Hanover Township in northwestern Washington County. On horseback, on foot, with an estimated thirty-two wagons, entire families arrived with provisions. Nine ministers assisted Elisha Macurdy on this occasion. Rain and snow may have initially dampened enthusiasm. But once an individual suddenly collapsed at the end of Saturday services, many fell down during services that continued through Tuesday morning. Approximately eight hundred individuals took communion under a large tent, some forty of them for the first time. “Prayers and exhortations were continued all night in the meetinghouse [on Sunday], except at short intervals, when a speaker’s voice could not be heard for the cries and groans of the distressed.”42 A larger than usual crowd also congregated near the Upper Buffalo meetinghouse, Washington County, for communion in mid-November 1802. Seldom had so many assembled for a communion festival or traveled as far—some ten thousand persons reportedly gathered on the grounds near the log meetinghouse completed four years earlier. (If this figure is accurate, the attendance equaled approximately one-third of the entire Washington County population in 1800.) Arriving with wagons and tents, they created a temporary settlement in the woods that stretched in a semicircle before the preaching tent. More than a dozen ministers came to assist pastor John Anderson in preaching and distributing the elements.43 The sacramental occasion began at two o’clock on the afternoon of Saturday, 13 November. The preaching, exhortation, and prayer continued long into the night. The following morning, ministers delivered two simultaneous sermons before the communion itself, one in the meetinghouse, the other at the tent outside adjacent to the communion table. Nearly one thousand communicants then received bread and wine. As the distribution of the elements continued, Reverend McMillan asked Reverend Macurdy to preach to a large crowd at a distance from the meetinghouse, from atop a wagon.44 And so at the height of the solemn proceedings, as the elements continued to be served, Macurdy announced from the wagon bed that he 74

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would preach on politics, claiming he had received a request to do so from the government. He took as his text the Second Psalm, “Why do the heathen rage?” There had been an insurrection, he railed, a rebellion against the lawfully constituted authorities. Similarly, sinners were rebels against God and His government as well. However, declared Macurdy, again citing the Second Psalm, just as the government had proffered amnesty to those who returned to a sense of their duty, so too had God offered clemency through the sacrifice of his Son: “Kiss ye the Son,” Macurdy demanded, “lest He be angry.”45 The Upper Buffalo communion celebration offered scenes to rival Cane Ridge: “Some hundreds were . . . convinced of their sin and misery; many of them sunk down and cried bitterly and incessantly for several hours—Some fell suddenly; some lost their strength gradually; some lay quiet and silent; some were violently agitated; and many sat silently weeping, who were not exercised with any bodily affections.” During Macurdy’s sermon, hundreds fell to the ground writhing and weeping, some wailing that they were “insurgents against God.” Another minister present recalled, “the scene appeared to me like the close of a battle, in which every tenth man had fallen fatally wounded.” Typical of these sacramental occasions, the meetings continued into the night on Sunday and all day on Monday and Tuesday. “So greatly was God’s power manifested, that it was difficulty the people were persuaded to return home.”46 The Connecticut missionary Joseph Badger found a crowd of some five thousand, “the largest by far I had ever seen convened for social worship,” when he attended the Cross Creek sacramental occasion in June 1803. Local people provided accommodation for some of the visitors, but most of those who had traveled to the grounds sheltered themselves in tents or lean-tos. Five ministers and several licentiates preached and officiated; aroused and affected audiences remained in place despite the preachers’ physical exhaustion and eventual retirement. At that point, Badger wrote, “the elders from several congregations tarried with the assembly.” The flickering glow of scores of candles attached to trees and posts enhanced the otherworldliness of the scene.47 Transmontane Pennsylvania during the Great Revival of the West never burned with the kind of widespread, generalized fervor alleged to have later characterized the “burned-over district” in western New York during the Second Great Awakening of the 1820s and 1830s. Most Presbyterian congregations appear to have been untouched, possibly a testimony to habitual suspicion of disorder and unscriptural innovation. 75

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Instead, western Pennsylvania in the opening decade of the nineteenth century contained “revival zones.” Such zones consisted of networks of geographically related congregations with ministers and elders open to what they perceived as outpourings of the Holy Spirit. Inevitably, such ministers were those educated and trained in the United States by McMillan or other clergy sympathetic to revivals. These zones also tended to be areas undergoing a transition from frontier, more subsistenceoriented economies to settled, more commercial economies.48 The crowd-drawing communion celebrations in Washington County that became scenes of emotional conversion experiences—Cross Creek, Cross Roads, Short Creek, Three Springs, Raccoon, Lower Buffalo, Upper Buffalo—all took place west of Chartiers Creek. These congregations were thus in townships at a distance from the Monongahela and among the last to be settled. Farmers in these inland townships were also among those more likely to persist in subsistence farming as the eighteenth century drew to a close. In 1784 nearly 90 percent of settlers in the northwest corner of Washington County designated as Smith Township owned their land. By 1793 the original township had been subdivided in two. In the easternmost part, still known as Smith Township, 70.9 percent of farmers owned their land. The western portion, now known as Hanover, occupied the county’s northwestern corner, bordered on the north by Beaver County and on the west by the state of Virginia (now West Virginia). In Hanover, which contained the Cross Roads congregation, 86 percent of settlers owned their land in 1793.49 Those not reduced to sharecropping or tenancy struggled to make the land pay. The location of the Kentucky-like events suggests that the desire for assurance of divine forgiveness coincided with collective anxieties of an economically transformed western hill country. The Revolution and creation of a new republic had released “a great anticipation for the future.” The failure of social change to match the anticipated future led to “a vague uneasiness” among those with little control over the direction of the economy and society. While the precise connection between economic transformation and religious enthusiasm is unclear, a correlation between agricultural development and the expansion of organized religion in the Upper Ohio Valley and the burned-over district of upstate New York has been established for the mid-nineteenth century. Religious activity increased as these regions developed commercial farming.50 Northwest of Pittsburgh, regional economic development gradually reached newly established Lawrence, Mercer, and Crawford Counties in the first decade of the nineteenth century. The region was also the scene 76

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of battles over land tenure. The Hopewell congregation in the Shenango Valley experienced a significant increase in membership from 1801 to 1803 as a result of revivals accompanied by the “falling exercises.” The Neshannock congregation, linked to Hopewell in this period, experienced revivals in 1819–1820, and again in 1827. The Great Revival with its falling exercises came to the Scrubgrass with the ministry of Rev. Robert Johnston beginning in 1803. As a licentiate, the McMillan-trained Johnston had previously participated in revivals in Ohio and Kentucky. The revival at Scrubgrass is credited with the addition of more than one hundred communicants—including, perhaps, the blacksmith Stephen Crawford. He was among those in the neighborhood who suspected that satanic influences caused otherwise healthy individuals to collapse during religious services—until he himself fell to the floor, seemingly oblivious to his surroundings. “From a self-reliant and boastful man,” recalled an acquaintance, “he became as humble as a little child and was a faithful, devoted Christian from that hour until he closed his earthly career.”51 The relatively older settlements made by Irish Presbyterians in Allegheny and Westmoreland Counties did not “burn” with revival fire like those of western Washington County or the Shenango Valley, but neither was religious enthusiasm unknown. The Synod of Pittsburgh in October 1803 declared the second Thursday of December 1803 “a day of Thanksgiving for the outpouring of the Influence of the Divine Spirit on the Churches under their care and prayer for a more abundant effusion of the Spirit’s influences.” Redstone Presbytery, encompassing Westmoreland and eastern Allegheny Counties, called on congregations to promote this observation. Rev. William Woods, a former student of Robert Smith of Pequea and John Witherspoon of the College of New Jersey, presided over early nineteenth-century revivals in Bethel credited with a substantial increase in membership for that southern Allegheny County congregation. The revival spirit erupted in Westmoreland County, notably in the Long Run and Congruity congregations. Unusually large numbers reportedly attended services conducted by Rev. William Swan at Long Run in 1804 and thereafter. Here too were examples of the falling exercises: “persons under very deep and powerful conviction of sin or some other emotion, became physically powerless and remained so sometimes for hours.” The Irish-born Samuel Porter actively promoted the revival in his Congruity congregation and suffered harsh criticism from unsympathetic neighbors as a result.52 The revivals coincided with the arrival of new Irish migrants, and these ecstatic events were alien to their sense of Presbyterianism and 77

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expectations of the new Ireland to be built in the American backcountry. Like the blacksmith Stephen Crawford or the Westmoreland County neighbors of Samuel Porter, the revival of religion anxiously prepared by the American clergy appeared unseemly if not satanic. Revivalism spoke to the earnest concerns of ministers, elders, and laity during the rapid and often unsettling transformation of western Pennsylvania. Revivals as an expression of traditional Presbyterian ritual, and criticism of revivalism as a betrayal of Irish Presbyterian traditionalism, became competing strategies of assimilation and particular means of defining doctrinal distinctiveness.

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f the “revivals of religion” so carefully nurtured by anxious ministers reinvigorated languishing congregations, outbursts of religious enthusiasm also revealed fault lines within Ulster-American settlements. Those who favored a robust, experiential spirituality appropriate to NewWorld conditions were divided from orthodox Presbyterians whose expression of faith inevitably relied on confessions, creeds, and Old-World traditionalism. Stephen Crawford, a Venango Valley blacksmith who worried that the revivals’ bizarre physicality derived from satanic influences, came to celebrate a local event as an authentic outpouring of the Holy Spirit. But others, especially recent immigrants from Ireland, continued to entertain grave doubts. In the minds of skeptics and critics, revivals were doubly damned by association with hymns. Individuals attending revivals collapsed in fits as if demon-possessed; that was bad enough. Inevitably, it seemed, the crowds at revivals lifted up the songs of human authors, not divinely cre79

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ated lyrics. Even more than the embrace of revivalism, the abandonment of traditional psalm singing in favor of hymns demarcated the boundaries between New-World and Old-World styles of Presbyterianism. At the turn of the nineteenth century, the controversies raging around revivals and hymn singing combined with the mainstream church’s anxiety about political radicalism in the person of Thomas Ledlie Birch, a recent immigrant and political refugee. In the 1790s, Birch had been the pastor of one of Ireland’s largest Presbyterian congregations, in Saintfield, County Down. Outspoken in his support of radical political change and the French Revolution, he inevitably earned the enmity of local gentry and the hostile attention of military authorities. In the immediate aftermath of the Rebellion of 1798, a military tribunal ordered his exile for suspected involvement in the United Irishmen.1 Birch arrived in New York in September 1798. He preached in New York, Philadelphia, and East Nottingham, Maryland, before turning his attention westward. Birch traveled through the backcountry in early 1800 and in Washington, Pennsylvania, found “a number of [his] old hearers and neighbors from Ireland” living in the vicinity. He received an invitation from the Washington congregation’s elders to settle there as minister, then initial acceptance from the Ohio Presbytery following an interview with a standing committee responsible for interviewing itinerant clergy. Birch and his large family moved to Washington in August 1800.2 Birch sought admission to the Ohio Presbytery in October 1800 as a minister on a trial basis under church rules that gave presbyteries the sole right of licensure and ordination. The presbytery had no difficulties with his academic and institutional credentials but following a conversation “upon his experimental acquaintance with religion, and soundness in the faith,” refused his application. The presbytery rejected his applications for admission again in January and March 1801. Meanwhile, Birch controversially continued his ministry in Washington while appealing the presbyterial ruling to the General Assembly (the highest judicature of the Presbyterian Church). In May 1801 Birch sought redress from the General Assembly and received some satisfaction, only to be rejected again by the Ohio Presbytery the following month. Half victory and failure attended Birch’s efforts to achieve formal recognition of his ministry and rescue a disintegrating personal reputation. He asked the Ohio Presbytery to censure Rev. John McMillan, his chief antagonist; that April 1802 effort ended disastrously. Birch lodged another protest before the May 1802 General Assembly. Later in 1802 he applied for admittance to the Presbyteries of New Castle in Delaware and 80

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Huntingdon in central Pennsylvania. Both presbyteries rejected him because of accusations against his character broadcast by the Ohio Presbytery. Birch pled his case to the General Assembly a third time in May 1803. Frustrated by failure to secure a berth in the American ministry once again, he angrily walked out of that meeting; the General Assembly then quickly renounced him. Birch, in the meantime, had initiated a civil suit against Rev. McMillan for defamation of character.3 Eventually he blasted all those who had opposed his ministry with a densely written 144-page book published in 1806.4 The Ohio Presbytery repeatedly rejected Birch because of two overriding and interconnected difficulties: his radical politics and aversion to the “heart religion” of revival. If western Pennsylvania seemed to Birch a new and perfected Ulster, he had tragically misjudged the time and place. In Ireland Birch prayed for rebels in arms, but in the United States republican revolution rendered such chaplaincy redundant. Pulpit fulminations against church establishment and aristocratic corruption of the state—the sermon style that gained him a following in County Down—had little more than nostalgic significance in the market town of Washington. Fierce competition with Federalists gave way to factionalism among Republicans. Birch’s Irish ministerial career had no meaning to the young, American-born preachers prepared by McMillan. In exile the revolutionary became less anachronism than eccentricity. The fervent republican had not enhanced his prospects by arriving in Washington during the bitterly contentious election year of 1800. General Henry Taylor, an early and prominent Birch supporter, remarked at the time that “party spirit ran so high” that townspeople lacked their former neighborliness.5 Political allegiance within the village shaped divisions over Birch’s ministry. Several prominent Washingtonians readily welcomed a Republican clergyman.6 Federalists quickly signaled their disapproval. The wealthy and powerful John Hoge, who “had marked Birch, from his hearing in the newspapers of his arrival at New York,” closed the doors of the Washington Academy, the building used by the Washington congregation, to Birch on his first visit to the town.7 Washington’s Federalist weekly denounced the radical minister, singling him out unsympathetically as a “United Irishman.” Rev. Samuel Ralston told Birch that in McMillan’s opinion and his own, “Birch’s politicks were not suited to Washington.” Opposition to Birch within the Washington congregation, the émigré decided, derived from fears that he would obstruct “their meeting-house ticket,” meaning he would undermine the influence of prominent Federalists like elder Andrew Swearingen, one of the area’s 81

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richest men. Socially prominent opponents of Birch came to deride his supporters as “riff raff,” as artisans, drunks, heretics, and aliens.8 If Birch’s unsuitable politics made him unwelcome, the Ohio Presbytery readily received a Connecticut missionary whose outspoken Federalism made him unpopular in other western communities. Birch had no standing but the Ohio Presbytery in December 1800 seated Joseph Badger of the Connecticut Missionary Society. As well as observing Washington County revivals, Badger had preached to Washington town’s Presbyterians and reportedly expressed his wish that they find “a suitable Gospel Teacher.” An embittered Birch complained that the missionaries visiting Washington came not to “convert the Heathen” but rather “to disgrace, and cast out of the Church, their brethren in the Gospel Ministry from the old countries.”9 The combination of politics and revivalism had made one newcomer anathema and the other acceptable. For the moment, the Ohio Presbytery welcomed the Congregationalist Badger and belittled Presbyterian Birch’s credentials. (A generation later the western Pennsylvania presbyteries would condemn the denomination’s alliance with Congregationalism.) The General Assembly had recently united with Connecticut’s Congregational churches but dissolved the connection with the Presbyterian churches of Ireland and Scotland due to their perceived lack of “vital Godliness.” A Presbyterian minister from abroad could expect no more recognition “than if he had come from the Church of Rome,” the Ohio Presbytery declared in 1801. When Birch sued McMillan for defamation, McMillan’s attorneys based their defense on the exile’s lack of standing with the Presbyterian Church in the United States.10 To McMillan and his colleagues, Birch must have personified the Europeans’ doctrinal deficiencies decried by the General Assembly. The exile had no familiarity with the Americans’ emphasis on personal experience of salvation and lacked what his critics regarded as “soundness in the faith, and experimental acquaintance with religion.”11 The exiled minister understood “religious experience” to mean understanding of doctrine. “What would have pleased the Presbytery (as I have frequently learned since) was, if I had told them of a certain time and place when I became assured of eternal happiness,” Birch wrote in 1806. He objected that there could be no assurance this side of heaven.12 In Ireland and Scotland such unreliable self-evaluations as sought by American clergy would not be expected from ministerial candidates. As Birch remarked to a Washington elder, “it was not the fashion in Ireland to examine on experimental religion.”13 82

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As the pulse of revival quickened, the acrimony between Birch and the Ohio Presbytery intensified. Birch became subject to increasingly harsh personal attacks.14 McMillan condemned Birch as “a Minister of the Devil” in June 1801, not long after the General Assembly heard the exile’s protest. This denunciation came with McMillan’s alleged declaration that “he would do all he could to put [Birch] away.” The Ohio Presbytery had already rejected Birch three times in less than a year for his unfamiliarity with experimental religion when he was castigated by presbyters in July 1801 for “the general report which prevails with respect to his imprudent and irregular conduct.” After a four-hour deliberation behind closed doors, the assembled ministers and elders announced that “they would have no farther to do with Mr. Birch, as to his trials for the Gospel Ministry.” At its April 1802 meeting, the presbytery for the first time publicly revealed its case against Birch’s personal conduct. McMillan acknowledged he had called Birch “a minister of the Devil” because of Birch’s failure to evince any sign of “special grace” and his “excessive drinking and deliberate falsehood.”15 At this meeting the presbytery brought forward witnesses to testify to Birch’s alleged intemperance, profanity, and adultery.16 Rumors of heavy drinking had first appeared in July 1800; now combined with fresh allegations they became the presbytery’s justification for resisting the General Assembly’s May 1801 resolution that Birch could be taken on trials by any presbytery. The crescendo of personal attacks at the April 1802 meeting occurred as Washington County clergy earnestly anticipated a “time of refreshing” on the scale of the Cane Ridge sacramental occasion the previous August. An eccentric political exile lacking in vital piety would hardly be helpful in fostering revival: Birch had to be kept out of the ministry.17 As if to confirm his foes’ suspicions, Birch emerged as a vocal opponent of revivalism and revival theology. His initial confusion and growing anger over the Ohio Presbytery’s charges exploded in Seemingly Experimental Religion. A denunciation of the revival phenomenon appeared throughout much of this 1806 volume, as indicated by the subtitles: Converters Unconverted—Revivals Killing Religion—Missionaries in Need of Teaching—Or, War against the Gospel by Its Friends. Birch derided what his foes called “religious experience” and saw only the Pharisee’s ostentatious display of faith in the Presbytery’s “societies, monthly and quarterly meetings, attending sacraments, giving experiences.” He belittled the idea of “getting religion” and the revival’s physicality. The collapse of revival participants, he suspected, provided an excuse for “the debauching of young women.”18 83

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In rejecting American revivalism Birch simultaneously testified to the orthodoxy of his Irish Presbyterianism. Birch declared that the purported revival of religion lacked divine proof of a true transformation.19 He excoriated the revivalists’ admission of the newly converted to the communion table based on “feelings” rather than knowledge, with the result that “actually persons grossly ignorant are admitted.” The millenarian Birch, who expected the reign of Christ to begin in 1848 in western Pennsylvania, thought that “Extraordinary Revivals are indeed expected and earnestly prayed for.” The “sacramental camp meetings” did not meet that expectation.20 Birch complained that newly ordained ministers, fresh from the humble academies founded by his opponents, lacked the necessary education and training.21 He regarded ministers in America, and particularly in the backcountry, as deficient in clerical qualifications. Quoting revival critic Adam Rankin, Birch observed that Americans would choose the best lawyer, the best physician, “but any Quack will do for the soul.”22 In Adam Rankin, Birch seized upon a possible model for the next phase of his career.23 As a mainstream Presbyterian minister, Rankin had fiercely denounced his denomination’s decision to allow worshippers’ use of compositions by English hymnist Isaac Watts in substitution for biblical psalms. Rankin unsuccessfully fought use of Watts’s psalms all the way to the General Assembly before leading his congregation into the Associate Reformed Church. He later became a vitriolic critic of revivalism. (In 1803 Pittsburgh’s only bookseller offered for sale Rankin’s A Review of the Noted Revival of Religion in Kentucky, from which Birch had quoted.)24 Birch imagined that he too might be embraced by traditionalist Presbyterians. In Seemingly Experimental Religion, Birch appealed to Seceders and disgruntled “old country” Presbyterians.25 He defended the use of biblical psalms amid frequent and respectful references. He reverently recalled “our pious old covenanting forefathers.”26 Like other immigrant Irish Presbyterians, Birch declared, he could not accept the practices of the mainstream church. In Ireland Birch had written a withering condemnation of the Seceders poaching from his congregation in Saintfield, County Down. The robust criticism of revivals in Seemingly Experimental Religion, however, is consistent with Birch’s condemnation of Irish Seceders’ communion excesses contained in Physicians Languishing under Disease, published a decade earlier. In Ireland Birch excoriated Burgher Seceders but commented favorably on the Antiburgher Seceders, who in the United States had reorganized an autonomous Seceder denomination, the Associate 84

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Synod.27 The émigré sought active support from other recent immigrants on the basis of a shared understanding of their old-country faith. Desperate to meet the needs of his large household, Birch attempted to join the ranks of Washington County’s Antiburgher Seceders. Washington’s small Seceder congregation appealed to the Associate Presbytery of Chartiers for his admission in late 1805. In early 1806 presbytery agreed to meet with the immigrant cleric, his ill fame preceding him. But the request for his admission to the Associate Church no longer came from Washington Seceders. Instead, an insistent (and anxious) Birch pressed for entry into the ranks of Seceder clergy. The ensuing conversation left presbyters unpersuaded. Birch again failed to convince. (In a parallel case, the Antiburgher Thomas Campbell would be suspended from ministry by the Associate Presbytery of Chartiers the following year. Campbell, like Birch, had been born in County Down. Without income, Campbell unsuccessfully applied for admission to the mainstream church’s Synod of Pittsburgh. He had already launched the Christian Society of Washington, a forerunner to the Disciples of Christ.)28 An affinity between Birch and the Antiburgher Seceders preceded the United Irishman’s relocation to Washington County. A Washington elder who sought Seceder support for Birch’s ministry in the town proposed, “a number of you Seceders think a heap of him.” “He is a brave, thundering preacher,” Andrew Nickell reportedly responded. An immigrant Seceder, Nickell apparently joined Birch’s small congregation.29 With his 1806 publication Birch joined in the polemical warfare over southwestern Pennsylvania’s revivals already launched by Seceders. The Seceder clergy argued that revivalism represented no gracious work of God and instead seemed to be a delusion and snare set by Satan. In a fifty-three-page pamphlet published in Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1804, five Associate Presbyterian ministers explained their opposition to the revival under a title that unambiguously conveyed their sense of alarm: Evils of the Work Now Prevailing in the United States of America under the Name of a Revival of Religion. The pamphlet struck a surprisingly defensive tone: its five authors painstakingly countered charges of “unreasonable prejudice” delivered from pulpits and pronounced at crossroads discussions. Further, they sought to warn their congregants—and by extension, members of the mainstream Presbyterian Church and all Presbyterians—against “sinful curiosity” that brought the righteous to disorderly events. Above all, in this traditionalist, old-country critique of American enthusiasm, the Seceders worried that the false revival placed the souls of Christians in danger. In contemporary language of millenar85

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ian expectations, the Seceder clergy argued that the nature of the times heightened the danger of satanic intervention. The “work” dangerously diverted the public’s attention from God’s word and requirements for a genuine flourishing of divine grace.30 Certainly, the work seemed to have worthwhile qualities, Evils authors acknowledged: ministers should earnestly describe to sinners the terrors and torments to come, sinners should have a sense of their sin, and people should be led to worship. But overall, the evidence did not support the contention that this was a true revival, a “work of grace” initiated by the Holy Spirit. Revivals acted “immediately upon the bodies of men” and “trample[d] upon the beautiful order of the church of God.” Revivals buried “testimony for reformation principles,” an alarming notion for Seceders who defined themselves in part through creeds and documents denouncing the errors of others.31 The problem was not simply the lack of a testimony but the prevalence of theological error encouraged by revivals that would thwart “a fruitful testimony” against corrupted religion. The authors of Evils identified several such mistakes. Presbyterian ministers in Kentucky had welcomed “Methodists, Baptists, Episcopalians” to communion services instead of testifying against these denominations’ persistent errors. The “singing of human composures,” such as Watts’s psalms and hymns, appeared to have promoted revival activity, the authors noted. They supposed that in a real revival, the Holy Spirit instead would lead the newly awakened to sing the divinely appointed psalms. And the authors complained that the revivals’ promoters failed to testify against errors such as “swearing by kissing the Bible,” Masonic oaths, and public lotteries. A true revival would have yielded a testimony against these and other errors.32 The ministerial authors particularly censured the revivals’ deviation from the careful orderliness generally prized by Presbyterians: its “gross disorders,” its physicality, the public displays of emotion, and teaching and exhorting by those “without any regular call.” Given the importance of preaching within the Reformed tradition, the Seceders could not believe that the Spirit would “make people cry out and roar in such a manner as to drown the preacher’s voice.” The authors seemed genuinely horrified that loud weeping and wailing hindered administration of the Lord’s Supper. They condemned any suggestion that those without regular training or call should serve as preachers of the word, citing the “acknowledged principles of Presbyterians in general” with respect to the ministry. Preaching by women, as happened in Kentucky, was a particu86

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larly flagrant breach of such principles, they said. The reported “involuntary fits” and “bodily afflictions” were decried as a source of “disorder and distraction.”33 The Seceding ministers’ objection to revivalism lay in its confusion of means and ends as well as its perceived deviation from a strict reading of scripture. They concluded, “We would say to our dear brethren: Let it be your exercise at this time, to ask for the old paths, where is the good way?”34 The Ohio Presbytery responded in print and from the pulpit as well. Leading proponents of the revival gave their accounts of events in the Western Missionary Magazine in early 1805; the same year the Irish-born minister Samuel Ralston published a pamphlet defending the revival. Nicknamed “The Currycomb,” the more formally titled pamphlet was published in Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1805, with its author identified only as “A Presbyterian.” Ralston, the only European-educated minister in the presbytery, developed a reputation as its intellectual and polemicist. The author of the 1805 response to Evils effectively used familiarity with a variety of European and American texts and Scottish ecclesiological controversies. A hallmark of the pamphlet was not an advocacy of revivalism per se but rather its defense of the contemporary revivals from a Calvinist perspective.35 “A Presbyterian” adamantly maintained that an awakened awareness of sin and the need for salvation were the revival’s principal characteristics, not its physicality. Only when individuals became convicted of a sense of their sin did physical manifestations occur.36 Ralston asserted the orthodoxy of the mainstream church in defending its revivals. He joined with the Seceder critics in condemning as latitudinarian “this lax scheme of church-communion, which has prevailed in some parts of Virginia and Kentucky.”37 But he denied that this laxness was a product of the revival, although conceding “the work in all probability hastened it.” He insisted that the mainstream church did not allow latitudinarianism (which dissipated ethnoreligious specificity) to continue once its promoters “began to broach doctrines contrary to our Confession of Faith.” The mainstream church was as zealous in its attachment to basic principles as the Associate Presbytery. The pseudonymous author rejected Seceder charges of heterodoxy against the mainstream church, citing instances in which ministers teaching errors had been censured by the relevant judicatories. Perhaps revealing his own sense of orthodoxy, “A Presbyterian” claimed he had been ready to agree with the Seceders on psalmody but ultimately found their argument wanting.38 Ralston as “A Presbyterian” defended covenanting and effectively 87

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turned the revered practice against the revival’s critics. In issuing their testimonies, the Seceders in the United States and Scotland had in effect remolded the historic covenants to fit changed conditions, he said. The Associate Synod stood condemned for requiring subscription to both the Scottish Seceder testimony and its own Judicial Act and Testimony as the term of communion; this, the author said, represented an “unscriptural infringement” and “daring usurpation” of Christ’s headship of the church.39 The mainstream apologist then boldly accused the Associate presbyters of having repudiated their denomination’s covenanting heritage. Revivals accompanied by “bodily agitations” had taken place in the north of Ireland and the west of Scotland in the 1620s during a second Reformation effected by Presbyterians in the face of regal and ecclesiastical hostility. Opponents of the original Covenanters derided these revivals as a kind of “sickness,” Ralston wrote. What would “the martyrs of Scotland” say if they heard Seceders denounce events similar to those they had known—perhaps “to the consolation of their souls”—as satanic works of “delusion”?40 The revivals in western Pennsylvania, then, were not only “a gracious work of the Spirit of God”; they belonged to a tradition of Presbyterian piety manifest since the early days of the Scots settlement in Ulster. By calling himself “A Presbyterian,” Ralston may have deliberately attempted to marginalize the Seceder critics by asserting his denomination’s claim to Reformed tradition. The revivals may have been an American experience but nonetheless required not only a divine seal of approval but reference to the Irish past as well. And not only a reference: to convincingly defend the revivals the writer had to insist on a particular version of Irish Presbyterian history. A desire for careful delineation among historic, old-country professions of faith motivated an appeal from the Forks of Yough and Rock Ridge congregations to the Associate Reformed Second Pennsylvania Presbytery in 1796. The petitioners sought steps to prevent family use of Watts’s psalms “or any other of human composition” in family worship. They declared for the “duty of Covenanting” and a statement explaining their “separate Communion” and dissent “from the General Presbyterian church.”41 Such demands for familiar forms of worship and standards remembered from the old countries repeatedly came into conflict with tendencies toward more inclusive practices favoring incorporation into host-country networks. Whatever differences existed within and among denominations with regards to revivals, none could exceed the fervency with which Presbyte88

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rians argued about the meaning and use of psalmody; no other issue so readily indicated how differences among newly transplanted Ulster Presbyterians and the children of immigrants became profoundly transformed by the American experience. The success of the Associate and Associate Reformed churches in identifying themselves with traditional psalm singing contributed to their growth in the first half of the nineteenth century, especially among Irish immigrants. Ulster Presbyterians in the eighteenth century routinely and exclusively made use of the Scots metrical psalms (the Biblical psalms slightly altered in word order for sake of meter) sung to the twelve tunes with which the psalms had come to be associated, without accompaniment of any kind. The role of the precentor in giving out each line had been envisioned by the framers of the seventeenth-century Directory for Publick Worship as a temporary expedient. However sanctified by custom, the precentors’ “lining out” became an integral part of psalm singing and the worship service. “Presbyterians engaged in public praise in ways they believed were asserting the biblical principles of simplicity in worship and their own Presbyterian distinctiveness,” writes Andrew Holmes.42 Presbyterians in western Pennsylvania followed these practices and shared this understanding. In the mainstream Chartiers congregation at the turn of the nineteenth century, for example, the congregation began worship service by singing the One Hundredth Psalm. Through the lining out process and limited repertory, psalms became committed to memory. Lining out and psalm singing became inextricably linked as basic to the worship of God in the minds of many Presbyterians who had been raised in Ulster traditions, whether in Ireland or North America. In the closing years of the eighteenth century the use of the Scots metrical psalms was nearly universal among western Pennsylvanian Presbyterians.43 Elsewhere, though, the Imitation of the Psalms of David by English poet and hymnist Isaac Watts (1674–1748) had become well established in Presbyterian services before 1785 when a request was made of the Synod for guidance in choice of praise songs. Synod responded two years later that an American revision of Watts could be sung in church and family worship. These innovations in no way invalidated the “old Psalms,” synod announced; congregations were free to make use of either. Only Watts’s psalms were used when New Jersey migrants of New England origin organized the Ten-Mile Creek congregation in southern Washington County in the early 1780s. Protests over the widespread and sometimes exclusive use of Watts by eastern presbyteries led to Adam Rankin’s 89

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eventual suspension from the mainstream church and decision in 1793 to join the Associate Reformed Church, together with his Kentucky congregation, the following year.44 To the chagrin of many west of the mountains, the march of the mainstream church away from tradition continued. The Presbyterian Church’s apparent lack of commitment to the old psalms forced the Ohio Presbytery to defend itself from critics within its ranks as well as sniping by Seceders. At its 25 December 1800 meeting, Presbytery heard a report that in some congregations without ministers, rumors purported “that the Presbyterian body have wholly rejected the Book of Psalms together with the five books of Moses.” The scandalized presbyters asserted this was a “groundless slander.”45 In 1802 the General Assembly approved the use of hymns by Watts and others in a new compilation of Timothy Dwight, a noted Connecticut Congregationalist. Each congregation could use the form of praise songs that seemed appropriate. The Ohio Presbytery queried the General Assembly in 1806 if these hymns represented the only option. The General Assembly intimated that the old psalms could be used, and—perhaps as a concession to traditionalists—indicated that resort to “trivial” or “heretical” material could be the subject of investigation or discipline. As the movement away from the traditional psalms continued, the Synod of Pittsburgh arranged for the distribution of twenty newly published hymnals to each of its five presbyteries in 1812.46 That rumors of outright abandonment of biblical psalmody by the mainstream church received credence suggests the degree to which traditional practices had become integral to the religious outlook of immigrants and American-born Presbyterians alike. Reverend Birch, himself a recently arrived immigrant, told Rev. John McMillan of the Ohio Presbytery “there were certain inquiries and modes of Psalmody made use of by some Ministers, very different from those they had been accustomed to, and therefore not pleasing to us old country people,—such preachers they left, and went to Seceders as being most agreeable, to what they were taught to believe as Presbyterians. Mr. McMillan said he believed so.”47 Adherents of the Scottish dissenting denominations regarded the mainstream church’s use of Watts’s hymns as a certain sign of declension. “Religeon in this country in the hands of the [General] assembly seems Greatly on the decline nothing but disputing for Wats Psalms,” wrote the wife of an Associate Reformed minister to her brother in Stewartstown, County Tyrone, circa 1800. The mainstream church, according to Jane Smith, regarded “the Bible Psalms not fit to be sung by Christians says 90

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the old testament saints knew Nothing of a redeemer in Short the[y] mostly refuse the old testament alltogather what the[y] will turn too we do not kno[w].” Such views among recent immigrants suggest the appeal of alternative Presbyterian congregations.48 Possibly the first defection from the mainstream church over the issue of psalmody occurred in the early 1790s in Donegal Township, southwestern Washington County. When Rev. John Brice, the new minister of the Three Ridges congregation, gave one of Watts’s psalms to be sung, disgusted communicants walked out of the log meetinghouse and reconstituted themselves as a new congregation. The Associate Reformed Synod in 1793 granted a request for supplies to the Three Ridges congregation, which received an Irish-born minister two years later. Unhappiness with revivals and unscriptural psalms led to a similar sundering of the Bethel congregation in southern Allegheny County in 1802. The new organization, the Associate Reformed Congregation of Saw Mill Run, began receiving supplies the same year. In March 1804 the congregation received its first settled minister, Joseph Kerr, a recent Irish immigrant. A hint of the emotional intensity—and cost—of the dispute can be glimpsed in the turmoil of the Gilfillan family. Alexander Gilfillan, a prerevolutionary Irish immigrant, led the secession movement and became an elder in the Associate Reformed congregation. His wife, however, remained at Bethel. Growing up amid the rancor, one son later became a Bethel trustee while his older brother had membership in both congregations. With the death of Martha Gilfillan in 1840, the remaining family in the area joined the Associate Reformed congregation of their father.49 Disagreement over psalmody also fractured Presbyterian congregations in Butler County, where Seceders of all kinds enjoined numerical strength and farmers were embroiled in a bitter struggle to defend their holdings from land companies. Plain Grove, organized in the 1790s, had the distinction of being the first mainstream congregation north of Pittsburgh, and with the installation of Rev. William Wood in 1802, the first to have a settled minister. But the introduction of Watts’s psalms and hymns in 1805 meant that Plain Grove also became the first to experience schism. Several families devoted to the exclusive use of the old psalms withdrew and by 1808 had organized an Associate Reformed congregation. At Mount Nebo in the 1810s, the introduction of Watts’s creations similarly led to a number of families withdrawing and later connecting with the Associate Reformed Church.50 Some mainstream ministers hoped to avoid difficulties by using both old and new: beginning the service with the old Scots metrical psalms 91

