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 REV. THOMAS HOGE. 
 
Our Church and Our Village 
 
 I. HISTORY OF THE CLAYSVILLE 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 II. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 REV. THOMAS HOGE 
 
 III. REMINISCENCES OF CLAYS- 
 VILLE, PA. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE W. F. BIRCH, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 WARD & DRUMMOND 
 1899 
 

 Press of J. J. Little & Co. 
 Astor Place, New York 
 
Uo tbe flDemors of 
 
 THE PRESBYTERIAN PIONEERS OF THE 
 SCOTCH-IRISH RACE 
 
 OF 
 
 WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 AND THEIR DESCENDANTS 
 
 THIS BOOK IS MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 
 
 BY ITS AUTHOR. 
 
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Introduction 
 
Introduction 
 
 During the summer of 1895 the Presbyterian con- 
 gregation of Claysville, Washington County, Pennsyl- 
 vania, decided to celebrate the seventy-fifth anniver- 
 sary of the organization of the church, which occurred 
 on September 20, 1820. Accordingly the necessary 
 arrangements were made for an appropriate observ- 
 ance of the event on September 20, 1895. The fol- 
 lowing description of the celebration is compiled from 
 the Wheeling (W. Va.) Intelligencer, the Washington 
 (Penn.) Democrat, and the Washington (Penn.) Obser- 
 ver, under date of September 21, 1895. 
 
 Friday was a memorable day in the history of the 
 Claysville Presbyterian Church. The occasion was the 
 celebration of the seventy-fifth, or diamond, anniver- 
 sary of the organization of the church. An admirable 
 programme had been prepared, and was carried out 
 almost to the letter. Only two of the speakers sched- 
 uled for addresses failed to put in an appearance. The 
 leading idea of the celebration, as the invitations read, 
 was to commemorate the organization of the church, 
 revive old and pleasant memories and the early strug- 
 gles of a church which has been so richly blessed of 
 God. 
 
 Seventy-five years, relatively speaking, does not 
 seem a very broad span in the affairs of the world, 
 but when measured in connection with events coinci- 
 
Introduction 
 
 o'clock, and were opened by a voluntary by the choir. 
 This was followed by the invocation by Rev. James 
 I. Brownson, D.D., the oldest minister in the presby- 
 tery. Rev. T. R. Alexander, of Washington, read 
 the Scripture lesson, and Rev. T. W. Young, of Pros- 
 perity, led the congregation in prayer. The following 
 address of welcome was delivered by W. A. Irwin, of 
 Claysville, a member of the church session: 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Christian Friends: It is my 
 pleasant duty, as the representative of the Presbyterian 
 Church of Claysville, to extend to you to-day a warm 
 and hearty welcome to our church on this our seventy- 
 fifth or diamond anniversary — this church from which 
 for many years, one by one, you or your parents have 
 gone out to find new homes, form new relations, and, 
 we hope, to bless and gladden the places and people 
 among whom God in His providence has placed you, 
 whether as the humble laborer, mechanic, merchant, 
 farmer, professional man, or minister of the Gospel; 
 and we welcome you here to-day back to the fountain- 
 head of your spiritual life, where many of you have 
 sat in the Sabbath-school and under the Gospel, and 
 have here given yourselves up to Christ and His ser- 
 vice. We hope you may to-day be able to again 
 recount God's blessings, to renew old acquaintances 
 and friendships, to gladly join with us in commemorat- 
 ing the time when the altar of God was set up here, 
 and where, thanks to " Him who doeth all things 
 well," its fires are still brightly burning. 
 
 While we are all proud of our church and its in- 
 fluence for good, and the moulding of public sentiment 
 
Introduction 
 
 in this place and community, yet it cannot be confined 
 here, for how many that have gone out from this 
 church who have been and are officers, teachers, 
 workers in the C. E. or Y. M. C. A., or simply humble 
 workers in many other churches where they are lend- 
 ing their lives and energies for the extension of the 
 Master's kingdom. While ten ministers are preach- 
 ing the glorious Gospel of Christ to multitudes of 
 people, nor is the spirit dying out, two have just 
 graduated and three more are still in the Theological 
 Seminary. But these things belong more properly 
 to our honored historian. Nor must we forget to wel- 
 come our sister churches, who have come up to re- 
 joice with us to-day, because our interests are mutual 
 and we are all laboring for the same blessed cause. 
 So we welcome all to our meeting here to-day — sister 
 churches, strangers, and children of the old church. 
 So again, in behalf of this congregation, I extend to 
 you a sincere, cordial, and hearty welcome. 
 
 Rev. Francis M. Hall, of Conneautville, who was 
 to have delivered the response, was not present. The 
 chief speaker of the afternoon was the Rev. G. W. F. 
 Birch, D.D., of New York, who read the history of 
 the church. The chairman, in introducing Dr. Birch, 
 said that he was the oldest minister of the sons of the 
 church that had entered that profession. 
 
 Dr. Birch was followed by the Rev. J. M. Mealy, 
 D.D., of New Wilmington, a son of the church, who 
 delivered an address on the " Pew of the Church." 
 This was followed by addresses on reminiscences of 
 pastors and presbytery. Rev. W. H. Lester, D.D., 
 
Introduction 
 
 of West Alexander, spoke at length on the life of Dr. 
 McCarrell; Rev. Wm. Speer, D.D., of Washington, on 
 Rev. Mr. Hoge; Rev. Henry Woods, D.D., on remi- 
 niscences of presbytery, and Dr. McCarrell and Rev. 
 James I. Brownson, D.D., of Washington, on remi- 
 niscences of pastors and presbytery. 
 
 The evening session was not less interesting than 
 the afternoon one, and was attended by fully as many 
 people. After the opening and devotional exercises, 
 the Rev. J. D. Moffat, D.D., President of Wash- 
 ington and Jefferson College, spoke on " The Church 
 and College." Since 1848, fifty-four persons from the 
 Claysville Church have been graduated from the col- 
 lege. Among them are Dr. George W. Miller, the 
 first member to graduate; Hon. John H. Craig, Rev. 
 G. W. F. Birch, D.D.; Francis A. Birch, deceased; 
 Hon. John M. Birch, Rev. John M. Mealy, D.D.; Rev. 
 W. A. McCarrell, Rev. J. J. McCarrell, Rev. T. C. 
 McCarrell, Hon. S. J. M. McCarrell, John E. Craig, 
 J. Addison Craig, William Craig, Sr. ; William Craig, 
 Jr.; T. F. Birch, J. T. Noble, T. C. Noble, T. F. Irwin, 
 Rev. E. O. Sawhill, Rev. Francis M. Hall, T. S. Ander- 
 son, E. H. Graham, Robert S. Calder, Robert Inglis, 
 Harry King, John Inglis, and many others. Rev. A. 
 A. Mealy, a son of the church, who was to have de- 
 livered an address on " The Boy at Church," was ab- 
 sent. N He was followed by Rev. E. O. Sawhill, of Alle- 
 gheny, a son of the Claysville congregation, who spoke 
 on " The Social Church." The programme was con- 
 cluded by voluntary remarks by members and visitors. 
 
 One of the unique features of the celebration was 
 the " Songs by Ye Old Folks." These were rendered 
 
 5 
 
Introduction 
 
 by a choir of aged people who in their earlier life had 
 led the singing in the Claysville and other churches of 
 that region. This ohoir was led by the venerable 
 Robert Sutherland, who is upwards of eighty years old. 
 The other members of the ohoir were Mrs. J. C. Mc- 
 Conaughey, Mrs. Sarah F. Craig, Mrs. Jane Giles, 
 Mrs. Wm. Stewart, Mrs. John A. Dickey, Mrs. Mari- 
 etta Miller, Mrs. M. P. Fish, Mrs. Thos. McKee, 
 Mrs. Lewis Cooper, Mr. H. C. Noble, Mr. John S. 
 Miller, Mr. John A. Dickey, Mr. Albert Sprowls, Mr. 
 Geo. Y. Holmes, Sr., and Mr. Thomas Steele. Prof. 
 Robert Calder presided at the organ during the ren- 
 dition of these old tunes. In response to a request, 
 Mr. Sutherland rendered the solo, " David's Lamen- 
 tation." In his day Mr. Sutherland was a famous 
 singer in the West Alexander region. 
 
 The oldest member of the church at the present time 
 is the Hon. John Birch, father of the Rev. Dr. G. W. 
 F. Birch, of New York. He settled in this vicinity in 
 1830, and is now eighty-five years of age. Mr. A. A. 
 Mealy, father of the Rev. Dr. John M. Mealy and Rev 
 A. A. Mealy, came here in 1829, and is the oldest citi- 
 zen of the town. Another old member of the church 
 is Miss Mary McLain. Another aged member is Mr. 
 John Finley, now eighty-five years of age. Mrs. John 
 Sawhill, mother of Rev. E. O. Sawhill, is well advanced 
 in years in membership. Mrs. Mary J. Irwin has be- 
 longed to the church forty-four years, and was present 
 at the installation of Dr. McCarrell, which event she 
 vividly remembers. 
 
 The church has raised up and sent out sixteen min- 
 isters of the Gospel, including such men as Rev. Dr. 
 
 6 
 
f 
 
 #r- 
 
 HON*. JOHN 15IRCH 
 
 Born, August 5, iSio. Settled in Claysville, 1S32. Justice of the 
 Peace, 1845-50, 1S66-74. County Commissioner, 1848-51. Member 
 of the Pennsylvania Legislature, 1S75-76. 
 
 With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation. 
 
 — Psalm xci : 16. 
 
Introduction 
 
 Birch, of New York; Rev. Dr. Mealy, of New Wil- 
 mington;* Rev. Dr. J. J. McCarrell, of McKeesport; 
 Rev. Wm. A. McCarrell, of Shippensburg; Rev. 
 Thomas C. McCarrell, of Waynesboro; Rev. A. A. 
 Mealy, of Bridgeville; Rev. E. O. Sawhill, of Alle- 
 gheny; Rev. F. M. Hall, of Conneautville, and Rev. 
 R. S. Inglis, of Jackson, Mich. Four of the daughters 
 of the Claysville Church married ministers. Miss 
 Martha McLain, daughter of Elder Wm. McLain, was 
 wedded to Rev. Dr. Alexander McCarrell; Miss Eliza- 
 beth Birch, daughter of Hon. John Birch, and sister 
 of Rev. Dr. G. W. F. Birch, was married to Rev. Dr. 
 J. J. McCarrell; Miss Ella V. King, daughter of W. C. 
 King, banker, was married to Rev. O. T. Langfitt, and 
 Miss Sarah M. Anderson, daughter of W. C. Ander- 
 son, Esq., to Rev. William H. Lester, now a missionary 
 to Chili, South America, f Another daughter of the 
 Claysville Church, Miss Kate G. Patterson, went out 
 in 1889 as a teacher among the Indians. Claysville 
 Church has been served by several especially dis- 
 tinguished elders. One of the best known in recent 
 years was Alexander K. Craig, recently deceased, who 
 was an elder for more than thirty-three years, superin- 
 tendent of the Sabbath-school for fifteen years, and 
 leader of the church choir for forty years. % His father, 
 before him, was a distinguished elder of the same 
 church, and also very prominent in the service of the 
 State in several important offices. 
 
 * Now of Waynesburgh, Penn. 
 
 f Mr. Lester is now a pastor at Greeneville, Tenn. 
 
 % At the time of his death, July 29, 1892, he was a mem- 
 ber of the Fifty-second Congress, from the Twenty-fourth 
 District of Pennsylvania. 
 
 7 
 
Historical Address 
 
Historical Address 
 
 DELIVERED BY GEORGE W. J . BIRCH, D.D., LL.D., 
 01 BETHANY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, NEW ¥X)RK 
 CITY, AT THE CELEBRATION < >)■ THE SEVE 
 FIFTH ANNIVERSARY 01 THE CLAYSVILLE PRES- 
 J:7'J BRIAN ( HURCH 
 
 The Claysville Presbyterian Church is the vital 
 factor of historic Claysville. If the National Pike was 
 the occasion of the of Claysville, I feel that 
 
 this discourse would not commence aright if it were 
 not to praise God that there were those among the first 
 settlers of this village who were filled with the spirit 
 I Ibah, Abraham, and David. Xoah took the first 
 Btep in humanity's fresh start as the lord of creation 
 when he came forth from the ark to build an altar unto 
 the Lord. Wherever Abraham pitched his tent in 
 Canaan, there he had an altar. The son of Jesse felt 
 that Jerusalem, the city of David, would not be the city 
 of God until the Ark of the Covenant was transferred 
 from the house of Obed-Edom to the hill of Zion. 
 
 So the little company which formed the nucleus of 
 the Claysville Presbyterian Church was a Noachian 
 band, as it felt that the town could not start right with- 
 out a church; was an Abrahamic band, as it felt that a 
 cluster of homes without a church was a contradiction; 
 
History of the 
 
 was a Davidic band, as it felt that the social and politi- 
 cal welfare of the community hinged upon the pres- 
 ence of the Church of the Living God. 
 
 Hence, when Joseph Henderson and Barnet Bonar, 
 during the summer of 1820, invited the Rev. Thomas 
 Hoge to preach the Gospel in the village of Claysville, 
 they put themselves abreast of Noah, Abraham, and 
 David, and inaugurated in this community that object 
 lesson of the Sermon on the Mount which our Lord 
 presented when He said, " Ye are the salt of the earth." 
 " Ye are the light of the world." " A city that is set 
 on a hill cannot be hid." If Claysville is better than it 
 would otherwise have been; if it has been preserved 
 from moral decay; if it has advanced in material pros- 
 perity; if it has been a centre of religious instruction 
 and secular knowledge; if from its homes there have 
 gone forth the torch-bearers of the everlasting gospel; 
 if it has been to fathers and mothers, sons and daugh- 
 ters, friends and neighbors, this earth's revelation of 
 that path of the just which is as the shining light that 
 shineth more and more unto the perfect day, it has 
 been just because the Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 has been the salt of the earth and the light of the world. 
 The God of Providence stamps the march of events 
 during these seventy-five years of church life as salt 
 which is pungent, as light which is lustrous, as a city 
 set on a hill which is conspicuous. Therefore the 
 Claysville Presbyterian Church is a factor of historic 
 Claysville so vital that without it the history of this 
 town and vicinity would be another story. 
 
 If the foregoing line of thought presents a correct 
 view of the relation of this church to the town, we can- 
 
REV. FRANCIS M. HALL 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 not be too familiar with its history, as it reveals what 
 God has done through His confessors of Christ in this 
 part of His heritage. So that the design of this his- 
 torical address is to stir your minds by way of remem- 
 brance, by recalling the generations who have made 
 the past of this church " a book to be read, a figure to 
 be looked at, a caution from which to learn wisdom." 
 Indeed, the historical philosophy of which such an 
 address is the exhibition has been set forth by both the 
 great Edmund Burke and the versatile Lord Macau- 
 lay. Says Burke, " People will not look forward to 
 posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors." 
 Says Macaulay, " A people who takes no pride in the 
 noble achievements of remote ancestors will never 
 achieve anything worthy to be remembered by remote 
 descendants." 
 
 The Scripture warrant for the history which is the 
 subject of interest on the present occasion, is the fact 
 that the historic books of the Bible give tone to the 
 whole of the Sacred Record. The very name (Deu- 
 teronomy) of the fifth book of the Pentateuch shows 
 that nearly the whole of it is a historical address to the 
 persons (along with their children) who had passed 
 through the Red Sea and had heard the law from Sinai. 
 It was from the platform of the history of their 
 fathers that the venerated Joshua poured into the ears 
 of his N countrymen his thrilling appeal, " Choose you 
 this day whom ye will serve." The magnanimous 
 Samuel lays down his authority by the delivery of a his- 
 torical address. The poet-prophet opens the historical 
 epic of the Seventy-eighth Psalm with a declaration of 
 its reason why. 
 
 13 
 
History of the 
 
 u Give ear, O my people, to my law : incline your ears to 
 the words of my mouth. 
 
 " I will open my mouth in a parable : I will utter dark say- 
 ings of old : 
 
 " Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have 
 told us. 
 
 "We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the 
 generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength,' 
 and his wonderful works that he hath done. 
 
 "For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a 
 law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they 
 should make them known to their children : 
 
 "That the generation to come might know them, even the 
 children which should be born ; who should arise and declare 
 them to their children : 
 
 "That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the 
 works of God, but keep his commandments." * 
 
 The history of their nation constitutes the thread 
 with which the prophets weave their predictions and 
 their precepts. Isaiah appeals to the seekers of the 
 Lord to look unto the rock whence they are hewn, and 
 to the hole of the pit whence they are digged, by look- 
 ing unto Abraham, their father. (Isaiah li. 1-2.) He 
 canonizes and confirms the ancient books as he sounds 
 the battle-cry: 
 
 "Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; 
 awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art 
 thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon ? Art 
 thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great 
 deep ; that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the 
 ransomed to pass over ? " f 
 
 * Psalm lxxviii. 1-7. 
 f Isaiah li. 9-10. 
 