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and concluding with Watts. According to one church historian, “One of the old ministers used Watts’ in his family, and in prayer meetings, until the way was open for its use in the church.” The compromise of opening with one and closing with the other had been the intention of a revivalist minister serving the possibly misnamed Unity congregation in Butler County. However, he had apparently failed to make his intentions known to all the members of the congregation. When he began to read a Watts composition, a congregant named Henry Thompson angrily arose and made toward the pulpit shouting, “Quit that, quit that or I’ll fetch you doon by the neck.” The service came to a halt in the uproar. The elders attempted to reason with Thompson, who walked out, never to return.51 Despite the widespread controversy over the introduction of “human composures,” such scenes were not repeated in every congregation. Several factors assisted ministers in winning their congregations to Watts with little disagreement. These included the popular and personal appeal of the minister, the support of socially prestigious and powerful congregants, the absence or weakness of nearby rival denominations, and changing fashions within American culture. Rev. Samuel Porter, born in Ireland to a Covenanter family, accepted the new psalms only after prayer and a considerable emotional struggle. He became particularly well equipped to convince his Westmoreland County flock to likewise accept the innovation. Rev. Michael Law, a popular minister also born in Ireland, succeeded in introducing hymns into the Montour Run congregation— where they were lined out like the old psalms. The Rev. George Hill forcibly argued on behalf of the new psalmody and upheld the validity of Watts’s version in a debate with a young Associate Presbyterian licentiate in Fairfield Township, Westmoreland County. The First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh experienced an easy transition to Watts’s psalms and hymns. There, the politically conservative and socially eminent Judge Alexander Addison personally procured hymnbooks before 1800. Social pressures from above and the popularity of new tunes both circumscribed support for the old psalms. Emigrants from New England and elsewhere on the East Coast pouring into the region en route to Ohio and points further west introduced transmontane audiences to new musical styles and tastes. So did newcomers employed to instruct children of the urban wealthy in fashionable modes of music and dance.52 Such pressures had a profound and paradoxical impact on Pittsburgh Seceders, who faced a bitter controversy in the 1810s. On separate occasions in the spring of 1816, a trustee and an elder gave out two lines instead of the customary one line in leading the congregation in psalm sing92

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ing. These seemingly trivial actions resulted in “noise and dissatisfaction” within the congregation. Session confronted the need “to pacify the people and heal the Congregation.” Moderator Robert Bruce confessed himself “astonished” by the uproar, as he believed giving out two lines to be a common practice within the Secession Church. Elder John Aitken, a tallow chandler and borough collector of taxes, was dismissive. The moderator’s views were well known, Aitken said, and “had given so much offense, and lost the affections of the people to such a degree by it that it would be a long time indeed before he would recover them.”53 The two-line controversy, together with the apparent introduction of new tunes for psalm singing, continued to divide the Pittsburgh Associate congregation for another year. At the session meeting of 19 April 1817, Aitken presented papers objecting to two elders-elect on the grounds that one in acting as clerk had read two lines of a psalm and the other had defended the practice. No action was taken. The controversy continued to simmer with the election of John Roseburgh as clerk of session. Roseburgh, a carpenter and member of the Town Council, was one of the men who had excited the original controversy by lining out two lines. At the meeting of 10 February 1818, “John Aitken presented a paper signed by a number of members in communion purporting to protest against the late election of the clerk in the Congregation as unconstitutional, and complaining of two lines being read by him in the time of singing; and also of new tunes being sung.” Session interpreted the protest as a request for a congregational meeting, the outcome of which is not indicated by the record.54 While in part this appears to be a personal dispute between an overly sensitive elder and a possibly brusque minister—Aitken and his family seem to have withdrawn (informally) from the congregation in 1818—the conflict was broader than two men, and the issues, ultimately, more substantive. Reverend Bruce felt obliged to write to Rev. William Wilson, asking him not to serve members of the Pittsburgh congregation at the next sacramental occasion of the Montour Run congregation. Bruce clearly expected his own Lord’s Supper to be boycotted. Further, the Chartiers Presbytery had sided with Aitken, advising the Pittsburgh congregation to read only one line of a psalm at a time and not to use tunes that had not been used previously. In Pittsburgh the urban forge of social pressure and cultural change yielded an iron-like will to resist change for the sake of identity.55 Psalmody inevitably figured in the polemical warfare for position among Presbyterians in the 1820s. Rev. Robert Reid, Associate Reformed 93

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minister in Erie, warned ominously in his 1828 pamphlet The Seven Last Plagues that the wrath of God would be loosened against those in the churches responsible for blasphemously introducing “human inventions in the worship of God.” The Donegal-born Samuel Ralston, the Ohio Presbytery’s inveterate polemicist, responded to Reid but not to him only. In the course of a pamphlet on baptism—another issue of intense controversy during the period—Ralston cited four other pamphlets published in the Upper Ohio Valley asserting the exclusive use of the metrical psalms.56 Psalmody, baptism, revivalism, and other controversies inspired attacks on mainstream clergy by those of other Presbyterian varieties. In 1807 an Associate Reformed minister accused John McMillan and other members of the Ohio Presbytery of heresy. The minister, Joseph Kerr, had been ordained only three years earlier after his arrival from Ireland. During a sermon delivered at a sacramental occasion in fall 1807, Kerr reportedly declared that “that some of the Presbyterian ministers were arminians and Socinians, and exhorted his hearers not to attend their ministrations.”57 Confronted with another controversy involving an Irishborn minister even as its Birch problem continued to fester, the Ohio Presbytery proceeded cautiously by naming a three-member committee to question Kerr. Perhaps not coincidentally, two of the three ministers were themselves Irish immigrants. A recalcitrant Kerr eventually claimed McMillan held the anti-Trinitarian views of sixteenth-century theologian Faustus Socinus.58 Mainstream clergy could not allow such a denunciation of regional Presbyterianism’s founder to go unchallenged. In June 1808 Presbytery “with reluctance” appointed a committee to prosecute a charge of slander against Kerr before the Associate Reformed Monongahela Presbytery. The Ohio Presbytery sought not punishment but a retraction or disavowal. For several months the issue simmered without resolution.59 When Kerr finally spoke to a committee of the Ohio Presbytery he revealed Reverend Ralston as the source of his belief that McMillan was a Socinian. In early 1809 Ralston then set about proving his innocence. This proved difficult, as once again Kerr balked at naming names.60 Before the affair ended, McMillan appeared before a committee of the Associate Reformed presbytery and “avowed his firmest belief in the perfect equality of the Persons of the adorable Trinity.” In 1810, after more than two years, the controversy thus reached a kind of conclusion.61 Through the negotiation and renegotiation of Irish Presbyterian identity, immigrants created means of assimilation to American society. The 94

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disagreements among Presbyterians evident in the controversy over revivalism represent aspects of a broader process of establishing—or reestablishing—an ethnoreligious identity in the changed and changing circumstances of western Pennsylvania during the early republic. Nearly all participants involved in the controversies sparked by the revivals were migrants—either immigrants directly from Ireland or migrants from east of the mountains, including some who had emigrated from Ireland during the colonial era. In declaring their adherence or antipathy to one or more aspects of Presbyterianism, the migrant-disputants deliberately invoked powerful memories of the Reformed faith as experienced in former home communities. Crucial to this process was the influence the Associate, Associate Reformed, and Reformed Presbyterian churches enjoyed disproportionate to their number of adherents nationally due in large part to immigration.

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n 25 August 1826, neighboring farmers helped James Laird and his sons remove manure from the barn on his farm in Fayette Township in southwestern Allegheny County.1 In the lengthening shadows late on that long summer day, as the last cart rumbled away with its load and horses in the barn whinnied in anticipation of feeding, some of the men gathered outside the doors of the upper side of the barn. Their conversation quickly turned to the wheat crop. James Laird boasted of the fine quality of his wheat. Although not as superb as the previous year’s crop, Laird admitted, the newly mowed wheat was still quite good. He sent son James to procure a sample. John Wilkeson pronounced the harvest excellent and expressed his desire to have some of the Laird crop for seed.2 Laird may or may not have intimated to Wilkeson that he could remove some of last year’s crop from the Laird garner at Walker’s Mill. With or without permission, Wilkeson took some of Laird’s wheat. Differing interpretations of their conversation and 96

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an ensuing ecclesiastical court trial displayed the strength of traditional Presbyterian values, even as an unprecedented economic transformation changed the way of life that made such persistence possible. Wilkeson, a member of a nearby Associate Reformed congregation, brought charges before the session of Bethany Presbyterian Church against Laird. He alleged the Bethany congregant had exaggerated the amount of wheat taken from the Laird garner at Walker’s Mill, lied about not having given Wilkeson permission to take the wheat, and acted in an unchristian manner by threatening his neighbor.3 Session heard testimony during an intensive trial. On 12 April 1827, the session largely ruled against Laird. He had not personally exaggerated the amount of wheat taken by Wilkeson, the session concluded. But the report of excessive taking first came to the public’s attention from a member of Laird’s family and the patriarch then circulated the story. Therefore, Laird was “chargeable with unchristian conduct” in giving “unnecessary publicity to said report” without talking to Wilkeson directly and seeking “an amicable adjustment of their difference.” The session could not determine whether or not Laird actually gave Wilkeson permission, thus absolving Laird of wrongdoing in that instance.4 Session ruled the third charge established, as Laird had acknowledged and expressed sorrow for physically threatening Wilkeson. After reviewing the case in its entirety, session concluded that Laird would be “required to acknowledge, his sorrow for unchristian conduct” and be admonished by the moderator “to be more guarded in his language and conduct for the time to come.”5 Laird declined submission to this decision. Session promptly suspended him from the communion of the church. Answering Laird’s appeal of this sentence, the Ohio Presbytery directed the Bethany Session to privately admonish Laird and then readmit him. But the Ohio Presbytery did not fully absolve Laird. “Much unhappy feeling, would probably, have been avoided,” the presbyters asserted, if Laird had responded immediately with “a more prudent generous course.”6 Throughout the region, Presbyterian elders repeatedly sought to maintain equanimity and harmony within communities of faith. Their conception of appropriate behavior derived from scriptural standards, underscored by customary practices developed in Ireland and America. The “rumpus” that followed the taking of Laird’s wheat represented a breach of peace, a tear in the community fabric requiring church condemnation.7 Increasingly in the nineteenth century, however, such assertions of communitarian values faced the challenge of a “market revolution” that 97

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transformed the United States and brought more and more of western Pennsylvania into an ever-vaster commercial network.8 These changes challenged a sense of a moral economy based on long-standing religious belief and custom basic to the values of rural Presbyterians of Irish origin.9 With varying intensity depending on time and place, a transition took place from near-subsistence agriculture, handicraft production, and local exchange to a market-oriented production of agricultural produce and manufactured goods.10 Like a steam-powered locomotive, the market revolution rumbled through the backcountry, its speed and power startling everyone, exciting fear and hope. The market’s iron horse picked up speed as it chugged onward, spreading its thick plume of influence over ever-more fields, towns, and regions. The economic transformation underway profoundly altered the Irish Presbyterian diaspora. The changing relations between rural western Pennsylvanians and the market, and among each other interacted with the already rife, fissiparous controversies, competition, and accusation among Irish Presbyterians of various persuasions. The new technologies and market relations challenged traditional religious assumptions and practices and assaulted conceptions of sacred time and moral geography crucial to the reproduction of ethnoreligious culture.11 The perceived threat to the sacredness of the Sabbath provoked the mainstream church into a transformative political campaign. The growing and commercialized United States economy transformed the meaning and practice of whiskey consumption—setting off a cultural revolution among Presbyterians for whom the beverage was an elemental part of daily life. From the turn of the nineteenth century, an ever-expanding number of keelboats transported locally produced flour to New Orleans. Steamboat traffic became continuous after the departure of the first steamboat from Pittsburgh’s wharves in 1811. Riverine commerce and a new turnpike between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia completed by 1820 expanded the western city’s market reach. The region’s farmers gradually became linked by rivers and transmontane roads to a vast commercial network involving the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys, the eastern seaboard, and beyond. In Washington and western Allegheny Counties, farmers produced wool, wheat, and flour; the construction of carding and gristmills along creeks and streams in the first decades of the century offered incentive and opportunity for expanded production. Commercial development required an unimpeded, uninterrupted, efficient postal system. Congress, attempting to achieve practical national 98

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unity, agreed with such a goal. In 1820 the nation could boast post roads with twenty-one times the number of miles in 1800, and thirty times the number of post offices. The frantic pace of progress did not allow for a Sunday respite or traditional respect for the Sabbath.12 To Presbyterians, postal operations on Sundays seemed an unambiguous violation of the Lord’s Day. Out of custom and reverent obedience to divine law, they regarded the Sabbath as a day to be set apart from worldly concerns. Presbyterians threatened Sabbath-violators with punishment, as did local civil statutes. Church courts censured those who absented themselves from worship and disciplined those who openly profaned the Sabbath by engaging in any unnecessary labor.13 The contradiction between the exigencies of commercialization and the historic commitment to Sabbatarian values inadvertently drove Presbyterians in southwestern Pennsylvania into initiating a campaign of national proportions. The first phase of that movement began when the session of the Washington Presbyterian congregation censured Postmaster Hugh Wylie. Arriving in western Pennsylvania advantageously early in the post– Revolutionary War boom, Hugh Wylie figured among the merchants who contributed to the success of Washington as a market town. He was probably among those who organized the Presbyterian congregation in Washington village in the winter of 1793–1794. Nearly a decade later, Wylie assisted Rev. John McMillan in frustrating the bid of Rev. Thomas Ledlie Birch to become Washington’s first settled minister. The contentious Birch sued Wylie for slander in 1802. Wylie lost.14 Possibly as recompense, he became the town’s postmaster not long after: the additional responsibility represented a substantial increase in income. Wylie, who conducted his official business in his home, retained this office until his death twenty-five years later.15 Early in his tenure, renewed warfare between France and Britain reduced, then halted American trade with Europe. This isolation forced a more rapid development of the United States’ internal market. The value of commercial links to the East Coast placed particular importance on the viability of communications. Postmaster and merchant Hugh Wylie served as elder when Washington’s Presbyterian congregation received its first permanent, full-time minister, Matthew Brown, in October 1805. Following worship, congregants who traveled from the surrounding countryside asked for their mail to avoid additional trips into town. Wylie complied. Eventually the practice expanded. Orders from Postmaster General Gideon Granger obliged Postmaster Wylie “to sort any mails that might arrive at his office” during the course of a Sunday. The postmaster and his deputy, son David, 99

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opened the store to sort and distribute the mail to those who came in search of letters and newspapers.16 However convenient the practice may have been for some congregants, the Washington Session judged the activity to be an unacceptable violation of the Sabbath. When Wylie refused to relinquish his Sunday mail distribution, the session barred him from communion.17 In April 1809 the Ohio Presbytery decided to bring a question before the next meeting of the General Assembly: “Is it consistent with the Christian profession to hold the office of Post-master, where the arrangements of the Postoffice department require that the mail be opened on the Sabbath Day?” Wylie, meanwhile, appealed the session’s decision to that presbytery. On 4 October 1809 the presbytery chose not to rule on the issue and instead forwarded Wylie’s appeal to the Pittsburgh Synod, then meeting in Washington. The next day Synod decided that by performing his duties on the Sabbath, Wylie ought to be excluded from church privileges.18 Wylie opted to exercise his right of appeal to the annual General Assembly. The following spring the General Assembly upheld the decision of the Pittsburgh Synod. Wylie, church elder, merchant, and town father, had been effectively expelled from his church.19 Weeks before the General Assembly met in May 1810, the United States Congress adopted legislation that “required all postmasters to open their office to the public every day the mail arrived, and to deliver ‘on demand’ any item being held in their office on every day of the week.” Such legislation, observes Richard John, eliminated “the possibility that certain favored customers might receive their letters in advance of the general public”—providing “postmasters like Wylie with a clear mandate for opening their office on the Sabbath.” This action understandably provoked a response from western Pennsylvania Presbyterians and ministers and church leaders elsewhere.20 Within months of its passage, calls for repeal of the law took the form of petitions from coalitions of prominent clerical and lay leaders in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. The Philadelphia petition contained the signatures of prominent leaders of numerous Protestant denominations. The Presbyterian Synod of Pittsburgh issued the most radical objections to the law.21 Meeting in Washington in October 1810, synod approved a petition to Congress that straightforwardly declared the new law to be “the occasion of very glaring violations of the laws of God.” Obedient Christians could not obey both the law of God and that of the U.S. Congress, synod said, in language reminiscent of Samuel Brown Wylie’s Two Sons of Oil.22 100

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Honest and trustworthy postmasters, stagecoach drivers, and postriders would be excluded from this work, synod warned, their places taken by the less conscientious. Further, the peace and sanctity of the Sabbath were profaned and disturbed by mail coaches, postriders, and distribution of newspapers.23 Synod stressed the grave danger the nation faced by provoking divine wrath through flouting God’s law. The nation’s lawgivers should give way and not only keep post offices closed on the Sabbath but stop the Sunday transport of the mail as well. By going beyond the call of earlier petitions that specifically sought repeal of the new law to demand suspension of all postal activity, writes Richard John, “the Pittsburgh petition transformed the terms of debate.”24 Western Pennsylvania Presbyterians also vowed to build a campaign to achieve cessation of postal operations on the Sabbath. To enlist their church nationally in a campaign against Sabbath mail, the October 1810 synod instructed their delegation to the next General Assembly to urge a broad petition effort on the issue. Synod also appointed a committee to draft, print, and transmit petitions to other presbyteries.25 The Pittsburgh Synod returned to the issue the following year. Synod renewed its commitment to have legislators end postal operations on the Sabbath; committees were appointed to draw up an address and a petition to Congress. Two hundred copies of the petition were ordered printed and distributed among the ministers and elders within the synod.26 The dynamic process set in motion by the suspension of Hugh Wylie committed the General Assembly in 1812 to support the more radical stance of banning post office operations on the Sabbath. And this dynamic dashed the hopes of Wylie’s friends: a petition “signed by a number of persons in Washington, Pennsylvania, and vicinity” had asked the General Assembly to rescind its 1810 decision in his case. The effort predictably failed. Meanwhile, the grassroots Presbyterian effort in western Pennsylvania produced thousands of signatures on petitions demanding an end to Sabbath postal operations.27 Not receiving a favorable response from Congress, the General Assembly in 1814 adopted the example set by the Pittsburgh Synod in 1811 by launching a coordinated campaign to overturn the postal law. The General Assembly approved a new, more expansive petition, ordered two thousand copies to be printed and sent to the presbyteries for distribution within congregations, appointed “a committee of correspondence and conference” to enlist other denominations in the effort, and required each presbytery designate a campaign coordinator to liaise with the correspondence committee and forward the petitions to Congress by 1 Janu101

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ary 1815. In all, thirty-nine ministers were named as agents to coordinate the campaign; every minister was expected to work within his congregation to build support for the effort. At this point the national Presbyterian campaign gained the cooperation of an important but hardly surprising source: the Congregationalist churches of Connecticut and Massachusetts, which agreed within weeks to launch their petition drive.28 Sabbatarian activity continued in war and peace. At its May 1812 meeting, the General Assembly declared that the threat of conflict made “a strict observance of the Sabbath” even more necessary. With war underway, the Pittsburgh Synod appointed the second Thursday of November 1813 as a fast day “for our national and individual sins.” In 1815 the General Assembly seized on comments by the postmaster general suggesting that the return of peace might diminish the urgency of carrying and opening the mail on the Sabbath. Presbyterians urged Congress to speedily enact laws ending the “evil” of Sunday postal operations once the war was over.29 With the end of hostilities came a renewed petition campaign and new attention to organizing the church’s Sabbatarian activity. An 1815 petition reiterated the church’s belief that “the transportation and opening of the mail on the Sabbath day, is inconsistent with the proper observance of the sacred day, injurious to the morals of the nation, and provokes the judgments of the Ruler of nations.” The following year the General Assembly appointed a committee with one member from each synod to target influential individuals in each congressional district to discuss a plan for preparing and circulating petitions on the Sabbath mails issue.30 Meanwhile, Pennsylvania Presbyterians agreed to seek action on the state level. The Pittsburgh Synod later the same year readily responded to a proposal from the Philadelphia Synod to petition the next session of the legislature “for the better observance of the Sabbath.” The Pittsburgh Synod committed to print and distribute petitions in each of its presbyteries within the state’s boundaries.31 In 1817 Postmaster General Return J. Meigs Jr. issued a report rejecting any alteration in the nation’s mail delivery system, an event generally assigned by historians as the end point of the first phase of the Sabbatarian movement. Pious Presbyterians in western Pennsylvania continued to express anxiety, if not horror, that Sabbath infractions were on the rise. The national body reflected regional sentiment: in 1819 the General Assembly ruled that a proprietor of a line of stagecoaches carrying the mail on the Sabbath “ought not to be admitted” to communion.32 The Pittsburgh Synod rejoined the Sabbatarian issue in October 1825 102

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with the approval of petitions to both the state legislature “for the passage of a law for the better observance of the Sabbath” and the postmaster general to end Sunday mail. The following May, the General Assembly acted according to the perceived direness imperiling the Sabbath by calling for “an outright boycott of every transportation company that persisted in running a single stagecoach, steamboat, or canal packet seven days a week.”33 The Pittsburgh Synod’s 1830 resolution on “Sanctification of the Sabbath” recommended that clergy and laity continue efforts to organize Sabbatarian societies. Meanwhile, a new national organization and campaign launched in New York in May 1828 attempted to coordinate regional activities. Prominent Pittsburgh Presbyterians took a leading role in the inaugural meeting of the General Union’s Pittsburgh auxiliary on 2  March  1830 at the First Presbyterian Church. Mayor Matthew  B. Lowrie, a Presbyterian elder, presided. Clergy in attendance represented other varieties of Presbyterianism—the Associate, Reformed, and Associate Reformed churches—and two other Protestant denominations.34 Although the national effort and a broad regional approach failed, western Pennsylvania Presbyterians continued to be troubled by the insinuation of commerce into the peace of the Sabbath. Their activities remained rooted in congregational activity. As they had before the formation of a national movement, western Pennsylvania presbyteries and sessions continued to police profanation of the Lord’s Day by willful or careless congregants and, on occasion, ministers.35 Increasingly, the Sabbatarian demands became overshadowed by temperance. Personnel, enthusiasm, and institutional emphasis migrated from the Sabbatarian to the temperance movements. Tradition compelled an invocation of the Sabbath’s importance, but the reality of a besotted society spoke to the need of reordered priorities. The Lord’s Day could not be restored to its proper place until intemperance had been banished.36 In the first decade of the nineteenth century, Rev. John Anderson of the Upper Buffalo congregation in Washington County supplied whiskey to the men raising his barn. Provision of such refreshment constituted customary, neighborly behavior. But an incident at this barn raising helped indirectly to curb the custom. “One of [the men] drank to excess, became violent, and insulted and cursed [Anderson] to his face,” according to a biographer. His erstwhile comrades, with whiskey-fired bravado, menaced the transgressor as Anderson interceded. The embarrassed minister took personal responsibility for the incident. Never again would 103

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Anderson countenance the use of whiskey at communal labor, social events, or even presbytery meetings.37 Out of a myriad of such incidents came a dramatic alteration in the customs of western Pennsylvania Presbyterians. Such a cultural revolution took place as improved transportation allowed market forces greater strength and penetration in the region. This in turn precipitated the gradual abandonment of a rural economy based largely on subsistence farming and its replacement by agricultural production for profit. This market revolution fundamentally foreclosed the possibility that the customary use of whiskey known in Ireland could long endure in rural Pennsylvania.38 The campaign to win voluntary abstinence from ardent spirits could not have secured the committed support of critical numbers of laity and clergy until a conjuncture of favorable economic, social, and political trends occurred, as they did by the mid- to late 1820s. Farmers gradually abandoned a subsistence-plus lifestyle that allowed for a kind of independence through interdependence: a division of labor involving voluntary communal labor (e.g., barn raisings, etc.) and payment for specific services (e.g., gristmills, harvest crews). As profit replaced subsistence as the primary goal of agricultural production, successful farmers with larger operations developed an interest in more careful, efficient harvesting, which they decided could be best accomplished without reliance on the traditional dram.39 The growing emphasis on cash instead of in-kind exchange freed elders and ministers alike from a reliance on the smaller neighborhood stills that served as the wellspring of daily, habitual whiskey drinking in the countryside. The “individualism and competitive pursuit of wealth” characterized by the expanding web of market relations undercut traditional communal values that restricted drunkenness while sharpening the edge of anxiety and stress in a way that encouraged binge-drinking.40 Long-settled areas with ready access to Pittsburgh experienced a commercial take-off in the 1820s and 1830s. Throughout an expanding Ohio valley market linked by river-cruising steamboats and keelboats, growing cities and towns demanded more agricultural products and manufactured goods. Farmers within easy shipping distance of Pittsburgh grew grain or raised sheep with the market in mind. Farmers no longer regularly exchanged whiskey and other “country produce” at stores in town for manufactured goods. Fewer rural households produced whiskey primarily for their own use or barter. Instead, small local stills gave way

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to “rural complexes of several small manufactories.”41 In early 1829, as newspapers reported the launch of temperance societies, one writer exulted that “immense stocks of all kinds of goods are now arriving from over the mountains and up the river, to our extensive and enterprising merchants—and our country friends may now visit Pittsburgh for spring supplies.”42 The expansion of commercial relations in the countryside providing cash payments to farmers meant currency available for ministers’ salaries and support of church activities. This, together with a healthy natural increase in the number of church members in areas of long settlement, helped diminish the annual embarrassment of substantial arrearages in ministers’ salaries. The Congruity congregation in Westmoreland County in 1830 claimed 311 communicants and had met its financial obligations to its pastor, Samuel McFarren. By contrast, in 1809 (the first year such records appeared), Congruity had 125 members and owed Rev. Samuel Porter more than £80.43 The substitution of pew rental for subscription papers (through which communicants pledged to pay specific amounts toward ministerial salaries) helped congregations order their budgets.44 A gradual rise in salaries over frontier levels eventually freed ministers from the necessity of farming. By not receiving grain as partial salary payment or raising grain themselves, ministers no longer had a direct interest in how surplus grain could be converted into cash—and could now hope to obtain, eventually, a more urbane middle-class lifestyle and sensibility. Successful farmers, rural merchants, and the politically prominent gave leadership to the nascent temperance movement. In the rural Plum Creek congregation, “the best families” numbered among the minority who sided with an embattled minister’s efforts to establish a temperance society in the early 1830s. More concerned with productivity than tradition, Judge Charles Porter endured the bitter grumbling of harvesters along Dunlap’s Creek in Fayette County when “the old patriarch of the valley” chose to pay extra wages rather than dole out the customary allotment of whiskey.45 Whiskey enjoyed a role in daily life privileged by custom and ensured by economic and environmental realities. But in the first third of the nineteenth century, the habitual use of strong drink in western Pennsylvania coincided with a period of cheap, plentiful, and potent whiskey and excessive drinking nationwide. The extensive use of distilled spirits, proclaimed Butler residents at a temperance meeting on the Diamond (the town’s market square) in February 1829, “has become an evil of alarming

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magnitude, which is spreading its desolations over our land, and is destroying in its progress the health, the morals, the usefulness, the temporal and eternal happiness of multitudes.”46 Western Pennsylvania contributed to the tsunami of drink. A report in 1830 alleged that Allegheny and Westmoreland Counties (“by far the most intemperate in the state”) together had sixty-nine whiskey distilleries. Almost two-thirds of these were said to be owned and operated by “professors of religion” (that is, church members), nearly three-quarters of whom were elders in their respective congregations. The previous year, the report continued, Allegheny and Westmoreland together produced and sold 3,420 barrels of whiskey; assuming an average of 32 gallons per barrel, this amounted to an alarming 109,440 gallons. The volume of distilled spirits suggests farmers now produced grain for the market. To clergy and elders, such statistics sounded a warning and call to action.47 Ministers and elders assumed a leading role in early temperance activities, redefining their own traditional role as the community’s moral guardians. Customary drinking and church censure of overindulgence had existed as two interconnected, complementary elements of Presbyterian life in both the Old and New Worlds. The altered social role of strong drink had now upset the long-standing balance between overconsumption and censure.48 In ways that would have been previously unimaginable, the hearty consumption of ardent spirits became inexorably linked to the impropriety of drunkenness. Greater market participation led to an abundant supply of cheap whiskey and, with it, greater temptation to relieve stress induced by social and economic change through overindulgence. That in turn created greater concern over the damage caused by recklessly inebriated employees, husbands, and congregants. The everyday consequences of excessive consumption for family and work life gradually convinced ministers and elders that customary drinking practices should be changed. Presbyterian churches had long viewed overindulgence as a distraction from the reverent apprehension of God, drunkenness as a threat to community peace and an accomplice to crime.49 But the problem had never been as severe or pervasive. Ministers and their families could suffer from the effects of drunkenness as well as congregants. In 1824 a western Pennsylvania magistrate wrote to his niece: I have a complaint this morning against a clergyman for whipping his wife last night, he is a rigid Covenanter all the way from ould Ireland, and altho a 106

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very young and handsome man he is very fond of whiskey—and his good and prudent wife thinking and perhaps knowing he had drank enough and a little more, hid the bottle and he took up his horse whip—. When the neighbors went in to her relief they found her entirely naked and he pouring water on her. Miss Deibler states that when she was assisting her on with her shirt she discovered her back very much striped. It is so scandalous a thing I have, for the honor of the clergy, advised it may be hushed up.

An accumulation of such scenes provoked a reaction among Presbyterians and the wider community.50 Recognition of a problem came gradually, the first voices of dissent speaking out before the escalation of the national drink epidemic. The actions of drunken guests at a party celebrating his daughter’s baptism so embarrassed and perplexed Robert Sproull that the Antrim-born Covenanter elder resolved to end the practice of supplying work crews with spirits—a rare decision in the first decade of the nineteenth century.51 Following Reverend Anderson’s experience at the barn raising, that chastened clergyman became an ally of Rev. Elisha Macurdy in advocacy of abstinence from ardent spirits within the Ohio Presbytery. The revivalist Macurdy, minister to the Cross Roads and Three Springs congregations in Washington County, gained notoriety both for his refusal to bless whiskey and cakes at a wake and a blistering sermon denouncing the use of whiskey at such occasions. Anderson and Macurdy successfully moved to end the practice of serving whiskey at presbytery meetings. Anderson and his session committed themselves to abstinence from ardent spirits and tried to persuade others to abstain from whiskey at harvest and other times of communal labor. The Ohio Presbytery formalized a tentative consensus on the necessity of confronting the whiskey habit in 1813—two years after the Presbyterian Church nationally began its own hesitant steps toward temperance.52 The leadership of the Presbyterian Church did not set out to reform the nation. Instead, the mainstream church attempted to recall its own community to a sense of responsibility as a covenanted people—much the same way the turn-of-the-century revivals in southwestern Pennsylvania sought to reach the lost sheep of predominantly Presbyterian settlements. The General Assembly initiated its careful intervention into the debate over the intemperate use of spirituous liquors in 1811 by appointing a ten-member commission to consider steps to reduce the harm caused by excessive whiskey drinking.53 The following year the General Assembly proposed that ministers, elders, and congregations become 107

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more vocal about the consequences of excessive consumption. In particular, sessions should be more vigilant over the personal conduct of congregants. Overindulgence continued to be seen as one of “many vices still prevalent,” along with “profaneness” and “Sabbath-breaking.”54 By 1818, however, the assembly’s comments on the state of religion became more pointed. In that year the assembly named intemperance as one of the two most serious sinful acts found in the United States. A pastoral letter issued that year likewise elevated the importance of what was now called “the crime of drunkenness.” The pastoral letter emphasized prevention, encouraging officers and members of the church “to abstain even from the common use of ardent spirits.”55 The launch of a national movement and the deteriorating circumstances on the congregational level provoked a change in the General Assembly’s language and actions. In 1827 the General Assembly endorsed the American Temperance Society, founded in Boston the previous year, and encouraged congregations to cooperate with its regional branches. In 1828 church leaders adopted a resolution employing the most strident language to date. The assembly called for “a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer,” due to “the exceedingly heinous nature of the sin of intemperance.” Despite the manifold problems arising from overindulgence, otherwise circumspect ministers and elders remained hesitant to challenge their neighbors’ (if not their own) habitual use of ardent spirits. A resolution singled out excessive drinking within the Presbyterian community, citing the prevalence of intemperance infecting church members “and even officers.” A “great guilt” lay on the church because of its failure to set an example. Ministers in particular had to become convinced of “the greatness of this sin” to better arouse their people.56 If the mainstream national Presbyterian Church moved gradually to join the temperance crusade, the church in western Pennsylvania moved more slowly still. If some ministers and elders in the region made early calls to action against intemperance, many more numbered among the obstinate opponents. Although the national church first raised the issue in 1811, the minutes of the Redstone Presbytery contained no discussion of General Assembly pronouncements on the sin of intemperance, or any other references to temperance reform, until 1828.57 Urged on by Macurdy and Anderson, the Ohio Presbytery took the first stand against intemperance in the region, resolving in 1813 that “the use of ardent spirits in harvest, and at public meetings,” being harmful, should be avoided.58 The first explicit reference to the temperance issue in the minutes of the Synod of Pittsburgh came in 1816 with the condemnation of the “exces108

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sive use of ardent spirits.” Synod issued a remarkably limited condemnation of the use of strong drink, singling out habitual use of whiskey by agricultural workers, at “weddings and other public and social occasions,” and “at social visits.” Synod called upon both ministers and their congregants to “abstain from the unnecessary use of ardent spirits.”59 The following year synod was forced to admit that this new policy had not been “extensively” implemented. Synod directed ministers to read the previous year’s resolution from their pulpits and preach temperance sermons. Further, synod appointed a three-minister committee for the difficult task of explaining to the public why the church now discouraged use of ardent spirits.60 When synod assembled in October 1818, a poll of attendees found that the required reading and sermons “had been substantially attended to by the members.” No further explicit reference to the temperance issue appears in the synod records for a full ten years, suggesting an unwillingness to engage the issue.61 Western Pennsylvanian congregations responded to General Assembly calls for action by organizing numerous temperance societies beginning in the late 1820s. These societies offered a program of action to western Pennsylvania ministers concerned by the conspicuous overconsumption of ardent spirits within their congregations and communities. The campaign received practical assistance and moral support from the regional Presbyterian press. From its inaugural issue on 19 January 1829, the Pittsburgh Christian Herald regularly reported on the birth and growth of the earnest, enthusiastic new movement. The greatest challenge confronting the Presbyterian Church as it battled intemperance in the late 1820s continued to be hard-drinking Presbyterians. The General Assembly in 1829 rebuked those Presbyterians who both used and trafficked in ardent spirits. All church members should abstain completely from the use of distilled spirits. Seizing on congregational committees as a viable tactic, the assembly rejoiced in the number and activities of newly formed temperance societies and recommended congregations convene such committees. However, Presbyterians’ continuing resistance to abstinence caused the assembly to repeat in 1830 its earlier exhortation that ministers and elders lead by example. Church officers should personally abstain from distilled liquors and actively discourage their use among congregants. The assembly expressed “its very deep regret” that church members continued to make, sell, and use ardent spirits.62 The Seceders recognized intemperance as a problem in their 1817 109

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Book of Government. As “the immoderate use of spirituous liquors greatly prevails in this land,” church sessions were expected to discipline not only those guilty of “gross intoxication” but also those who frequented taverns, habitually tippled, or encouraged others to drink excessively. But unlike the mainstream Presbyterian Church, the Associate Synod would not call for abstinence from ardent spirits or countenance participation in non-church organizations.63 In western Pennsylvania, Associate and Associate Reformed communicants joined the voices of opposition to the mainstream Presbyterians’ temperance agenda. Associate Presbyterians chose to handle drunkenness and related issues entirely within their own church courts. Initially, the Covenanters reacted more slowly than the Seceders to the perceived crisis of national drunkenness. Calls for fasts issued by the Reformed Presbyterian Synod in the 1810s and again in 1823 offered lengthy lists of sins and errors—but without direct mention of intemperance.64 In 1830, however, the Reformed Presbyterian Synod meeting in Pittsburgh adopted a strong and explicit stand against intemperance. As with similar resolutions by higher judicatories of the mainstream Presbyterian Church, however, the laity does not appear to have enthusiastically embraced abstinence. The first number of the weekly Christian Herald launched in 1829 reported on the recent organization of the Temperance Society of the Congregation of Bethany. The founders pledged to abstain from “ardent spirits” and actively discourage their use by others. The Bethany Temperance Society had been organized by the same session that had met in judgment against James Laird two years earlier—but a session with changing personnel and emphases. The Bethany society enjoyed success through moral suasion backed by both economically significant individuals and the power of a traditional communalism as mediated by the church session. Indeed, the Bethany society seems to have launched a kind of extralegal, extraordinary effort to confront and vanquish a threat perceived as beyond the ordinary scope of the session and its discipline. Bethany’s American-born minister, William Jeffrey, led the effort, assisted by other young men whose parents arrived early enough in the Chartiers Valley to acquire and develop farms. These included John McDowell, who was ordained as elder just months before his name first appears in connection with the temperance society.65 With the organization of these and similar temperance societies throughout the region, the mainstream Presbyterian Church could claim 110

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progress in its temperance campaigns in western Pennsylvania as soon as fall of 1829. At the October meeting of the Pittsburgh Synod, the Ohio Presbytery exulted, “The cause of Temperance prospers beyond all expectation.” Success allegedly included the abandonment of several distilleries. The Washington Presbytery proclaimed, “Intemperance in ardent spirits, is declining with astonishing rapidity.” The Redstone Presbytery claimed “encouraging success” in halting “the desolating ravages of intemperance.” The Allegheny Presbytery (northwestern Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio) reported to synod that nothing extraordinary had occurred within its territory except for the organization of temperance societies.66 As an example of that progress, Rev. Moses Allen of the Raccoon congregation in Washington County in April 1830 expressed his great surprise at having officiated at whiskey-free weddings during the winter. Alexander Reed could report to the Washington County Temperance Society that whiskey drinking had been eliminated from all of his farming operations, even sheep-washing! But such victories did not come easily.67 The reformers’ efforts infuriated the numerous Presbyterians who saw no good reason to abandon the habitual use of whiskey. A regional temperance convention meeting in the First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh in September 1830 complained that among “the virtuous,” reformers “were looked upon as enthusiasts, troubling the world with strange doctrines and visionary notions.” The convention’s declaration that opposition to temperance societies would have “paralyzed” those not strong in their principles would appear as merely self-righteous bravado except for evidence of the hostility greeting the church’s tilt toward temperance. Even the considerable successes claimed by the Bethany society came as a result of “struggle . . . in the face of difficulties and opposition.”68 Modernizers, upwardly mobile and American-born men, grasped the logical outcome of temperance—a sober, disciplined workforce. But older individuals born in Ireland, their worldview shaped by the Presbyterian meetinghouse and near-subsistence agriculture, clung to a moral economy characterized by neighborliness, which most always involved a customary dram. Cases heard by sessions suggest that before the spread of more fully commercial relations throughout the countryside, individual property rights were not priorities in elders’ efforts to restore community harmony based on scripture, church standards, and custom. The ministers and elders of the early republic had largely come of age in a world not yet shaped 111

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by the market and driven by its imperatives. Some had been among the earliest European settlers in west of the Appalachians. Born of Old-World custom and economic necessity, theirs was a world of mutualism and subsistence-plus agricultural production. The market revolution, by altering the sacred time and moral geography of the Irish Presbyterian diaspora, changed it completely and irrevocably. Unable to replicate more closely the kind of religious culture known in Ireland, the Presbyterian children and grandchildren of Irish immigrants became themselves less Irish. Responding to American problems with American solutions, they had become more fully American. They had laid the foundations of regional Presbyterianism even as they altered the meaning of “Presbyterian.”