 14 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 A " Thus saith the Lord " prefaces Jeremiah's coun- 
 sel, " Stand ye in the ways and see and ask for the old 
 paths, where is the good way and walk therein, and ye 
 shall find rest for your souls." (Jeremiah vi. 16.) 
 Our Lord confounded the Jews with the challenge, 
 " Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have 
 eternal life: and they are they which testify of me." 
 (John v. 39.) That speech which gave the martyr 
 Stephen the face of an angel is a master specimen 
 of historical philosophy. Guthrie calls the eleventh 
 chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews " a grand tableau 
 in which the several heroes of faith stand forth and act 
 in as lifelike forms as ever appeared in historical 
 picture or sculptured frieze." 
 
 Thus this historical address is an attempt to enforce 
 a truth which the Bible emphasizes, and which I apply 
 to the sleeping generations of this church by the use of 
 the observation that, " When a man of God dies, it by 
 no means follows that his work dies. There is nothing 
 more for him to do in the line of his earthly work, but 
 there may be a great deal more for others to do in the 
 line of his earthly teachings. Whatever of God's truth 
 a man of God declares during his lifetime, is just as 
 truly God's truth after the death of that man of God as 
 before. It is, indeed, just as important that we should 
 do the things which the Lord commanded through 
 MoseS ' to a thousand generations,' as it was that the 
 soldiers of Joshua should do them in their day. And a 
 large part of our present duty is simply in the doing 
 what the Lord commanded to our fathers. There are 
 new messages of God to us, beyond all that our fathers 
 knew of; but we shall be worth little in the heeding of 
 
 15 
 
History of the 
 
 God's new messages to us if we fail of being true to 
 God's teachings to our fathers." * 
 
 This day, seventy-five years ago, September 20, 
 1820, gave birth to the event known as the organiza- 
 tion of the Claysville Presbyterian Church. At the 
 time it took its place in the world's history that 
 epoch of the history of our National Union known as 
 the era of good feeling was running its course under 
 the direction of James Monroe, the fifth President 
 of the United States. The First Gentleman of Europe, 
 George the Fourth, sat upon the throne of England. 
 The great Napoleon was languishing in St. Helena. 
 The British nation was aflame with the trial of 
 Queen Caroline. The present Queen Victoria was the 
 babe, little more than a year old, who was known as 
 the heir apparent of the British throne. The literary 
 world was guessing at the author of Waverley as the 
 home circles of the day turned the fresh pages of the 
 " Bride of Lammermoor " and " Ivanhoe." As to 
 poetry, the mention of Scott's " Lay of the Last Min- 
 strel," of Byron's " Childe Harold," of Keat's " Endy- 
 mion " ; as to biography, the mention of Boswell's 
 " Johnson " ; as to criticism, the mention of Francis 
 Jeffrey; as to theology, the mention of Thomas Chal- 
 mers, will suffice to show that literature, seventy-five 
 years ago, spread a rich feast before our fathers and 
 mothers. In connection with the institution of the Na- 
 tional Road, it is interesting to know that Macadam's 
 theory of road-making had been published only the 
 year before. Thomas Patterson represented this dis- 
 
 * H. Clay Trumbull : Sunday School Times, August 24, 
 1895. 
 
 16 
 
REV. ELDON O. SAWHILL 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 trict in the National House of Representatives. Isaac 
 Weaver was State senator, and Joseph Lawrence, 
 Thomas McCall, Dickerson Roberts, and John Reed 
 were members of the General Assembly of the Com- 
 monwealth of Pennsylvania. The Claysville of 1820 
 was composed of men who still linger in the memory 
 of the present generation, and are called up as I speak 
 of George Wilson, whose business energy and public 
 spirit were a large factor in the growth and prosperity 
 of this portion of Washington County; as I mention 
 Alexander Chapman, who appeared to me as a child 
 the model of preciseness; as I recall Joseph Bryant, 
 then the first blacksmith of the village, but afterward 
 the man of leisure who, while respected by our fathers, 
 was the terror of every frolicsome boy; as I can see this 
 very moment that family physician in general, Dr. 
 James Kerr, whirling his cane and fighting the tobacco 
 tempter through the incessant mastication of a pine 
 splinter; as I recollect James Noble, cabinet-maker 
 and undertaker, who, for the period of fifty-four years, 
 was known as the funeral conductor of this commu- 
 nity; as I read over the names which appear in 
 the list of subscribers to a fund for the establishment 
 of a school and the erection of a schoolhouse. In the 
 light of the succeeding years the Claysville citizenship 
 of 1820 rilled their limited stage of action with the 
 spirit "of those who, two hundred years before, made 
 Plymouth Rock the germ of the free men, the free 
 speech, and the free soil of this American Republic. 
 But the setting of our picture would not be complete 
 without a glance at the men who constituted the Pres- 
 bytery of Washington when it organized the Claysville 
 
 17 
 
History of the 
 
 Presbyterian Church. John Chrysostom, " the man 
 of the golden mouth," of the ancient church, was link- 
 ing himself with Western Pennsylvania Christianity in 
 the silver-tongued Marques, of Cross Creek. Paul's 
 workman " that needeth not to be ashamed " was 
 showing himself in George M. Scott, of Mill Creek, the 
 grandfather of Mrs. Benjamin Harrison, who, as a 
 President's wife, dignified her station as the first 
 lady of the land. Scotland, in the person of Thomas 
 Chalmers, on account of a little book on " Faith," had 
 raised to the rank of a master in theology, both in 
 thought and expression, John Anderson, of Upper 
 Buffalo. When succeeding generations cease to reap 
 the fruits of the wonderful, the genuine revivals which 
 cradled Western Pennsylvania Presbyterianism, then 
 the recording angel will strike from Church History 
 the name of that flaming evangelist, Elisha Macurdy,of 
 Cross Roads and Three Springs. The first and only 
 time that I saw Joseph Stevenson, of West Alexander, 
 was at the turning point of my history which made me 
 a college graduate. I remember distinctly the vener- 
 able man who responded when Dr. Scott, the president 
 of Washington College, announced that Father Stev- 
 enson, of Bellefontaine, Ohio, would lead in prayer. 
 Indeed this church was, in a measure, a colony from 
 the flock of Father Stevenson, who, being dead, yet 
 speaketh in this part of the Lord's heritage. Cephas 
 Dodd, the good physician who made everybody think 
 of the Great Physician, was doing his faithful work at 
 Lower Ten Mile. As a little boy, I -have heard my 
 elders speak of the grand, great sermons of Andrew 
 Wylie. No name appears more frequently on the rolls 
 
 18 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 of the early General Assemblies. What he did for 
 Washington College may be estimated from the re- 
 mark of Dr. Robert Baird, " It cannot be questioned 
 that he was one of the best educated men in the part 
 of the country in which ne lived." James Hervey was 
 feeding and leading the flock of God at the Forks 
 of Wheeling, and fixing that which he maintained 
 through life, viz. : the theological balance of the Pres- 
 bytery. Thomas Hoge, at Buffalo, was supplement- 
 ing his work at Claysville. Jacob Cozad had just 
 been installed pastor of the church at Lower Buffalo. 
 Now let us call the roll of the pioneers of Claysville 
 Presbyterianism; let us make mention of these spirit- 
 ual argonauts; let us note the actors of an event which, 
 alone of all events in the birth of the village, will sur- 
 vive this wreck of matter and crush of worlds. Fond 
 recollections in more than one instance will bring the 
 dead to life as I repeat the first names on the roll of the 
 membership of this church. The original fifteen are 
 as follows: Barnet Bonar and his wife, Jane Bonar, 
 Joseph Henderson and his wife, Mary Henderson, 
 from the church of Three Ridges, now West Alexan- 
 der; Widow McGuffin, from the church of Upper 
 Buffalo; Thomas Stewart and his wife, Mary Stewart, 
 from the Associate Church of South Buffalo (Rev. 
 David French, pastor); also Catharine Gemmill and 
 Martha Morrow; Martha Gamble, from the Associate 
 Reformed Church (Rev. Mr. Kerr, pastor); Margaret 
 Miller, from the church of Miller's Run; Andrew Bell 
 and his wife, Mary Ann Bell, from the church of which 
 Rev. Thomas L. Birch was pastor; Samuel Gilmore 
 and his wife, Anne Gilmore, from the Forks of Brandy- 
 
 19 
 
History of the 
 
 wine church of Chester County, Pennsylvania (Rev. 
 Mr. Grier. pastor). 
 
 The first persons admitted to the organized church 
 were William McGuffin and his wife. Mary Jane Mc- 
 Gurhn. by examination " as to their Christian experi- 
 ence and doctrinal knowledge," and Nancy Hutchin- 
 son by " certificate " from the Forks of Wheeling 
 Church. Mrs. Hutchinson was the mother of Mrs. 
 George Milligan. of Claysville.* This roll suggests a 
 long story, at which I can only glance. No man could 
 live long in this region and not hear of Barnet Bonar. 
 I have a distinct recollection of stories of an accurate 
 marksmanship which made the squirrels he aimed at 
 say, like David Crockett's coon, which were repre- 
 sented as answering the aim of David's ritie with the 
 word. " You need not shoot. Mr. Crockett; I will come 
 down." During the decade from 1S40 to 1S50. the 
 name of the deceased Squire Henderson was a house- 
 hold word in this community. His wife lived long as 
 Grannie Henderson to make us feel that God's bene- 
 diction was upon us as our home circles gave her their 
 hearty welcome. The sons and daughters of this noble 
 couple are called to mind; and I think of kind-hearted 
 Bill, the friend of all the children, and the voluntary 
 nurse of every sick person he could find; of the manly 
 Joe. of whose grave no man knoweth unto this day; the 
 respected John, the sterling Thomas, the stirring Sam, 
 the devoted Mary Jane, the beautiful Elizabeth, the 
 
 * Two children of Simon Shur were the first infants to re- 
 ceive the rite of baptism. Mr. John Laird, who received the 
 same rite at the hands of the Rev. Mr. Hoge, was present 
 during the delivery of the address. 
 
 20 
 
.RAIG 
 
Claysvillc Presbyterian Church 
 
 motherly Becky. I do not know that I ever saw 
 Thomas Stewart, but I do know that all Claysville 
 seemed to make a favorite of his son Jim. And I 
 know also that the pastor who sent Mr. Stewart and 
 his wife to the new church at Claysville was enshrined 
 in every heart throughout this region as Davie French, 
 without the least thought of disrespect. The name of 
 Andrew Bell suggests his daughter, Margaret Karr 
 Bell, who was the teacher of the little boys and girls of 
 our time in Claysville, and who passed to her reward 
 when she finished her great work as the Mrs. Presi- 
 dent Miller, of Waynesburgh College. Mr. Bell and 
 wife helped to organize the Cumberland Presbyterian 
 Church in Washington, Penn.* He was also a work- 
 man on the building erected by that organization. It 
 is as it were but yesterday that I saw the William 
 McGufrin, who, along with his wife, were the first con- 
 verts in the Claysville Church, and I am once more on 
 our front porch as I witness the long procession that 
 followed his remains to the grave. 
 
 As was the wont in Western Pennsylvania, the 
 groves were God's first temples in this community. 
 According to well-established tradition, the first re- 
 ligious meetings in this section of the country were 
 
 * The Thomas L. Birch who was pastor of the church from 
 which Mr. Bell came to the new organization, has been the 
 subject of considerable animadversion by those who have dealt 
 with the matters in which Mr. Birch was a leading figure. I 
 do not propose to criticise the unfavorable light in which the 
 historians place Mr. Birch. However, I think it just to say 
 that my personal relation to him has caused me to hear of 
 documents which would seem to prove that there are two sides 
 to that story. 
 
History of the 
 
 held at the forks of the Burnsville and Haneytown 
 roads, about two hundred yards southward from the 
 Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. A person still living 
 recalls the incident of a communion service which he 
 witnessed in that locality. This locality appeals to 
 me as memory brings back the impression of my early 
 childhood when I saw Cal King skating over the mill- 
 pond near by. 
 
 Afterward the place of assembly was changed to 
 a sugar grove, just about the site of the present resi- 
 dence of Mrs. Thaddeus C. Noble. It was not long, 
 however, until the services were transferred to the field 
 immediately in the rear of the present schoolhouse. In- 
 deed, this schoolhouse stands on the ground occupied 
 by the first house of worship, which consisted of a log 
 schoolhouse already in existence and a frame building 
 adjoined thereto. The construction was so arranged 
 that by the removal of a partition the two buildings 
 were connected when religious services were held. 
 This building was removed to and is the main portion 
 of a building which now stands on the lot of Mr. John 
 Birch, and which has been a part of his tannery for 
 some forty-five or fifty years. 
 
 The sum of the recollections of persons still living 
 seems to establish beyond doubt that this building 
 served the purposes of religious worship until 1830. 
 That year dates the erection of the present brick edi- 
 fice. Mr. Hoge, the first pastor of the congregation, 
 assumed the responsibility of one-third of its cost, 
 which was $2,000. Mr. Josiah Truesdell (the father 
 of Messrs. Joel Truesdell, of West Alexander, and 
 Luther Truesdell (lately deceased), and Mrs. Thaddeus 
 
Claysrillc Presbyterian Church 
 
 C. Noble, and the grandfather of Josiah Truesdell 
 Noble, so well known through this whole region) had 
 come to this country as a pioneer from Connecticut. 
 He was evidently a man of affairs, and as a successful 
 merchant and public-spirited citizen was in the front 
 rank of the makers of Claysville. A stage-coach acci- 
 dent brought his promising career to a sudden termi- 
 nation. Air. Truesdell was so much the home talk of 
 the families of the village during my childhood, that 
 I have never forgotten the time that his widow brought 
 the little china teapot into our house from which she 
 gave her husband his last drink. Mr. Truesdell 
 seemed to be the only person willing to undertake the 
 work of building the new church. He most ardently 
 seconded the efforts of Mr. Hoge to provide the con- 
 gregation with a suitable house of worship, and threw 
 the activity of his nature and the benefit of his experi- 
 ence into the supervision of the work. William Knox, 
 Simon Shur, and Andrew Bell were the carpenters. 
 Thomas Gourley made the bricks. Mention has been 
 made of Andrew Bell. Any picture of past Claysville 
 would be incomplete without the limping, busy figure 
 of Billy Knox. Simon Shur is no infrequent name in 
 the records of early Claysville. And what Claysville 
 boy from 1830 to i860 did not know the Gourleys? 
 They kept the inhabitants of this country from for- 
 getting the time when the hunter roamed through 
 these woods. They evidently agreed with an enthu- 
 siastic sportsman that " the modern foxhound is one 
 of the most wonderful animals in creation." They 
 would make the wild animal their prey and their pet. 
 I am looking down from our porch now at Tom 
 
 23 
 
History of the 
 
 Gourley, Jr., as he passes by with thirteen hounds at 
 his heels. And I confess that the impulse of that stir- 
 ring life and the music of that hound-bay give me the 
 old-time thrill to-day. 
 
 This brick meeting-house is to-day the monument 
 of the singular fidelity and transparent honesty of 
 Josiah Truesdell, William Knox, Simon Shur, Andrew 
 Bell, and Thomas Gourley, for after a lapse of sixty- 
 five years the walls which they reared are in an almost 
 perfect state of preservation. And as I think of Mr. 
 Gourley as an old man building upon the founda- 
 tion of the apostles and prophets by confession of 
 Christ in this church, I realize that his departure 
 into eternity was a transfer from the walls which he 
 constructed so well below to that city whose founda- 
 tions are what they are because its Builder and Maker 
 is God. 
 
 And ever since, the Presbyterian Meeting-House of 
 Claysville has been the principal centre of interest in 
 this community. It gave its name to everything con- 
 nected with it. There were the meeting-house yard, 
 the meeting-house lane, the meeting-house hill. That 
 locust grove, through whose branches we looked at it 
 from the village, inspired me with all the enthusiasm 
 of a Shenstone. Those aisles showed on each Sabbath 
 a procession the like of which I have never witnessed 
 on the earth. Sculpture, both ancient and modern, has 
 exhausted itself on the church pulpit, but to my eye the 
 old Claysville pulpit, with its steps and its railing and 
 Bible rest, covered with red damask, was a thing of real 
 beauty. And as I looked at the old pews with their 
 numbered doors, I felt that they were no common 
 
 24 
 
CLAYSVILLE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 benches. I admit that the pews might have been 
 more comfortable, but I ever have denounced the 
 vandalism that removed that old pulpit by which our 
 ancestors showed that they were by no means deficient 
 in good taste. 
 
 Somebody has written a poem entitled " The 
 Meeting-House on the Hill." I wish I could find it, 
 for its meeting-house filled my mind and heart with 
 our " meeting-house on the hill." Why, dear friends, 
 it is our Westminster Abbey, for, doubtless, you are 
 now peopling it with your dear dead as the Lord's 
 Day found the hearthstone circle in the family pew. 
 And our heaven will link itself to the meeting-house 
 on the hill as the way by which we reached God's 
 temple on high. 
 