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Conclusion 

I

n August 1842 the front page of the Presbyterian Advocate and Herald of the West was devoted to a lengthy extract from the Londonderry Standard on the bicentenary of Presbyterianism in Ireland. The editor of Pittsburgh’s weekly Presbyterian newspaper justified the space given to this article by explaining, “A large proportion of our readers are Irishmen, or descendants of Irishmen, and therefore feel a double interest in this prosperity of the church in their father-land.”1 The editor’s comment offers near-contemporaneous confirmation of a principal argument made here. Irish immigrants in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries largely created the institutional infrastructure of the various Presbyterian denominations in western Pennsylvania. Arguably, their most obvious and distinctive “Irish” characteristic may well have been their Presbyterianism. Arriving in the 1770s and 1780s, those coming directly from the north of Ireland joined with families from the Ulster-American settlements east of the mountains in following tradi113

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tional expressions of faith. Family worship and gatherings for prayer and psalm singing led to congregations. Conglomerations of congregations laid the foundation of presbyteries. The migration of Irish Presbyterians continued and grew. Presbyterianism maintained strength in western Pennsylvania in the early nineteenth century in the face of competition from Baptists and Methodists precisely due to the support of Irish immigrants and their children. The persecution accompanying the bold bid by the United Irishmen for an independent republic, economic woes in Ireland, and the seemingly bright possibilities in the American republic all contributed to bringing fresh cohorts of migrants westward. The reverends Thomas Ledlie Birch, Robert Steele, John Black, William Gibson, and Joseph Kerr, together with many laypeople, less remarked upon but nevertheless touched by the tumult of the 1790s, arrived at the turn of the nineteenth century. The majority who settled in the countryside—particularly those fortunate to acquire farms—rejoiced in newfound independence in labor and worship. Western Pennsylvania seemed “a land of liberty and Gospel light” to those who went about creating their farms and organizing their churches untroubled by restrictions enjoined by the landlords’ state or the state church. An indigenous system of independence through interdependence sustained them, as they relied on neighbors to help supply material needs while also combining to provide a meaningful spiritual life. To a degree that might be unsettling for twenty-first-century Americans, these transplanted Irish Presbyterians often saw each other as their sisters’ and brothers’ keepers. And as such, they were willing to submit to neighbors’ judgments as an acceptable price to pay for a place in the community. They prized “good neighborhood” as representing right relations with each other and with God.2 New cohorts of immigrants from Ireland helped fill pews and pulpits later in the nineteenth century. The invaluable and insightful research of Rankin Sherling reveals that the overwhelming majority (nearly 72 percent) of Irish Presbyterian ministers who immigrated to the United States between 1811 and 1844 came to Pennsylvania. Although data is unavailable, the existence of social networks in the Pittsburgh region—migrants’ friends, family, former congregants, and neighbors—would have made settlement in the west attractive.3 Writing of Pittsburgh in 1831, William McClorg told a correspondent, “there is a vast inhabitants in it mostly Irishmen.” Traveling on to his brother’s farm in Mercer County, McClorg discovered “this settlement is 114

conclusion

mostly Irish people.” The peripatetic McClorg, who later worked both in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, wrote home in 1833, “I have seen a great many old country folks.” And those writing home to Ireland had no doubt of the religious outlook of their fellow immigrants. “The presbeterians and Covenanters are the most numerous in this part of the Country,” said John Nare in a letter to County Monaghan in 1834. Speaking of the countryside surrounding the city, he wrote: “I don’t know of a Roman Catholic excepting two familys within 15 miles of Pittsburgh.”4 Newcomers tended to reinforce the significance of traditional Ulster Presbyterian practices in western Pennsylvania and strengthen the connection of the diasporic community to Ireland. “The great consideration most worthy of your reflections not to depart from the dictates of your Divine master which is able to subve[rt] and encounter every approaching danger,” David Cooke exhorted his sons in Westmoreland County in a letter written in 1825 from his home near Omagh in Country Tyrone.5 For a time at least, many seem to have heeded familial advice to maintain essential Calvinist principles, especially the sovereignty of God and salvation through grace alone, and the importance of religious practices such as communion and Sabbath observance. The evidence of session, presbytery, and synod minutes strongly suggests that throughout the period under investigation, the Presbyterians of Irish origin who made their homes in western Pennsylvania defined themselves as a community through practices they had brought with them from Ireland. The transition to life in America—whether frontier conditions, a postfrontier society, or gradually commercializing agricultural societies in the nineteenth century—was eased and enabled through faith and employment of ritual, which, for the group and for the individual, gave meaning to faith. Differing understandings of faith and the appropriateness of certain religious practices—differences born in Ireland and Scotland and given new meaning in Pennsylvania—both divided and united Presbyterians. That is, decisions by families and individuals that faithfulness to God as understood in terms of traditional interpretations required the exclusive use of psalms or loyalty to the seventeenth-century covenants brought them together in congregations that excluded those who did not share the same understanding. Competition among mainstream Presbyterians, Seceders, Union Seceders, Covenanters, and other variations—which had been part of life in Ulster as well—had the effect of strengthening the Presbyterian Irish nature of the region’s religious life. Further, the totality of evidence for the period substantiates for west115

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ern Pennsylvania’s Presbyterians what James Henretta famously observed for households in the colonial-era backcountry: “The ‘calculus of advantage’ for these men and women was not mere pecuniary gain, but encompassed a much wider range of social and cultural goals.” This study has found, as did Henretta, that informal connections among family, neighbors, and coreligionists “circumscribed the range of individual action among the inhabitants of Pennsylvania and laid the foundations for a rich and diverse cultural existence.”6 The religious values and religious practices of preindustrial Presbyterians at times militated against the onrush of market revolution. However much some Presbyterians in western Pennsylvania may have taken advantage of economic opportunities presented by the Jeffersonian revolution over the remnants of the old colonial elite, not all had thought through or were willing to accept the market’s logic—including, in particular, the necessity of Sabbath operations. When Hugh Wylie suffered the ignominy of separation from the body of Christ in 1810, those meting out punishment had not yet experienced capitalist market relations as representative of normative and fully community-sanctioned behavior. The market revolution did not consist of an inexorable process of systematic and total change. If some individuals readily grasped chances to secure their standing, others (both born and raised in rural eighteenthcentury Ireland and those brought up in near-subsistence farming households in Pennsylvania) may have understood the world in terms of a community of the godly, a society based on mutualism and perhaps infused with psalms and whiskey. A father in Donegal, writing to sons in Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1811, reminded them of obligations that superseded goals of personal advancement. “My dear children,” wrote John McClintock, “in my former letters I have exhorted you to be mindful of your great Redeemer and while you enrich yourselves, consider that it cometh from him who is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him. For the silver and the gold are mine saith the Lord. My dear children, I will address you all in general not to be so much taken in with the allurements of this world, or would hinder you from your duty to God.”7 Younger men who had grown up with keel boats and steamboats and talk of the New Orleans market gradually developed a somewhat different worldview, their sense of neighborliness overladen with the exciting opportunities that beckoned to the sober and diligent. However, even with the growth of commerce and industry in Pittsburgh, rural Irish Presbyterians continued, for a time, to seek a competence and follow customary rhythms of agriculture and worship. 116

conclusion

In making decisions as communities of faith to conduct five-day communion observances and to cease all unnecessary activities on the Sabbath and on fast days, western Pennsylvania Presbyterians chose to express their devotion to God as understood through the example of religious life in Presbyterian Ulster. The combined goals of divine worship and community integration had the power to preempt usual economic activity. Attuned to the Westminster Confession rather than Poor Richard’s Almanac, traditionally minded Ulster-Americans did not naturally or readily follow the published advice of Benjamin Franklin that “time is money.” Franklin’s economic advice, of course, is cited by Max Weber in his influential work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Weber found compelling evidence for his thesis in the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, more often using the eighteenth-century American to exemplify Protestant thought than John Calvin or the productions of the 1640s Westminster Assembly of Divines. Instructively, Franklin’s autobiography was seized as a model by an Ulster-born youth in rural Pennsylvania. The only son of Irish Presbyterian immigrants consciously chose to seek American wealth. The lad was Thomas Mellon. In his biography of Andrew Mellon, David Cannadine regards his subject’s father Thomas as “a quintessential Scotch-Irish, middle-class Pittsburgher” at mid-nineteenth century, possessed of a “Presbyterian ethos [that] was mostly secular—a social network and a social imperative rather than deeply held religious belief.” Son Andrew experienced an upbringing that was dour and austere and characterized, Cannadine writes, by a “philistine aesthetic” and “Presbyterian repression.”8 Unlike Thomas Mellon, many “Scotch Irish” residents of Pittsburgh in 1850 were neither middle class nor prosperous. Victor  A. Walsh, in studying nineteenth-century Pittsburgh Irish, found “most of the city’s Scotch-Irish .  .  . were working people—laborers, draymen, and mechanics—whose grim churches dotted the industrialized neighborhoods on the Strip and the South Side.” Ulster Protestants, most of them Presbyterians, “constituted about one-fifth to one-fourth of all the Irish immigrants in mid-century Pittsburgh”—at a time when the city seemed to be “The Belfast of America.”9 Many of those “grim churches” in the smoky city held aloft the banners of smaller dissenting denominations. The Associate and Associate Reformed churches, well represented in Pittsburgh, combined in 1858 to create the United Presbyterian Church as a new national denomination. Appropriately, the union occurred with solemn ritual in Pittsburgh. Un117

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like Mellon, who advocated Sunday operation of a local rail line in which he had a financial interest, Seceders, Union Seceders, and Covenanters continued to fiercely oppose any perceived desecration of the Sabbath.10 In the earlier period examined by this book, Thomas Mellon would not have been seen as a typical “Scotch Irish” Presbyterian. Instead, his deliberate pursuit of wealth, and the resulting secularization of his “Presbyterian” ethos, would have marked him as atypical and possibly even unnatural. The difference was more than generational. Those who like Thomas Mellon left the countryside for the city in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, and those who emigrated from a very different Ireland than that of the earliest Mellon arrivals, carried with them a continuing commitment to the moral imperatives of an explicitly Presbyterian ethos. The pace of economic and social change in the Atlantic world— embracing Ireland, Britain, and the United States—created differing sets of life experiences and possibilities for the newcomers. The migrant cohorts of the 1840s were unlike those of the 1800s, more dissimilar still from those of the 1760s. And if the new arrivals after 1830 evinced a strong attachment to the Presbyterianism of their families, the meaning and practice of their faith had been and continued to undergo change. Presbyterians from rural communities in Ireland’s north, with widely varying intentionality and success, attempted to build a new Ulster in the transappalachian backcountry, a society free from the demands of landlords and their established church. From the beginning, their project in the New World would be nearly as fractured as the social reality of the Old. If Anglican domination no longer prevailed, their own creedal differences only sharpened as the institutional varieties of Presbyterianism competed for souls in the uncertain and shifting terrain of American life. In the process, they helped shape the region and laid the foundation of its Presbyterianism.

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IN T RODUC TION 1. Discussing “the notorious sectarian rivalries that raged in the Pennsylvania backcountry among Scotch-Irish Presbyterians,” Richard R. John expressed surprise nearly three decades ago that this regional cultural and religious history has not received more attention (“Taking Sabbatarianism Seriously: The Postal System, the Sabbath, and the Transformation of American Political Culture,” Journal of the Early Republic 10, no. 4 [Winter 1990]: 526). 2. Peter Brooke, Ulster Presbyterianism: The Historical Perspective, 1610–1970 (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1987), 62. Brooke observes that at the turn of the eighteenth century, by creating “a tight-knit church organization” on a Scottish model, a “Presbyterian Revolution” in effect erected an unofficial, semilegal national church. 3. See Peter Gilmore, “The Flyting of Brackenridge and Findley: Contested Ethnic Identity in Post-Revolutionary Pennsylvania,” in Ulster-Scots and America: Diaspora, Literature, History and Migration, 1750–2000, ed. Frank Ferguson and Richard MacMaster (Dublin: Four Courts Press, forthcoming). 4. Rankin Sherling, The Invisible Irish: Finding Protestants in the Nineteenth-Century Migrations to America (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016), 191–92, 200–201. 5. The “second class/second rate” phrase is adapted from Patrick Griffin, “Defining the Limits of Britishness: The ‘New’ British History and the Meaning of the Revolution Settlement in Ireland for Ulster’s Presbyterians,” Journal of British Studies 39, no. 3 (July 2000): 287; Patrick Griffin, The People with No Name: Ireland’s Ulster Scots, America’s Scots-Irish, and the Creation of a British Atlantic World, 1689–1764 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 66. 6. According to the religious group profiles at the Association of Religion Data Archives (http://thearda.com), in 2010 Pennsylvania ranked third for number of members of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and third for the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America. For the presence of an Irish diaspora, see Peter E. Gilmore, “Refracted Republicanism: Plowden’s History, Paddy’s Resource, and Irish Jacobins in Western Pennsylvania,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 83, no. 3 (Summer 2016): 394–417.

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7. Andrew R. Holmes, The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 1770– 1840 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 306. 8. The use of “Irish Presbyterian” seems more in keeping with the period and location than any other. This historian has found only one instance in the regional record of “Scotch-Irish” used by a Presbyterian born in Ireland for the period 1770 to 1830. 9. James G. Leyburn, The Scotch-Irish: A Social History (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1962), 317. 10. I follow the example of David W. Miller, who proposed for the Irish context that the varieties of Presbyterianism, including Seceders, Covenanters, and the mainstream church, be regarded “as components of one religious system in which division itself played a functional role. Within that system the way to attract adherents was not to preach individual, emotional-laden conversion, but to outbid the preachers and their flocks in fidelity to the seventeenth-century standards” (“Presbyterianism and ‘Modernization’ in Ulster,” Past and Present 80, no. 1 [Aug. 1978], 69). 11. The basis of Pittsburgh’s industrial development began during the period of study: “By 1830 the city was a bustling commercial and industrial center of some 12,600 inhabitants—the third largest city west of the Appalachian Mountains, trailing only New Orleans and Cincinnati. It boasted nine glass factories, eight steamdriven rolling mills, six textile mills, and dozens of foundries, machine and tin shops, tanneries, and rope and boat-building works which churned out an endless array of producer and consumer goods for sale mainly in the West.” Pittsburgh’s “entrepreneurial class,” recognizing the city’s decline as a commercial center, “increasingly invested their capital in internal improvements and in manufacturing during the 1830’s.” Railroad construction in the 1840s and 1850s represented the greatest single factor contributing to the city’s eventual industrial success. “The industrial transformation of Pittsburgh and the South Side boroughs during the 1830’s and 1840’s had lured thousands of work-starved Irish immigrants, including the first sizeable influx of Catholics” (Victor Anthony Walsh, “Across ‘the Big Wather’: Irish Community Life in Pittsburgh and Allegheny City, 1850–1885” [Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1983], 94–95.) The mainstream American church split in 1837, with western Pennsylvanian presbyteries contributing to the dominance of the Old School party. The Reformed Presbyterian Church experienced schism in 1833 as communicants clashed over the continuing obligation of old-world covenants at a time when American politics and culture became more democratic for white men. In Ireland, mounting divisions within the General Synod of Ulster led to the secession of ministers who opposed mandatory subscription to Westminster Standards, then to the creation in 1830 of the Remonstrant Synod. The General Synod made subscription to the Westminster Confession of Faith obligatory for all ministers, licentiates, and elders in 1835.

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12. Holmes, The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 60. 13. Colonial-era Presbyterian immigrants, suggests Patrick Griffin, expected to “reconstruct their vision of Ulster” along the Pennsylvania frontier. Pennsylvania was perceived “as a perfect Ulster,” a place where economic opportunity co-existed with religious freedom (Griffin, The People with No Name, 86). Joseph and Mary McClorg to David McClorg, 28 Aug. 1822, McClorg Family Letters (from collection of Kerby A. Miller, used with permission).

1: “A GRE AT M A N Y HAV E COME FROM IREL A ND” 1. John M’Kerrow, History of the Foreign Missions of the Secession and United Presbyterian Church (Edinburgh: Andrew Elliot, 1867), 25. 2. “Resentment against English law and church [was] more acute in Ireland than anywhere else in the Atlantic basin,” suggests Joseph Moore (Founding Sins: How a Group of Antislavery Radicals Fought to Put Christ into the Constitution [New York: Oxford University Press, 2016], 30). 3. David W. Miller, Queen’s Rebels: Ulster Loyalism in Historical Perspective (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1978), 14; Ian R. McBride, Scripture Politics: Ulster Presbyterianism and Irish Radicalism in the Late Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 28–29; Griffin, The People with No Name, 19. In Irish-speaking Donegal in the nineteenth century, Albanach, a Scots person, denoted a Protestant, especially Presbyterian; Sasanach, an English person and a Protestant, especially a member of the Church of Ireland. Hugh Dorian, The Outer Edge of Ulster: A Memoir of Social Life in Nineteenth-Century Donegal, ed. Breandán Mac Suibhne and David Dickson (Dublin: Lilliput Press, 2000), 79n27. 4. Robert Whan, The Presbyterians of Ulster, 1680–1730 (Woodbridge, Sussex: Boydell Press, 2013); Griffin, “Defining the Limits of Britishness,” 267; S. J. Connolly, “Ulster Presbyterians: Religion, Culture, and Politics, 1660–1850,” in Ulster and North America: Transatlantic Perspectives on the Scotch-Irish, ed. H. Tyler Blethen and Curtis Wood (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1997), 30. Robert Whan observes, “Presbyterian landowners in [Ulster] were not numerous, and numerically as a proportion of the Presbyterian population almost insignificant” (55). By comparison, Ulster Presbyterians were more strongly present within the ranks of merchants and the professions. Still, “most people in Ulster [Presbyterians included] lived in rural areas and engaged in farming activities on farms of varying sizes and quality” (162). 5. Joseph Doddridge quoted in James Leech, “The Secular History,” in Centenary Memorial of the Planting and Growth of Presbyterianism in Western Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh: Benjamin Singerly, 1876), 330. 6. David Noel Doyle, Ireland, Irishmen and Revolutionary America, 1760–1820 (Dublin: Mercier Press, 1981), 120–23; Kevin Kenny, Peaceable Kingdom Lost: The Pax-

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ton Boys and the Destruction of William Penn’s Holy Experiment (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 171–74, 188; Benjamin Franklin, “A Narrative of the Late Massacres,” in The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. 2 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967); Philo-Libertas [Isaac Hunt], A Looking-Glass for Presbyterians, or A Brief Examination of Their Loyalty, Merits, and Other Qualifications for Government (Philadelphia: Anthony Armbruster, 1764), 4, 6, 8, 10–14, 18. 7. Kenny, Peaceable Kingdom Lost, 146, 182–85. The Federalist antagonists of Presbyterian republicans castigated their opponents as “the sons of Paxton” (Kerby A. Miller, Arnold Schrier, Bruce D. Boling, and David N. Doyle, eds., Irish Immigrants in the Land of Canaan [New York: Oxford University Press, 2003], 574). Hugh Henry Brackenridge drew upon this discourse by referring to an alleged verbal attack on him by Irish-born William Findley as “equally unfair, fierce and malignant [as] that of the worst savage, [whoever came wearing] a breech clout over the Sandusky plains” (Pittsburgh Gazette, 11 Aug. 1787). 8. Kerby A. Miller, Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 163; Doyle, Ireland, Irishmen and Revolutionary America, 83. The Scotch-Irish were inclined to leave the stumps of dead trees in their fields, to use log barns, to ill-use their sheep, and to appear themselves homespun, even forty years after they took their farm lot. This may have been deceptive, to judge by the central Pennsylvanian and Valley of Virginia patterns. The traditional Ulster (and Irish) reluctance to display prosperity, lest it invite the rapacity of laird, landlord, merchant or tithe proctor; the Presbyterian injunctions against conspicuous ease; the money to be saved if a wife’s talents were still exploited long after grain surpluses could acquire imported Irish linens and English woollens, these and other factors inclined the Scotch-Irishman to maintain the threadbare appearance of subsistence farmer after he passed that stage. (Doyle, Ireland, Irishmen and Revolutionary America, 83–84).

9. Doyle, Ireland, Irishmen and Revolutionary America, 93–94; Jonathan Bardon, A History of Ulster (Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1992), 313; Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 154–55; Graeme Kirkham, “Introduction,” in R. J. Dickson, Ulster Emigration to Colonial America, 1718–1775 (Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation, 1988), xiv, 85–87; “From the Reflector: Of Ambition and Meanness,” Boston Evening Post, 3 Mar. 1752, quoted in Nancy Isenberg, White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America (New York: Viking, 2016), 7. Advertisements regarding runaway Irish servants, readily found in the colonial press, can also be located in postrevolutionary newspapers. Examples of advertisements for runaway Irish servants taken from the Carlisle (Pa.) Gazette: 25 Aug. 1786 (Samuel Hanna); 26 Feb. 1787 (James Crawford, David Burntsides); 5 July 1787

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(Charles Barr, Thomas Lollar); 21 Aug. 1787 (Samuel Wallace). For runaway Irish servant notices appearing in the Pittsburgh Gazette: 26 Aug. 1786 (Charles Jordan), 13 Jan. 1787 (John Buchanan), 1 Apr. 1787 (James Elliott), 18 Aug. 1787 (Patrick Reily), 2 Feb. 1799 (Samuel Moore). To Franklin and those with whom he associated in the colony’s upper echelon, recently arrived Irish immigrants (of whatever religious affiliation) could be perceived as being among the “meaner sort.” As historian Nancy Isenberg notes, “A legal distinction existed between the free and unfree, the latter including not only slaves but also indentured servants, convict laborers, and apprentices. As dependents they were all classified as mean, servile, and ill-bred.” Further, she writes, “for most Americans of the eighteenth century, it was assumed impossible for a servant to shed his lowly origins; the meaner sort, as one newspaper insisted, could never ‘wash out the stain of servility’” (Isenberg, White Trash, 72, 75). 10. Bardon, A History of Ulster, 206–7; Dickson, Ulster Emigration to Colonial America, 74–76; James Donnelly, “Hearts of Oak, Hearts of Steel,” Studia Hibernica 21 (1981), 27; Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 155–56; Arthur Young, A Tour in Ireland, 1776– 1779, Vol. 1, ed. A. W. Hutton (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1970), 153. 11. Finn’s Leinster Journal, 14–18 May 1774, quoted in Donnelly, “Hearts of Oak,” 71. 12. Dickson, Ulster Emigration to Colonial America, 77–78, 79; Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 155; Young quoted in Dickson, Ulster Emigration to Colonial America, 78. Young also observed: “The emigrations were chiefly in 1772 and 1773. Many weavers and spinners, with all their families, went. Some farmers sold their leases, went off with sums from £100 to £300 and carried many with them. They stopped going when the war broke out” (Young, A Tour in Ireland, 123). 13. The volume of migration in the 1760s was somewhat abated by the Native American resistance associated with the Ottawa leader Pontiac and by the royal proclamation of 1763 restricting transappalachian settlement. Migration accelerated with the 1769 acquisition of native-controlled land following the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix. By midsummer 1771 an estimated ten thousand families had arrived in the upper Ohio region, and by 1774 perhaps fifty thousand people were living “west of the Allegheny Ridge and south of the Ohio, Allegheny, and Kiskiminetas.” Solon Buck and Elizabeth Hawthorn Buck, The Planting of Civilization in Western Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995), 144. 14. David McClure, Ohio Country Missionary: The Diary of David McClure, 1748– 1820: Including His Travels in Western Pennsylvania and Ohio with Descriptions of the Indian and White Inhabitants (Waterville, Ohio: Rettig’s Frontier Ohio, 1996), 38, 112. Born in Massachusetts to Irish immigrant parents, the diarist consistently made a clear distinction between “Irish” and “Scots,” occasionally using the phrase “ScotchIrish” to describe those from Ulster.

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15. Genealogical Information, Wilkins Family, Box 2, Ms. 51; Genealogy of the Denny Family: Collected from Ancient Pedigrees and Old Family Records, comp. James R. Yielding (1856), Item 5, Folder 1, Box 1; Charles Gilbert Beetem, ‘Pleasant View’ A Typical Pioneer Plantation of Cumberland County (Carlisle: Hamilton Library Association, 1957), Item 7, Box 1, all in Papers of the Denny-O’Hara Family, Ms. No. 51, Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania Archives. Ebenezer Denny, the first mayor of Pittsburgh, was a grandson of the Denny immigrants. 16. Doyle, Ireland, Irishmen and Revolutionary America, 72. 17. Maldwyn A. Jones, “Ulster Emigration, 1783–1815,” in Essays in Scotch-Irish History, ed. E. R. R. Green (Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation, 1992), 49; Maurice J. Bric, “Patterns of Irish Emigration to America, 1783–1800,” in New Directions in Irish-American History, ed. Kevin Kenny (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003), 49; Trevor Parkhill, “Between Revolution and Famine: Patterns of Emigration from Ulster, 1776–1845,” in Industry, Trade and People in Ireland, 1650–1950: Essays in Honour of W. H. Crawford, ed. Brenda Collins, Philip Ollerenshaw and Trevor Parkhill (Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation, 2005), 59–73; Miller, Irish Immigrants in the Land of Canaan, 585; Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 169–70. 18. Kerby Miller sees a paradox in the 1780s migration at a time of “relative prosperity” but notes that a customs officer in Newry in 1793 found those emigrating from south Ulster as “almost entirely of a very inferior class.” On the whole, Miller writes, those leaving between 1783 and 1814 were often “substantial farmers and artisans—weavers, millwrights, tanners—in middling circumstances; moreover, a significant minority were from business and professional backgrounds” (Emigrants and Exiles, 170–71). Jones sees a number of poorer migrants along with the comfortable by the 1790s (Jones, “Ulster Emigration,” 56). The traffic in Irish servants all but vanished by the 1790s, in part because “British captains could no longer count on American courts to enforce contracts of indenture” (Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 170). 19. Johann David Schoepf, Travels in the Confederation, Vol. I, 1783–1784, trans. and ed. Alfred J. Morrison (New York: Burt Franklin, 1968), 339. 20. Neville B. Craig, The History of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh: J. R. Weldin Co., 1917), 173. 21. Buck and Buck, Planting of Civilization, 146; Peter Gilmore and Kerby A. Miller, “Searching for ‘Irish’ Freedom—Settling for ‘Scotch-Irish’ Respectability: Southwestern Pennsylvania, 1780–1810,” in Ulster to America, ed. Warren Hofstra (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2011), 173. 22. Gilmore and Miller, “Searching for ‘Irish’ Freedom,” 173. Solon and Elizabeth Hawthorn Buck estimated the English percentage of the population to be 43 percent in Allegheny County, 47 percent in Fayette, 43 percent in Washington, and 32 percent in Westmoreland (Planting of Civilization, 153). See R. Eugene Harper, The

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Transformation of Western Pennsylvania, 1770–1800 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 1991), 214–15nn4–8, for sources and discussion of population estimates. 23. Wayland F. Dunaway, The Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1944), 80; George Dallas Albert, History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: L. H. Everts, 1882), 44; Thomas F. Gordon, A Gazetteer of Pennsylvania, Part Two (Philadelphia: T. Belknap, 1832), 483; Dunaway, Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania, 81. 24. Dunaway, Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania, 82. 25. Leech, “The Secular History,” 329–30. Concentrations of Presbyterians in eighteenth century-Ulster could range from substantial minorities to overwhelming majorities across the province. Despite migratory outflows, the proportion of Presbyterians remained remarkably high in several northeastern parishes, as documented by the Ordnance Survey Memoirs in the 1830s. A demographic study by Kerby Miller and Liam Kennedy tracks Presbyterian population decline, eighteenth to nineteenth century, while demonstrating the frequently majority-status of Presbyterians in some northern counties. (“Irish Migration and Demography, 1659–1831,” in Miller, Irish Immigrants in the Land of Canaan, 656–78. 26. Jones writes, “Predominant though economic factors were, it remains true that emigration was further stimulated by the political discontent that led to the formation of the United Irishmen” (“Ulster Emigration,” 55). 27. Maurice J. Bric, Ireland, Philadelphia and the Re-invention of America, 1760– 1800 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2008), 139. 28. Edward C. Carter II, “‘A Wild Irishman’ under Every Federalist’s Bed: Naturalization in Philadelphia, 1789–1806,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 94, no. 3 (July 1970): 332. 29. Michael Montgomery, From Ulster to America: The Scotch-Irish Heritage of American English (Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation, 2006), xxxiii; Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 169; Parkhill, “Between Revolution and Famine,” 63, 66. The Ulster American Folk Park in 2003 convened its United States Scholarship Panel, which wrestled with vexed question of numbers. The panel concluded that a minimum of 150,000 emigrated from Ulster between 1718 and 1775, and a half million between 1680 and 1830. The scholars were Katharine Brown, Warren Hofstra, Kenneth Keller, Richard MacMaster, Kerby A. Miller, Michael Montgomery, Anita Puckett, and Marianne Wokeck. 30. Sherling, Invisible Irish, 200. 31. M’Kerrow, History of the Foreign Missions, 25; Thomas Jefferson Chapman, Old Pittsburgh Days (Pittsburgh: J. R. Weldin, 1900), 176; William Heazelton, Pittsburgh, to John Greeves, Bernagh, County Tyrone, 22 Oct. 1810, reprinted in Miller, Irish Immigrants in the Land of Canaan, 621.