 The fifty-first chapter of Jeremiah was spoken to the 
 Jews when they were captives in Babylon. A long 
 captivity was in prospect. Seventy years must roll 
 away before God would fulfil His promise to His 
 people. " I will turn away your captivity, and I will 
 gather you from all the nations, and from all the 
 places whither I have driven you, saith the Lord; and 
 I will bring you again into the place whence I caused 
 you to be carried away captive." " But," says one, 
 " the land of their fathers must not be forgotten." The 
 prophet, foretelling to the Jews their reverses, their 
 defeat and conquest by the king of Babylon, and their 
 long banishment from home, bids them, notwithstand- 
 ing, " Remember the Lord afar off, and let Jerusalem 
 come into your mind." 
 
 This meeting-house on the hill is our Jerusalem. 
 If I could gather together the men and women living 
 
 3 25 
 
History of the 
 
 on this earth whose birth, whose moral training, or 
 whose conversion make this church God's Jerusalem 
 unto them, I would speak to them what I say to you 
 now. When business toils and cares so press with 
 earthly solicitude that they narrow communion with 
 God; when, in the multitude of our thoughts within us, 
 we are so beset and burthened that we long for the old- 
 time Sabbath morning when we clustered around our 
 Sabbath-school teacher; when with father and mother, 
 brother and sister, schoolmate and playmate, we felt 
 that this old house was full of Sabbath fragrance; when 
 the feverish pursuit of worldly good or the alluring 
 entanglements of temptation so crowd out our religion 
 as to make us indifferent to the moral and spiritual 
 training which we have received through the instru- 
 mentality of this church ; when the throes of cankering 
 care and the darkness of sorrow, the stings of dis- 
 appointment and the depths of despondency, may make 
 us think that the God of the old church is not our 
 friend; when we would fill the life that now is with 
 more of the life which is to come — whatever your con- 
 dition on the earth, wherever you live on the earth, 
 let the meeting-house on the hill be in your mind. 
 
 The Pastors 
 
 The initial step in the organization of the Claysville 
 Presbyterian Church was taken, as has been intimated, 
 when Joseph Henderson and Barnet Bonar invited 
 the Rev. Thomas Hoge to preach the Gospel in this 
 village. This invitation was soon followed by the 
 
 26 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 organization of this church, seventy-five years ago 
 to-day. 
 
 The Rev. Thomas Hoge was a native of Ireland, 
 whose participation in the Irish Rebellion of 1798 
 caused him to flee to the United States, where he be- 
 came the founder of the branch of the family which 
 bears the name. He landed in Philadelphia, and after 
 a short sojourn in that city went to Carlisle, Penn. 
 During the period which embraced his residence in the 
 latter place and its neighborhood he married Miss 
 Elizabeth City Holmes. During the interval between 
 his arrival in Carlisle and his marriage, he conducted 
 an academy in Northumberland, Penn. Afterward 
 we find him at Greensburgh, Penn. From Greens- 
 burgh he removed to Washington, Penn. 
 
 The Presbytery of Ohio received Mr. Hoge as a 
 licentiate from the Presbytery of Tyrone, Ireland, on 
 April 17, 1816, and ordained him to the ministry as an 
 evangelist on January 21, 18 17. 
 
 As a member of the Presbytery of Ohio Mr. Hoge 
 acted as Stated Supply of the churches of Upper Ten 
 Mile and East Buffalo. 
 
 The name of Thomas Hoge appears as one of the 
 members constituting the Presbytery of Washington 
 at its organization, October 19, 1819. 
 
 Mr. Hoge discharged the duties of the Claysville 
 pastorate until some time in the year 1826, when, at his 
 own request, the relation was dissolved by the Pres- 
 bytery of Washington. After an interval of two weeks 
 he commenced his labors as Stated Supply, which con- 
 tinued until about the middle of the year 1828. In 
 1830 the congregation earnestly requested Mr. Hoge 
 
 27 
 
History of the 
 
 to return to his former pastorate. He acceded to its 
 request and was again installed. During the interval, 
 Mr. Hoge had been engaged in evangelistic work and 
 had organized a church at Mount Nebo, near Wash- 
 ington, Penn. During the same interval the Clays- 
 ville Church had been supplied by appointments of 
 Presbytery. The people seemed willing to call a Rev. 
 Abner Leonard. Mr. Leonard, however, declined the 
 acceptance of a call. 
 
 The second pastorate of Mr. Hoge continued until 
 1835, when the relation was again dissolved at his own 
 request, and he was dismissed to the Presbytery of 
 Philadelphia. Having served his generation accord- 
 ing to the will of God, he fell asleep in Jesus, 1846. 
 
 Mr. Hoge's successor was the Rev. Peter Hassinger, 
 who was born near Newark, Del., November 24, 1801. 
 Entered Princeton Theological Seminary in 1824; or- 
 dained by the Presbytery of Erie, October 1, 1828, 
 and of the twenty-five years of his ministerial life in 
 Pennsylvania, spent the three years extending from 
 1836 to 1839 as pastor of this church. In 1853 he 
 changed his residence from Pennsylvania to Illinois, 
 and after serving six churches in the latter State, he 
 closed his life as a Presbyterial Missionary, dying at 
 Lebanon, 111., on January 24, 1890, in the ninetieth 
 year of his age. It was my privilege once to meet Mr. 
 Hassinger at a meeting of the Synod of Illinois, when 
 he impressed me as a sincere, humble man of God, 
 thoroughly devoted to the work of his Master. The 
 reading of the record of the Princeton Catalogue has 
 made me feel that his record, along with that of the 
 patriarch Job, is on high. 
 
 28 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 In my boyhood there were stories afloat concerning 
 peculiarities of Mr. Hassinger. He seems to have 
 been noted for his closeness in financial matters. Most 
 probably this was true. However, the records of the 
 contributions to our Boards and the bequests of his 
 will show that his accumulations were consecrated to 
 God. If a faint recollection serves me aright, I think 
 that Mrs. Hassinger, while her husband was preach- 
 ing at Somerset, Penn., paid a visit to Claysville. 
 
 Mr. Hassinger's residence was in the house which 
 was once my own home, and which now stands in the 
 rear of Mr. W. C. Anderson's store. At that time it 
 was in the place now occupied by Mr. Anderson's 
 store. 
 
 The thirteen years which followed Mr. Hassinger's 
 pastorate was what may be fitly designated as the era 
 of the Stated Supply. The first minister in this rela- 
 tion to the church was the Rev. John Knox, whose 
 labors were confined to the years 1840-41. I have 
 a perfectly distinct recollection of Mr. Knox in 
 the pulpit — indeed so distinct that I hear to-day the 
 sound of his voice. I remember also that he was pres- 
 ent in the pew behind that occupied by our family 
 one Sabbath during the early ministry of Mr. Mc- 
 Carrell. Mr. Knox was an extreme Abolitionist, and 
 by his fanaticism brought discredit not only on his 
 usefulness and success as a minister, but on the good 
 cause in defence of which the country poured out its 
 treasure and its blood. I have understood that Mr. 
 Knox was no ordinary preacher, and that in the course 
 of everyday life he was a genial companion. His wife 
 was one of the Gordon family, whose home in the 
 
 29 
 
History of the 
 
 vicinity of Washington, Penn., is so well known. His 
 death took place some years ago, and it has been the 
 common report in this community that he forsook the 
 faith which once he had preached. 
 
 I hiring the years [841-42 this church was under the 
 care of the Rev. William Wright. Mr. Wright was a 
 native of Scotland, and, as I remember him, was very 
 energetic and earnest in the pulpit. I also recall a 
 religions service on a week-day afternoon which he 
 held at our house when we lived on the site now 
 occupied by the First National Bank building. After 
 one year's service Mr. Wright returned to Scotland.* 
 
 The next supply was the venerable and venerated 
 David McConaughey. D.D., LL.D., the able and faith- 
 ful President of Washington College. I remember 
 nothing of the matter of Dr. McConaughey's sermons, 
 but I have a distinct impression to-day of the restless- 
 ness of a boy under their great length. I remember 
 that once (hiring the doctor's ministry a travelling 
 Episcopal minister was holding a series of meetings 
 in the Methodist Episcopal Church. A number of 
 persons of the Presbyterian congregation thought that 
 they would take the privilege of an occasional hear- 
 ing, expecting to attend the usual afternoon service at 
 their own church. After the service at the Methodist 
 
 *The fact that the church's records for a period of ten or 
 twelve years cannot be found is said to be due to Mr. Wright, 
 who, according to report, carried them to his native land. 
 Our friend, Mr. Joel Truesdell, remarks that Mr. Wright was 
 a fine preacher, and was so inclined to the customs of the 
 Associate branch of Presbyterianism, with reference to the 
 singing of hymns, that he himself composed a version of the 
 Psalms to be sung by the people. 
 