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32. Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 172. 33. Belfast News-Letter, 25 Apr. 1817; John Newton Boucher, A History of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, Vol. I (Chicago: Lewis Publishing, 1906), 510; Albert, History of the County of Westmoreland, 539. 34. Pittsburgh Mercury; Belfast News-Letter, 25 Apr. 1817; Zadock Cramer, The Navigator (Pittsburgh: Cramer and Spear, 1824), 46. The mainstream Presbyterian minister Elisha P. Swift, recalling in 1859 his arrival in Pittsburgh forty years earlier, said that Catholics had “only the small church on Liberty street near the canal” (Elisha P. Swift, A Discourse on the Fortieth Anniversary of the Author’s Ministry in Pittsburgh and Allegheny [Pittsburgh: W. G. Johnston and Co., 1859], Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, microfilm roll P-115, p. 20). 35. Benjamin Bakewell to Charles Briggs, 7 Jan. 1843, quoted in Kathleen R. Parker, Here We Have Gathered: The Story of Unitarian Universalism in Western Pennsylvania, 1808–2008 (Pittsburgh: Ohio Meadville District, Unitarian Universalist Association, 2010), 33. 36. The Reporter (Washington, Pa.), 15 Jan. 1810. The residence of a settled minister and the existence of a meetinghouse together indicated a level of social organization as well as providing convenient geographical markers, as in an advertisement in the Pittsburgh Mercury on 28 Jan. 1813. A “plantation” for sale was located “in Robinson township, Washington county, near the rev. Joseph Patterson’s meeting house.” One traveler’s experience might be taken as indicative of the presence of religiousminded Irish Presbyterians. When Mrs. Margaret Van Horne Bell journeyed from the East Coast to Ohio in 1810, she stopped in Greensburg, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, for a brief reprieve from her bumpy carriage ride. While there, Bell wrote, she “heard some waggoners conversing upon religious subjects—instead of swearing and cursing—One is an Irish waggoner, and appears to be a sensible, well inform’d man—and what is more, has read his bible” (Margaret Van Horne Bell, Journey in Ohio in 1810, 55, quoted in Kathryn MacDonald Hartman, “Presbyterianism as a social institution on the western Pennsylvania frontier, 1790–1810,” University of Pittsburgh Department of History seminar paper, 1933, 5–6, MFF 2426, Library and Archives Division, Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania). 37. Miller, Irish Immigrants in the Land of Canaan, 103; Tree of Liberty (Pittsburgh), 23 Jan. 1807; Pittsburgh Mercury, 6 July 1814. 38. Analysis based on A List of Immigrants Who Applied for Naturalization Papers in the District Courts of Allegheny County, Pa., Vol. 1, 1798–1840 (Pittsburgh: Western Pennsylvania Genealogical Society, 1978). 39. Edward C. Carter II, in his analysis of data for naturalization in the courts of Philadelphia, found “The Irish . . . constituted an amazingly high proportion of all aliens naturalized: 55% of 1789–1800, 57% of 1801–1806, and 56% of the entire period 1789–1806. After 1797, the total number of Irish granted citizenship was greater than

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all other nationalities combined.” He suggests further that the Irish accounted for “56% of all the aliens entering Philadelphia as well as 56% of those becoming citizens” there. And he estimates that perhaps two-thirds of the Irish who arrived in Philadelphia proceeded westward. Carter, “A ‘Wild Irishman,’” 339, 341, 343. 40. Derived from A List of Immigrants. 41. Mary Lou Scott, ed., Naturalizations from Circuit Court Proceedings, Washington County, Pennsylvania, 1795 to 1841, unpublished ms., Law Library of the Courts of Washington County. 42. Scott, Naturalizations from Circuit Court Proceedings. The years examined: 1802, 1808, 1814, 1818, and 1820. For a period of several years, especially 1804 through 1807, immigrants’ place of birth appears not to have been noted. Due to the war the 1814 applications are necessarily anomalous: only fourteen immigrants sought naturalization, of whom three indicated that they had arrived in the United States before 1795. In 1820 those who did not indicate a place of birth represented the secondlargest category and nearly one-fifth of the total for that year. In most cases these applicants were identified as “revolutionary soldier,” the naturalization process frequently linked to a pension application. Many of those applicants were likely Irish-born. The lowest percentage (61 percent) occurred the year (1820) with the highest number of applicants (87). The highest percentage (98 percent) occurred in the year (1818) with the third highest number of applicants (63). John Knox (c. 1512–1572) was a leading figure in the Scottish Reformation. 43. Peter Gilmore, “From Rostraver to Raphoe: An Overview of Ulster PlaceNames in Pennsylvania, 1700–1820.” The practice of naming new homes for old led to the “York District” in the Carolinas when “Scotch-Irish” settlers arrived there from York County, Pennsylvania. This raises the possibility that some western placenames were derived from townships in central and eastern Pennsylvania, not places in Ireland. 44. Strabane is a market town in County Tyrone; Antrim is a town and a county in northeastern Ireland; Enniskillen is a town in County Fermanagh, in western Ulster; Saint Johnston is in eastern County Donegal, near Derry; Carrickfergus, in County Antrim, is on the northeastern coast. Bethel Presbyterian Church, Bethel Park, Pa., Bethel Presbyterian Church, 1776 to 2001, 225 years in God’s Service, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, comp. Patricia F. Kraft (By the Church, 2001), 6–7; Sharon Cook MacInnes, Early Landowners of Pennsylvania: Atlas of Township Patent Maps of Westmoreland County, PA (Apollo, Pa.: Closson Press, 2007), 151; Sharon Cook MacInnes, Early Landowners of Pennsylvania: Atlas of Township Warrantee Maps of Washington County, PA (Apollo, Pa.: Closson Press, 2004). Castleward is a townland in Strangford parish, County Down. Balgowin is likely a form of Ballygowan, which in turn is the name of eight townlands in as many parishes in three counties. “Ballymoney” ap-

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pears three times in County Derry, four times in County Down, and in Antrim as a town and as a townland. A society for prayer and worship that met at the home of John Morrison and other cabins on Irish Ridge (in Virginia [now West Virginia] near the Pennsylvania border) in the 1770s became a forerunner of the Presbyterian congregation of Cross Creek in Washington County. Morrison became among the first ruling elders of the Cross Creek congregation. Another Irish Ridge society, in eastern Washington County, became a forerunner of the Monongahela City congregation. Joseph Stockton, A Historical Discourse on the Fortieth Anniversary of the Author’s Ministry in Cross Creek, Pa.: Delivered in the Presbyterian Church of Cross Creek on Monday, June 24th, 1867 (Pittsburgh: Errett, Anderson and Co., 1867), 5; Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery of Washington, Including a Brief Account of the Planting of the Presbyterian Church in Western Pennsylvania and Parts Adjacent, with Sketches of Pioneer Ministers and Ruling Elders; Also Sketches of Later Ministers and Ruling Elders (Philadelphia: Jas. R. Rodgers Printing Co., 1889), 261, 263; Archives of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Inventory of the Church Archives of Pennsylvania Churches: Presbyterian Churches, prepared by the Pennsylvania Historical Records Survey, Works Progress Administration, arranged and indexed by Candace W. Belfield (Philadelphia, 1971), 05649–05650. 45. In Westmoreland County, for example, Irish Presbyterians initially settled in groups along in the Ligonier Valley, along Sewickley Creek, in the vicinity of Hannastown, and between the Youghiogheny and Monongahela Rivers. As early Presbyterian church records indicate, some of the earliest arrivals clustered along Chartiers Creek and other tributaries of the Ohio River, in what are now Allegheny and Washington Counties. 46. McClure, Ohio Country Missionary, 103; Miller, Ireland and Irish America,134; Miller, Irish Immigrants in the Land of Canaan, 574n6; T. M. Devine, To the Ends of the Earth: Scotland’s Global Diaspora, 1750–2010 (London: Allen Lane, 2011), 135–39. 47. Kevin Yeager, “The Power of Ethnicity: The Preservation of Scots-Irish Culture in the Eighteenth-Century American Backcountry” (Ph.D. diss., Louisiana State University, 2000), 50, 76–77, 79–80; Dunaway, Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania, 80; McClure, Ohio Country Missionary, 43; David Pollock, Greensburg, to Ann Maclorg, County Derry, 8 Dec. 1790, McClorg Family Letters. A week earlier, while in the Path Valley in central Pennsylvania, McClure observed: “The inhabitants of this country, many miles around, are Scotch Irish. They are presbyterians, and generally well indoctrinated in the principles of the christian religion, civil, hospitable and curteous to strangers. This description of people are removing almost daily into this country. Great numbers, within a few years, have come from Ireland” (Ohio Country Missionary, 38). 48. John Caldwell, The Family of William Findley of Westmoreland, Pa. (Rock Is-

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land, Ill.: Five Rhinos Books, 2002), 3; William Findley to Robert Hemphill, Feb. 1807, Hemphill Family Papers, Duke University Archives (courtesy of Dr. Joseph Moore); William Melancthon Glasgow, History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in America (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Reformation Heritage Books, 2007), 64. In an 1807 letter to Robert Hemphill, then living in South Carolina, Findley noted that he and Linn knew each other at the time Hemphill resided in Pennsylvania, that their fathers were good friends in Ireland, and that Rev. Linn was Hemphill’s father-inlaw—simultaneously indicative of close relations among networks of immigrants and endogamous marriage practices. Rev. Linn (or Lind) traveled west to minister to transmontane Covenanters in 1780; after 1783 he lived near Greencastle, Antrim Township in what is now Franklin County (Reid W. Stewart, ed., The Minutes of the Correspondent, May 1780 to February 1809: Being the Oldest Minutes of Any Presbyterian Group West of the Allegheny Mountains: Containing the Minutes of Reformed Presbyterian Societies, Associate Reformed and Reformed Dissenting Presbyterians in Western Pennsylvania [Apollo, Pa.: Closson Press, 1994], vii, x.) 49. Miller, Irish Immigrants in the Land of Canaan, 72–73. Evidence from migrant letters from Ireland’s northern counties confirms a vibrant system of chain migration operated by the 1830s. (Trevor Parkhill, “Pre-Famine Protestant, Post-Famine Catholic: Do Emigrants’ Letters Reflect the Stereotypes?” a paper presented at the Third Scotch-Irish Identity Symposium, 4 June 2005, Philadelphia, PA, 5.) 50. Cramer, The Navigator, 14; David Pollock, Westmoreland County to Joseph McClorg, County Derry, 18 Dec. 1794, McClorg Family Letters. 51. Thomas Mellon, Thomas Mellon and His Times (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994), 546n2, 12, 13–14. 52. Yeager, “The Power of Ethnicity,” 80; Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 217; W. H. Crawford, “Ulster as a Mirror of the Two Societies,” in Ireland and Scotland, 1600–1850: Parallels and Contrasts in Economic and Social Development, ed. T.  M. Devine and David Dickson (Edinburgh: Donald, 1983), 63. 53. Boyd Crumrine, ed., History of Washington County, Pennsylvania: With Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men (Philadelphia: L. H. Everts and Co., 1882), 712; Bob Closson and Mary Closson, Abstracts of Washington County, Pennsylvania, Willbooks 1–5, 1775–1841 (Apollo, Pa.: Closson Press, 1995), 165. Further examples: John McCaughen of Mount Pleasant Township, Washington County, in a will dated 22 Feb. 1815, left half of his estate to Mary McCaughen, “my onley daughter which I left in Ireland when I came to America.” The same year, Jeremiah Simpson, weaver of Chartiers Township, Washington County, left onefourth of his estate to his brother John Simpson, Parish of Ballykelly, County Derry. The remaining three-fourths of his real property were bequeathed to his brother’s children “whither they be meals [males] or femals” (Washington County Register of

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Wills, Will Book 3, 14, 17). McFadden’s will specifically referred to the townlands of Ballybrick, Kinallen and Skeogh (Skeagh). Simpson’s spelling of “males” reflects Ulster Scots pronunciation. Not all took advantage of the opportunity of emigration in this manner. Among the heirs of James McFarlane, slain in 1794 during the Whiskey Rebellion, was a brother, Hugh, still resident in County Tyrone. In 1798 Hugh and his wife sold their share of the deceased sibling’s estate for £250 (in Pennsylvania currency) to another brother Andrew, already resident in Pennsylvania. Helen Hariss and Elizabeth J. Wall, comps., Will Abstracts of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Will Books I Through V (Pittsburgh: H. L. Harriss and E. J. Wall, 1986), 10, 12; Thomas P. Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 180; Account of Andrew and Francis McFarland, Administrators of the Estate of James McFarland, in Administrative Account Books, Library of the Court of the County of Washington, Pennsylvania. The spelling of the McFarlane/ McFarland surname is inconsistent in the record. 54. The children of Isabella Bailie, who died in 1808, erected a stone in her memory in the Knockbreckan Reformed Presbyterian Graveyard, Parish of Drumbo; they lived in Tarentum, Allegheny County. William Porter of Enon Valley, Lawrence County, donated a stone in the Killinchy Graveyard in memory of his brother and sister; their parents died in the Parish of Killinchy in 1827 and 1838. William Gilmor of Pittsburgh provided a memorial to his father James Gilmor, of the Newtownards Parish, who died in 1813. In the Parish of Greyabbey, a stone honored Thomas Shaw, who died in Meadville, Crawford County, in 1829. Kathleen Kenna, “County Down, Ireland Gravestone Inscriptions with mention of Western Pennsylvania,” Western Pennsylvania Genealogical Society Quarterly 32, no. 2 (2005): 33, 34, 36, 37. 55. John Walker Dinsmore, The Scotch-Irish in America: Their History, Traits, Institutions and Influences: Especially as Illustrated in the Early Settlers of Western Pennsylvania and Their Descendants (Chicago: Winona, 1906), 187; Joseph Smith, Old Redstone; or, Historical Sketches of Western Presbyterianism, Its Early Ministers, Its Perilous Times and Its First Records (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo and Co., 1854), 156; Leigh Eric Schmidt, Holy Fairs: Scotland and the Making of American Revivalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 265n55. As an example of nineteenth-century endogamous marriage: Richard Graham, born in County Donegal in 1796, came to Westmoreland County with his father while still a youth; in 1821 he married Annie Mellon, a County Tyrone native who emigrated with her family in 1816. Annie Mellon was a daughter of Archibald Mellon and an aunt of Thomas Mellon, progenitor of the financial dynasty (John M. Gresham, comp. and ed., Biographical and Historical Cyclopedia of Westmoreland County [Philadelphia: Dunlap and Clarke, 1890], 534). Examples of marriage to relations or to those similarly surnamed: Rebecca Algeo

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married a second cousin, William Algeo, in County Donegal before their emigration to Allegheny County; her parents and other family members followed in 1796. James Morrow, born in Cumberland County in 1794 to immigrant Henry Morrow, married cousin Sarah Morrow, a native of Allegheny County. Agnes Reed, daughter of immigrant Joseph Reed, married in York County circa 1780 a man also named Joseph Reed. Margaret Johnston of Indiana County similarly married a man with the same name as her Irish immigrant father when she became the second wife of Thomas Johnston. His first wife had died in childbirth not long after the family’s arrival in Indiana County in 1828; “Cousen as i then called him,” Margaret wrote, recalling that initial acquaintance in an introductory letter to her father-in-law. Margaret’s family had also come from Ireland, probably the same northern county. Thomas Cushing, History of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania: Including Its Early Settlement and Progress to the Present Time; a Description of its Historic and Interesting Localities; Its Cities, Towns and Villages; Religious, Educational, Social and Military History; Mining, Manufacturing And Commercial Interests, Improvements, Resources, Statistics, Etc; Also, Biographies of Many of Its Representative Citizens (Chicago: A. Warner Co., 1889), A557, A430, A427; Armstrong County, Pennsylvania: Her People Past and Present, Embracing a History of the County and a Genealogical and Biographical Record of Representative Families, Vol. II (Chicago: J. H. Beers, 1914), 497; Ledlie Irwin Laughlin, Joseph Ledlie and William Moody, Early Pittsburgh Residents; Their Background and Some of Their Descendants (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1961), 12, 1; Crumrine, History of Washington County, 725–26; Letter of Margaret Johnston to Robert Johnston, Irvinestown, County Fermanagh, 1846, Archives of Industrial Society, University of Pittsburgh (AIS) 84:5 (a copy of records of the Northern Ireland Public Records Office, Box 1, Folder 4 [PRONI D0147/4]). Margaret Johnston wrote to her father-in-law both to introduce herself and inform him of her husband’s death. Her husband’s family lived in County Fermanagh; the widow’s letter suggests that her family had emigrated from the same county. Margaret described her father, also named Thomas, as “son of William and Margret Johnston who lived in Knockcrow near Ecriney, Grandmother was of the Drumsluce Johnstons.” Knockroe is a townland in the parish of Drumkeran, Drumsluice in the parish of Magheracross, both in County Fermanagh. 56. Barbara Johnstone, Speaking Pittsburghese: The Story of a Dialect (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 3; Carlisle Gazette, 5 July 1787; Pittsburgh Gazette, 3 Aug., 11 Aug. 1787; John Caldwell, William Findley from West of the Mountains: A Politician in Pennsylvania, 1783–1791 (Gig Harbor, Wash.: Red Apple Publishing, 2000), 194; Leland D. Baldwin, Whiskey Rebels: The Story of a Frontier Uprising (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1939), 114. The role of these early Irish immigrants in influencing the foundation of Pittsburgh and regional English is perhaps surprisingly and roughly parallel to the process

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which by the speech of Irish immigrant communities became a model for other arrivals in American cities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. See James R. Barrett, The Irish Way: Becoming American in the Multiethnic City (New York: Penguin Books, 2012), 31–35. In a later pseudonymous article ridiculing opponents of the federal Constitution, Brackenridge lampooned Findley’s accent and suggested that Findley be “ambassador to the Barbary states, or some part of the world, where his dialect would be understood as an original language” (Caldwell, William Findley from West, 194). Nearly forty years after his ridicule of Findley and other Ulster-Scots speakers, Brackenridge would identify his own speech as “braid Scots, or what is the same thing, the Scots-Irish” (H.  H. Brackenridge, Modern Chivalry [1819 Pittsburgh edition], 117, quoted in Claude M. Newlin, “Dialects on the Western Pennsylvania Frontier,” American Speech 4, no. 2 [Dec. 1928], 108).

2: “A SOCI A L COMBINATION ” Epigraph: McClure, Ohio Country Missionary, 104. 1. Dickson, Ulster Emigration to Colonial America, 3; J. R. R. Adams, The Printed Word and the Common Man: Popular Culture in Ulster, 1700–1900 (Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, Queen’s University of Belfast, 1987), 9; Connolly, “Ulster Presbyterians,” 26; Griffin, The People with No Name, 19; Griffin, “Defining the Limits of Britishness,” 273, 272; Brooke, Ulster Presbyterianism, 62. 2. Griffin, “Defining the Limits of Britishness,” 267. 3. Randolph C. Downes, Council Fires on the Upper Ohio: A Narrative of Indian Affairs in the Upper Ohio Valley until 1795 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1989), 13, especially chapter 12, “The Revival of American Aggression, 1782–1789,” and chapter 13, “The War for the Ohio River Boundary, 1789–1795”; Buck and Buck, Planting of Civilization, 199–203; Smith, Old Redstone, 38; Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Pittsburgh Gazette, 13 Jan. 1787. 4. Griffin, The People with No Name, 165; Albert, History of the County of Westmoreland, 344; William Findley to Alexander Dallas, 1 June 1792, Pennsylvania Archives, Ser. 2, Vol. 4, ed. John B. Linn and William Henry Egle (Philadelphia: J. Severns, 1874–1890), 726. 5. The Vance’s Fort and Irish Ridge societies became the basis of the Cross Creek congregation, organized in 1779. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 261, 265; Alvin D. White, History of the Cross Creek Presbyterian Church (Parsons, W.Va.: McClain Printing Co., 1969), 2–3. 6. The two apparent exceptions are Horseshoe Bottom (present-day Monongahela City), which began to meet in 1780 and was organized by 1784, and Three Ridges (West Alexander), which appears to date to 1785. Competing claims between Virginia

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and Pennsylvania over the Monongahela and Upper Ohio River valleys were resolved in the latter state’s favor in 1781. 7. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Redstone, Minutes of the Presbytery of Redstone of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., From the Organization of the Presbytery, September 19, 1781, to December, 1831 (Cincinnati: Elm Street Printing, 1878), 4; William Wilson McKinney, “The Early Development of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America in Pittsburgh: Part I,” Journal of the Department of History (The Presbyterian Historical Society) of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. 17, no. 5/6 (March–June, 1937): 250. 8. William W. McKinney, “The Organizational Foundations,” in The Presbyterian Valley: 200 Years of Presbyterianism in the Upper Ohio Valley, ed. William W. McKinney (Pittsburgh: Davis and Warde, 1958), 2–3; McKinney, “Early Development,” 245; J. Calvin Elder and J. Oliver Beatty, History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of New Alexandria, Pa.: From Its Organization September 16, 1816, to September 16, 1916 (By the Church, n.d.), 18; Smith, Old Redstone, 101, quoting Joseph Doddridge; Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Redstone, Minutes, 3; Dinsmore, Scotch-Irish in America, 67–68. 9. Mellon, Thomas Mellon and His Times, 42, 43. Mellon’s comment is significant on several levels. The 1641 massacre of Protestant settlers in Ireland provoked a war of numbers, with partisans offering widely differing estimates of those killed. The fact of the massacres, attached to sometimes absurdly inflated figures, became the stuff of propaganda and the rationale for bigotry and supposedly justifiable retaliatory violence. Similarly, the gruesome reality of violence along Pennsylvania’s western frontier was invoked to justify further bloodletting. Sherling, Invisible Irish, 32–33; Bardon, A History of Ulster, 137–39; Buck and Buck, Planting of Civilization, 197–98. 10. Leech, “The Secular History,” 330; Herbert Nelson Baird, A History of the Presbytery of Shenango, 1808–1983 (Published by Presbytery, 1983), 15; Smith, Old Redstone, 35; Buck and Buck, Planting of Civilization, 319. 11. Buck and Buck, Planting of Civilization, 321; Carolyn Murray-Wooley, “Stone Houses of Central Kentucky: Dwellings of Ulster Gentry, 1780–1830,” Journal of East Tennessee History, no. 77 Supplement (2006), 55. For backcountry Irish settlers’ adaptation and use of log cabins, see Doyle, Ireland, Irishmen and Revolutionary America, 86; E. Estyn Evans, “The Scotch-Irish: Their Cultural Adaptation and Heritage in the American Old West,” in Essays in Scotch-Irish History, ed. E. R. R. Green (Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation, 1992), 78–80; H. Tyler Blethen and Curtis W. Wood Jr., From Ulster to Carolina: The Migration of the Scotch-Irish to Southwestern North Carolina (Raleigh: North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 1998), 32, 33. 12. Samuel J. Eaton, “The Ecclesiastical History,” in Centenary Memorial of the Planting and Growth of Presbyterianism in Western Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh: Benjamin Singerly, 1876), 225–26; James G. Johnston, Early History of Dunlap’s Creek Church

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(privately printed), Archives and Manuscripts of the Western Pennsylvania Historical Society, 6; Montour Presbyterian Church, Robinson Township, Pa., The Story of Old Montour: Montour Presbyterian Church, Steubenville Pike, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania (Montour, Pa.: By the Church, 1925), 22. 13. Baird, History of the Presbytery, 136. The Deer Creek congregation benefited from the migration of skilled workmen to the area and an available supply of forged tools, nails and other supplies: “The remainder of the work—roofing, finishing the interior, and building the pulpit—was done by hired carpenters” (Baird, History of the Presbytery, 136). Those worshipping in oak groves included the earliest formations of the Three Ridges Presbyterian Church, West Alexander; Buffalo Associate Presbyterian Church, North Buffalo; and the Concord Presbyterian Church, Parker. Anthropologist Gwen Kennedy Neville, who studied open-air worship among Scottish and southern U.S. Protestants, connected the outdoor services of Covenanters in seventeenth-century southwestern Scotland to the practices of Celtic Christianity and to pre-Christian ritual (Gwen Kennedy Neville and John H. Westerhoff III, Learning through Liturgy [New York: Seabury Press, 1978], 9–10). 14. Doyle, Ireland, Irishmen and Revolutionary America, 85, 86. In relatively remote or rural areas, Presbyterian meetinghouses might have been the only venue for various gatherings, in the same way worship services took place in county courthouses. 15. Wilbur Zelinsky, “Cultural Geography,” in A Geography of Pennsylvania, ed. E. Willard Miller (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), 138–39; Robert Mitchell, “The Presbyterian Church as an Indicator of Westward Expansion in the 18th Century America,” Professional Geographer 18 (1966), 293–94, 295–96. 16. Don Herschell, “North Buffalo Presbyterian Marks 225 Years of Ministry,” Washington Observer-Reporter, 2 Sept. 2000, B6; Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 210–11; Crumrine, History of Washington County, 816. Buffalo Associate Presbyterian Church was in Buffalo Township. Two of the four original elders of Upper Buffalo were born in Ireland, the other two in York County and in Scotland. 17. Harper, Transformation of Western Pennsylvania, 13, 7; Dunaway, Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania, 82; Crumrine, History of Washington County, 643, 698, 811; Joseph McKnight, “Map of Washington County,” n.p., 1817; Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 873. Exceptions to the pattern, the Upper and Lower Ten-Mile congregation, demonstrate the validity of the generalization. Like their pastor, Thaddeus Dod, many TenMile congregants came from New Jersey with family origins in Connecticut. Their settlement (in what is now southern Washington and northern Greene Counties) was in what some scholars have characterized as the “exterior” and not the “interior,” which saw the heaviest settlement by Irish Presbyterians.

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18. Dunaway, Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania, 81; James Mark, First Dunboe: An Historical Sketch (Coleraine, N. Ireland: By the Church, 1936), 14. 19. Dunaway, Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania, 84; Bethel Presbyterian Church, One Hundred Fiftieth Anniversary; Patricia Kraft, comp., Bethel Presbyterian Church, 1776 to 2001: 225 Years in God’s Service, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (By the Church, 2001), 3, 4, 6–7. Having been asked repeatedly about the appropriate distance between meetinghouses and congregations they served, Redstone Presbytery on 23 Apr. 1789 announced the following: “in general, where congregations are in union with each other [that is, sharing a minister’s time], their houses of worship ought not to be less than eight miles apart, and where the congregations are not in union, nor expect to be, that their places of worship ought not to be less than nine miles apart” (Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Redstone, Minutes, 48). 20. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 4–7, 391; Dwight Raymond Guthrie, John McMillan: The Apostle of Presbyterianism in the West (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1952), 1, 3. Only James Power lived east of the Monongahela River in Fayette County; John McMillan, Joseph Smith, and Thaddeus Dod settled west of the river in Washington County. Power and McMillan were the American-born sons of Irish immigrant parents. 21. Griffin, The People with No Name, 116; Connolly, “Ulster Presbyterians,” 24–26; Raymond Gillespie, “The Presbyterian Revolution in Ulster, 1660–1690,” in The Churches: Ireland and the Irish, ed. W. J. Sheils and Diana Wood (Oxford: Published for the Ecclesiastical History Society by B. Blackwell, 1989), 169. 22. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 10–11, 12–13; McKinney, “Organizational Foundations,” 20–21, 28; Edward B. Welsh, “Westward Ho!” in The Presbyterian Valley: 200 Years of Presbyterianism in the Upper Ohio Valley, ed. William W. McKinney (Pittsburgh: Davis and Warde, 1958), 154–55, 153; W. S. McNees, History of Butler Presbytery: A Historical Sketch of the Presbytery of Allegheny and Its Legal Successor, the Presbytery of Butler (Butler, Pa.: Ziegler Printing, 1923), 12–13; Calvin C. Hays, History of the Presbytery of Blairsville and Its Churches (Pittsburgh: By the Presbytery, 1930), 19–20. 23. Thomas Joseph Hannon, “The Process of Ethnic Assimilation in Selected Rural Christian Congregations, 1800–1976: A Western Pennsylvania Case Study” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1977), 22, 34, 57–58. 24. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 10–11, 12–13; McKinney, “Organizational Foundations,” 20–21, 28; Welsh, “Westward Ho!,” 154–55, 153; McNees, History of Butler Presbytery, 12–13; Hays, History of the Presbytery, 19–20. 25. David Carson, “A History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in America

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to 1871” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1964), 51; James Brown Scouller, A Manual of the United Presbyterian Church of North America, 1751–1881 (Harrisburg, Pa.: Patriot Publishing, 1881), 26. 26. Carson, “History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church,” 51; Scouller, A Manual, 26–27. 27. David W. Miller, “Illiteracy, Apparitions, Stigmata: The 1859 Crisis in Irish Presbyterianism” (a paper delivered at the Keough Center for Irish Studies, Notre Dame University, 1 Feb. 2002), 9. 28. McClure, Ohio Country Missionary, 103. 29. Based on the author’s calculations derived from Associate Synod minutes. 30. By Peter Brooke’s estimate, the Antiburgher Seceders had 25 congregations in Ireland in 1790, the Burgher Seceders, 42 (Peter Brooke, “Politics and Theology,” with link to “Controversies in Ulster Presbyterianism, 1790–1836,” Ph.D. diss., 1980, accessed 14 Oct. 2013, www.peterbrooke.org.uk). Revs. James Harper and Thomas Smith have been recognized by historians as in some ways implicated in the United Irishmen or 1798 Rebellion. To this list might be added James Walker (licensed by the Associate Presbytery of Down in 1797), James McConnell, and Joseph Kerr, all of whom were ordained in the United States by the Associate Reformed Church. Also, Rev. Robert Kerr, received by the Associate Reformed church in 1797; James Harper Jr., received in 1800; Andrew Wilson, 1801; Charles Campbell, 1803; and Josiah Wilson, 1807. 31. John Kerr, Fairview, Butler County, to James Graham, Newpark, County Antrim, 19 Aug. 1845, Kerr Family Letters. By then the Presbyterian Church in Ireland had united with the Seceders and experienced the loss of its most liberal clergy and communicants. 32. Adam Loughridge, The Covenanters in Ireland: A History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland (Belfast: Cameron Press, 1984), 23, 27, 24. 33. Peter Gilmore, “Presbyterianism as Cultural Marker: Covenanters and the Scotch-Irish,” Journal of Scotch-Irish Studies 2, no. 2 (Fall 2005): 46–47. 34. William B. Sprague, Annals of the American Associate, Associate Reformed and Reformed Presbyterian Pulpit (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers,1869), 1; Samuel Brown Wylie, Memoir of Alexander McLeod, D.D., New York (New York: Charles Scribner, 1840), 25, 20–21; Wylie, Letter of 11 Jan. 1849, in Sprague, Annals of the American Associate, 5; Glasgow, History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, 601. 35. Sprague, Annals of the American Associate, 6; McBride, Scripture Politics, 103; Loughridge, Covenanters in Ireland, 45; McBride, Scripture Politics, 102; Miller, “Presbyterianism and ‘Modernization,’” 80. Here again the characterization in Sprague is from the pen of Samuel Brown Wylie. 36. Samuel Brown Wylie, “Memoir of the Late Rev. Dr. Black,” typescript, Box 1, Folder 3, 15–16, Ms. 66, Papers of the McClelland Family, 1821–1977, Library and

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Archives Division, Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania (original manuscript in the possession of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia); Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary Library, Reformed Presbyterian, Vol. IX, 1845– 1846, 166, in conjunction with A Name Index of Obituaries: Appearing in the Publications of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, Part I, 1837–1862 (privately published, n.d.); Richard L. McDonald, comp., History of Indiana County, Pennsylvania (Newark, Ohio: J. A. Caldwell, 1880), 213; Frank C. Harper, Pittsburgh of Today, Its Resources and People, Vol. III (New York: American Historical Society, 1931), 296; William B. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, Vol. IV (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1858) 8–9; Cushing, History of Allegheny County, 321; Crumrine, History of Washington County, 716. 37. Wylie, Memoir of Alexander McLeod, 48, 50–51. Both Black and Wylie had found work as teachers. Some six weeks after arriving in Philadelphia, Black “obtained a small school in the township of Cheltenham, about ten miles north of Philadelphia.” After about three months he rejoined Wylie as a tutor at the University of Pennsylvania. Wylie, “Memoir of the Late Rev. Dr. Black,” 18. 38. Carson, “History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church,” 68–69. 39. What became Washington village, the county seat of Washington County and a commercial hub, began as lands owned by David and Jonathan Hoge, Presbyterian brothers from Ulster. The village was laid out in 1781 by David Redick, another Ulster Presbyterian immigrant who had married John Hoge’s daughter Ann (Miller, Irish Immigrants in the Land of Canaan, 574n6, 574–75). The cabinet maker John Wilson settled in Washington in the late 1780s. A native of Coleraine, Wilson emigrated with his wife, Catherine Cunningham, father, Marcus Wilson, and entire extended family (Crumrine, History of Washington County, 482). He later served as a sponsor for four candidates for citizenship and acted as a commissioner of the Washington congregation to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in support of Rev. Thomas Ledlie Birch. An exiled United Irishman, Birch reputedly chose Washington and environs as the site of his American ministry because “there was a number of my old hearers and neighbors from Ireland” (Thomas Ledlie Birch, Seemingly Experimental Religion, Instructors Unexperienced—Converters Unconverted—Revivals Killing Religion—Missionaries in Need of Teaching—or, War against the Gospel by its Friends: Being the Examination and Rejection of Thomas Ledlie Birch . . . by the Rev. Presbytery of Ohio . . . Trial of the Rev. John McMillan, before the Rev. Presbytery of Ohio, for Defaming Birch; the Trial and Acquittal of the Rev. Presbytery of Ohio, before the very Rev. General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of America, for the Rejection of Birch; and Injustice in Permitting the Rev. John McMillan to Escape Church Censure: With Remarks Thereon [Washington, Pa.: Published for author, 1806], 31). The tradesman Abraham Latimore, the mason John Keady, and clerks John McCluney and Thomas Thompson, all Irish immigrants, made their homes in Washing-

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ton at the turn of the nineteenth century. (Crumrine, History of Washington County, 490–92.) 40. Cramer, The Navigator, 46. As Cramer died in 1813, this was obviously a posthumous publication. 41. The life’s story of Francis Gelson Bailey exemplifies the migration to denominations and congregations as a result of personal relationships, spiritual striving, and social standing. Born in Ballywalter, County Down, in 1797, he came to Pittsburgh at age eighteen, where he was drawn to commerce. He developed a successful business partnership with his younger brother Samuel and his brother-in-law (and fellow immigrant) Alexander Laughlin. Described as having been a “child of the covenant and trained by a godly father,” Francis G. Bailey joined the First Associate Reformed Church of Pittsburgh in 1819. Five years later he joined the more prominent First Presbyterian Church, reportedly “because of the kindness with which he had been treated by its pastor, Rev. Dr. Herron.” Bailey had married Mary Ann Dalzell, the daughter of another County Down man whose emigration was connected with the 1798 Rebellion. Bailey assisted Rev. John Joyce, an Irish-born preacher, in circulating a petition among Presbyterians in East Liberty, asking Redstone Presbytery to formally organize a congregation. When the new congregation was formally organized in 1828, the Baileys were among the new members and Francis G. Bailey was among the three elders. Joyce left East Liberty after barely a year and a half; his replacement in April 1830, Rev. W. B. McIlvaine, initially boarded with Bailey. The elder represented the congregation at meetings of the Redstone Presbytery and Synod of Pittsburgh. In 1841 he returned to First Presbyterian (Sylvester Scovel, ed., Centennial Volume of the First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, PA., 1784–1884 [Pittsburgh: Wm. G. Johnston and Co., 1884], 207–8; Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Redstone, Minutes, 377; Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Synod of Pittsburgh, Records of the Synod of Pittsburgh, From Its First Organization, September 29, 1802, to October, 1832, Inclusive (Pittsburgh: Printed for the Synod, Luke Loomis, agent, J.T. Shyrock, Printer, 1852), 332. 42. Sessional Records of the Associate Congregation of Pittsburgh, Manuscripts and Archives of the Presbyterian Historical Society; The Pittsburgh Directory for 1815, Containing the Names, Professions and Residence of the Heads of Families and Persons in Business, in the Borough of Pittsburgh, with an Appendix Containing a Variety of Useful Information (Colonial Trust Co., 1905); Second United Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, History of the Second United Presbyterian Church: Late First Associate Reformed Church of Pittsburgh, Penn’s. from 1793 to 1876 (Pittsburgh: Bakewell and Marthens, 1876), 9. 43. Second United Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, History, 5–8, 13–14. 44. Pittsburgh Directory for 1815, 121–22; Joseph F. Rishel, Founding Families of

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Pittsburgh: The Evolution of a Regional Elite, 1760–1910 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1990), 351–52. In a move explicable largely in terms of the seriousness with which some Irish Presbyterian immigrants regarded their religious beliefs, prominent Pittsburgher Philip Mowry, a justice of the peace in the 1810s, left the Seceders for the Covenanters.