 30 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 Church was completed, I was one of a number who 
 stood at the junction of the alley and the meeting- 
 house lane, waiting for the close of the morning 
 service at the Presbyterian Church. We waited and 
 waited and waited, until as the hour hand approached 
 the figure two, the congregation commenced to empty 
 itself into the meeting-house yard, The procession 
 down the lane was led by Mr. William Humes, who, in 
 his shirt sleeves, was speeding his way homeward, 
 sawing the air most vigorously with his arms. On 
 being hailed by our company, he said that the doctor, 
 on account of the length of the service in the morning, 
 had promised a shorter meeting in the afternoon. 
 Some one made a remark about the length of the 
 service. I can see Mr. Humes now as, with every 
 feature of his dark face growing darker, he shouted as 
 if forbearance had ceased to be a virtue, " It was outra- 
 geously long." 
 
 A boy seven or eight years of age could not under- 
 stand Dr. McConaughey's sermons, but he carries to 
 this day the conviction that when he looked at that 
 old ambassador of Christ he saw a man of God. I 
 will never forget a communion Sabbath which oc- 
 curred during his ministry here. The old man had 
 talked about it for weeks. As he stepped from his 
 carriage that Sabbath morning, I think that I scarcely 
 ever s&w a more finely dressed person. Hence I came 
 to the conclusion that he felt it to be a great occasion. 
 
 Dr. McConaughey was followed by the Rev. Joseph 
 Gordon, concerning whom I retain no recollection but 
 that of his personal appearance as a scholarly, refined, 
 and spiritual man. 
 
 31 
 
History of the 
 
 Mr. Gordon was licensed by the Presbytery of 
 Washington, April 19, 1843. He was dismissed to the 
 Presbytery of Coshocton, April 17, 1845. 
 
 The successor of Mr. Gordon was the Rev. John 
 Miller, whose stature was commanding and whose 
 pulpit work was quite impressive. Mr. Miller's wife 
 was a daughter of the Claysville Church, being Miss 
 Rebecca, the daughter of Mr. James Warrell, whose 
 home gave the name to that portion of the National 
 Road known as Warrell's Hill. Mr. Miller was li- 
 censed by the Presbytery of Washington, October 4, 
 1843, and dismissed to the Presbytery of Allegheny, 
 April 16, 185 1. 
 
 The next prophet in this valley of vision was 
 Nicholas Murray, whose praise is in all the churches 
 of Washington Presbytery. We all know the romantic 
 story of his introduction to the Christian ministry. 
 As he prophesied from Sabbath to Sabbath, the dry 
 bones of the Claysville Church began to show signs of 
 life. A sermon from the text " Strengthen the things 
 which remain that are ready to die " gave him occa- 
 sion to say that it had been proposed in the Presbytery 
 of Washington to give the church of Claysville over to 
 die. Professor Murray went through these churches 
 like a flaming seraph, helping believers to Heaven and 
 sinners to Jesus when he was not, for God took him. 
 
 And now we come to the golden age of the past 
 history of this church — the thirty-five years' pastorate 
 of the Rev. Alexander McCarrell, six years as stated 
 supply and twenty-nine years as pastor. In the As- 
 sembly Minutes of 1844 the roll of licentiates in the 
 Washington Presbytery reads thus: "John Miller, 
 
 32 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 Thomas M. Newell, Joseph Gordon, and Alexander 
 McCarrell." 
 
 Mr. McCarrell commenced his labors at Claysville 
 in October, 1846, preaching for half the time, the other 
 half being given to Unity in Greene County, which 
 united with Claysville in his support. It was not long 
 until he ceased to preach at Unity. He continued as 
 stated supply at Claysville until his installation as 
 pastor, December 16, 1852. Death severed the rela- 
 tion, April 18, 1881. No man during his life con- 
 tributed more to the spiritual, moral, material, intel- 
 lectual, and social good of this town and country than 
 Dr. McCarrell. It was the aim of his life to help 
 everybody and every good thing in the community. 
 He kept pace with the spirit of the age. He prepared 
 the boys for college. 
 
 Soon after Dr. McCarrell's death I poured out my 
 heart in a tribute to his memory, which was published 
 in the Claysville Sentinel. I do not know that I can 
 do better than repeat that tribute on this occasion. 
 
 ALEXANDER MCCARRELL, D.D. 
 
 An English family has the following sentence as 
 its motto: "Through hardships to the stars." The 
 voice of Inspiration informs us that " They that be 
 wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; 
 and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars 
 for ever and ever." 
 
 A life closed on Monday, April 18th, which linked 
 these thoughts together. The history of Alexander 
 
 33 
 
History of the 
 
 McCarrell is appropriately summed up in the senti- 
 ment: through the faithful preaching, the sincere 
 tears, the unceasing prayers, the unwaning self-denial, 
 the modest ambition, the uncompromising truthful- 
 ness, the loving devotion of a pastorate of thirty-five 
 years to the stars. It is true that one star differeth 
 from another star in glory, but when the day revealeth 
 every man's work of what sort it is, we cannot help 
 but think that eternity will mark its estimate of Alex- 
 ander McCarrell's ministry in a star of no mean mag- 
 nitude. 
 
 The year 1846 dates the commencement of this pas- 
 torate. There are those living who will recall the 
 waste place in Zion in which he summoned God's little, 
 scattered, divided band to rebuild the walls of Jeru- 
 salem — the careless and wicked community in which 
 he lifted the standard of the Cross. The National Road 
 rises before us thronged with the tide of travel as it 
 flowed east and west. We hear the peal of the coach- 
 man's horn and the crack of the wagoner's whip. The 
 community is agitated by the Mexican war. The Gos- 
 pel ministry of the neighborhood, of which there was 
 not a more honored and beloved member than our 
 deceased brother, numbered, among others, the patri- 
 archal Hervey, the fervent Stockton, the precise Al- 
 rich, the dignified McCluskey,* the dialectic Eagleson, 
 the eloquent Murray, the weighty Sloan, the gentle- 
 
 * " The dignified McCluskey," not without humor. A mem- 
 ber of the Claysville Church who slept a good deal at church, 
 wanted a transfer to West Alexander, but Dr. McCluskey 
 remonstrated, and said that he didn't want any of those sleepy 
 fellows from Claysville. 
 
 34 
 
REV. JAMES L. I.EEPF.R. P.D. 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 mannered Fleming, the fatherly James McKennan, 
 the flaming Cyrus Dickson, the honest Dr. J. W. Scott; 
 that one whom we delight to honor to-day, Dr. Brown- 
 son, and our worthy brother, Dr. Lester; the positive 
 Pomeroy, the sweet-spirited Alfred Paull. 
 
 The whole course of the McCarrell pastorate is sur- 
 charged with precious and pleasant memories. Many 
 who are already in Heaven, and many who are on the 
 road to Heaven, were, at its commencement, drunk- 
 ards, profane swearers, Sabbath breakers, and haters 
 of everything good. The winds of church disturbances 
 might blow more or less fiercely, yet no gale was 
 strong enough to break its anchorage. It contributed 
 a respectable quota to the rank and file of the min- 
 istry. It never preached a sermon that did not con- 
 tain a clear statement that Jesus Christ was man's 
 only hope. It helped the dying to the shore of the 
 dark river, as it illumined that river with the .lamp of 
 the Gospel. It entered the sick-room as the angel of 
 consolation. It was that word in season to the weary, 
 which strengthens the bereaved. It left no road un- 
 travelled — no home neglected within the vast circuit 
 of its parish. In its official visitations the spirit of 
 Paul went from house to house, testifying repentance 
 toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 Its catechetical classes showed that a lover of the truth 
 was laboring in doctrine. It was the right arm of the 
 Sunday-school. The glorious record finds its appro- 
 priate setting as poetry presents the pastor of this 
 pastorate as one whose deeds were 
 
 '* Like a living, breathing Bible — tables where 
 Both covenants at large engraven were ; 
 
 35 
 
History of the 
 
 Gospel and Law on heart had each its column, 
 His head an index to the Sacred Volume ; 
 His very name a title page ; — and next, 
 His life a commentary on the text." 
 
 The pastorate which has just closed is in a great 
 measure the history of the Claysville Presbyterian 
 Church. It has left its moulding impress upon the 
 church and the community. The future history of the 
 church is unwritten; but no mere sentiment is ex- 
 pressed when it is declared that of those who, in the 
 hereafter, take up the fallen standard, no one will fill 
 his niche more faithfully — round his life-circle more 
 accurately — exemplify the Right more wholesomely 
 —work for Christ more lovingly, than Alexander 
 McCarrell. 
 
 Mr. James L. Leeper, a graduate both of the College 
 and Seminary of Princeton, was called to the vacant 
 pastorate, and was ordained by the Presbytery of 
 Washington, September 13, 1882. In 1886 he re- 
 signed to accept a call to the First Church of Reading, 
 Penn. In 1888 he was invited to the charge of the 
 Second Church of Fort Wayne, Ind., where he is 
 laboring with great success. Of marked pulpit ability 
 and of untiring pastoral activity, Mr. Leeper left an 
 abiding impression upon this region. 
 
 The present pastorate, that of the Rev. Frank Fish, a 
 graduate of the Western Theological Seminary, began 
 in May, 1886, and his energetic, evangelical spirit as- 
 sures us that the old church will take no step backward. 
 
 As we sum up the pastorates, we are impressed with 
 the value of biblical preaching, sound doctrine, thor- 
 ough spirituality, and faithful pastoral labor. 
 
 36 
 
J£» 
 
 REV. FRANK FISH 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 The Elders 
 
 Joseph Donahey, Sr., September 20, 1820, living for 
 God in his children and children's children;* Archi- 
 bald Brownlee, September 20, 1820, a name so frequent 
 in the church records of Washington County as to 
 make one of the tribes of God's spiritual Israel; Barnet 
 Bonar, November 26, 1820, a man with the courage 
 of his convictions; Dr. John Hair, November 28, 1824, 
 cut down in the midst of his usefulness; William Mc- 
 Lain, February 5, 1832, to me always venerable and 
 apparently stern, yet really full of the temper and spirit 
 of Christ; George McConaughey, by nature a gentle- 
 man and by grace an intelligent Christian churchman; 
 Robert Woods, 1841, so genial and kind; Hugh Craig, 
 March 17, 1850, a specimen of meekness, quietness, 
 and reliability; John Hoon, March 17, 1850, a man 
 who, when he found Christ, held on to Him ; Nicholas 
 Bearly, March 17, 1850, so keen in intellect; Alexander 
 K. Craig, April 19, 1857, the whole community so 
 mourned him that the heartsore is still fresh; Joseph 
 Donahey, Jr., June 21, 1857, so quick in temper, posi- 
 tive in opinion, unyielding in decision, yet withal the 
 subject of a consecration that laid his open pocket- 
 book at the feet of Jesus; John McLain, June 1, 1863, 
 his walk with God the path of Enoch; Thomas S.Irwin, 
 June 1, 1863, a rigid devotee of order, yet no better 
 
 *A person says that once during Mr. Hoge's ministry 
 Uncle Joseph Donahey, who was clerk at the time, fell asleep 
 and awoke in a rage because he was awakened at Mr. Hoge's 
 request. 
 
 37 
 
Hii the 
 
 neighbor; John Sawhill, June 27, [869, respected by 
 everybody; Thomas Henderson, Juno 27, [869, my 
 father's and mother's friend, who now lives in God; 
 Dr, Franklin P, Scott, June 27, 1S00. a willing spirit; 
 Hugh McClelland, Juno 27, [867, one of the youngest 
 old men I ever knew; Thomas Ritezel, December 23, 
 1883 don't remember when I did not know him. 
 He was so mature in his thought and ways that 
 
 must have been fifty years old when he was born. 
 Tommy Ritezel, who would not honor thy memory? 
 A purer, truer spirit never breathed in Claysville); 
 John A. Dickey, December 23, 1883, serving God in 
 his generation; Joseph R Mel. am, December 13, [883, 
 always energetic; Dr. George fnglis, December 23, 
 [883, a name which recalls the cradle of Presbyterian- 
 isin; Andrew Henderson, December 23, [883, never a 
 busier worker tor the Master; James Moixee. who 
 finished the work which God gave him to do. 
 
 Tin- Congregation 
 
 We are told that the early audiences which gathered 
 before the wooden tent of [820, averaged from one 
 hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty persons. 
 The Presbytery reports the Claysville Church as 
 follows: 
 
 182] . . .Mr. Hoge, p.istor 10 meml 
 
 1824... '■ " 5* 
 
 1829 .Vacant no 
 
 1830. ...Ml stor 116 
 
 1 S ; 1 . . . . • ' " 1 1 q 
 
 183a.... - - 127 " 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 1833 
 1834.. 
 1837.. 
 1838.. 
 
 1839.. 
 
 1842. . 
 
 1843.. 
 1844 • 
 1846.. 
 
 Mr. Hoge, pastor 130 men 
 
 " 133 
 
 Mr. Hassinger, pastor ioi 
 
 " u8 
 
 Vacant 114 
 
 66 
 
 Wrn. Wrigl 68 
 
 Vacant 63 
 
 5o 
 
 When I jr. McCarrell commenced his work there 
 
 re sixty-two members. During his pastorate 353 
 
 were added to the church on examination, and 150 on 
 
 certificate — total, 503; and of the:-.'-, [03 '.ere baptized. 
 A membership of 32* the credit of the church 
 
 on the Assembly Minutes of J895. 
 
 It would scarcely be in accordance with the conven- 
 tional use of the term to call the Claysville Church a 
 revival church. Yet I only speak the truth when I 
 say that the only revival I know of in its history is the 
 revival of pure and undefiled religion, which character- 
 ized the whole of the McCarrell ministry. That minis- 
 try was not a succession of spiritual upheavals, but it 
 was the revival which evinces itself in constant, steady, 
 quiet growth in numbers and in spirituality. 
 
 During the first half of the forties the ways of Zion 
 literally mourned as the sparse gathering in the meet- 
 ing-house on the hill impressed even a boy with 
 the fact that of this community comparatively few 
 came to the solemn feasts. The silent Sabbaths of 
 this period were many, and as the direct consequence 
 the moral, to say nothing of the spiritual tone of the 
 village and the surrounding country, had reached a 
 
 39 
 
History of the 
 
 very low and discouraging condition. But in 1846 the 
 tide of spiritual life and power commenced to rise, and 
 from the fifties until to-day, the Claysville congrega- 
 tion has been a centre of local influence and has had 
 a good report from without. 
 
 I propose now to invite you again to stir up your 
 minds in the way of remembrance with a typical Lord's 
 Day of the period, which includes the later forties and 
 the whole of the fifties. It is a summer Sabbath. Our 
 fathers knew nothing of vacations. It is one of those 
 fine June days which make the Sabbath a bridal of the 
 earth and sky. The farm is at rest. The week-day 
 hum of the village is hushed. The doors and windows 
 of the meeting-house are thrown open. Between nine 
 and ten o'clock the Sunday-school contingent com- 
 mences to gather, and the town and country children 
 exchange their greetings. The individual boys and 
 girls who composed those Sunday morning parlia- 
 ments have faded from my recollection, with one ex- 
 ception, and that was Curry's Bill Wallace. But Mc- 
 Carrell's " Fan " drops her load at the hitching rail, 
 and each one makes his or her way into the church. 
 Dr. McCarrell identified himself so closely with the 
 Sunday-school that to his dying day he was a con- 
 stituent part of it. And why a Sunday-school should 
 be less to any preacher, where providential circum- 
 stances do not intervene, than the morning and even- 
 ing congregation, I cannot conceive. In those days 
 the " Church Hymn Book " furnished our Sunday- 
 school music. We sang over and over " The Rosy 
 Light is Dawning," " Another Six Days' Work is 
 Done," " Dear Saviour, if these Lambs should Stray," 
 
 40 
 
(See obituary notice in Appendix) 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 " With Humble Heart and Tongue." After the de- 
 votional service the exercises commenced. 
 
 I want to lay a wreath to-day on the grave of 
 Thaddeus C. Noble, my first Sunday-school teacher. 
 The most prominent class in the school was the pas- 
 tor's Bible class. As I look from these after years 
 upon that Bible class I do think that it was the Gos- 
 pel net of the early days of the McCarrell ministry. 
 There was no time wasted on Bible puzzles, but the 
 Word of God was presented as able to save the soul. 
 In connection with that class I recall Joe Craig as 
 mighty in the Scriptures. In the course of time an 
 institution grew up which we youngsters styled " the 
 old boys' class." It was a kind of a theological ex- 
 change, where Squire McLain, Squire Craig, Squire 
 Bearly, my father, and others, used to search the 
 Scriptures, and reason out of them. The Interna- 
 tional Lesson System had not yet come into vogue, 
 and there was a sort of go-as-you-please use of the 
 Bible. In my opinion, the best exercise of that day 
 was the repetition of verses of Scripture committed 
 to memory. Of course, the Sunday-school Conven- 
 tion crank would have pointed his ridicule with our 
 Sunday-school. But when the judgment day makes up 
 its record, methinks that we will understand its use- 
 fulness as Heaven's roll-call announces the writing of 
 the Lord that this and that one were born there. One 
 of the great events of my boy-life was the Sunday- 
 school celebration of July 5, 1847. Dr. McCarrell 
 talked about it for weeks. The West Alexander School 
 joined us. Claysville swarmed with people. The pro- 
 cession was almost, if not altogether, the length of the 
 4 41 
 
History of the 
 
 street. I recall the form of Dr. McCluskey. Joe Hen- 
 derson, in behalf of the West Alexander, presented our 
 school a lot of testaments to be used for prizes. Then 
 came the feast, and we children were stuffed with gin- 
 ger-bread and cold water. 
 