3: IRISH PRESBY T ERI A N RIT UA L A ND DISCIPLINE IN THE PENNSY LVA NI A COUN TRYSIDE 1. John McMillan’s Diary in Guthrie, John McMillan, 224; “Minutes of ye Correspondent” in Minutes, Forks of the Yough Associate Reformed Congregation, 1790– 1809, 3 (8 July 1782), 6 (6 Sept. 1782), Manuscripts and Archives of the Presbyterian Historical Society. Power, at this time in his mid-thirties, relocated across the mountains with his family in 1776 and in 1779 had become minister to the Mount Pleasant and Sewickley congregations in Westmoreland County (Guthrie, John McMillan, 103). “His father was a farmer who had emigrated from Ireland to settle in an area already settled by his fellow countrymen” (Joanne Carol Vance, The Middle Presbyterian Church, Mount Pleasant Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, 1772–1972: Our Bicentennial Anniversary [By the Church, 1972], 2). The Forks of Yough society became a part of the Associate Reformed church established in 1782; other societies were located on Brush Creek, Peters Creek, and Redstone Creek. 2. Martha G. Martens, A History of Old Donegal Church, Pleasant Grove, Ligonier, Pennsylvania, 1785–1935 (Greensburg, Pa.: C. M. Henry Printing, c. 1970), 33. Similarly, Leigh Eric Schmidt has described sacramental occasions as “the high days of the year” for early Presbyterians. Schmidt, Holy Fairs, 3. 3. Observation of the Lord’s Supper as a major religious and community festival within early Presbyterianism emerged as a compromise between laity and reforming clergy in the early decades of Scotland’s reformation. Reformers emphatically rejected the Catholic interpretation of the Eucharistic meal as the actual body and blood of Christ. “The Reformers objected to the magic powers of the Mass as sacrifice, or as a ‘work,’ an instrument of arriving at salvation,” writes anthropologist Gwen Kennedy Neville. “To the Reformer the Lord’s Supper was a sign and a promise, but not an end in itself.” Popular attachment to the ritual—together with its theological significance—ensured the centrality of communion with Presbyterianism. Amid religious and political conflict in the mid-seventeenth century, Schmidt says, “the communion occasion provided a powerful source for religious renewal and assurance.” In the following decades, the sacramental occasion “became ever more central to the religious culture of Presbyterian Scotland.” The peculiar circumstances of Presbyterians in Ulster, observes Andrew Holmes, served to guarantee that the Lord’s Supper would be of particular importance for their “self-confidence and iden-

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tity.” Schmidt, Holy Fairs, 36, 43; Gwen Kennedy Neville, Kinship and Pilgrimage: Rituals of Reunion in American Protestant Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 77; Holmes, The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice , 164. 4. Holmes, The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 164, 89. The Donegal congregation, for example, celebrated the sacrament twice a year, beginning with a Thursday fast day and concluding with services on Monday. Reformed Presbyterians tended to observe sacramental occasions once or twice a year. Carson, “History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church,” 76. A sample of seven congregations (all but one rural) for 1809–1827 finds four observing communion twice a year, the remaining three, three times a year. For example, Beulah Presbyterian Church in eastern Allegheny County celebrated communion in April and September; Bethany Presbyterian Church in western Allegheny County had its sacramental season in February, June, and September or October. The Robinson’s Run Associate Reformed congregation apparently had a communion season only once a year from its beginnings in the 1790s, gradually increasing the frequency to three times a year in the late nineteenth century (Leona Scott, et al., Bicentennial History of Union Presbyterian Church 1794–1994, Robinson Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania [Franklin, Tenn.: Providence House Publishers, 1993], 35). 5. Neville, Kinship and Pilgrimage, 15, 71; Lenore W. Bayus, Beulah Presbyterian Church, 1784–1984 (Pittsburgh: By the Church, 1984), 46. 6. Typescript, “History of the Beulah Presbyterian Church, from October 1784 to September 1884, Prepared by the Pastor William S. Miller, and Read at the Centennial Meeting Sept. 1884,” 37, MSS #83, Folder 3, Archives, Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, Records of the Beulah Presbyterian Church (Churchill, Pa.), 1811–1834; Centenary Memorial of the Planting and Growth of Presbyterianism in Western Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh: Benjamin Singerly, 1876), 30; Scott, et al., Bicentennial History, 68–69; Samuel S. Glass, A History of the Associate Reformed Now United Presbyterian Congregation of Union, Robinson Township, Allegheny County, Pa. (Pittsburgh, 1894), 28; Thomas Sproull, Reformed Presbyterian Church in America, Historical Sketches to 1833, ed. Reid W. Stewart (Lower Burrell, Pa.: Point Pleasant Ltd., 2005), 47; Stewart, Minutes of the Correspondent, xv; Joseph Smith, Old Redstone, quoted in Schmidt, Holy Fairs, 198. Holmes suggests that the mention in Ulster Presbyterian records of purchases of brandy, claret, and whiskey, and mutton and beef, “may refer to preparations for a communal meal” (The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 175–76). Such may have been the case in western Pennsylvania of the same period. In 1782 James Marshel, lieutenant of Washington County militia, reported to Gen. William Irvine, commandant of Fort Pitt, that he had been “asked by a Presbyterian minister and some of his people to request you to spare one gallon of wine for the use of a sacrament” (C. W. Butterfield, ed. Washington-Irvine Correspondence: The Official Letters

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Which Passed Between Washington and William Irvine [Madison, Wis.: David Atwood, 1882], 290). Sproull relied in part on his own memory of his father’s reminisces of taking part in the communion at Scott’s. Officiating at that communion were a “Rev. Gilmore,” whose identity has not been traced, and the Ulster-born Samuel Brown Wylie. 7. Crumrine, History of Washington County, 618, 749; “History of the Beulah Presbyterian Church,” 28; Mellon, Thomas Mellon and His Times, 41. Open-air services enjoyed both old-world and American precedents; during the seventeenth century in Scotland and Ireland such events “became a vehicle for social protest” as supporters of the covenant defied state-supported religious establishment. Neville, Kinship and Pilgrimage, 33. The large crowds gathered in the Forks of Yough for a Reformed Presbyterian sacramental occasion in 1806 converged on “Tent Hill” behind the church. “A tent in a surrounding grove was occupied by the ministers, and the people sat under the shade of the overspreading trees.” Sproull, Reformed Presbyterian Church, 47. A New England missionary traveling through Washington County in 1803 preached to five thousand gathered for the Cross Creek sacramental season: “They were conveniently seated in a grove, with a stand for the speakers raised about four feet above the people.” While traveling through Washington County in 1788, Col. John May saw such an outdoor pulpit, describing it as “something like a sentry-box.” Rev. Joseph Badger, quoted in Edward B. Welsh, “Extension through Evangelism” in The Presbyterian Valley: 200 Years of Presbyterianism in the Upper Ohio Valley, ed. William W. McKinney (Pittsburgh: Davis and Warde, 1958), 58. An early autumn snowfall did not deter Butler County Presbyterians from the first Lord’s Supper observed by the Scrubgrass congregation at its founding in 1803; “the people, undaunted, gathered and sweeping the snow from the logs sat for two hours Spartan-like with feet in the snow listening gladly to God’s message” (McNees, History of Butler Presbytery, 92). The tent erected by the Associate congregation of Chartiers of “Four posts, about twelve feet high . . . set in the ground under a grove of ash-trees. The preacher was elevated about four feet. His back and head were shielded from the rain and sun by boards attached to the posts. These posts were boarded about half-way up on the sides” (Crumrine, History of Washington County, 618). Sproull, for his account of the Forks of Yough event, relied on the recollection of John Temple, who at age eighteen had made a profession of faith at that sacramental occasion. 8. Centenary Memorial, 30; Eaton, “The Ecclesiastical History,” 227; William G. Johnston, Life and Reminiscences from Birth to Manhood of Wm. G. Johnston (Pittsburgh: Knickerbocker Press, 1901), 177; Bethany Presbyterian Church, Centennial Celebration of Bethany Presbyterian Church, Bridgeville, Pennsylvania, 1814–1914 (Bridgeville, Pa.: By the Church, 1914), 23. 9. Gwen Kennedy Neville, “Kinfolks and the Covenant: Ethnic Community among Southern Presbyterians” in The New Ethnicity, ed. John W. Bennett (Saint

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Paul, Minn.: West Publishing Co., 1975), 269–70; McNees, History of Butler Presbytery, 76; Scovel, Centennial Volume, 79. William Johnston asserted that the tables disappeared from First Presbyterian by the late 1840s (Johnston, Life and Reminiscences, 177). In the rural Donegal church, the use of tokens ceased in 1859, nearly a generation after Pittsburgh (Martens, History of Old Donegal Church, 35). Among those congregations which gave up tokens only toward the end of the nineteenth century: Alleghenytown’s Associate Reformed congregation, part of the United Presbyterian Church following the 1858 merger which created the new denomination. John White’s reminiscence of the Lord’s Supper in this congregation dates to the 1860s or possibly earlier but may be taken as broadly indicative of communion practices common in the period under consideration. He recalled “Thursday as Fast-day and Saturday as Preparation Day.” Following the Saturday services, congregants formed a single line and approached the minister, who dispensed tokens. The tokens were presented before processing to the tables, singing the 103rd Psalm, on Sunday. “Reminiscence of John White,” in Ninetieth Anniversary of the First United Presbyterian Church of Allegheny (Pittsburgh, 1931), 21. The church abandoned use of tokens in 1874. 10. The Directory for Publick Worship of God (Philadelphia, 1745). The Westminster Confession of Faith similarly denounces “ignorant and ungodly persons” in relation to the Lord’s Supper. This is found in chapter 29, section 8. Robert Shaw, An Exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith (Fern, Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Heritage, 1998), 357. 11. Holmes, The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 166. The Presbytery of Ohio in western Pennsylvania rigorously required “experimental acquaintance with religion” for its ministerial candidates but initially lacked the same expectations for those seeking admission to sacraments. At least two congregations developed their own criteria for admission to sacraments. The session of the Cross Roads congregation in northern Allegheny County decided in 1832 to add a temperance pledge to their terms of communion. The Poke Run Session in northern Westmoreland County in the 1840s examined views on the Lord’s Supper, baptism, and family worship, possibly in response to Old School–New School tensions within the congregation. This Poke Run Session frequently examined some individuals separately or additionally with respect to their views on the Lord’s Supper, baptism, and family worship. Internal disagreements became obvious in 1855 when a divided session rejected an attempt to substitute hymns for psalms in the newly established Sunday School (Cross Roads Presbyterian Church Records, Gibsonia, Pa., 14 (14 Sept. 1832), AIS 80:27; Records of Poke Run Presbyterian Church, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, 1840–1868 (transcription by Helen Welsh Henderson, 1935), Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania. 12. Samuel C. Jennings of the Christian Herald (Pittsburgh) suggested that perhaps the 1829 Associate Synod meeting in Pittsburgh should have adopted this reso-

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lution: “Whereas the practice has become to[o] general among us, of admitting persons to the communion of the church on the simple grounds of their doctrinal knowledge . . . without much enquiry as to a radical change of heart; and whereas such a course of procedure is calculated to fill the church with formalists, with persons ignorant, experimentally, of the paths of the Gospel.” Christian Herald (Pittsburgh) 1, no. 29, 1 Aug. 1829. The Ohio Presbytery received Samuel C. Jennings in 1828 as a licentiate from the Presbytery of New Jersey. For Jennings’s career as editor in Pittsburgh, see William W. McKinney, “The Church’s Fourth Estate,” in The Presbyterian Valley: 200 Years of Presbyterianism in the Upper Ohio Valley, ed. William W. McKinney (Pittsburgh: Davis and Warde, 1958), 308–10. 13. Session Minutes, Associate Presbyterian Church, Mount Pleasant, Pa., 1821– 1843, 17 Aug. 1822, 18 Oct. 1823, Microfilm Roll 915005, Family History Center, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; Records of Unity United Presbyterian Church, 19 May 1845 (Eliza Davis), 5 May 1852 (Mrs. Rout), 6 May 1854 (Martha Stewart), Office of the Presbytery of Pittsburgh; Minutes or Proceedings of the 2d Associate Reformed Presbytery of Pennsylvania, 9 (15 May 1794), Manuscripts and Archives of the Presbyterian Historical Society. For example, the session of the Unity Associate Presbyterian congregation in Butler County “required the adoption of the Standards of the Church by every applicant for membership. The Unity congregation in Butler continued this practice until 1914 (McNees, History of Butler Presbytery, 173). 14. Neville, Kinship and Pilgrimage, 130; Session Minutes, Associate Presbyterian Church, Mount Pleasant, Pa., 17 Aug. 1822; Forks of Yough, Pa., Associate Reformed Church Session Minutes, 1790–1809, 15 Oct. 1794, 5 and 11 July 1795, Manuscripts and Archives, Presbyterian Historical Society; Session Minutes, Associate Presbyterian Church, Mount Pleasant, Pa., 9 June 1821. 15. For example, the session of the Pittsburgh Associate congregation in 1815 appointed elder John Aitkens to speak with John Wiley about reports circulating about his character (Sessional Records of the Associate Congregation of Pittsburgh, 17 May 1815). Similarly, the session of the Saltsburg Presbyterian congregation in 1833 appointed elder John McKee “to request Mr. John Lafferty to meet the Session at their next meeting, to confer with them in relation to reports affecting his christian Character” (Records of Saltsburg Presbyterian Church, Conemaugh Township, Indiana County, Pa., 16 Jan. 1833, Microfilm Roll 00146, Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania). The term fama clamosa appears in the Dictionary of the Scots Language, where it is referenced as a term from Scots church law meaning “a prevalent report of scandalous or immoral conduct by a church member” (www.dsl.ac.uk). 16. Such a parallel with the confessional ritual in Roman Catholicism is by no means coincidental. Scottish reformers dismantled the rituals of the medieval church but in negotiation with the laity found it necessary to recreate a celebration of the

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Lord’s Supper preceded by penitential devotions. As Margo Todd observes, “the public confession of sin and demonstration of repentance not only remained in practice a rite of the kirk, it actually expanded to become arguably the central ritual act of protestant worship in Scotland.” Margo Todd, The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 128–29; Schmidt, Holy Fairs, 18–19. 17. Holmes, The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 168, 169; Connolly, “Ulster Presbyterians,” 29. 18. See especially Matthew 5:24 (King James Version). 19. Mount Carmel Session Minutes, 21 March 1811, Mount Carmel United Presbyterian Church, Aliquippa, Beaver County, Pa., Records, 1810–1982, Collection 83:12, Archives of Industrial Society, University of Pittsburgh Libraries. The Forks of Yough Session in August 1790 investigated a report “that Hugh Murphy had been engaged in a quarrel with Patrick Westbay in Harvest” and found Murphy to have acted in self-defense (Forks of Yough Session Minutes, 11 Aug. 1790, Associate Reformed Church, Forks of Yough, Pa., Session Minutes, 1790–1809, Manuscripts and Archives of the Presbyterian Historical Society). The Session of the Mount Pleasant Associate congregation in Washington County in 1821 accused Thomas Forsythe of having acted improperly during the harvest—he challenged fellow reapers to fight him—and summoned the would-be brawler to answer charges. Forsythe dutifully appeared and acknowledged his faults. Having been cautioned against like transgressions in the future, he was dismissed without further disciplinary action (Mount Pleasant Session Minutes, 1 June 1821, Associate Presbyterian Church, Mount Pleasant, Pa., Session Minutes, 1821–1843, Family History Center, Church of Latter-day Saints, Greentree, Pa.). The Mount Pleasant Session in 1821 admonished John Moor and rebuked William Sloan for a bitter argument turned physical as they worked as part of a crew building a bridge. Moor struck Sloan after the latter reportedly called him a “liar and worse than Judas” (Mount Pleasant Session Minutes, 28 Sept. 1821). 20. Forks of Yough Session Minutes, 11 Aug. 1790. The Mount Pleasant Session in April 1823 heard a complaint that at Daniel McGukin’s husking frolic the previous fall, John McCarroll had accosted an individual and repeatedly called him a liar. McCarroll initially denied the charges but eventually acknowledged the impropriety of his conduct and language. Admonished by the Session, he was then restored to church privileges (Mount Pleasant Session Minutes, 30 Apr., 16 May 1823). 21. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Redstone, Minutes, 111 (22 Oct. 1794), 110 (21 Oct. 1794). 22. Mount Pleasant Session Minutes, 5 June 1821; Unity United Presbyterian Church Records, 25 Sept. 1847. The Forks of Yough Session in April 1793 worked to resolve a dispute between Elizabeth Wilson and the widowed Jean Mitchel. Wilson

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had purportedly alleged theft by Mitchel’s children. Session heard testimony, pondered the details, and concluded Elizabeth Wilson probably had not authored the rumor. Therefore, “she and Jean ought to live friendly and in harmony Notwithstanding all that has taken place” (Forks of Yough Session Minutes, 10 Apr. 1793). 23. Forks of Yough Session Minutes, 3 June 1791. 24. Mount Pleasant Session Minutes, 15 Feb. 1826; Mount Pleasant Session Minutes, 5 March 1826. 25. Holmes, The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 171. 26. Of five cases investigated by the Bethany Session between 1821 and 1830, only one involved fornication. The Forks of Yough Associate Reformed Session prosecuted only three charges of fornication out of thirty-two cases between 1790 and 1795. The Pittsburgh Associate Session had not a single case of fornication in the decade of 1809–1819; similarly, the Mount Pleasant Associate Session similarly prosecuted no cases of fornication from 1821 to 1827. 27. Mount Carmel Session Minutes, 11 Nov. 1811; 12 June 1812. 28. Pittsburgh Associate Congregation Session Minutes, 23 May 1817, Associate Synod of North America, Sessional Records of the Associate Congregation of Pittsburgh, Manuscripts and Archives of the Presbyterian Historical Society. 29. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Synod of Pittsburgh, Records of the Synod of Pittsburgh, from Its First Organization, September 29, 1802, to October, 1832, Inclusive (Pittsburgh, 1852), 312–13 (20 Oct. 1829). 30. Cross Roads Session Minutes, [date unknown], 17 Feb., 7 July, 4 Aug. 1834, Cross Roads Presbyterian Church Records, Gibsonia, Pa. The John Brown in question was likely the household head of that name enumerated in the 1830 Federal Census for Pine Township, Allegheny County. That Brown was between fifty and sixty years of age, residing with a female of the same age bracket and four children ranging in age from between five and fifteen, with one male aged between and twenty and thirty (United States Federal Census Schedule, 1790, Roll 144, 358). Also of note is Brown’s speech, as recorded in the session minutes. In his letter to Reverend Moore, Brown declared himself “clar [clear] of the charges,” which may suggest an Ulster pronunciation. After an interview with Brown, Elder James Logan reported on 7 July 1834 that “the accused neither plead guilty nor, not guilty, but said that he was watered and doget.” If the latter word is understood as the Scots word “doggit,” meaning “matted” like wet felt or a dog’s shaggy coat, and as being used to underscore the first term, the cumulative meaning may be understood as “plastered, inebriated.” 31. Cross Roads Session Minutes, 17 Apr. 1835, 16 Apr., 1 Oct. 1836. 32. Cross Roads Session Minutes, 29 Dec. 1829, 13 Nov. 1830; Bethany Session Minutes, 16 Dec. 1830. As late as May 1847, the session of Unity Associate Reformed

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congregation confronted Usiah Stewart about intemperance alleged by “reports abroad.” Stewart readily confessed. Following a rebuke by the moderator and an announcement of this action to the congregation, Stewart was “to be continued in the privileges of the Church” (Unity United Presbyterian Session Minutes, 1 May 1847). 33. Forks of Yough Session Minutes, 5 March and 11 Sept. 1792; Bethany Session Minutes, 13 Sept. 1830; Cross Roads Session Minutes, 20 May 1831. 34. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Redstone, Minutes, 186 (21 Apr. 1803); Mount Carmel Session Minutes, 19 May 1811. 35. Pittsburgh Associate Congregation Session Minutes, 26 Aug. 1812. Also, common fame formed the basis of a fornication charge against John Braden before the White Oak Flats session in May 1811 (Mount Carmel Session Minutes, 5 May 1811). The Short Creek Session found William Beard guilty “of immoral conduct respecting a black boy named Isaac.” When Beard appealed, the Ohio Presbytery confirmed the session’s judgment (Minutes of the Presbytery of Ohio, Vol. I, From its formation in 1793 to August 20th, 1806, typescript by E. B. Welsh, Archives of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, 81). 36. Mount Carmel Session Minutes, 20 Nov. 1810. 37. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Redstone, Minutes, 121, 123, 143, 156 118; Saltsburg Session Minutes, 29 May 1851, 9 Aug. 1853, 30 Nov. 1855, 30 May 1856, 28 Feb. 1858, Saltsburg Presbyterian Church, Conemaugh Township, Indiana County, Pa., Records, Library and Archives Division, Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania. The possibility that the increasing prominence of women’s activity within the congregation may help explain why the prosecution of men for fornication would be a worthwhile subject of investigation. 38. I am indebted to David W. Miller for the final observation (personal correspondence). All of the Presbyterian denominations (to varying degrees) followed the seventeenth-century regulations of the Scottish church which specified that more than one witness corroborate evidence and that the accused be present. See, for example, Associate Synod of North America, Book of Church Government and Discipline, Agreed Upon, and Enacted by the Associate Synod of North America, At Pittsburgh, June 6, 1817 (Pittsburgh: Butler and Lambdin, 1817), 42–50. 39. Minutes or Proceedings of the 2d Associate Reformed Presbytery of Pennsylvania, 13 Oct. 1794, 28 Aug. 1793, 13 Oct. 1794, 27 Apr. 1803, 25 June 1804, 25 Aug. 1804; Forks of Yough Session Minutes, 15 Oct. 1794; Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Redstone, Minutes, 139. 40. Six of the twelve cases of adultery found in my examination of minutes involved an Irish wife. See Forks of Yough Session Minutes, 20 May 1795; Proceedings, Second Associate Reformed Presbytery, Aug. 1794, 20 May, 5 Aug. 1795; Pittsburgh Associate Congregation Session Minutes, 19, 22 Oct. 1814.

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41. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Redstone, Minutes, 37–38. The General Assembly heard the appeal in 1790 of an immigrant then living in Pennsylvania who had returned to Ireland three times in hopes of relocating his family to America. On the third trip his wife absolutely refused to join him and “peremptorily refused all further cohabitation.” The man crossed the Atlantic once more alone and lived as a bachelor for a time in the United States, eventually remarrying and starting a new family. He and his new wife then applied for admission to communion. The General Assembly ruled that admission was not possible as the couple were living in “vice,” and that further, the man seemed not to have made all possible attempts to secure divorce. But as “this man has separated from his wife by her wilful and obstinate desertion,” his admission could be allowed, no other obstacles standing in his way, should he make a reasonable attempt to obtain a divorce in Ireland and furnish evidence of this endeavor. The General Assembly recognized that in his pursuit of a divorce in Ireland, the applicant might be “prevented and oppressed by the power of antagonists or of unjust courts” (Samuel J. Baird, ed., Acts, Deliverances and Testimonies of the Supreme Judicatory of the Presbyterian Church [Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Education, 1855], 189–90). 42. No less than in other locales and times, marriage in postrevolutionary western Pennsylvania “was a partnership, a spiritual and physical union, an economic necessity, and if the couple were lucky, a love match as well” (Virginia K. Bartlett, Keeping House: Women’s Lives in Western Pennsylvania 1790–1850 [Pittsburgh: Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, 1994], 135–36). See also Buck and Buck, Planting of Civilization, 332. 43. Holmes, The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 218. See, for example, the Book of Church Government and Discipline adopted by the Associate Synod of North America in Pittsburgh in 1817: the synod declared church law requiring publication of marriage to be “in ordinary cases, indispensably necessary” (39). Similarly, the Reformed Synod in 1822 reiterated that denomination’s Testimony with an amendment stating: “In order to prevent rash and unlawful connexions, no minister shall solemnize marriage, until he shall have evidence that the parties have caused their purpose to be duly published to all whom it may concern: such publication shall be made in the town or congregation to which each of the parties belongs, and for such length of time as may be necessary to ascertain, to the satisfaction of the elders of the church, that no lawful impediment to their union exists” (Minutes of the Reformed Presbyterian Synod, 1809–1833, 118, Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary Library). Associate and Associate Reformed sessions in particular prosecuted cases of “irregular marriage” that generally involved failure to properly give notice of marriage. The Associate Reformed Forks of Yough Session vigorously prosecuted a number of

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irregular marriage cases in the 1790s. In one instance, session added “fornication” to the complaint of “clandestine marriage.” See Forks of Yough Session Minutes, 20 Aug. 1790, 5 March 1792, 21 June 1792, 10 Apr. 1793, 10 June 1793. At a meeting in Delap’s [Dunlap’s] Creek, Fayette County, 15 October 1782, the Redstone Presbytery unanimously rejected marriage by license and instead vowed to “adhere to the rules laid down in the Westminster directory.” At its next meeting in Pigeon Creek, Washington County, on 11 March 1783, the presbytery resolved that Presbyterian magistrates would be held censurable if they married persons “in a way contrary to the prescriptions of the law respecting marriage.” Further, marriages contrary to the law, even if obtained through a minister, would likewise be held censurable. In April 1797 Redstone began a review of its marriage policy, the details of which were not contained in its minutes; surviving session minutes have not reflected policies like those enunciated by Redstone in 1782–1783. However, the Redstone Presbytery minutes do hold a tantalizing clue as to what now-lost session minutes may have contained. In June 1799 presbytery upheld the decision of the Long Run Session excluding Daniel Fleming Esq. from church privileges for not submitting to a rule of presbytery “respecting marriage” (Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Redstone, Minutes, 5, 7, 132, 149). A lively discussion at a meeting of the Synod of Pittsburgh in 1811 confirmed that the body did “not approve of their members celebrating marriage without publishing the purpose of marriage, or license” and agreed that announcement of banns did not violate the Sabbath. Generally, however, mainstream Presbyterians focused their attention on marriages conducted by improper persons and on instances of “incest” involving marriage to a dead spouse’s near relative (Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Synod of Pittsburgh, Records, 82). 44. The Associate Presbytery of Chartiers ruled in October 1809 that in accordance with the denomination’s Directory, marriages without publication must be regarded as “clandestine” and that magistrates in communion with the Seceder church could be censured for violating this policy. The Associate Synod of North America reiterated in 1817 the necessity of “publication for the purpose of marriage a competent time before its celebration,” citing both the Westminster rules contained within the denomination’s Directory and civil laws (Minutes or Proceedings of the 2d Associate Reformed Presbytery, 49; Records of the Associate Presbytery of Chartiers, 27 Oct. 1809, Archives, Presbyterian Historical Society; Associate Synod of North America, Extracts from the Minutes of the Associate Synod of North America, at Their Meeting in Pittsburgh Beginning May 28, 1817 [Carlisle: A. Loudon, 1817], 16). 45. In an 1809 case, the session of the Associate Congregation of Service in Beaver County found justices of the peace “to be censurable according to our directory for marrying without previous publication.” James Tod appealed to the Chartiers Pres-

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bytery, which voted unanimously to affirm the judgment that public officials were subject to censure for performing marriages in the absence of published banns. 46. Cases of irregular marriage heard by Mount Pleasant Associate Presbyterian congregation included: Mary Cheny (20 May 1823), Ebenezer Moss (20 May and 7 June 1823); Polly Johnson (18 Oct. 1823); and Mrs. Wilison (7, 18 Sept. 1826). The session discussed the issue on 20 June 1824. 47. Mount Pleasant Session Minutes, 5 Aug., 19 Nov. 1824. Matthew R. Acheson became Hopewell Township Justice of the Peace in November 1813. Hopewell, one of Washington County’s original townships, encompassed part of what would become Mount Pleasant Township. Acheson is regarded as an early settler in that township (Crumrine, History of Washington County, 811, 819; Commemorative Biographical Record of Washington County, Pennsylvania [Chicago: J. H. Beers and Co., 1893], 582). 48. Mount Pleasant Session Minutes, 19 Nov. 1824; Minutes of the Associate Synod of North America, at Their Meeting in Pittsburgh, 25th May, 1825 (Pittsburgh, 1825), 12– 13 (27 May 1825); Mount Pleasant Session Minutes, 10 Aug. 1825, 25 Apr. 1827. 49. Holmes, The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 219; Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Redstone, Minutes, 17. In 1811 the White Oak Flats Session censured James Christy for having assisted a couple to obtain marriage by an unauthorized person. The woman complained, explained Christy, that “she could get no body to marry her.” Christy had helpfully suggested a Mr. Warnock, who “lived over the river.” Session ruled Christy guilty of “improper conduct,” due to his part in the affair and Warnock’s lack of “authority to marry.” This marriage too may have been made necessary by pregnancy (Mount Carmel Session Minutes, 21 March 1811). Fearing for the validity of a marriage performed by Rev. Thomas Ledlie Birch, William and Elizabeth Jordan were remarried by magistrate David Christy prior to admission to the Mount Carmel Presbyterian Church in 1834 (Mark F. Welchey, Genealogical Data from the Session Minutes of Mount Carmel United Presbyterian Church (Formerly White Oak Flats) 1810–1899 (Aliquippa, Pa.: Unpublished typescript, 1979), 14 June 1834). 50. Minutes of the Presbytery of Ohio, Vol. I, 101; Records of the Synod of Pittsburgh, 16, 25; Minutes of the Presbytery of Ohio, 159, 163–64. Taking up the case of a man who had married his maternal uncle’s widow, in 1810 the Pittsburgh Synod “resolved that persons connected by such marriages are inadmissible to the communion of the church until they give satisfactory evidence of repentance” (71). 51. Records of the Associate Presbytery of Chartiers, 31 Aug. and 16 Dec. 1803; Bethany Session Minutes, 56 (2 Feb. 1830). 52. Holmes, The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 210–211, 201–2; Directory for Publick Worship of God, 22–23; G. W. Mechlin, A Historical Sketch of Glade Run Presbyterian Church, Presbytery of Kittanning and Glade Run Classical and Normal

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Academy: At Glade Run, Armstrong County, Penn’a.: A Sermon (Pittsburgh, 1876), 7; Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Redstone, Minutes, 19 (18 Oct. 1785); Associate Reformed Synod, The Constitution and Standards of the Associate Reformed Church in North America (Pittsburgh: Johnston and Stockton, 1832), 419. 53. Pittsburgh Associate Session Minutes, 9 July 1817. Elders made accusations of irregular baptism procedure against Rev. Samuel Barr when he first arrived in the West in the fall of 1785. An accusation that Rev. James Dunlap had inappropriately agreed to baptize the child of Audley Rea formed one of several charges in a dispute between Dunlap and a disgruntled congregant. In 1803 the Ohio Presbytery withheld testimonials and dismission papers from Rev. Boyd Mercer for his irregular baptism practices. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Redstone, Minutes, 19 (18 Oct. 1785), 5–6 (15 Oct. 1782); Minutes of the Presbytery of Ohio, Vol. I (typescript by E. B. Welsh, 1934–35), 178 (19 Jan. 1803). Elizabeth Beaty in 1792 agreed to undergo the humiliation of being rebuked for antenuptial fornication before the Forks of Yough congregation in addition to being admonished by session for “irregular marriage,” all for sake of having her children baptized in the Associate Reformed Church. John Robeson appeared before the same session three years later to inquire if any outstanding difficulty might prevent the baptism of his children. There was: common report charged him with having “been engaged in a Quarrel with a certain Jno. Crawford lately.” To gain access to the sacrament, Robeson willingly participated in the penitential ritual. Forks of Yough Session Minutes, 5 Mar. 1792, 5 July, 11 July 1795. 54. Forks of Yough Session Minutes, 5 Mar. 1792; Extracts from the Minutes of the Associate Synod of North America, at their meeting in Pittsburg, Twenty-third May, 1821 (Carlisle, 1821), 18–19. Beaty’s circumstance recalls the requirement of the Westminster rules, that “at least one of the parents had to be a believer in order for a child to be baptized.” (Holmes, The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 204.)

4: DEFINING A DOC TRINA L LY DISTINCT COMMUNIT Y 1. Holmes, The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice , 255–262; Todd, Culture of Protestantism, 73–76; Jack Rogers, Presbyterian Creeds: A Guide to the Book of Confessions (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1991), 156. 2. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Redstone, Minutes, 57 (11 June 1789), 58 (12 June 1789), 143 (18 Oct. 1798), 291 (22 Apr. 1818); Holmes, The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 256; Reporter (Washington), 3 Sept. 1810. 3. Holmes, The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 286 (see also his discussion of family worship, 284–290); Guthrie, John McMillan, 57–58; Minutes of the Presbytery of Ohio, 178 (19 Jan. 1803).

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4. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 261, 265; White, History of Cross Creek Presbyterian Church, 2–3; Guthrie, John McMillan, 58; Hays, History of the Presbytery, 85; Martens, History of Old Donegal Church, 12–13. U.S. Geological Survey maps show that Hypocrites Creek runs into Hendricks Creek, which in turn flows to Tubmill Creek, a tributary of the Conemaugh River. The “Irish elder” was the father of Rev. Alexander Donaldson, the source of the story of Hypocrite Run; Reverend Donaldson began a long pastorate at Elders Ridge in Indiana County in 1838. 5. As Margo Todd observes in her study of Protestantism in early modern Scotland, the reformers’ emphasis on the Word meant that no longer would Sundays be acceptably spent in a range of recreational and pleasurable activities after a brief celebration of the mass. Instead, Scots would be expected to take part in “a round of communal Bible-reading, psalm-singing, sermons and catechism that would last for most of the day.” Recreational activities were condemned, Todd says, “not because they were evil in themselves, but because they lured people from sermons.” Todd, Culture of Protestantism, 28. 6. Holmes, The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 57; Sproull, Reformed Presbyterian Church, 28, 27. For Sproull’s background, see Reid W. Stewart, ed., Brookland Covenanter (Reformed Presbyterian) Church History (Leechburg, Pa.: Allegheny Township Historical Society, 2000), 3–5, 15–20, 41, 47. 7. Christian Herald (Pittsburgh) 1, no. 2, 24 Jan. 1829 (Bible distribution); no. 7, 28 Feb. 1829 (Bible Society and Sunday schools); no. 10, 21 Mar. 1829 (Bible distribution); no. 13, 11 Apr. 1829 (Sunday schools); no. 14, 18 Apr. 1829 (Pittsburgh Female Auxiliary Bible Society); no. 32, 22 Aug. 1829 (Forks of Yough Bible Society); Records of Mount Carmel United Presbyterian Church, 17 Nov. 1831, AIS 83:12; Poke Run Records, 1 Apr. 1843. 8. Alfred Creigh, History of Washington County (Harrisburg: B. Singerly, Printer, 1871). Thomas Marquis, a signatory of the first addendum, actively promoted revivalism. 9. Gabriel Walker, among the original signers, was a native of Lancaster County who had been long settled in the west by 1782. Walker married a “bound girl” of the Covenanter minister John Cuthbertson; he and his brothers were associated with the Associate Reformed Church in what became southwestern Allegheny County (Scott, et al., Bicentennial History, 11, 10; J. W. English, A History of the Robinson’s Run Associate Reformed, Now United Presbyterian Congregation: Allegheny County, Pa [Robinson Township, Pa.: By the Church, 1890], 5). Declaration and Testimony quoted in Frank Hare, “An Historical Study of Social Covenanting in the United Presbyterian Church and Its Ancestors” (M. Theol. Thesis, Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary, 1958), 55; Minutes of the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church (n.d.), 139 (18 Aug. 1823), Reformed Presbyterian Theological Library.

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10. Scouller, A Manual, 30–31; Marybelle Pierce, “The Establishment of the Associate, Reformed and Associate Reformed Churches in Western Pennsylvania” (Master’s thesis, University of Pittsburgh, 1931), 48; McBride, Scripture Politics, 80; Extracts from the Minutes of the Associate Synod of North America, at Their Meeting in Pittsburg, Twenty-Third May, 1821, 16–17. 11. Holmes, The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 167. Personal covenanting, on the other hand, remained relatively widespread, Holmes says (176–78). 12. Scouller, A Manual, 28; Hare, “An Historical Study,” 41; Scouller, A Manual, 27–28; Associate Synod of North America, A Display of the Religious Principles of the Associate Presbytery of Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh: Eichbaum and Johnston, 1823), 120– 23; “An Act of the Associate Presbytery, concerning Public Covenanting,” in A Display, 146–57; Associate Synod of North America, Book of Church Government and Discipline, 41, 42. For a more detailed discussion, see Peter E. Gilmore, “The ‘Moral Duty’ of Public Covenanting in the Ante-bellum United States: New-World Exigencies, Old-World Response,” Journal of Transatlantic Studies 11, no. 2 (June 2013): 177–92. 13. Hare, “An Historical Study,” 46, 48, 49. 14. Directory for Publick Worship of God, 36–37; Holmes, The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 78. 15. Holmes, The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 79, 87. 16. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Redstone, Minutes, 17–18 (23 June 1785),111 (22 Oct. 1794); Minutes of the Presbytery of Ohio. These records contain the basis of the generalized comments. 17. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Redstone, Minutes, 105 (24, 25 Dec. 1793). 18. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Redstone, Minutes, 17–18 (23 June 1785), 44 (23 Oct. 1788), 84 (22 Dec. 1791), 92 (18 Oct. 1792), 104 (18 Oct. 1793), 111 (22 Oct. 1794), 119 (22 Oct. 1795), 142 (27 June 1798), 145 (11 Dec. 1798), 152 (17 Oct. 1799), 200 (18 Oct. 1804), 317 (16 Oct. 1821). The dates referenced are those on which Presbytery called for fast days, which occurred in November, December, and January. An exception is the General Assembly fast day of 1798, called for August. A fast called by Redstone in December 1798 was almost certainly for members of presbytery alone. What cannot be known is whether individual congregations also called fast days before 1800. Such a practice is not reflected in the post-1800 session minutes examined. 19. Minutes of the Presbytery of Ohio, 93 (2 Jan. 1802); Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Synod of Pittsburgh, Records, 180 (6 Oct. 1821), 289–90 (20 Oct. 1828), 312 (20 Oct. 1829), 330 (21 Oct. 1830).

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20. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Redstone, Minutes, 104 (18 Oct. 1793), 255 (23 Apr. 1812). Generally, mainstream congregations remained unfazed by occasional hearing. One positive example from the 1830s of a mainstream session taking action may involve more than occasional hearing, however. In August 1834 “common fame” charged Cross Roads elder James Logan with “improper conduct in going to hear an Affrican preaching, on the same day on which his own Minister preached in this place.” In the ensuing conversation “Logan freely acknowledged his sorrow and regret” (Cross Roads Session Minutes, 4 Aug. 1834). 21. Reformed Presbytery, Act, Declaration, and Testimony, for the Whole of Our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in, Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive; As, Also, Against All the Steps of Defection from Said Reformation, Whether in Former or Later Times, Since the Overthrow of that Glorious Work, Down to this Present Day (Philadelphia: Rue and Jones, 1876); Forks of the Yough Session Minutes, 20 Aug. 1790, 11 Sept. 1792. The Covenanter document cited above stated: “nor can a Covenanter practice what is commonly called ‘occasional hearing,’ or join in union [ecumenical] prayer meetings, without contradicting his own testimony.” A Presbyterian pamphlet defending the revivals of the early 1800s explicitly charged rank-and-file Seceders with ignoring their denomination’s doctrine on “occasional hearing” to attend large communion celebrations of the mainstream church: “there has scarcely been a sacrament where I have been, that I have not seen some of them there; for it seems they do not hold your doctrine respecting occasional hearing so sacred, but they will sometimes trample upon it” (A Presbyterian [Samuel Ralston], Letters Addressed to the Rev. Messrs. John Cree, John Anderson, William Wilson and Thomas Alison . . . In Answer to their Pamphlet, entitled, Evils of the Work Now Prevailing . . . Wherein Their Objections to This Work Are Examined . . . and the Work Vindicated . . . [Washington, Pa., 1805], 38). 22. Mount Pleasant Session Minutes, 3 Sept. 1824, May 13, 1825. In September 1824 Matthew Cheny and James W. Pipe “confessed their sorrow” and were cautioned. A third congregant, William Galbraith, would not submit and was suspended. Galbraith professed he could not see the difference between hearing a debate and taking part in public worship where there was “corrupt teaching.” (Within a year, Galbraith asked that his case be resumed and then submitted to a caution.) Mount Pleasant Session Minutes, 4 Sept. 1824. 23. Pittsburgh Associate Session Minutes, 1 Feb. 1816; Minutes of the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, 39–40 (3 Sept. 1817). The records of the Reformed Presbyterian Synod and the Associate Synod indicate frequent days of fasting and humiliation, significant for this study because of the relative strengths of those denominations in western Pennsylvania. The Reformed Presbyterian Synod called

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fasts in 1816, 1817, 1818, 1819, 1820, 1822; the Associate Synod in 1811, 1815, 1818, 1821, 1822, 1823, 1824. In 1819 the Associate Synod mandated that presbyteries make their fast-day arrangements. 24. Minutes of the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, 71 (19 Oct. 1821); Carson, “History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church,” 68–69, 89–91. 25. Appendix, “Act for a Fast, Passed at Philadelphia, June 5, 1818,” in Extracts from the Minutes of the Associate Synod . . . 1818 (Carlisle, 1818), 1–3. 26. Holmes, The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 79. A Redstone Presbytery minute for 24 December 1793 records: “Upon enquiry P.b.y find that the members present have observed the second thursday of November as a day of fasting[,] humiliation and prayer[,] according to the recommendation of Synod.” 27. Forks of Yough Session Minutes, 30 May 1795; Mount Carmel Session Minutes, 20 Nov. 1810; Beulah Session Minutes, 18 May 1827; Mount Pleasant Session Minutes, 11 March 1821, 15 Feb. and 10 May 1826; Bethany Session Minutes, 17 March 1831. 28. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Redstone, Minutes, 27, 302–3; Mount Pleasant Session Minutes, 4–5 Sept. 1824, 10 Aug. 1825. 29. Extracts from the Minutes of the Associate Synod . . . 1817 (Carlisle, 1817), 16; “Act for a Fast, Passed at Philadelphia, June 5, 1818,” 3. 30. At the Associate Synod in 1822, the Presbytery of Chartiers had the distinction of being the only presbytery to report on public covenanting. The following year Chartiers was again alone in reporting that covenanting had taken place, this time in two western Pennsylvania congregations. In other congregations within its bounds, presbytery asserted, “it is proposed to engage in this duty, shortly.” Chartiers Presbytery again in 1824 reported that covenanting had taken place, this time in the Washington County congregation under the ministry of Rev. David French. Further covenanting was reported by Chartiers in 1825. Extracts from the Minutes of the Associate Synod . . . 1822 (Carlisle, 1822), 17, 6; Extracts from the Minutes of the Associate Synod . . . 1823 (Pittsburgh, 1823), 11; Hare, “An Historical Study,” 45, 46. Rev. John Walker, a native of Washington County who studied with Rev. John Anderson at the Service Academy, was the minister of the two Ohio congregations, Unity and Mount Pleasant, in Harrison County. The two western Pennsylvania congregations were Montour Run in Allegheny and Service in Beaver County; the ministers were, respectively, William Wilson, born in Ireland, and John Anderson, born in Scotland. The American-born Reverend French had responsibility for North Buffalo congregation. 31. Mount Pleasant Session Minutes, 13 May, 10 Aug., 13 Oct. 1825. 32. Evangelical Witness III, no. 5 (Dec. 1823), 206–7. 33. Records of Mount Carmel United Presbyterian Church, 15 Oct. 1831, AIS 83:12; Poke Run Records, 25 Aug., 25 Sept. 1842.

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34. Cross Roads Session Minutes, 7 Nov. 1834; Welchey, Genealogical Data from the Session Minutes of Mount Carmel, 26 Apr. 1819, 18 Apr. 1818. The combined congregations of White Oak Flats and Sewickley had ninety-one communicants in April 1814; the number grew consistently from the low point in 1818, with seventy-six recorded as on the rolls in April 1819. 35. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Redstone, Minutes, 111 (22 Oct. 1794), 110 (21 Oct. 1794); Cross Roads Session Minutes, 6 May 1831, 13 and 25 Apr. 1832, 12 Oct. 1833, 12 Apr. 1834.s 36. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Synod of Pittsburgh, Records, 192, 195–97 (3 Oct. 1821); Buck and Buck, Planting of Civilization, 215. 37. The estimate of Andrew Holmes for the Synod of Ulster in roughly the same period that “between one-fifth and one-quarter of those who could attend meeting on a regular basis did so” may apply to the Presbyterian organizations in western Pennsylvania (The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 60).

5: FROM INSUR REC TION TO REVIVA L 1. Gilmore and Miller, “Searching for ‘Irish’ Freedom,” 181–86. An enduring image of the insurrection is that of Rev. John Clark remonstrating with the Mingo Creek militia on their march to confront Deputy Revenue Inspector John Neville at his mansion. Many of the militiamen belonged to the elderly minister’s congregation. Although seemingly symbolic of ministerial efforts to keep the peace, the story indicates something quite different. Clark utterly failed in his attempt to dissuade the aroused farmers and laborers. The anecdote about Rev. John Clark recurs frequently in the literature, beginning with Findley’s 1796 history. It also informs a dramatic incident in Henry C. McCook’s novel The Latimers (Gilmore and Miller, “Searching for ‘Irish’ Freedom,” 185; William Findley, History of the Insurrection in the Four Western Counties of Pennsylvania: in the Year M.DCC.XCIV, with a Recital of the Circumstances Specially Connected Therewith: and an Historical Review of the Previous Situation of the Country [Philadelphia: Samuel Harrison Smith, 1796], 86; Henry C. McCook, The Latimers: A Tale of the Western Insurrection of 1794 [Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs, 1898]). The growing arrearage in some ministers’ salaries at the height of antitax protests might represent judgment against clergy’s perceived violation of community norms. At the April 1793 meeting of Redstone Presbytery, none of the ministers reporting arrearages claimed to have been owed amounts of more than £30. But a year later and with tensions mounting, two ministers were each owed more than £120, raising questions of lay-clerical antagonism. One of that pair was Rev. James Finley, whose Federalist politics were well known. He served the Round Hill and Rehoboth congregations, both located in disaffected areas. Finley had received no settlement from the former; the latter owed him £123 from the previous November. Finley asked to be

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released from his congregations in October 1794 (Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Redstone, Minutes, 97, 108). Overall, the Presbyterian clergy does not seem to have been actively opposed to violence and lawbreaking until the insurrection’s collapse. Not that ministers connived with the opposition; no minister is known to have endorsed the protests. The silence seems to suggest an acquiescence by clergy and elders to most Presbyterians’ rejection of the hated tax. One exception may be the Irish-born Samuel Porter, who by all accounts responded with consistent and vigorous intervention throughout the tumult. According to Findley: “Mr. Porter of Westmoreland . . . laboured publicly and privately with success from the beginning, to prevent the spirit of disorder from spreading in his congregation” (Findley, History of the Insurrection, 182). 2. David Mead to Ebenezer Denny, 11 Aug. 1794, Folder 4, Ebenezer Denny Correspondence, 1794–1795, Denny-O’Hara Family Papers, Mss. Collection No. 51, Library and Archives Division, Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania. 3. Dorothy E. Fennell, “From Rebelliousness to Insurrection: A Social History of the Whiskey Rebellion” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1981), 252. 4. See Gilmore, “Refracted Republicanism,” 394–417. 5. David Elliott, The Life of the Rev. Elisha Macurdy: With an Appendix, Containing Brief Notices of Various Deceased Ministers of the Presbyterian Church in Western Pennsylvania (Allegheny, Pa.: Kennedy and Brother, 1848), 73–76. 6. Historians often regard what is termed here the “Great Revival of the West” as the beginning of the Second Great Awakening. Donald G. Mathews has proposed that “the ‘Second Great Awakening’ is one of those happily vague generalizations which American historians use every now and again to describe a movement whose complexity eludes precision.” Mathews chooses to use the term comprehensively while recognizing its difficulties (“The Second Great Awakening as an Organizing Process, 1780–1830: An Hypothesis,” American Quarterly 21, no. 1 [Spring 1969]: 23). I argue that subsuming the revivals of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century under a broader heading perhaps more appropriately applicable to the events of the 1820s and 1830s (if not beyond) blurs significant distinctions between the two groups—especially location, themes, impetus—and in doing so obscures continuities with the First Great Awakening. Paul K. Conkin suggests that “what gives some credence to the concept of a national Second Great Awakening was a series of revivals in new [sic] England, primarily among Congregationalists, that paralleled those in the West and in the piedmont.” But he decides the label “obscures too much” in regional and denominational differences when applied to the first decade of the century (The Uneasy Center: Reformed Christianity in Antebellum America [Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995], 128). See John B. Boles, The Great Revival, 1787–1805 [Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1972], for a focus on its southern dimension.

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My use of the term “Great Revival,” or simply “revival” in the singular, should not obscure the dynamism of what was in reality a generalized movement of many local revivals, taking place as a result of local conditions, hopes and fears, and institutionalized encouragement on the local, regional, and national levels. The Presbyterian General Assembly declared in 1800: “The success of missionary labours is greatly on the increase. God is shaking the valley of dry bones on the frontiers, a spiritual resurrection is taking place there” (quoted in Keith J. Hardman, Seasons of Refreshing: Evangelism and Revivals in America [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1994], 109). 7. Responsible for the conversion of perhaps ten persons, this revival occurred within and near Vance’s Fort in the Cross Creek region in Washington County. The Vance’s Fort and Irish Ridge societies became the basis of the Cross Creek congregation, organized in 1779. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 261, 265; White, History of Cross Creek, 2–3. 8. “Revival of Religion in the Western Country; Particularly in the Bounds of the Ohio Presbytery,” Western Missionary Magazine I (Sept. 1803): 289. The two apparent exceptions are Horseshoe Bottom (present-day Monongahela City), which began to meet in 1780 and was organized by 1784, and Three Ridges (West Alexander), which appears to date to 1785. 9. Paul E. Conkin, Cane Ridge: America’s Pentecost (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990), 65–66; William Speer, The Great Revival of 1800 (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Education, 1872), 17. 10. Harper, Transformation of Western Pennsylvania, 13. 11. The total population of Washington County for those years was 23,892 and 28,298, respectively. 12. The total number of white persons under sixteen years of age was 905; the total white population of Hopewell Township was 1,822. The township encompassed both the Lower Buffalo and Upper Buffalo congregations. 13. A county-wide sex ratio of 1.46 in 1790 gave way to 1.049 in 1800 and to 1.037 in 1810. 14. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, from Its Organization A.D. 1789 to A.D. 1820 Inclusive (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1847), 186, 240–241. The vacant churches in 1802 were found in what is now West Virginia and Ohio as well as western Pennsylvania. Among those vacancies: the congregation in the town of Washington. Since its organization in the winter of 1793– 1794, the congregation in the Washington County seat had seen ministers only occasionally or on a temporary basis (Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 306–7; see also Minutes

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of the Presbytery of Ohio). No doubt due to the town’s position as a commercial and service center, the Washington congregation was among those regarded as financially capable of supporting a minister (Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Minutes of the General Assembly [17 May 1799], 165). 15. Two of the Cross Creek congregation’s earliest elders, according to a church tradition, agonized over their inability to scrape together the four or five dollars needed to meet their obligations; one raised the cash by shooting a wolf (for which a bounty was paid). Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 270. 16. Guthrie, John McMillan, 38; Minutes of the Presbytery of Ohio, Vol. I, Archives of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, 6, 16, 22. 17. “Revival of Religion in the Western Country,” 289. 18. “Revival of Religion in the Western Country,” 289; Conkin, Cane Ridge, 69. Michael J. Crawford, Seasons of Grace: Colonial New England’s Revival Tradition in Its British Context (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 103–4, 45. 19. Curtis D. Johnson, Islands of Holiness: Rural Religion in Upstate New York, 1790– 1860 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), 63, 71–72; Schmidt, Holy Fairs, 96–97. 20. Hugh Henry Brackenridge, who also styled the clergyman “Cardinal McMillan,” coined the term, quoted in Guthrie, John McMillan, 171–72, 66–67. James Power was born in Chester County to Irish immigrants. A graduate of Princeton, he was ordained in 1772, made a series of missionary trips west of the Alleghenies, and settled in the region in 1776. Thaddeus Dod was born and raised in New Jersey; his father was a Connecticut Yankee. A graduate of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton), Dod followed families of New England origin to the border of what are now Greene and Washington Counties. Joseph Smith was born in Nottingham, Maryland, near the Susquehanna River and Pennsylvania border. Also a graduate of the College of New Jersey, he settled in Washington County in 1780 (Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 391, 393, 395). 21. Guthrie, John McMillan, 65, 178–80; John Thomas Scott, “James McGready: Son of Thunder, Father of the Great Revival” (Ph.D. diss., College of William and Mary, 1991), 1; Joseph Smith, Old Redstone, 205, quoted Guthrie, John McMillan, 154. The word “riddle,” meaning “a coarse sieve,” was used in Ulster and Pennsylvania (Peter E. Gilmore, “Scots-Irish” Words from Pennsylvania’s Mountains, Taken from the Shoemaker Collection [Bruceton Mills, W.Va.: Scotpress,1999]). McMillan died in 1833; the growing rift between Old School and New School culminated in schism in 1837. Smith said McMillan was “of the Old School in his views of both doctrines and measures.” 22. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washing-

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ton, History of the Presbytery, 400; Guthrie, John McMillan, 68; Schmidt, Holy Fairs, 60–61; White, History of Cross Creek, 9–10; Conkin, Cane Ridge, 53; Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Redstone, Minutes, 41 (13 Aug. 1788); Smith, Old Redstone, 464; Boles, Great Revival, 37; Scott, “James McGready.” Writes Schmidt, “McGready’s participation in these early sacramental revivals in western Pennsylvania set the tone for his later career” (61). Scott argues that “a thorough reading of McGready’s posthumously published sermons reveals a theologian completely comfortable with and utterly convinced of Reformed covenant theology and all its implications” (1–2). 23. Elliott, Life of the Rev. Elisha Macurdy, 13, 15, 247, 18–21, 22, 24–25, 26, 28, 73; Guthrie, John McMillan, 81. The name “Macurdy” appeared in the record with a variety of spellings, including M’Curdy and McCurdy. The timing of certain key events in Macurdy’s life as recorded by Elliott is somewhat obscure. John McPherrin was licensed to preach 20 Aug. 1789 and ordained 22 Sept. 1790. George Hill, who became Macurdy’s pastor as minister of the Fairfield congregation, was ordained 13 Nov. 1792 (Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Redstone, Minutes, 60, 69, 93). The presbytery minutes do not contain a reference to a Ligonier Valley revival. 24. Elliott, Life of the Rev. Elisha Macurdy, 21, 75. McNemar’s profile resembles that of Macurdy and other westbound migrants. Born in the Juniata Valley in central Pennsylvania before the American Revolution, McNemar crossed the mountains to the “Redstone country” in the late 1780s. His surname, also written as McNamer, appears to be a variant of McNamara (in Irish, Mac cú na mara, “son of the hound of the sea”). J. P. Maclean, Sketch of the Life and Labors of Richard McNemar (Franklin, Ohio: Printed for the author by the Franklin Chronicle, 1905), Chapter 1. 25. “Revival of Religion in the Western Country,” 292; Barbara Christine Gray Wingo, “Politics, Society and Religion: The Presbyterian Clergy of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York, and the Formation of the Nation, 1775–1808” (Ph.D diss., Tulane University, 1976), 410, 347. 26. Guthrie, John McMillan, 163; Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion, 164–65; Inventory of the Church Archives of Pennsylvania Churches: Presbyterian Churches, prepared by the Pennsylvania Historical Records Survey, Works Progress Administration, arranged and indexed by Candace W. Belfield (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Historical Society, 1971), 05649–05650; Harper, Transformation of Western Pennsylvania, 98. Contemporaneously in Ireland, northern Presbyterians were prominent in their participation in the Society of United Irishmen. What began as a reform club by 1794 had become an underground revolutionary organization. 27. At the 11 Sept. 1794 referendum on submission to the government, McMillan stood outside the polls and exhorted men to affirm their acquiescence. He also post-

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poned communion until after the vote (Gilmore and Miller, “Searching for ‘Irish’ Freedom,” 187). After a worship service in 1796 McMillan requested that congregants remain in the meetinghouse for a meeting—which then unanimously adopted a resolution endorsing the Jay treaty. A petition signed by those present was then sent to the House of Representatives by “John McMillan, Chairman” (Russell J. Ferguson, Early Western Pennsylvania Politics [Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1938], 123, 46, 136; Guthrie, John McMillan, 169–72). 28. Carter, “A ‘Wild Irishman,’” 334; Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion, 194–95; Miller Irish Immigrants in the Land of Canaan, 587. In 1798 these concerns led Federalists in the United States Congress to enact the Alien and Sedition and Naturalization Acts in an effort to throttle such radicalism. Irish-born Republican Congressmen William Findley and John Smilie, among other western Pennsylvanians, notably opposed the legislation. 29. Harry Marlin Tinkcom, The Republicans and Federalists in Pennsylvania, 1790– 1801 (Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1950), 231, 234– 35, 245–46; Ferguson, Early Western Pennsylvania Politics, 149–50, 48, 115, 163. Persistent rumors asserted that the Federalist gubernatorial candidate, James Ross, a protégé of McMillan, was a Deist, requiring extraordinary efforts at damage control. 30. John McMillan, “A Brief Account of the Revivals of Religion which Have Taken Place in the Congregation of Chartiers, in Washington County, Pennsylvania,” Western Missionary Magazine II (Jan. 1805): 354. 31. Elliott, Life of the Rev. Elisha Macurdy, 56; “Revival of Religion in the Western Country,” 292; McMillan, “A Brief Account,” 354; Ruth H. Bloch, Visionary Republic: Millennial Themes in American Thought, 1756–1800 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 214. For his final sermon to Presbytery, in 1833, McMillan took as his text Isaiah 62:6, 7 (King James Version)—“I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night; ye that make mention of the Lord keep not silence, And give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.” This sermon is exemplary of McMillan’s long-held convictions and concerns (Guthrie, John McMillan, 151–54). 32. “Revival of Religion in the Western Country,” 291; “State of Religion in Washington County, Pennsylvania,” New York Missionary Magazine I (1800): 39, 38. Rev. John Brice was the minister of the Forks of Wheeling congregation in what is now West Virginia and Three Ridges on the Pennsylvania-Virginia border. James Hughes ministered to the Short Creek and Lower Buffalo congregations in Washington County. 33. “State of Religion in Washington County, Pennsylvania,” 39–41, 43; Thomas Moore, “A Short Account of the Ohio Presbytery,” New York Missionary Magazine II (1801): 312; biographical sketch of Rev. William Wick, Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 411.

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34. “Extract of a Letter from a Clergyman in Washington County, Pennsylvania, to a Person in Philadelphia,” New York Missionary Magazine I (1800): 43–44; “State of Religion in Washington County, Pennsylvania,” 43. James Hughes and Thomas Edgar Hughes were born in York County, Pennsylvania, and moved west with their family in about 1780 (Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 408). 35. Minutes of Ohio Presbytery, 93 (19 Jan. 1802). 36. Mss.: Account of the great revival in Kentucky in 1802, written to the editors of the Western Missionary Magazine (this letter appeared in the magazine’s June 1803 edition) Box 60:3, John McMillan (1752–1833) Papers, FF2 John McMillan, Clifford Barbour Library, Archives, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary; Conkin, Cane Ridge, 117; Guthrie, John McMillan, 68; Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 265; Conkin, Cane Ridge, 117. 37. “Revival of Religion in the Western Country,” 293–294; Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery of Washington, 262, 265, 285, 288. 38. “Revival of Religion in the Western Country,” 295–296. 39. “Extract of a letter from a Gentleman in Canonsburg, to his friend in NewJersey, dated Oct. 7, 1802,” New York Missionary Magazine II (1802): 481. Neither the writer nor his friend are identified. 40. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Synod of Pittsburgh, Records, 5, 7, 10–11, 13; “Revival of Religion in the Western Country” (continued), Western Missionary Magazine I (Oct. 1803): 328–30. 41. “Revival of Religion in the Western Country” (continued), 330–33; Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 207, 293. Twelve years earlier, Judge Edgar was showered with mud and stones when attempting to dissuade Whiskey Rebels (Gilmore and Miller, “Searching for ‘Irish’ Freedom,” 185–86). 42. “Revival of Religion in the Western Country” (continued), 333–34. 43. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 273–276; Elliott, Life of the Rev. Elisha Macurdy, 73; “Revival of Religion in the Western Country” (continued), 336. 44. Elliott, Life of the Rev. Elisha Macurdy, 73–74. 45. Elliott, Life of the Rev. Elisha Macurdy, 74. With respect to communication from the authorities, Macurdy’s biographer wrote only that the preacher said he had received “a letter from the government” without indication of its contents. 46. “Revival of Religion in the Western Country” (continued), 336; Clarence J. Macartney, Not Far from Pittsburgh: Places and Personalities in the History of the Land beyond the Alleghenies (Pittsburgh: Gibson Press, 1936), 30; Presbyterian Church in the

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United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 276; Elliott, Life of the Rev. Elisha Macurdy, 73–75. 47. James R. Rohrer, Keepers of the Covenant: Frontier Missions and the Decline of Congregationalism, 1774–1818 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 92–93. 48. The standard work on the burned-over district is Whitney Cross, The BurnedOver District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800–1850 (New York: Octagon Books, 1950). More recent investigations have included Johnson, Islands of Holiness; Paul Johnson, A Shopkeeper’s Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815–1837 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1978); and Mary P. Ryan, Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790– 1865 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981). 49. Harper, Transformation of Western Pennsylvania, 29, 30. 50. Mathews, “Second Great Awakening,” 33; Linda K. Pritchard, “The BurnedOver District Reconsidered: A Portent of Evolving Religious Pluralism in the United States,” Social Science History 8, no. 3 (Summer 1984): 254–255, 257; Linda K. Pritchard, “The Soul of the City: A Social History of Religion in Pittsburgh” in City at the Point: Essays on the Social History of Pittsburgh, ed. Samuel P. Hays (Pittsburgh, 1989), 332. In Social Science History Pritchard writes, “The size of organized religion swelled as counties moved from undeveloped into commercial farming; peaked in counties with a stable, lucrative agricultural output, and declined in counties where manufacturing was the predominant economic mode” (257). Western New York in the nineteenth century gained the name “the burned-over district” due to the intensity and frequency of revivals in the Second Great Awakening. 51. Baird, History of the Presbytery, 134, 172; McNees, History of Butler Presbytery, 92–93, 101, 115; Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 417. In 1790 transmontane Pennsylvania could claim just four counties—Allegheny, Fayette, Washington, and Westmoreland. By 1800, however, the area had been subdivided into thirteen counties, and another six counties were created during the following decade (Buck and Buck, Planting of Civilization, 214–15). Born in what is now Perry County, in central Pennsylvania, Johnston came west with his family in 1792. Trained as a wagon maker, he eventually studied for the ministry with McMillan, McMillan’s son-in-law John Watson and his own pastor, George Scott. Johnston was licensed by the Ohio Presbytery in April 1802 and went west to Kentucky and Ohio. He was ordained by Erie Presbytery in October 1803 and installed as pastor of Scrubgrass and Bear Creek (Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 416–17). 52. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Redstone, Minutes, 190; Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 406; Bethel Presbyterian Church,

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One Hundred Fiftieth Anniversary, 8; Charles William Maus, History of the Long Run Presbyterian Church . . . Written for the 156th Anniversary (Scottdale, Pa.: By the Church, 1931), 42; David Elliott, Discourses and Dialogues of the late Rev. Samuel Porter, with a Biographical Sketch of the Author (Pittsburgh: J. T. Shyrock, 1853), 19. The Pennsylvanian-born Woods graduated from Dickinson College in 1792. McMillan, like Woods, also studied with Robert Smith at the Pequea Academy in Lancaster County. A nineteenth-century church historian claimed of Woods: “His churches participated largely in the blessing of the great revival at the beginning of the century. Nearly one thousand persons were received into communion during his pastorate of thirty-three years.” Rev. William Swan was born in what is now Franklin County, in the heavily Scotch-Irish Cumberland Valley; he studied with John McMillan. Rev. Samuel Porter, born in Ireland, studied with McMillan and Joseph Smith (Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 406, 403, 402; Guthrie, John McMillan, 12).

6: REVIVA LISM, PSA L MODY, A ND “SATA NIC ” MINISTRY 1. This account is based in part on two earlier studies by the present author: “‘Minister of the Devil’: Thomas Ledlie Birch, Presbyterian Rebel in Exile” in Ulster Presbyterians in the Atlantic World, ed. David A. Wilson and Mark G. Spencer (Dublin, 2006) and “A Rebel amidst Revival: Thomas Ledlie Birch and Western Pennsylvania Presbyterianism” (Carnegie Mellon University, History Department, Graduate Research Seminar, Apr. 2002, unpublished ms.). 2. Birch, Seemingly Experimental Religion, 31, 64–65. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in 1798 adopted rules for licensing immigrant clergy (what an annoyed Birch referred to as the church’s “Alien law” in sarcastic reference to recent federal legislation aimed at revolutionary immigrants). The rules required immigrant ministers to apply to regional committees already established to handle traveling clergy. Following a favorable initial inspection, ministers were to submit their credentials to the presbytery, undergo an interview on their educational achievements, and then be examined on “experimental acquaintance with religion, soundness in faith” (Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Minutes of the General Assembly, 148). The emphasis on experiential religion is indicative of the New Side influence in the mid-1780s reorganization of the Presbyterian church (following a 1740s schism) that led to the formation of the General Assembly in 1789. Presbyteries received the “sole and total right of licensure and ordination,” and were enjoined to test candidates’ “real piety” (Leonard J. Trinterud, The Forming of an American Tradition: A Re-examination of Colonial Presbyterianism [Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1970], 300). The Ohio Presbytery’s committee consisted of Rev. John McMillan, Rev. Samuel Ralston, and Elder John McDowell. The presbytery estab-

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lished this committee in April 1800, which suggests that Birch may have been among the first interviewed (Minutes of Ohio Presbytery, 58 [17 Apr. 1800]). In addition to his wife Isabella and children Elizabeth and John Ledlie, the family included grandchildren of his brother Oliver and children of his niece Jane Gilmore (Scott, Naturalizations for Circuit Court Proceedings, Pt. 1, 6; Aiken McClelland, “Thomas Ledlie Birch, United Irishman,” Proceedings and Reports of the Belfast Natural History and Philosophy Society, 2nd Series, 7 [1965], 27). 3. The trial in the libel case of Birch v. McMillan had strong echoes of the Whiskey Rebellion. The presiding judge, Jasper Yeates, had been a United States commissioner to the rebels, as had McMillan’s defense attorney, James Ross, a former United States senator and Federalist gubernatorial candidate. Alexander Addison, recently impeached and removed from the bench, also served as a defense attorney. (Birch’s attorney, James Mountain, was a fellow Irish immigrant, Presbyterian and prominent Republican.) John Holcroft, rumored to have been rebel leader “Tom the Tinker” and an informer in the Insurrection’s collapse, served on the jury. Birch won his case, which was appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. There, among the justices who reversed the lower court’s decision, was Hugh Henry Brackenridge, another prominent figure in the rebellion. With Mountain’s aid, Birch reinstated his suit in 1808; this time McMillan agreed to settle out of court, paying the immigrant the not inconsiderable sum of $300. McMillan’s willingness to settle seems linked to the renewed gubernatorial bid of his protégé, James Ross; the Birch controversy had emerged as an issue in the campaign. 4. The book’s full title: Seemingly Experimental Religion, Instructors Unexperienced—Converters Unconverted—Revivals Killing Religion—Missionaries in Need of Teaching—or, War against the Gospel by its Friends. Being the Examination of Thomas Ledlie Birch, a Foreign Ordained Minister by the Rev. Presbytery of Ohio, under the Very Rev. General Assembly’s Alien Act. 5. Birch, Seemingly Experimental Religion, 113–14. 6. Early supporters of Birch included General Taylor, an early (and wealthy) settler and leading Jeffersonian; Dr. Absalom Baird, a state senator in the 1790s and respected physician; John Israel, Jeffersonian publisher; silversmith Robert Anderson; and tavern-keeper William McCammont. Some of these individuals reportedly warned Birch away from Washington in July 1800 on account of his rumored intemperance; there is no evidence of their later opposition to his presence or ministry in Washington. (It should be noted that Baird and Taylor were both dead by the time the controversy reached its height.) Addison condemned Baird as one “uniformly among the strenuous opponents and censurers of our government, and has been and yet is of what is called the French party” (quoted in G. S. Rowe, “Alexander Addison: The Disillusionment of a ‘Republican Schoolmaster,’” Western Pennsylvania History Magazine, 62 [1975]: 246n54.)

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7. Birch, Seemingly Experimental Religion, 138. Hoge, the town proprietor, was also Washington’s wealthiest individual. In 1793 Hoge enjoyed far more taxable wealth than any other of the county seat’s professional and mercantile elite (Harper, Transformation of Western Pennsylvania, 102). He was later a Federalist Member of Congress. Birch blamed the incident on both Hoge and Samuel Clarke, the latter still “sore with the wounds of Governor M’Kean’s turning him out office”; he alleged that Hoge and Clark swore that “any one who opposed the British government, should be kicked out of town” (Birch, Seemingly Experimental Religion, 138). 8. Birch, Seemingly Experimental Religion, 96, 112. The “riff raff” comment Birch attributed to Rev. John Anderson; the catalogue of Birch supporters comes from a paper drawn up by anti-Birch elders. 9. Minutes of Ohio Presbytery, 68 (23 Dec. 1800); Birch, Seemingly Experimental Religion, 52; Rohrer, Keepers of the Covenant, 90, 67; Birch, Seemingly Experimental Religion, 52. Later, as the first Congregationalist missionary in the Western Reserve, the elitist and conservative Badger aroused the hostility of backcountry democrats. “Federalism was extremely unpopular, and Mr. Badger was a federalist,” reported a missionary society trustee. In Ohio Badger may have encountered Irish Presbyterians from southwestern Pennsylvania and their firm adherence to the DemocraticRepublican cause and ethos. Rohrer writes: “A great majority of the Scots-Irish Presbyterians in Pennsylvania were Jeffersonians. Several hundred Pennsylvania families, most of them from Washington County, early settled in the [Western] Reserve, prompting one Federalist proprietor to complain bitterly that there was ‘too much of the Democracy of Pennsylvania’ present” (Keepers of the Covenant, 171–72n50). 10. Minutes of Ohio Presbytery, 86 (22 Oct. 1801); Birch v. McMillan (Historical Collections, Washington and Jefferson College, Washington, Pa.; typescript of unpublished court transcript), 21, 43. 11. Unlike “A Presbyterian” (the pseudonymous author of the response to Evils of the Work), Birch did not appear to be familiar with the Irish Presbyterian revival in County Antrim in the 1620s. His apparent lack of interest in evangelical styles of Presbyterianism may have caused Birch to ignore the published accounts of the 1740s Cambuslang revival in Scotland which referenced the seventeenth-century Six-Mile Water revival in Ireland. 12. Birch, Seemingly Experimental Religion, 37–38. Here Birch seemed to have been at odds with the Westminster Confession of Faith, which states that “such as truly believe in the Lord Jesus and love him in sincerity, endeavouring to walk in all good conscience before him, may in this life be certainly assured that they are in a state of grace” (chapter 18, section 1). 13. Birch v. McMillan, 29. 14. The Ohio Presbytery, in part, acknowledged the severity of the invective when Birch brought charges against the Reverend McMillan in April 1802. In the

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end, the presbytery ruled as “not supported” the charges that McMillan had defamed Birch and lied to evade church censure. The charge that McMillan had called Birch a “Minister of the Devil” and had engaged in “unchristian threats” was ruled “not fully supported”; the phrase “Minister of the Devil” was judged “very harsh and unguarded.” McMillan was admonished (Minutes of Ohio Presbytery, 100–102, 103–5 [21–22 Apr. 1802]; Birch, Seemingly Experimental Religion, 103–6.) 15. Birch v. McMillan, 8, 9; Minutes of Ohio Presbytery, 79 (1 July 1801), 99–100 (21 Apr. 1802). 16. The charge of profanity seems to have been flimsy at best, the adultery charge frivolous. John Stockton, a Washington congregant and the alleged cuckold, commented derisively in court testimony, “People often say I keep my wife for the clergy” (Birch vs. McMillan, 16). 17. The General Assembly ruled: “they find no obstruction against any Presbytery, to which he may apply, taking [Birch] up and proceeding with him agreeably to the rules and regulations” (Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Minutes of the General Assembly, 220–221). 18. Birch, Seemingly Experimental Religion, 49, 48. 19. Birch, Seemingly Experimental Religion, 135. “But with their hundred fallings [regarded as physical manifestation of divine intervention], it is challenged to produce one Preacher, or faller, to be esteemed as having obtained more truth, honesty, or mercy.” 20. Birch, Seemingly Experimental Religion, 134, 135. Emphasis in the original. 21. McMillan was instrumental in the establishment of two academies in Washington County (predecessors to today’s Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, Pennsylvania) which trained young men for the Presbyterian ministry. Of the 21 ministers who belonged to the Ohio Presbytery as of June 1801, a little more than half (11) had been born in Pennsylvania; 4 had been born in contiguous states, 1 in Massachusetts, and 4 in Ireland. Only 1 had been educated abroad (at the University of Glasgow); only 4 had received higher education in the United States. Nine had been instructed at a Washington County academy; 2 appear to have had no other education than studies with local ministers prior to ordination. A majority (13) had been ordained within the past 5 years. See Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery; Minutes of Ohio Presbytery, 78 (30 June 1801). By contrast, most of the Seceder ministers at that time were foreign-born and educated abroad. 22. Birch, Seemingly Experimental Religion, 53. In Evils of the Work, the Seceder ministers frequently quoted from Rankin’s pamphlet, A Review of the Noted Revival in Kentucky. 23. He applied, unsuccessfully, for admission to the Associate Presbytery of Chartiers.

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24. Boles, Great Revival, 98, 22; William Melancthon Glasgow, Cyclopedic Manual of the United Presbyterian Church of North America (Pittsburgh: United Presbyterian Board of Publications, 1903), 291; Tree of Liberty (Pittsburgh), 8 Jan. 1803. 25. Birch made at least seven explicit “old country” references in Seemingly Experimental Religion (10, 36, 37, 52, 54, 130, 137). 26. Birch, Seemingly Experimental Religion, 47, 10. In a curious passage, Birch favorably compared himself to founders of the Associate Synod who, in Birch’s erroneous interpretation of events, had been “read out” by the Associate Reformed Church just as he had been by the Ohio Presbytery. He wrote (referencing himself in the third person), “Birch can plead as a precedent, the Apostles and Reformers, the first American settlers, Messrs. Marshal and Clarkson, read out by the Union and formed the Associate body in America.” In fact, the Associate Presbyterian denomination in existence when Birch arrived in the United States was established by those Seceders who had refused to join the new denomination. The reference is to two Scottish-born Seceder ministers: William Marshall and James Clarkson, both of whom objected to the 1782 Seceder-Covenanter union creating the Associate Reformed church. Marshall served as the first moderator of the Associate Synod in 1801; Clarkson served as moderator the following year (Birch, Seemingly Experimental Religion, 139; Glasgow, Cyclopedic Manual, 248, 78). 27. Thomas Ledlie Birch, Physicians Languishing under Disease, in The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland (1798) and Other Writings by Rev. Thomas Ledlie Birch, United Irishman, ed. Brendan Clifford (Belfast: Athol Books, 1991), 50. 28. Manuscripts and Archives of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Records of the Associate Presbytery of Chartiers, 5 Nov. 1805, 1 Jan. 1806, 27 Oct. 1807; Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Synod of Pittsburgh, Records, 71–72 (4 Oct. 1810). 29. Birch, Seemingly Experimental Religion, 121. Nickell is described as a “Seceder, of Canton township [Washington County].” He is also listed among signatories on an appeal to the General Assembly on Birch’s behalf (131). 30. John Eagleson, A Historical Discourse Delivered in the Presbyterian Church of Upper Buffalo (Washington, Pa.: Ecker and Donehoo, at the Examiner Office, 1860), 12; John Cree, et al., Evils of the Work Now Prevailing in the United States of America, under the Name of a Revival of Religion (Washington, Pa.: n.p., 1804), 4, 52, 5–6. The authors, John Cree, John Anderson, William Wilson, Thomas Alison and Ebenezer Henderson, ministered to congregations in Allegheny, Beaver, Westmoreland and Washington Counties in southwestern Pennsylvania. (John Anderson is not to be confused with the Upper Buffalo pastor and mainstream Presbyterian clergyman of the same name.) Cree was born in Scotland, Wilson in Ireland, and Anderson in England to Scottish parents. The other two were born in eastern Pennsylvania in Irish Presbyterian enclaves. Henderson was the son of the pioneer (and pioneering)

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Seceder minister Matthew Henderson; he and Allison both attended Canonsburg Academy. A response to Evils of the Work suggested that rank-and-file Seceders were indeed attending revival events: “there has scarcely been a sacrament where I have been, that I have not seen some of them there; for it seems they do not hold your doctrine respecting occasional hearing so sacred, but they will sometimes trample upon it” (A Presbyterian, Letters, 38). 31. Cree, et al., Evils of the Work, 47. 32. Cree, et al., Evils of the Work, 34–35. The Seceders’ testimony against scripturally unlawful oaths became the basis of formal opposition to all oath-bound secret societies, the Masonic Order included. 33. Cree, et al., Evils of the Work, 35–41. 34. Cree, et al., Evils of the Work, 26, 51. Emphasis in the original. 35. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 405–6; A Presbyterian, Letters . . . In Answer to their Pamphlet, entitled, Evils of the Work Now Prevailing . . . (Washington, 1805). The title has no reference to the fifth author listed in Evils, Ebenezer Henderson. A “currycomb” is a metal comb for grooming horses. As an informal name for Ralston’s pamphlet, it suggests wry praise from a rural audience for effectiveness in undoing matted logic and removing sectarian burrs. Ralston’s pamphlet was not alone in receiving a nickname; Evils of the Work was apparently renamed “Anderson’s Theological Pills” in some quarters. (Letters, 19.) Ralston, a native of County Donegal, had been educated at Glasgow University and emigrated in 1794. He was ordained in 1796 as the first minister to the Mingo Creek and Horseshoe Bottom congregations in eastern Washington Co. No revivals appear to have occurred in his congregations. However, Ralston made missionary trips to the west and was an editor and contributor the Western Missionary Magazine. (Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 405–6.) Among the fervent defenses of revival delivered from the pulpit, “A Revival of True Religion Delineated on Scriptural and Rational Principles, in a Sermon Delivered at the Opening of the Synod of Pittsburgh, October 2, 1805.” Authored and delivered by Rev. Samuel Porter, the sermon was printed in Washington, Pa. in 1806. 36. A Presbyterian, Letters, 4–8, 9–10, 16–17, 49, 11. “A Presbyterian” at one point accused the authors of Evils of changing a word in quoted material to distort the cited passage’s meaning. He said further that Evils author John Anderson had been previously accused (in a pamphlet entitled The Ruling Elder) of deliberating altering a word in a quotation from a paper by the rival Associate Reformed Synod, thus distorting the passage’s meaning. One would have expected, “A Presbyterian” commented, that the revelation in The Ruling Elder would have “terrified” Anderson “from ever being guilty of the like act for the time to come” (18).

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37. Meaning, he opposed the idea of allowing Methodists, Baptists, and other to participate in Presbyterian communions. 38. A Presbyterian, Letters, 22, 23–24, 24, 32, 30, 34. On suspension of clergy: In 1803 Richard McNemar and others involved in the Kentucky revivals were suspended from the Presbyterian ministry; in 1805 McGready and several other ministers were as well. McGready was later reinstated. On psalmody: “A Presbyterian” wrote that “one plain, simple argument” satisfied his own concerns about the use of “human composures”: “If we are to use our own words in prayer and preaching, provided these words are agreeable to the word of God, why not in praising also?” He continued, “I have carefully read Mr. Anderson’s book on [psalmody], with a good deal of prejudice in his favour, and a wish that he might overturn my argument; but if he did, I did not see it” (30). 39. A Presbyterian, Letters, 28, 25–27, 29, 28. “A Presbyterian” described covenanting as “both a duty and privilege, when rightly performed, and in agreeableness to the word of God, and not the traditions of men, is laid down as the foundation of the duty” (28). 40. A Presbyterian, Letters, 44–45, 48. The Six-Mile Water revival in County Antrim beginning in 1625 is regarded as the first revival in the British Isles and a foundational event in Irish Presbyterianism. According to Marilyn Westerkamp, “In their Act, Declaration and Testimony the Seceders affirmed the activities in western Scotland during the 1620s and 1630s as the beginning of the return of strong Presbyterianism to the Church of Scotland, a precursor to the ecclesiastical reform of 1638” (The Triumph of the Laity: Scots-Irish Piety and the Great Awakening, 1625–1760 [New York: Oxford University Press, 1988], 16–26, 27; Laurence Kirkpatrick, Presbyterians in Ireland: An Illustrated History [Belfast: Booklink, 2006], 14–15). David W. Miller has suggested that, based on the absence of references to Six-Mile Water in Irish Presbyterian literature prior to 1828, the seventeenth-century revival was probably little known in Ulster (“Illiteracy, Apparitions, Stigmata,” 7). Awareness appears to have been maintained by Scottish publications rather than Irish folk memory. 41. Minutes or Proceedings of the 2d Associate Reformed Presbytery of Pennsylvania, 53 (4 June 1796). 42. Holmes, The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 108, 109. The Ulster Presbyterian practices derived from Scotland’s seventeenth-century Directory for Publick Worship, which stated that Christians had a duty “to praise God publickly, by singing of psalms together in the congregation, and also privately in the family.” The Directory recognized no other form of singing (or music) in the Kirk. Recognizing that not all might be able to read the psalmbooks, the Directory proposed that “the minister, or some other fit person appointed by him and the other ruling officers,” should read out each line of a psalm before sung. 43. Guthrie, John McMillan, 65; Montour Presbyterian Church, Story of Old Mon-

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tour, 22; McNees, History of Butler Presbytery, 34; Holmes, The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 109. 44. Baird, History of the Presbytery, 208–9; Centenary Memorial, 222–223; Robert B. McAfee, “The History of the Rise and Progress of the First Settlement of Salt River and Establishment of the New Providence Church,” Kentucky State Historical Society Register 29, no. 86 (Jan. 1931); United Presbyterian Church in the United States, Presbytery of Monongahela, History of the Second Associate Reformed Presbytery of Pennsylvania, the Associate Reformed Presbytery of Monongahela, and the United Presbyterian Presbytery of Monongahela, from June 24, 1793, to July 4, 1876 (Pittsburgh, 1877), 6. David Carson suggests that the objection to Watts stemmed in part from his Unitarianism (“History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church,” 113). 45. Minutes of the Presbytery of Ohio, Vol. I (typescript by E. B. Welsh, 1934–35), 70 (25 Dec. 1800). 46. Baird, History of the Presbytery, 209; Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Synod of Pittsburgh, Records, 88 (7 Oct. 1812). 47. Birch, Seemingly Experimental Religion, 54. 48. Jane Smith to John Wier, Stewartstown, Wier Letters, D.1140/3 Public Records of Northern Ireland, transcribed by Kerby A. Miller. The letter suggests Smith was the wife of an Associate Reformed minister; this was possibly Thomas Smith, ordained in 1776 as minister of a Burgher Seceder congregation in County Antrim, and who “resigned in 1798, most probably because of some trouble arising out of the ‘Irish Rebellion.’” Reverend Smith emigrated in 1799, settling first in York County, Pennsylvania. He was installed in 1801 as the minister of the Tuscarora congregation, Juniata County. He led the opposition within the Associate Reformed Synod to merger with the mainstream church (Scouller, A Manual, 530–31). The Associate Reformed Synod responded in 1793 to pleas for a “testimony” on such issues with a declaration that critically reviewed the assertions of Watts proponents that some Old Testament verses demonstrated “effusions of a vindictive temper”; their expressions of divine wrath were unsuitable for preaching of the New Testament message of love and forgiveness. Such claims, the synod decided dourly, “has a tendency to excite prejudice against [the psalms] .  .  . and consequently to shake our faith in the whole of divine revelation.” The metrical psalms must be used; all ministers and congregations who failed to do so would be liable to church censure (Associate Reformed Synod of the West, A Statement of the Grievances on Account of which, that Section of the Church Now Called the “Associate Reformed Synod of the West,” Separated from, and Declared Themselves Independent of, The “Associate Reformed Synod of North America” [Pittsburgh: Eichbaum and Johnston, 1823], 5–6). 49. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 279; Crumrine, History of Washington County, 742–64; Rishel, Founding Families of Pittsburgh, 169–70; Pierce, “Establishment of the Associ-

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ate, Reformed and Associate Reformed Churches,” 102. Of the Three Ridges congregation, Crumrine says: “An arbitration in regard to the church property followed. The whole matter was amicably arranged. The Presbyterians held the property on the payment of a sum of money, which was satisfactory to both parties” (History of Washington County, 750). 50. McNees, History of Butler Presbytery, 77–79, 80, 102–3. 51. Montour Presbyterian Church, Story of Old Montour, 37; Centenary Memorial, 223; McNees, History of Butler Presbytery, 109. If an Irish immigrant, Thompson may have been the “irate Milesian [Irishman]” McNees references in his history. 52. Elliott, Discourses and Dialogues, 223; Montour Presbyterian Church, The Story of Old Montour, 36–37; Martens, History of Old Donegal Church, 39; Scovel, Centennial Volume, 77; Centennial Memorial, 224. 53. Sessional Records of the Associate Congregation of Pittsburgh (day and month not clear), 1816. The question arises: could this disconnect be derived from the misunderstanding resulting from the interaction of a primarily Irish immigrant congregation and a Scottish-born and educated minister? 54. Pittsburgh Associate Session Minutes, 19 Apr. 1817, 10 Feb. 1818. 55. Pittsburgh Associate Session Minutes, 23 Aug. 1818, 19 May 1819 (withdrawal of Aitken family); (day and month not clear) 1818. Apparently the Covenanters were also troubled by issues related to “lining out.” A petition to the Reformed Presbyterian Synod’s Committee on the Questions of Order and Discipline stated in 1821 “that Synod have never given directions about lining Psalms before they are sung, and they do not now think it proper to recommend to Synod any resolutions upon that subject” (Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary Library, Minutes of the Reformed Presbyterian Synod, 1809–1833, 72 [Oct. 20, 1821]). 56. Edward B. Welsh, “Competition for Converts,” in The Presbyterian Valley: 200 Years of Presbyterianism in the Upper Ohio Valley, ed. William W. McKinney (Pittsburgh: Davis and Warde, 1958), 103. 57. Minutes of the Presbytery of Ohio, Vol. II, 31 (9 Feb. 1808); Proceedings, Second Pennsylvania Presbytery, 27 Apr. 1803, 7 Oct. 1804. Recently arrived from Ireland, Kerr came before the Associate Reformed Monongahela Presbytery in April 1803 as “a Student of Divinity” desiring placement. He was installed as minister of united congregations of “Sinclair [St. Clair] and Mifflin” in October 1804. Kerr, who immigrated in 1801, was presented by another Irish immigrant, Rev. John Riddell, and carried with him a statement from the eastern Pennsylvania presbytery of the Associate Reformed church, certifying that he was a divinity student and proposing (without clarification) that his education would be best completed in the west. Arminianism (from the late seventeenth-century Dutch theologian and pastor Jacobus Arminius) broke with Calvinism by insisting on an unlimited atonement; that is, renouncing the Calvinist notion that only a predetermined elect are eligible

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for salvation. Socianism is a predecessor of Unitarianism that rejected the orthodox view of an existence for Christ co-eternal with God the Father. The anti-Trinitarian theology of the sixteenth-century Italian Faustus Socinus (Fausto Sozzini) and his uncle, Laelius Socinus, also held that Christ became savior by virtue of his exemplary life rather than his divinity. 58. Minutes of the Presbytery of Ohio, 31 (9 Feb. 1808), 37 (28 June 1808). The committee consisted of Reverends Joseph Patterson (Raccoon), Andrew Gwin (Pigeon Creek) and John McClain (Montours Run). The first two were born in Ireland. 59. Minutes of the Presbytery of Ohio, 38 (28 June 1808), 46 (20 Oct. 1808), 53 (22 Dec. 1808). The second committee—McMillan, Gwin, Ralston—again was comprised of two Irishmen. The prosecution committee consisted of Reverends James Hughes (Lower Buffalo and Short Creek), Thomas Marquis (Cross Creek), and William McMillan (Two Ridges and Yellow Creek), John McMillan’s nephew. 60. Minutes of the Presbytery of Ohio, 61–63 (21 Apr. 1809). Kiddo (Kidoo in the Minutes) may have been the man of that name who was an elder of Bethel Presbyterian Church; his farm would have been on Ralston’s way to Kerr’s home. James Kiddo was born in Ireland; his son Samuel later married Reverend Ralston’s daughter Margaret (Cushing, History of Allegheny County, A483). 61. Minutes or Proceedings of the 2d Associate Reformed Presbytery, 1810; United Presbyterian Church in the United States, Presbytery of Monongahela, History of the Second Associate Reformed Presbytery, 12.

7: T HE SA BBATH, T EM PER A NCE , A ND “M A RKET REVOLU TION ” 1. This description of events is derived from a composite of the testimony before the Bethany Presbyterian Church Session (Microfilm 0167, Records of Bethany Presbyterian Church, Bridgeville, Allegheny County, Pa., Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania). Subsequent references to the Wilkeson-Laird case are derived from this record. 2. The clerk of the Bethany Session rendered the name “Wilkoson,” a nonstandard spelling of a surname more commonly rendered as “Wilkinson.” Civil records employ the standard spelling as well as “Wilkeson.” My examination of the record suggests that Wilkoson, Wilkeson and Wilkinson are used interchangeably to refer to the same family. Tellingly, the clerk of the Bethany Session in August 1840 wrote “i” over “o” and added an “n” to change “Wilkoson” to “Wilkinson.” 3. The record of the Wilkeson-Laird case is found in the minutes of the Bethany Presbyterian Church Session, specifically minutes from December 1826 through April 1827. The Bethany Presbyterian congregation had organized by 1814 near the mouth of Miller’s Run at Chartiers Creek in Fayette Township, Allegheny County (near present Bridgeville). The congregation received its first minister in 1815. In 1821 at the beginning of the pastorate of its second minister, Bethany had 92 communi-

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cants. Church membership enjoyed steady growth. In April 1827 (at the conclusion of the Laird case), Bethany had 175 members—a figure slightly higher than the mean membership of 167 for the Ohio Presbytery’s 15 congregations (Bethany Presbyterian Church, Centennial Celebration, 11–17; Minutes of the Presbytery of Ohio, Vol. V, 1822– 1831, 99.) The charge, as recorded in the Minutes of the Presbytery of Ohio of 10 Mar. 1827: “Common fame charges you, James Laird, Senr., with circulating a false report, in reference to wheat taken from Mr. Isaac Walker’s mill, by John Wilkoson— particularly in saying, that he, John Wilkoson, had taken six or eight bushels of your wheat out of said mill. Common fame charges you with falsehood also, in denying (after having given permission to Mr. Wilkoson to take wheat) that you ever gave him permission—And, also, with using unchristian language, in threatening to trample Mr. Wilkoson. The above reports were circulated at Mr. Walker’s Mill—and at the houses of John Nesbett Senr. and John Nesbett Esqr. and the unchristian language, was used at your own house, sometime between the middle of Septr. and the last of Octr. 1826.” 4. The Bethany session never discussed the “taking” of the wheat in terms of theft, in part because Wilkeson as a Union Seceder was not under the elders’ jurisdiction. 5. The unwillingness to consider theft and instead the emphasis on neighborliness and appropriate Christian conduct speaks to the background of the Bethany session. The nine elders who sat in judgment on James Laird reflected a worldview shaped in rural Ireland or in immigrant Irish households in an older backcountry Pennsylvania. Of the seven for whom we have information, two were septuagenarians born in Ireland. Two other elders in 1827 were men of older years probably born in eastern Pennsylvania. The remaining three, and those to follow, were relatively young men born to the first generation of settlers in western Pennsylvania, like their pastor, William Jeffrey. John Nesbit, an elder who featured prominently in this case, was approximately seventy years of age when the incident took place. This native of County Monaghan had emigrated prior to the American Revolution, in which he took an active part. He was a founding elder of the Montours Run Presbyterian congregation prior to his service to Bethany. 6. The Ohio Presbytery decision was recorded in the Bethany Session minutes for April 1827. 7. The word “rumpus” appears in the testimony. The Bethany session may have regarded reports of excessive taking as the carrying of tales aimed at retribution. The families of the principals had long known one another, and we can only speculate as to unspoken friendships and unresolved feuds. A Laird (first name unknown due to the deterioration of the document) was listed as among those purchasing items from the estate of John Wilkeson’s father at a vendue (public auction) in 1805.

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When the father of miller Isaac Walker, also named Isaac, purchased four hundred acres from his brother Gabriel in 1788, the older John Wilkeson witnessed the deed. But in 1794 the brothers Walker brought charges against the senior Wikeson in his capacity as ruling elder of the Associate Reformed congregation of Robinsons Run. Allegheny County, Pennsylvania Courts, “An Inventory of the personal estate of John Wilkinson”; Orphans Court, Vol. I, p. 81, numbers 352 and 353, County of Allegheny, Pa.; Minutes or Proceedings, Second Associate Reformed Presbytery, 16 Aug. 1794. 8. The term is used here as developed in Melvyn Stokes and Stephen Conway, eds., The Market Revolution in America: Social, Political, and Religious Expressions, 1800–1880 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1996). Stokes helpfully defines “market revolution” as a historical phase in which “A subsistence economy of small farms and tiny workshops, satisfying mostly local needs through barter and exchange, gave place to an economy in which farmers and manufacturers produced food and goods for the cash rewards of an often distant marketplace” (1). The argument here is that western Pennsylvania largely experienced such a phase, with Pittsburgh as a mercantile and manufacturing center leading the transformation. 9. For the existence of a “moral economy” in rural eighteenth-century Ireland, see Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 165–66. The term “moral economy” is used here with a meaning approximately similar to how the phrase was first employed by eighteenth-century writers and revived by E. P. Thompson in the 1970s. That is: in a society consisting largely of producers who were also consumers of goods and services (semisubsistence farmers and artisans) there existed a customary sense of appropriate prices, a degree to which economic decisions were made on the basis of traditional and religious notions of ethical behavior. 10. Stokes, “Introduction,” in Melvyn Stokes and Stephen Conway, eds., The Market Revolution in America: Social, Political, and Religious Expressions, 1800–1880 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1996), 1. 11. The phrase “moral geography” comes from John, “Taking Sabbatarianism Seriously,” 527–28. 12. Joyce Appleby, Inheriting the Revolution: The First Generation of Americans (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000), 91. The development of a national postal system was basic to the necessary infrastructure of national capitalist development, part of what Charles Sellers describes as “an essential stage of the market revolution” (Charles Sellers, The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815– 1846 [New York: Oxford University Press, 1991], 22, 33, 40). 13. Todd, Culture of Protestantism, 28; Holmes, The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice , 57. The seriousness with which Presbyterians regarded the Sabbath informed community standards and legal prohibitions and penalties. A law enacted in Pennsylvania in 1794 with the title “An Act for the prevention of vice and

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immorality and of unlawful gaining, and to restrain disorderly sports and dissipation” outlawed all “worldly employment” on the Sabbath, with the exception of “works of necessity and charity.” Those convicted faced a fine of $4 or six days’ imprisonment. A town ordinance enacted in Washington, Pennsylvania more than a decade later similarly attached a fine of $4 to the offense, compared with a fine of $1 for driving a wagon or sleigh through town at a pace faster than a slow trot (David A. Brown, “Sabbatarian Organization and Propaganda in Pittsburgh, 1828–1937” [University of Pittsburgh History Department undergraduate paper, 11 Dec. 1962], 9; The Reporter (Washington), 29 July 1811). By way of comparison, “Average unskilled laborers got seventy-five cents a day in the early part of the (nineteenth) century” (Appleby, Inheriting the Revolution, 63). 14. Crumrine, History of Washington County, 487; Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 306–7; Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Minutes of the General Assembly (17 May 1799), 165. See also Minutes of the Presbytery of Ohio. Birch filed suit against Hugh Wylie for spreading rumors that the minister had been guilty of adultery. During the October 1802 trial, Birch produced witnesses who swore that Wylie had attempted to build a false case against him on behalf of McMillan. Speaking of himself in the third person, Birch described Wylie as “strongly prejudiced against Birch in favour of M’Millan, and opposed Birch’s settlement in Washington.” Wylie reportedly had vowed “he would do every thing in his power to put [Birch] out of the country.” The jury awarded Birch $150 in damages, plus costs; a particularly satisfactory victory for the plaintiff inasmuch as Wylie’s lawyer had reportedly remarked that no Washington County jury would convict a friend of Reverend McMillan (Birch, Seemingly Experimental Religion, 140–41). The lawyer was almost certainly former U.S. Senator James Ross, defense attorney for McMillan and Federalist candidate for governor in 1799 and 1802 and again in 1808 (Ferguson, Early Western Pennsylvania Politics, 150, 173). 15. Crumrine, History of Washington County, 505. Crumrine is not certain exactly when (or how) Wylie became postmaster. He writes, “The assessment-roll of 1803 contains the name of Daniel Moore as merchant and postmaster, and also Hugh Wylie, merchant and postmaster. It would seem from this that in the early part of the year Daniel Moore was in office, and Hugh Wylie, the latter part.” With regard to postal finances, Richard R. John points out that “in 1816, the closest year for which figures are available, Wylie’s office was the third most lucrative in the state” (“Taking Sabbatarianism Seriously,” 521n9). 16. Crumrine, History of Washington County, 510, 487; John, “Taking Sabbatarianism Seriously,” 521, 520. 17. Minutes of the Presbytery of Ohio, Vol. II, 1806–1813 (typescript by E. B. Welsh, 1934–35), 81.

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18. Minutes of the Presbytery of Ohio, 81; Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Synod of Pittsburgh, Records, 62. As the synod was meeting in Washington, the presbytery may have met in part for the purpose of referring the Wylie appeal directly to synod. Given the local prominence of Wylie and this issue, and the resurrection of the Birch case as a weapon against Federalist gubernatorial candidate James Ross—a protégé of McMillan and defense attorney for both Wylie and McMillan in the defamation suits brought by Birch—presbytery may have thought better of association with the issue. 19. Baird, Acts, Deliverances and Testimonies, 57. Commentary in The Reporter, the town’s Democratic-Republican newspaper, suggests that the postmaster simultaneously faced a lawsuit filed by merchants who complained Wylie failed to adequately distribute the mail on Sundays. An article that originated in a radical Pittsburgh newspaper and was reprinted in The Reporter on 19 November 1810 described Wylie as “a democrat” cruelly victimized by “the malignant spirit of federalism.” By this account, Wylie had earlier been accused of misconduct by Washington’s “tory faction.” Complaints forwarded to the national capital brought Postmaster General Gideon Granger to Washington to investigate the charges. The Reporter reminded readers that “after a fair and impartial trial, Mr. Granger declared the charges unfou[n]ded, and acquitted Mr. Wylie with honor.” According to this politicized version of events, Wylie was merely attempting to carry out the requirements of the new law obliging him to sort and produce mail on the Sabbath. Such was the circumstance probably referenced by the letter-writer “Friend to the People” whose commentary appeared in the same issue of The Reporter. The letter-writer first sympathized with this “one good honest man,” the postmaster denied church privileges for fulfilling his obligations under law one hour on the Sabbath morning; “Friend” also regretted the respect given to “those who upbraid our worthy post-master, for not delivering them their papers upon the sabbath, even after his office hour.” The Reporter (Washington), 26 Nov. 1810. The article “Federal persecution” originally appeared in the Pittsburgh Commonwealth, a paper launched in 1805 to support the radical opposition to Gov. Thomas McKean within the Democratic-Republican Party. The hunger for news that presumably sent some men to Wylie’s store led others to trouble the newspaper publisher’s household; The Reporter publisher’s wife requested that gentlemen not come on the Sabbath to read the news but instead wait until Monday. The Reporter, 30 July 1810; 5 Oct. 1812. John suggests that by the 1820s, women’s opposition had become directed to the post office as “an all-male retreat” and affront to domesticity (546–47). 20. John, “Taking Sabbatarianism Seriously,” 522. 21. John, “Taking Sabbatarianism Seriously,” 523. 22. A Covenanter who fled Ireland because of his perceived (and likely) involvement with the Society of United Irishmen, Wylie was the first minister ordained by

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the newly reorganized Reformed Presbytery in North America. In 1802 he electrified western Pennsylvania with a communion sermon that proclaimed that immigrants ought not take the oath of citizenship, as the United States Constitution was immoral. The sermon “The Two Sons of Oil” was printed as a pamphlet in Greensburg, Pa., in 1803. 23. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Synod of Pittsburgh, Records, 74. The petition was signed on behalf of synod by Rev. Samuel Ralston of the Ohio Presbytery as moderator, and Rev. Robert Patterson, Erie Presbytery, clerk. A committee consisting of Rev. Matthew Brown and Rev. James Hughes of the Ohio Presbytery and Rev. William Speer of the Redstone Presbytery drafted the petition. Brown was the minister of the Washington congregation in which the controversy began. Hughes was appointed to forward the petition to Congress. 24. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Synod of Pittsburgh, Records, 74; John, “Taking Sabbatarianism Seriously,” 523. 25. John, “Taking Sabbatarianism Seriously,” 523–24; Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Synod of Pittsburgh, Records, 75. 26. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Synod of Pittsburgh, Records, 77, 81, 82. 27. Baird, Acts, Deliverances and Testimonies, 801–3; Baird, History of the Presbytery of Shenango, 57; John, “Taking Sabbatarianism Seriously,” 524–25; Oliver W. Holmes, “Sunday Travel and Sunday Mails: A Question Which Troubled Our Forefathers,” New York History 20 (Oct. 1939): 416. Most of the 22 petition sheets (each containing between 50 and 75 signatures) submitted to Congress in the early 1810s originated from “Presbyterian centers in western Pennsylvania.” The presence of an elder named Hugh Wylie as a representative of the Ohio Presbytery at the Pittsburgh Synod meeting of 7 Oct. 1817 suggests that eventually (and quietly) the postmaster and church reached some accommodation (Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Synod of Pittsburgh, Records, 125). 28. Baird, Acts, Deliverances and Testimonies, 803–5; John, “Taking Sabbatarianism Seriously,” 525. The Presbyterian-Congregationalist cooperation is unsurprising because of the denominations’ shared Calvinism, which in 1801 had led to a plan of joint Congregationalist-Presbyterian churches in “new settlements” in Ohio and western New York. 29. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Synod of Pittsburgh, Records, 74, 100–101; Baird, Acts, Deliverances and Testimonies, 803–5. 30. Baird, Acts, Deliverances and Testimonies, 805. 31. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Synod of Pittsburgh, Records, 114. 32. Baird, History of the Presbytery of Shenango, 57. With regards to periodization, John puts the start of the second phase in 1826 (“Taking Sabbatarianism Seriously,”

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535); James R. Rohrer describes the Sabbatarian movement as engaged in activity “Between 1828 and the early 1830s” (“Sunday Mails and the Church-State Theme in Jacksonian America,” Journal of the Early Republic 7, no. 1 [Spring 1987]: 54); Bertram Wyatt-Brown takes up the story in 1828 (“Prelude to Abolitionism: Sabbatarian Politics and the Rise of the Second Party,” Journal of American History 58, no. 2 [Sept. 1971]: 329); Holmes decides, “An unexplained lull in the agitation after 1816 was terminated by the stronger and more determined Sabbatarian crusade of 1828–30” (“Sunday Travel and Sunday Mails,” 417). The financial panic of 1819 and resulting depression likely had an impact. 33. Catherine Elizabeth Reiser, Pittsburgh’s Commercial Development, 1800–1850 (Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1951), 24–25, 27, 74; Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Synod of Pittsburgh, Records, 243; John, “Taking Sabbatarianism Seriously,” 535. The Pittsburgh Synod appointed a committee to oversee the printing and distribution of the petitions; the committee consisted of Rev. Francis Herron of First Pittsburgh, the aged Rev. Joseph Patterson, and Rev. John Andrews, also appointed to edit a synodical periodical. Ironically, “the liberality of Government” in providing an inexpensive system for mailing religious periodicals was regarded as a leading cause of revivals (Christian Herald [Pittsburgh], 18 Feb. 1829). The Pittsburgh Christian Herald, launched in 1829, contained frequent reports of Sabbatarian developments. 34. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Synod of Pittsburgh, Records, 330; Brown, “Sabbatarian Organization,” 14; Pittsburgh Christian Herald, 13 Mar. 1830. Matthew B. Lowrie was mayor for one term, 1830–1831; he was an unsuccessful Anti-Masonic mayoral candidate in 1837. As a ruling elder, Lowrie was appointed by the General Assembly in 1827 to the original board of directors of the Western Theological Seminary (Centenary Memorial, 24). He was also a director of the Farmers and Mechanics Bank, incorporated in 1814 (John Newton Boucher, A Century and a Half of Pittsburg and Her People [New York: Lewis Publishing, 1908], 79). Other clerical members of the board: John Black (Reformed Presbyterian), Robert Bruce (Associate Presbyterian), and Joseph Kerr (Associate Reformed). Also participating: David Kaemmerer, pastor of the German Evangelical Protestant Church (Historical and descriptive statement published on the occasion of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the German Evangelical Protestant Smithfield Church (Congregational) Pittsburgh, Pa., Oct. 16, 1932 [Pittsburgh, 1932], 13); Charles Avery, known as Methodist preacher, pharmacist, and philanthropist (Story of Old Allegheny City [Pittsburgh: Allegheny Centennial Committee, 1941], 137); and George Brown, Reformed Methodist (Methodist Protestant) minister (Cushing, History of Allegheny County, 335). 35. One scholar suggests that in “Scotch-Irish Presbyterian” villages of East Ten-

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nessee, the absence of formal Sabbatarian organization may have been due simply to the scarcity of community-wide Sabbath disturbances, with individual Sabbathbreaking the provenance of church sessions (Forrest L. Marion, “East Tennessee and the Sabbath Question, 1828–1832,” Journal of East Tennessee, no. 66 [1994]: 12, 23). 36. Christian Herald, 12 Nov. 1831. 37. Elliott, Life of the Rev. Elisha Macurdy, 42. 38. Stokes, Market Revolution, 1. In their northern heartlands, Irish Presbyterians in the 1830s were frequently regarded by contemporaries as inveterate whiskey drinkers. 39. “Studies of northern temperance show that the movement thrived in those agricultural areas coming under the influence of urban markets and that entrepreneurial farmers adapting to those markets were more likely to support temperance than subsistence farmers” (Ian R. Tyrrell, “Drink and Temperance in the Antebellum South: An Overview and Interpretation,” Journal of Southern History 48, no. 4 [Nov. 1982]: 499). 40. Sellers, The Market Revolution, 5. 41. Richard C. Wade, The Urban Frontier: The Rise of Western Cities (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959), 11; Edward K. Muller, “Metropolis and Region: A Framework for Enquiry into Western Pennsylvania,” in City at the Point: Essays on the Social History of Pittsburgh, ed. Samuel P. Hays (Pittsburgh, 1989), 187. While an examination of the Pittsburgh Gazette finds that storekeepers no longer invited country produce, there is this market-oriented exception: Robert Steele, operating a “General Commission Business” as Steele and Co., announced in an advertisement that “he is prepared to receive, store and sell or forward all kinds of goods and country produce, to make purchases and collections” (30 March 1820). 42. From the Pittsburgh Statesman, reprinted in the Christian Herald, 14 March 1829. 43. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Redstone, Minutes, 400, 399, 234, 233. The better ministerial salaries in 1830 as in 1818 seem to be about $500; what appears to have improved is the ability of congregations to keep their commitments. (See for example salaries pledged by the united congregations of Round Hill and Rehoboth and of Indiana and Gilgal in 1818 [291] and Warren and Saltsburgh and Kittanning and Crooked Creek in 1830 [403, 404]). Following a succession of revivals, Cross Creek Presbyterian Church in December 1835 decided to raise the salary of its minister to $700 from the $500 promised in its 1827 call, “the amount to be raised by voluntary subscription,” in addition to the annual pew rentals. However, as the congregation apparently had difficulty meeting this new obligation and raising funds for a fence around the graveyard, Rev. John Stockton suggested an increase of $165 over the $500 salary, rather than the full $200 (White, History of Cross Creek; Presbyterian Church in the United States of America,

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Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 36). The Christian Herald in 1829 reported that Presbyterian ministers “in villages and country situations” earned about $400 annually, and often less. By 1860, according to Peter J. Wallace, rural and small-town churches cleaving to the Old Side generally offered pastors an annual salary of between $500 and $1,000, while “Urban churches generally paid from $1,000-$5,000.” (Essays and Sermons, peterwallace.org, 6 of 57.) 44. Cross Creek Presbyterian Church, for example, adopted pew rentals as a major source of funding when a stone church replaced a log meeting house in 1804 (White, History of Cross Creek, 23). 45. Calvin G. Hazlett, Sesquicentennial of the Plum Creek Presbyterian Church of New Texas, Pennsylvania, 1802–1952 (Plum Borough, Pa.: By the Church, 1952), 14; Johnston, Early History, 18. The earliest temperance societies emerged in the 1780s from the efforts of prosperous New England farmers to curtail drinking by laborers at harvest time (John J. Rumbarger, Profits, Power and Prohibition: Alcohol Reform and the Industrializing of America [Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989], 3). 46. The report of the Butler meeting appeared in the Christian Herald, 7 Mar. 1829. Overindulgence in hard liquor became pervasive, as did its consequences. Historians have pointed out that during the first three decades of the nineteenth century Americans “drank more alcohol, on an individual basis, than at any other time in the history of the nation.” During those years Americans fourteen years of age and older annually consumed on average as much as seven gallons of pure alcohol, more than twice the annual consumption of more recent years. Distilled liquor accounted for close to two-thirds of that alcoholic intake, while the remainder came from beer, cider, or wine. At the same time, “the 1820s witnessed a shift to more frequent binge drinking, both solitary and with companions.” The combination of a “culture of mass democracy,” cheap booze, and the impact of rapid economic and social change altered the nature and volume of alcohol consumption. Thomas R. Pegram, Battling Demon Rum: The Struggle for a Dry America, 1800–1933 (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1998), 6–7, 10–11; Mark Edward Lender and James Kirby Martin, Drinking in America: A History (New York: Free Press, 1982), 46–47. 47. Christian Herald, 3 Apr. 1830. 48. Todd, Culture of Protestantism, 121, 342, 286–287 (see especially chapter 5, “Keeping the Peace,” 227–264). 49. Pegram, Battling Demon Rum, 6–7, 10–11; Lender and Martin, Drinking in America, 46–47. 50. LeMoyne Papers, ALS, July 14, 1824, quoted in Bartlett, Keeping House, 150– 51. The identity of the minister is not known. 51. Stewart, Brookland Covenanter, 19. 52. Elliott, Life of the Rev. Elisha Macurdy, 41; Buck and Buck, Planting of Civilization, 445.

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53. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Minutes of the General Assembly, 466, 474, 493, 511. 54. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Minutes of the General Assembly, 510–11, 648. 55. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Minutes of the General Assembly, 689–90, 676–78. 56. Presbyterian Church in the United States, Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of the United States from A.D. 1821 to A.D. 1835 Inclusive (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1836), 214, 230, 240. 57. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Redstone, Minutes. 58. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbytery of Washington, History of the Presbytery, 27–28. 59. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Synod of Pittsburgh, Records, 121–22. 60. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Synod of Pittsburgh, Records, 126. 61. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Synod of Pittsburgh, Records, 136. The minutes contain least one implicit reference; a resolution in 1823 praised “the practice of those who celebrate the anniversary of American Independence in a religious manner,” which meant, at least in part, abstinence from ardent spirits (206). 62. Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Minutes of the General Assembly (1821–1835), 262, 298. 63. Associate Synod of North America, A Book of Church Government and Discipline, 34. 64. Minutes of the Reformed Presbyterian Synod, 1809–1833, 35 (1816), 39 (1817), 53 (1818), 66 (1820) 71–72 (1821), Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary Library. “Temperance reform, unlike Sabbath observance, was not an old tradition of the church. Historically, the church had not taken a strong stand; in fact, the problem of dealing with those who imbibed too freely was constantly before church courts” (Carson, “History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church,” 188–89). The statement of “Causes of Fasting” prepared in 1823 by the Reformed Presbytery of Pittsburgh (and written by the Irish-born ministers William Gibson and John Black) offered a lengthy list of sins and errors, including: “Carnal mindedness among professors of religion . . . Immorality, open profaneness, and horrid wickedness . . . Why need we to specify cursing, profane swearing, blaspheming the sacred name of God, murder, lewdness, dishonesty, theft, lying, and slander?” (Evangelical Witness, Feb. 1823, 305–310). Like other Presbyterian denominations, the Reformed Presbyterians disciplined

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ministers alleged to have consumed spirits to excess. The Western Presbytery announced in 1819 it had suspended a newly ordained minister, Samuel Robinson, because of a report of intemperance (Minutes of the Reformed Presbyterian Synod, 1809–1833, 58); the synod objected that Robinson ought not to have been ordained (61). The synod approved of the Presbytery’s action in deposing him, however (74). 65. Jeffrey became the second pastor when ordained in 1821 at the age of twentyfive. The son of an Irish immigrant, Jeffrey married the stepdaughter of an Irish-born Presbyterian minister. Among the Bethany communicants who took a leadership role in the temperance society were David Herriott, a young man who joined the church in 1828 and whose uncle John had been an elder for five years, and John McEwen, related to the Herriotts by marriage and thirty-one years of age at the time of the society’s founding. 66. Christian Herald, 24 Oct. 1829. 67. Christian Herald, 17 Apr., 9 Jan. 1830. Robert Sproull, Covenanter elder in western Westmoreland County, had much difficulty employing men for planting and harvest due to his decision to withhold spirits. Ebenezer Finley Jr. shocked both his father, an elder of the Dunlap’s Creek congregation in Fayette County, and his pastor, William Johnston, by announcing his intention to have a barn raising without the customary provision of whiskey. Both minister and elder told him it could not be done. Insistent, the junior Finley carried out his plans. Some grumbled at what they considered an unnecessary niggardliness, but no man shirked the responsibility of neighborliness. This, recalled Johnston’s son, “was the first temperance wedge inserted in this community” (Stewart, Brookland Covenanter, 19; Johnston, Life and Reminiscences, 17–18). 68. Christian Herald, 29 Sept. 1830, 14 Apr. 1832. Only “with considerable difficulty” could a temperance society be organized in West Bethlehem Township, John McFarland reported to a Washington County reform meeting. “The opposition was great and violent,” said the founders of a Mercer County society; “with shame to our church members may it be said that they were our worst opposers, or most formidable enemies.” The Bull Creek Temperance Society was organized in 1829, “commencing with only four members and much opposition” (Christian Herald, 9 Jan. 1830, 16 Apr. 1831, 14 July 1832).

CONCLUSION 1. Presbyterian Advocate and Herald of the West (Pittsburgh), 24 Aug. 1842. 2. The quoted phrase comes from the minutes of a Seceder congregation session in Washington County. A drawn-out property dispute reached amicable resolution, elders recorded: the disputants “appeared to be in good neighborhood.” (Clearly, “neighborhood” is understood here as relationship, not place.) Session Minutes, As-

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sociate Presbyterian Church, Mount Pleasant, Pa., 3 July 1826, Roll 915005, Family History Center. 3. Sherling, Invisible Irish, 223. 4. William McClorg to David McClorg, Mar. 1831, William to David, July 1833, McClorg Family Letters; John Nare, Pittsburgh, to Charles Mills, Lossett, County Monaghan, 1834, H. and W. Stanley Papers. These letters all transcribed by Kerby A. Miller, used by permission from his personal collection. As McClorg’s comments remind us, Presbyterian Irish through the first third of the nineteenth century recognized each other as Irish. The descriptors “Scotch-Irish” or even “Scottish” would await, among other circumstances, the offense taken by middle-class sensibilities to the presence of masses of Catholic Irish. 5. David Cooke, County Tyrone, to Joseph and William Cooke, U.S.A., PRONI T.3592/2; CMSIED 9407234. Transcription by Kerby A. Miller. 6. James A. Henretta, “Families and Farms: Mentalité in Pre-Industrial America,” William and Mary Quarterly 35, no. 1 (Jan. 1978), 5. 7. John McClintock, Bicketstown, County Donegal, to William, John and Daniel McClintock, Washington, Pa., 22 Apr. 1811, transcribed by Jack McClintic from mss. at Waynesburg College. The two letters by John McClintock were written from Dooghan and Bicketstown (also known as Tirnagushoge), both townlands in Donaghmore Parish, eastern County Donegal. 8. David Cannadine, Mellon: An American Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 34, 128–29. 9. Walsh, “Across ‘The Big Wather,’” 152. The “Belfast” quote, cited by Walsh, appears in a letter written by Michael O’Connor, Roman Catholic Bishop of Pittsburgh. 10. Cannadine, Mellon, 66. “Sabbath desecration has become a crying sin with us. The lust of gain, as well as carnal dislike to its holiness, has promoted this wickedness . . . Alas! almost the whole community take liberties and countenance habits and customs inconsistent with the high and holy requirements of God’s law” (“Extracts from a Sermon Delivered on the Date of the National Fast,” The Evangelical Repository VIII, no. 5 [Oct. 1849]: 227). Numerous examples of Sabbatarianism and other traditional concerns appear in the Evangelical Repository for that year.

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INDEX 

absolution and penitence, 36, 143n16 Acheson, Matthew, 44 Act of Union (1803), 9 Addison, Alexander, 92, 164n3 adultery, 43, 147n41 Aitken, John, 93, 143n15 Algeo, Rebecca William, 130n54 Alien and Sedition and Naturalization Acts, 160n28 Alison, Thomas, 167n30 Allegheny County, xvii, 11, 12, 13, 21, 23, 24, 33, 35, 59, 70, 77, 91, 96, 124n22, 130n54, 131n55, 140n4, 142n11, 145n30, 151n9, 172n3 Allegheny, Presbytery of, 24, 111 Allegheny, Associate Presbytery of, 26 Allegheny River and valley, xvii, 123n13 Allen, Moses, 111 American Temperance Society, 108 Anderson, John (mainstream Presbyterian), 74, 103–4, 107, 154n30, 165n8 Anderson, John (Seceder Presbyterian), 167n30, 168n36 Anderson, Robert, 164n6 Andrews, John, 178n33 Antrim, County (Ireland), 6, 10, 13, 14, 16, 31, 107, 127n44, 128n44, 165n11, 169n40, 170n48 Antrim, Township of (Franklin Co.), 129n48 Arminianism, 171n57 Arnold, Margaret, 35 Armstrong County, 45 Ashe, Thomas, 10 Associate Presbyterian Church: Antiburgher Seceders, 24, 26, 84–85, arrival in colonies, 24–25; criticism of psalmody, 89–93; criticism of revivals, 84–88; creation of separate Associate Reformed Church, 117; engagement in temperance movement, 109–10; growth of, 26; insistence on doctrinal knowledge, 35, 142n12; interest in covenanting, 51–52, 57–58; millenarian view of, 54–56; Old World factions, 24, 26–27, 84–85, 136n30; rejection of occasional hearing, 54, 153n21; social status of, 29–30.

Associate Reformed Church: baptism in, 45; Birch’s connection to, 167n26; criticism of psalmody, 89–94, 170n48; criticism of revivalism, 84; creation of denomination, 117; engagement in temperance movement, 110; establishment of, 25; growth of, 26–27; insistence on doctrinal knowledge, 35; social status of, 29–30 Avery, Charles, 178n34 Badger, Joseph, 75, 82, 141n7, 165n9 Bailey, Francis Gelson, 138n41 Bailie, Isabella, 130n54 Baird, Absalom, 164n6 baptism, 45–46, 150nn53–54 Barr, Charles, 16 Barr, Samuel, 48, 150n53 Beard, William, 146n35 Beaty, Elizabeth, 46, 150n53 Beaver County, 58, 59, 73, 76, 148n45, 154n30 Beaver River, Big, xvii, 70 Beaver River, Little, 70 Belfast (Ireland), 6 Bell, James, 41 Bell, Margaret Van Horne, 126n36 Bethany, Presbyterian Congregation of, 40, 41, 45, 56, 97, 110, 140n4, 145n26, 172nn1–3, 173nn4–7, 182n65. Bethel, Presbyterian Congregation of, 23, 77, 91, 172n60 Beulah, Presbyterian Congregation of, 140n4 Bible societies, 49–50 Birch, Thomas Ledlie: approval of traditionalism, 84–85, 167nn25–26; criticism of revivalism, 83–85, 165n11–12, 166n19; interest in American ministry, 80, 137n39; lawsuit against Wylie, 99, 175n14; opposition to, 80–82, 83, 163–64nn2–3, 164–65nn6–8, 165n14, 166n17 Birch v. McMillan, 164n3 Black, John, 28, 137n37, 178n34 Blairsville, Presbytery of, 24, 28 Boling, Bruce D., xiii Book of Church Government and Discipline, 51

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Boyd, John, 67 Boyle, John, 39 Brackenridge, Hugh Henry, 16, 122n7, 132n56, 164n3 Braden, John, 146n35 Brice, John, 91, 160n32 Brooke, Peter, 18, 119n2, 136n30 Brown, George, 178n34 Brown, John, 39, 40, 145n30 Brown, Matthew, 99, 177n23 Bruce, Robert, 93, 178n34 Buchanan, John, 56 Buck, Elizabeth Hawthorn, 124n22 Buck, Solon, 124n22 Buffalo, Associate Presbyterian Congregation of, 22, 134n13, 134n16 Buffalo Creek, 22 Burgher Seceders, 24, 26–27, 84 Burleigh, Clements, 10 Butler County, 91, 92, 105, 141n7, 143n13

commercial economy: impact on Sabbath observance, 99–103; impact on temperance, 104–11, 179n39; transition from subsistence to, 62, 64, 76, 162n50, 179n41 common fame ( fama clamosa), 36, 41, 143n15. See also sessions communal labor, 21 Communion and communion tokens. See Lord’s Supper Congregationalism and Congregationalist church, 13, 82, 102, 156n6, 177n28 congregations: dangers of frontier for, 18–20; formation facilitated by social worship, 48–49; growth and distribution of, 21–24, 134n17, 135n19. See also ministers; worship practices; specific congregations, denominations Congruity, Presbyterian Congregation of, 77, 105 Conkin, Paul, 64, 71, 156 Connor, Catharine, 58–59 Cooke, David, 115 Coon, David, Jr., 37 Cooper, James, 40 Cooper, John and Elizabeth, 58 Covenanters. See Reformed Presbyterian Church covenanting, 50–52, 57–58, 87–88, 152n11, 154n30, 169n39 Crawford County, 15, 130n54 Crawford, Stephen, 77, 79 Cree, John, 167n26 Cross Creek, 19, 157n7 Cross Creek, Presbyterian Congregation of, 49, 63, 66, 72, 75, 76, 128n44, 132n5, 141n7, 158n15, 172n59, 179n43, 180n44 Cross Roads, Presbyterian Congregation of, (Gibsonia, Allegheny Co.), 40, 41, 49, 63, 66, 142n11, 153n20 Cross Roads, Presbyterian Congregation of, (Hanover Township, Washington Co.), 72, 75, 76, 107 Crumrine, Boyd, 171n49, 175n15 Cumberland Valley, 7, 14, 163n52

Caldow, Thomas, 37–38 Calvinism, 35, 66, 171n57 Campbell, Alexander, 54 Campbell, Charles, 37, 136n30 Campbell, Thomas, 54, 85 Campbell’s Run, 33 Cane Ridge revival, 62, 63, 66, 71, 75, 83 Cannadine, David, 117 Canonsburg, xvi, 64, 67, 70, 168n30 Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 7 Carson, David, 55, 170n44 Carter, Edwin, II, 10, 126n39 catechism, 48 Catholics, 11, 126n34 chain migration, 14–15, 129n53, 129n49 Chartiers, Associate Presbytery of, 26, 44, 93, 141n7, 148n44, 148n45, 154n30, 166n23 Chartiers Creek, 9, 12, 15, 22, 26, 49, 76, 128n45, 172n3; Little Chartiers, 54 Chartiers, Presbyterian Congregation of, (Chartiers Hill Church), 64, 70, 89 Chartiers Township (Washington County), 129n53 Cheny, Matthew, 153n22 Christian Herald, 35, 49, 109, 142 Christmas, no observance of, 53 Christy, James, 149n49 church buildings, 20–21, 134nn13–14 Church of Ireland, 4, 17, 121n3 Clark, John, 155n1 Clarke, Samuel, 165n7 Clarkson, James, 167n26 Cochran, Mary, 14 Coleman, John, 43

Deer Creek, Associate Congregation of, 21, 134n13 Democratic-Republican Party and republicanism, 9–10, 67–69, 71, 81, 122n7, 165n9 Denny, Ebenezer, 28–29 denominations. See Associate Presbyterian Church, Associate Reformed Church; Presbyterian Church in the United States; Reformed Presbyterian Church Derry (Ireland), 12, 23, 127n44, 128n44,129n53 Derry (Westmoreland Co.), 22

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dialects, 16, 131n56 Directory for Publick Worship, 34, 45, 52, 89, 169n42 Display of Religious Principles, A, 51 doctrine. See baptism; Lord’s Supper; Sabbath; theology; worship practices Dod, Thaddeus, 65, 158n20 Donaldson, Eloner, 37 Donegal (Ireland), 12, 94, 116, 121n3, 127n44, 130n55, 131n55, 168n35, 183n7 Donegal, Lancaster Co., 7 Donegal, Presbytery of (Pennsylvania), 13, 23, Donegal, Washington Co., 91 Donegal, Westmoreland Co., 33, 140n4, 142n9 Doyle, David Noel, xiii, 7, 21, 122n8 Down, County (Ireland), 11, 15, 80, 81, 84, 85, 127n44, 128n44, 136n30, 138n41 drunkenness and temperance, 38–41, 103–11, 145n32, 179n39, 180nn45–46, 181n61, 181n64, 182nn67–68 Duff’s Tent, 34 Dunlap’s Creek, 105 Dunlap’s (Delap’s) Creek, Presbyterian Congregation of, 105, 148n43, 182n67 Dunlap, James, 150n53 Dwight, Timothy, 90

Fermanagh, County (Ireland), 13, 127n44, 131n55 Figley, Elisabeth, 39 Findley, William, 14, 16, 122n7, 129n48, 132n56, 160n28 Finley, Ebenezer, Jr., 182n67 Finley, James, 155n1 Forks of Yough, Associate Reformed congregation of, 31, 35, 37, 38, 40, 43, 46, 54, 56, 88 fornication, 38–39, 41–43, 44–45, 145n26, 147n41, 149n50 Forsythe, Thomas, 36, 144n19 Franklin, Benjamin, 5, 117, 123n9 French, David, 154n30 Galbraith, William, 153n22 General Assembly and mainstream church. See Presbyterian Church in the United States Gibson, William, 28 Gilfillan, Alexander, 91 Gilmor, William, 130n54 Glade Run Presbyterian Church, 45 Gordon, John and Agnes, 41 Graham, Richard, 130n54 Granger, Gideon, 99 Great Awakening, 63 Great Revival of the West, 62–63, 156n6. See also revivals Greene County, 9,24, 134n17, 158n20 Greensburg, Pennsylvania, 10, 58, 126n36, 177n22 Griffin, Patrick, xii, xiii, 121n13

economy. See commercial economy Edgar, James, 73, 161n41 Edgar, Joseph, 39 elders: declining respect for, 58; roles of, 32, 34, 36, 48. See also sessions Erie Presbytery, 24 Eucharist. See Lord’s Supper Evils of the Work Now Prevailing in the United States of America under the Name of a Revival of Religion, 85–86, 166n22, 167n30, 168n36 experiential religion, 34–35, 66, 82, 83, 163n2. See also revivals

Hannastown, 13, 14, 20, 25, 31, 128n45 Harper, James, 136n30 Harper, James, Jr., 136n30 Hays, John, 15 Hearts of Steel, 6 Henderson, Ebenezer, 167n30 Henderson, Joseph, 57 Henretta, James, 116 heresy, 94 Herriott, David, 182n65 Herron, Francis, 178n33 Hill, George, 67, 92, 159n23 Hofstra, Warren, xiii Hoge, David, 137n39 Hoge, John, 81, 137n39, 165n7 Holcroft, John, 164n3 Holmes, Andrew, xiii, xviii, 48, 49, 89, 139n3, 140n6, 152n11, 155n37 Holmes, Oliver W., 178n32 Holy Communion. See Lord’s Supper Hopewell Township (Beaver County), 77 Hopewell Township (Washington County), 22, 64, 149n47, 157n12

Fairfield, Presbyterian Congregation of, 67, 159n23 Fairfield Township (Westmoreland County), 49, 92 Fallowfield Township (Washington County), 22 fama clamosa (common fame), 36, 41, 143n15. See also sessions family worship, 48–49, 50, 58 Farsans, Andrew, 37 fasting, 52–54, 55–56, 152n18, 153n23 Fayette County, 19, 20, 23, 105, 124n22, 135n20, 148n43, 162n51, 182n67 Fayette Township, Allegheny County, 96, 172n3 Federalist Party and Federalism, 67, 68–69, 81–82, 122n7, 160n28, 165n9 fencing the tables. See Lord’s Supper

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Hughes, James, 66, 71, 73, 160n32, 161n34, 177n23 Hughes, Thomas, 70, 161n34 Hughey, Robert, 44 Huntingdon, Presbytery of, 80-81 Hutchison, George, 43 hymns and psalmody, 79–80, 84, 86, 88–93, 169n38, 169n42, 170n48, 171n55 Hypocrite Run, 49

Lancaster County, 5, 7, 12, 14, 65, 151n9, 163n52 Laurel Hill, Presbyterian Congregation of, 19 Laurel Ridge, xvii Lavery, Polly, 56 Law, Michael, 92 Lawrence County, 70, 130n54 leaving certificates, 35 Lebanon, Presbyterian Congregation of, 23 Lectures upon the Principal Prophecies of the Revelation (McLeod), 55 Lee, Arthur, 8 Leyburn, James, xiv Ligonier, 66–67, 128n45, 159n23 linen trade, 6, 123n12 Linn, Matthew, 14, 129n48 Logan, James, 145n30, 153n20 Long Run, Presbyterian Congregation of, 37, 77, 148n43 Lord’s Day. See Sabbath Lord’s Supper: controlled admission to, 34–36, 69–70, 142–43nn10–13; significance and practice of, 31, 32–34, 139–40nn3–4, 140–41nn6–7, 142n9 Lower Buffalo, Presbyterian Congregation of, 72, 76, 157n12, 160n32, 172n59 Lowrie, Matthew B., 103, 178n34

Imitation of the Psalms of David (Watts), 89 incest, 44–45, 149n50 Indiana County, 24, 131n55,151n4 inheritance practices, 15, 129n53 intoxication and temperance, 38–41, 103–11, 145n32, 179n39, 180nn45–46, 181n61, 181n64, 182nn67–68 Irish Presbyterians: cultural practices of, 12–16, 127n43, 129nn48–49, 129–31nn53–55; dialects of, 16, 131n56; drinking customs of, 103–4, 105, 106, 179n38; engagement in politics, 9–10, 16, 67–69, 81–82, 122n7, 159n27, 165n9; scholarship on, xi, 119n1; social status of, 4–6, 8, 29–30, 117, 121n4, 122–23nn7–9, 124n18; terminology, xiii–xiv, 4, 120n8, 121n3, 123n14, 183n4. See also marriage; migration; sessions; worship practices; specific denominations Irish Rebellion of 1641, 20 irregular marriages, 43–44, 147–49nn43–45, 149n49 Isenberg, Nancy, 123n9 Israel, John, 164n6

Macurdy, Elisha, 62, 66–67, 72, 74–75, 107, 159n23, 161n45 mainstream church. See Presbyterian Church in the United States market revolution, 97–98, 174n8. See also commercial economy Marquis, Thomas, 151n8 marriage: and adultery, 43, 147n41; endogamous, 15–16, 33–34, 129n48, 130n55; incestuous, 44–45, 149n50; irregular, 43–44, 147– 49nn43–45, 149n49; and premarital sex, 38–39, 41–42; significance of, 43, 147n42 Marshall, William, 167n26 Marshel, James, 140n6 Mathews, Donald G., 156n6 May, John, 141n7 McAllister, John, 58 McCammont, William, 164n6 McCarroll, John, 144n20 McCaughen, John, 129n53 McClelland, James, 59 McClintock, John, 116 McClorg, William, 114–15 McClure, David, 7, 13, 14, 25, 123n14, 128n47 McConnell, James, 136n30 McCrakan, John, 42 McCullough, John, 13 McDonald, Phebe, 41–42 McDonald, William, 56

Jackson, Andrew, xvii Jacobins, 67–68 Jefferson, Thomas, 10, 68, 69 Jeffrey, William, 110, 182n65 Jennings, Samuel C., 142n12 John, Richard R., 100, 101, 119n1, 176n19, 177n32 Johnston, Margaret and Thomas, 131n54 Johnston, Robert, 77, 162n51 Johnston, William, 142n9 Jones, Maldwyn A., 124n18, 125n26 Jordan, William and Elizabeth, 149n49 Kaemmerer, David, 178n34 Kennedy, Liam, 125n25 Kerr, Joseph, 27, 91, 94, 136n30, 171n57, 178n34 Kiddo, James, 172n60 King’s Creek, 74 Knox, John, 12, 127n42 Kyle, Elizabeth, 43 Lafferty, John, 143n15 Laird, James, 96–97, 172n3

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McDowell, James, 11 McDowell, John, 49, 110 McElroy, 41 McEwen, John, 182n65 McFadden, Thomas, 15, 130n53 McFarland, John, 182n68 McFarlane, James, 130n53 McFarren, Samuel, 105 McGee, Robert, 36 McGready, James, 66, 71, 159n22, 169n38 McGukin, Daniel, 144n20 McKean, Thomas, 68 McKee, John, 143n15 McKeg, 44–45 McKinney, James, 27–28 McKown, John, 45 McLeod, Alexander, 55 McMillan, John: accused of heresy, 94; association with Wylie, 99, 175n14; involvement in politics, 68–69, 159n27; as minister and revivalist, 31, 49, 65–66, 69, 135n20, 158n21, 160n31; rivalry with Birch, 80–83, 99, 164n3, 165n14; salary of, 64 McNaughton, John, 37 McNeal, John, 40–41 McNemar, Richard, 67, 159n24, 169n38 McPherrin, John, 66, 159n23 Mercer County, 21, 24, 76, 114, 182n68 meetinghouses, 20–21, 134nn13–14 Meigs, J., Jr., 102 Mellon, Annie, 130n54 Mellon, Thomas, 15, 20, 34, 117–18 Mercer, Boyd, 150n53 migration: chain, 14–15, 129n53, 129n49; factors for, 6, 9, 125n26; to Pennsylvania, xiii, 6–12, 119n6, 123nn12–13, 124n22, 125n29, 126n36, 126n39, 127n42, 128n45, 128n47 millenarianism, 54–56 Miller, David W., 120n10, 146n38, 169n40 Miller, Kerby A., xiii, 124n18, 125n25 Mill Creek, 70, 74 Mingo Creek, 67, 155n1 Mingo Creek, Presbyterian Congregation of, 67, 168n5 ministers: and church vacancies, 64, 157n14; function in Lord’s Supper, 33, 34, 36; involvement in Whiskey Rebellion, 61, 155n1; licensing immigrant, 80, 163n2; responsibility for catechizing, 48; salaries of, 64, 105, 155n1, 158n15, 179n43; training of, 84, 166n21. See also sessions Mitchel, Jean, 144n22 Monaghan (Ireland), 115, 173n5 Monongahela Presbytery, Associate Reformed, 27, 94, 171n57

Monongahela River and valley, xvii, 9, 14, 22, 23, 76, 128n45, 133n6, 135n20 Montour Run, Associate Congregation of, 154n30 Montour Run, Presbyterian Congregation of, 20, 70, 92, 93, 172n58, 173n5 Moor, John, 144n19 Moore, John, 40 Moore, Joseph, xiii, 121n2 moral conduct: and admission to Lord’s Supper, 34–36; and discipline, 37–45; and fasting, 53–54 moral economy, 98, 174n9 Morris, John, 39 Morrison, John, 128n44 Morrow, Sarah and James, 131n54 Mountain, James, 164n3 Mount Carmel, Presbyterian Congregation of, 50, 58, 149n49 Mount Nebo, Presbyterian Congregation of, 91 Mount Pleasant, Associate Congregation of, 35, 37, 38, 44, 54, 56, 57 Mowry, Philip, 139n44 Murphy, Hugh, 144n19 Nare, John, 115 Native Americans, 5, 19–20, 123n13 Nesbit, John, 173n5 Neshannock, Presbyterian Congregation of, 77 Neville, Gwen Kennedy, 134n13, 139n3 Neville, John, 61–62 occasional hearing, 54, 153nn20–22 Ohio, Presbytery of: admonishment of Laird, 97; calls for fast days, 53; engagement in revivals, 71, 74, 87; engagement in temperance movement, 107, 108, 111; establishment and growth of, 23, 24, 64; insistence on Sabbath observance, 100; members accused of heresy, 94; opposition to Birch, 80–83; use of new psalmody, 90 Ohio, Associate Presbytery of, 26 Ohio, Associate Reformed Presbytery of, 27 Ohio River and valley, 7, 8, 24, 41, 52, 70, 76, 94, 98, 104, 123n13, 128n45, 133n6 Patterson, John, 54 Patterson, Joseph, 73, 178n33 Patterson, Robert, 177n23 Paxton Boys, 5 penitence and absolution, 36, 143n16 Pennsylvania. See western Pennsylvania Peters Creek, 13, 23, 139n1 Philadelphia, 5, 9, 10, 11, 23, 28, 80, 98, 100, 102, 126n39, 127n39, 137n37

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Physicians Languishing under Disease (Birch), 84 Pigeon Creek, Presbyterian Congregation of, 19, 148n44, 172n58 Pike Township (Washington County), 22 Pipe, James W., 153n22 Pittsburgh, xvi, xvii, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 16, 20, 24, 28-30, 34, 35, 39, 41, 45, 46, 49, 51, 53, 56, 69, 84, 92, 93, 98, 103, 104, 105, 110, 111, 113–15, 116–17, 120n11, 130n54, 131n56, 138n41, 139n44, 142n9, 142n12, 143n12, 143n15, 145n26, 174n8, 176n19 Pittsburgh, Associate Congregation of, 39, 41, 45, 93, 143n15, 145n26 Pittsburgh, (First) Presbyterian Congregation of, 20, 29, 92, 103, 111, 178n34 Pittsburgh, Second Presbyterian, 29, 30 Pittsburgh, Third Presbyterian, 29 Pittsburgh, Fourth Presbyterian, 29 Pittsburgh Humane Society, 30 Pittsburgh, Synod of, 24, 54, 73, 77, 100–103, 108–9, 148n43, 149n50, 177n23, 178n33 Plain Grove, Presbyterian Congregation of, 91 politics, 9–10, 16, 67–69, 81–82, 122n7, 159n27, 165n9, 176n19 Pollock, David, 14 Poke Run, Presbyterian Congregation of, 41, 50, 58, 142n11 Porter, Armstrong, 56 Porter, Charles, 105 Porter, Samuel, 77, 92, 105, 156n1 Porter, William, 130n54 postal system, 98–103, 174n12 Power, James, 20, 31, 65, 135n20, 139n1, 158n20 Presbyterian Advocate and Herald of the West, 113 Presbyterian Church in the United States: approval of new psalmody, 89–93; calls for fast days, 53–54, 56; contrasted with traditional denominations, 25–26, 28, 29–30, 35, 54–55, 56, 84; defense of revivals, 87–88, 168n36; engagement in temperance movement, 107–8, 109; growth and distribution of congregations, 21–24, 29, 134n17, 135n19; insistence on experiential religion, 34–35; insistence on Sabbath observance, 100–102; ministers condemned as heretics, 94; opposition to Birch, 80–83, 166n17; rules for licensing immigrant clergy, 163n2 Presbyterians. See Irish Presbyterians presbyteries, defined, xiv Pritchard, Linda K., 162n50 Proctor’s Tent, 20 professions of faith: for admittance to Lord’s Supper, 34–35; for baptism, 46 psalmody and hymns, 79–80, 84, 86, 88–93, 169n38, 169n42, 170n48, 171n55

Quakers, 5, 13 Raccoon (Creek), Presbyterian Congregation of, 73, 76, 111, 172n58 Ralston, Samuel, 81, 87–88, 94, 168n35, 177n23 Rankin, Adam, 84, 89–90, 166n22 Rea, Audley, 150n53 Redick, David, 137n39 Redstone, Presbytery of: calls for fast days, 53; on distribution of congregations, 135n19; engagement in revivals, 77; engagement in temperance movement, 108, 111; establishment and growth of, 23, 24; founders of, 65; involvement in marriage cases, 42, 43, 44; threat of Native American raids, 19 Reed, Agnes and Joseph, 131n54 Reed, David, 38 Reed, John, 37–38 Reformed Presbyterian Church: Covenanters’ arrival in colonies, 24–25; criticism of psalmody, 171n55; engagement in temperance movement, 110, 181n64; growth of, 27–28; insistence on doctrinal knowledge, 35; interest in covenanting, 51; millenarian view of, 54–55; rejection of occasional hearing, 54, 153n21; members’ social status, 29–30 Rehoboth, Presbyterian Congregation of, 43, 155n1, 179n43 Reid, Robert, 93–94 religious experience, 34–35, 66, 82, 83, 163n2. See also revivals republicanism and Democratic-Republican Party, 9–10, 67–69, 71, 81, 122n7, 165n9 revivals: criticism of, 77, 79, 83–87; defense of, 87–88, 168n36; in frontier context, 19; goal of, 65; and Great Revival of the West, 62–63, 156n6; growth and intensification of, 70–75, 77; in Ireland and Scotland, 165n11, 169n40; ministers sympathetic to, 65–67; perceived need for, 67, 69, 71; revival zones, 76; socio-economic cause of, 63–64 Richey, Robert, 43 Riddell, John, 27, 171n57 Rishel, Joseph, 30 rituals of penitence and absolution, 36, 143n16 Robeson, John, 150n53 Rohrer, James R., 165n9, 178n32 Roseburgh, John, 93 Ross, James, 68–69, 160n29, 164n3, 176n18 Sabbath: observance in East Tennessee, 178n35; Sabbatarian movement, 99–103, 177–78nn32–33, 183n10; as worship practice, 49, 56, 151n5, 174n13

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sacramental occasions. See baptism; Lord’s Supper; revivals Salem Presbyterian Church, 22, 43, 54, 66 Saw Mill Run, Associate Reformed Congregation of, 91 Schmidt, Leigh Eric, 139n2, 159n22 Schoepf, Johann David, 8 Schrier, Arnold, xiii Scotch Irish, as term, xiii–xiv, 4, 120n8, 121n3, 123n14, 183n4 Scott, George, 74 Scott, John Thomas, 159n22 Scott, Samuel, 33 Scott, Sarah, 41 Scrubgrass, Presbyterian Congregation of, 77, 141n47, 162n51 Seceders. See Associate Presbyterian Church Second Great Awakening, 63, 156n6 Seemingly Experimental Religion (Birch), 83, 84, 167n25 Sewickley Creek, 12, 128n45 Sellers, Charles, 174n12 servants, 5–6, 122n9, 124n18 sessions: declining authority of, 58; defined, xiv; involvement in baptism, 45; involvement in Lord’s Supper, 34, 36, 143n13, 143n15; judgments on disputes, 37–38, 59, 97, 144nn19–20, 144n22, 182n2; judgments on drunkenness, 38–41, 145n32; judgments on fornication, 38–39, 41–43, 145n26, 146n35, 146n37, 147n41; judgments on incest, 44–45, 149n50; judgments on irregular marriages, 43–44, 147–49nn43–45, 149n49; judgments on occasional hearing, 54; judgments on worship violations, 56–57; procedures of, 42, 146n38; purpose of, 32, 34, 36–39 sexual conduct, 38–39, 41–43, 44–45, 145n26, 147n41, 149n50 Shaw, Thomas, 130n54 Sherling, Rankin, xii, xiii, 114 Shenango River and valley, xviii, 77 Short Creek, Presbyterian Congregation of, 73, 76, 146n35, 160n32, 172n59 Six-Mile Water revival, 165n11, 169n40 Sloan, William, 144n19 Smilie, John, 160n28 Smith, Jane, 90–91, 170n48 Smith, Joseph, 16, 34, 65, 135n20, 158n20 Smith, Thomas, 136n30, 170n48 social status, 4–6, 8, 29–30, 117, 121n4, 122–23nn7–9, 124n18 Socianism, 172n57 Socinus, Faustus ,172n57 Society of United Irishmen, 9, 27, 68, 81, 125n26, 136n30, 159n26

Solemn League and Covenant (1643), 27 Speer, William, 177n23 Spencer, Mark G., xiii Sproull, Robert, 107, 182n67 Sproull, Thomas, 49, 141n6, 141n7 Stavely, William, 27 Steelboys, 6 Steele, Robert, 179n41 Stevenson, George, 64 Stewart, John, 57 Stewart, Usiah, 146n32 Stockton, John, 166n16, 179n43 Stokes, Melvyn, 174n8 Swan, William, 77 Swearingen, Andrew, 81–82 Swift, Elisha P., 126n34 Synod of New York and Philadelphia, 23 Synod of Pittsburgh, 24, 54, 73, 77, 100–103, 108–9, 148n43, 149n50 synods, defined, xiv Taylor, Henry, 81, 164n6 temperance and drunkenness, 38–41, 103–11, 145n32, 179n39, 180nn45–46, 181n61, 181n64, 182nn67–68 Ten-Mile, Presbyterian Congregation of, 89, 134n17 Thaddeus Dod, 134n17, 135n20 theology: of Lord’s Supper, 139n3; and revivalist outlook, 66; of salvation, 66, 171n57 Thompson, E. P., 174n9 Thompson, Henry, 92, 171n51 Tod, James, 148n45 Todd, Margo, 144n16, 151n5 Three Ridges, Presbyterian Congregation of, 70, 91, 132n6, 134n13, 157n8, 160n32, 171n49 Three Springs, Presbyterian Congregation of, 72, 73, 76, 107 Turtle Creek, 13 Tyrone (Ireland), 27, 90, 115, 127n44, 130n53, 130n55 Union Church. See Associate Reformed Church United Irishmen, Society of, 9, 26. 27, 68, 125n26, 136n30, 159n26 United Presbyterian Church, 117 Unity, Associate Congregation of, 35 Unity, Presbyterian Congregation of (Butler County), 92 Unity, Presbyterian Congregation of (Westmoreland County), 37, 45, 54 Upper Buffalo, Presbyterian Congregation of, 22, 62–63, 64, 67, 74, 75, 76, 103, 134n16, 157n12

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Vance’s Fort, 19, 63, 132n5, 157n7 Venango valley, 79 violence, 19–20, 133n9

Whan, Robert, 121n4 whiskey consumption, 98, 103–11, 179n38, 180n46 Whiskey Rebellion, 53, 61–62, 155n1, 164n3 White, John, 54, 142n9 White Oak Flats, Presbyterian Congregation of, 37, 39, 41, 56, 59, 146n35, 149n49, 155n34 Wiley, John, 143n15 Wiley, Robert, 11 Wilkeson, John, 96–97, 172n3 Wilkins, John, 7 Wilson, Andrew, 136n30 Wilson, David, 37 Wilson, David A., xiii Wilson, Elizabeth, 144n22 Wilson, Ezekiel, 35 Wilson, John, 137n39 Wilson, Josiah, 136n30 Wilson, Robert, 56 Wilson, William, 154n30, 167n30 women: and common fame, 41–42, 146n37; as preachers, 86–87 Woods, William, 77, 91, 163n52 worship practices: baptism, 45–46, 150nn53–54; covenanting, 50–52, 57–58, 87–88, 152n11, 154n30, 169n39; family, 48–49, 50, 58; fasting, 52–54, 55–56, 152n18, 153n23; occasional hearing, 54, 153nn20–22; psalmody and hymns, 79–80, 84, 86, 88–93, 169n38, 169n42, 170n48, 171n55; and significance of community, 59–60; spaces for, 20–21, 134n13; violations of observing, 54, 56–57. See also Lord’s Supper; revivals; Sabbath Wyatt-Brown, Bertram, 178n32 Wylie, Hugh, 99–100, 101, 175nn14–15, 176nn18–19, 176n22, 177n27 Wylie, Samuel Brown, 28, 137n37

Walker, Gabriel, 151n9 Walker, James, 136n30 Walker, John, 154n30 Walker’s Mill, 96, 97, 173n3 Wallace, Peter J., 180n43 Walsh, Victor A., 117 Washington, George, 67 Washington County, 9, 11–12, 13, 15, 19, 22, 23, 24, 26, 28, 35, 37, 44, 48, 50, 51, 62–70, 72, 73, 74, 76, 77, 80, 82, 83, 85, 89, 91, 98, 103, 107, 124n22, 126n36, 128n44, 128n45, 129n53, 134n17, 135n20, 137n39, 140n6, 141n47, 144n19, 149n47, 154n30, 157n7, 157n11, 158n20, 160n32, 162n51, 165n9, 166n21, 167n30, 168n35, 182n68 Washington, Presbytery of, 24, 111 Washington, (First) Presbyterian congregation of, 80, 81, 82, 99, 100, 137n39, 157n14, 158n14, 166n16, 175n14, 177n23 Washington (town of), 28, 68, 80, 81, 85, 87, 99, 100, 101, 116, 137n39, 158n14, 164n6, 165n7, 175n13, 175n14, 176n19 Watts, Isaac, 84, 89–90, 170n44 Weber, Max, 117 Westbay, Patrick, 144n19 Westerkamp, Marilyn, 169n40 western Pennsylvania: challenges of migrating to, 18–19; heavy migration to, xiii, 6–12, 119n6, 123nn12–13, 124n22, 125n29, 126n36, 126n39, 127n42, 128n45, 128n47; as ideal for Irish Presbyterian immigrants, xii, xviii, 121n13; territory of, xvii West Middleton (Washington County), 22 Westminster Confessions of Faith (1646), xv, 142n10, 150n54, 165n12 Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms, 48 Westminster Standards, 25 Westmoreland County, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 20, 22, 24, 31, 34, 37, 43, 45, 49, 58, 66, 77, 78, 92, 105, 115, 126n36, 128n45, 130n55, 139n1, 142n11, 182n67

Yeager, Kevin, 15 Yeates, Jasper, 164n3 Young, Arthur, 6, 123n12 Young, James, 38 Young, John, 35

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