 But while the Sunday-school is in session, let us 
 stand in the centre of the yard and look to the four 
 points of the compass. I turn to the north, and Dutch 
 Fork sends forth the Meloys, Zeiglers, Hayburns, 
 Moores, and Craigs; Brush Run its Flacks and 
 Georges; Taylorstown its Hodgens, Williamses, Wil- 
 sons. I look to the east, and down Warrell's Hill pour, 
 by carriage, horseback, and afoot, the McLains, Dona- 
 heys, Craigs, Currys, Hendersons, and Warrells. I 
 cast my eye along Warrell's lane, and from the south 
 pour into the pike the Lucases, the Woodses, the Fin- 
 leys, the Alexander girls, John McLain, the Sawhills, 
 and the Stewarts. I look to the southwest, and along 
 come the Hairs, the Griffiths, the Herrons, the Aber- 
 crombies, the Millses, the George McConaugheys, the 
 Porters, the Robinsons, the Johnnie Andersons. I 
 look to the west, and there appear on Porter's Hill the 
 Lairds, the Dennisons, and the Sam Bonars.* I look 
 
 * Says a venerable member of this church : '* The first 
 carriage I ever saw at Claysville was one that Mr. Donahey 
 owned — a sort of a wagon of a thing. A great curiosity it 
 was. I scarcely remember whether it had any springs or not." 
 
 Another person says that when she and her brothers and 
 sisters were children that their father and mother would ride 
 to church on horseback, and that they (the children) would go 
 in their bare feet until a short distance from town, when they 
 would put on their shoes, the usual place for the shoeing being 
 Billy Knox's lane. 
 
 42 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 down in the direction of the village, and as the men and 
 women of my week-day acquaintance enter the church- 
 yard, I cannot help but wonder at the transformation 
 Sunday clothes do effect upon the inhabitants of Clays- 
 ville. It was the day of the frock coat, the old-fash- 
 ioned swallow-tail, and satin vest; and when you saw 
 Mr. Cooper in his Sunday suit, Squire Bearly in his 
 swallow-tail, Pap and Anthony Mealy in their broad- 
 cloth, John Hoon in his store clothes, George Mc- 
 Conaughey looking like a doctor of divinity, Major 
 Irwin like a military officer off duty, Thomas Hender- 
 son in dark brown, Asbury Caldwell, and Jim Finley, 
 and Jim Woods, and Chester Abercrombie, and the 
 rest of the young men who sat in front of the choir, all 
 as spick and span as the weaver and tailor and shoe- 
 maker and soap and water and hair oil could make 
 them; and, along with all these, when you saw our 
 mothers in satin and silk and bombazine; the girls, 
 young and old, in every color of the rainbow, and on a 
 warm day clad in white; and the children in the re- 
 action consequent upon the torture of the Saturday 
 night scrub — I feel now, as I did then, that I was proud 
 of the appearance of the Sunday congregation of 
 Claysville. Since those golden days I have seen many 
 brilliant congregations, and have felt the influence of 
 architecture, music, and eloquence in impressing the 
 eye, the^ ear, and, I might say, the heart, but none of 
 them have wiped out memory's picture of the sturdy, 
 plain, Bible-believing, God-fearing, and God-worship- 
 ping folk that were wont to cluster around Jesus on 
 His day in the meeting-house on the hill. 
 
 The summons of the opening hymn or anthem by 
 
 43 
 
History of the 
 
 the choir soon filled the pews. The first psalm or 
 hymn was then sung. It was followed by the long 
 prayer. Then the Scriptures were read. Another 
 hymn was sung. Then came the sermon, the after- 
 prayer, and the last hymn, in their order. The an- 
 nouncements were made either before or after the last 
 hymn. 
 
 A chapter of reminiscence, brimful of inspiration, 
 yet not without its sprinkle of humor, might be written 
 on the service of song in the Claysville Presbyterian 
 Church. My first recollections are of a railing in front 
 of the pulpit, surmounted by a Bible-shaped piece of 
 wood, behind which one, if not two, clerks stood to 
 lead the singing. I have a very distinct impression of 
 Messrs. Robert Woods and George McConaughey. I 
 feel to-day the wonder with which, while as a boy, I 
 used to notice the width to which Mr. Woods was wont 
 to open his mouth as the Lord filled it with music. Mr. 
 McConaughey always seemed to start a tune as if he 
 expected a breakdown, but when the people found out 
 what he was after, they came to the rescue. The 
 congregation used Rouse's version of the Psalms of 
 David in my early childhood. I have not forgotten a 
 Sunday that my father brought home a new hymn- 
 book. 
 
 The days were when the singing school was the 
 glory of this region. The singing master was one of 
 the institutions. The Todd family, of West Alexander, 
 were famous as instructors in the art of sacred music. 
 Just about the time of Dr. McCarrell's advent a sing- 
 ing school was in progress, under the direction of a Mr. 
 Pease. He instructed both the adults and the young 
 
 44 
 
REV. A. A. MEALY 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 people by means of the violin. He closed his school 
 with a grand concert. As the result of his work a 
 choir was organized, than which, in my opinion, Clays- 
 ville never had a better. For several years it was a 
 feature of the religious service which attracted the 
 whole country around. I recall Mr. James Finley, 
 the tenor; Mr. James Woods, the boy alto, and Miss 
 Sarah McLain, the soprano. Another valuable in- 
 structor in sacred music was Mr. Coburn, who could 
 not live without his cup of tea. For several years 
 Mr. George Lucas was the faithful leader of the 
 choir, and after his departure to another State Mr. 
 Alexander K. Craig led the service of praise un- 
 til God called him to join the redeemed in the new 
 song of the heavenly choir. According to our fathers 
 and mothers, the music book of the early days was the 
 " Missouri Harmony." In my day it included the 
 " Psalmodist," the " Christian Minstrel," and the 
 " Presbyterian Psalmodist." 
 
 " And how my thoughts go backward 
 To Sabbaths gone so long, 
 When voices death and years have hushed 
 Joined with mine clear and strong ! 
 
 " In ' Dundee,' ' Mear,' and * Brattle Street,' 
 Or ' Windham's ' solemn strain, 
 \ Glad ' Coronation's ' joyous notes 
 And 'Lenox,' soft refrain." 
 
 The thought of that old choir stirs me with the plain- 
 tive flow of " Hebron," the sweet measures of " War- 
 wick," the heavenward lift of " Shirland," the longing 
 of " Balerma," and the heavenly swell of " Frederick." 
 
 45 
 
History of the 
 
 The service of prayer in our village had one char- 
 acteristic that tried the boys of the period, and that was 
 length. The long prayer was generally long. 
 
 The sermons of the time consulted length rather 
 than brevity. I grew up on three generally, but often 
 four particulars; three, four, or five remarks under each 
 particular, concluding with a repetition of the sermon 
 by way of application. I think that it is in accordance 
 with the truth to say that the Claysville pulpit through- 
 out its whole history has been given to the scriptural, 
 logical, doctrinal, uncompromising, direct, practical, 
 pastoral preaching of Christ and Him crucified. 
 
 The red-letter days of these olden times are the com- 
 munion seasons. The sacrament, Sunday, was an oc- 
 casion which drew the people for miles around. Or- 
 dinarily there was a four days' service, and generally 
 one, and sometimes two or three, strange ministers 
 were present. The reception of the elements by the 
 communicants in their pews was an innovation of com- 
 paratively late introduction in Claysville. To my 
 mind the venerable custom of celebrating the Lord's 
 Supper by means of tables has the advantage over 
 the modern custom in the way of impressive solemnity. 
 I, as a boy, felt that Christ was very near as the com- 
 municants approached and left the table; the opening 
 hymn being " 'Twas on that Dark and Doleful Night." 
 
 And those communion addresses — Noah, the 
 preacher of righteousness; Moses, the expounder of the 
 law; Samuel, the faithful minister; Elijah, the prophet 
 of fire; Isaiah, touched with the live coal; spirit-filled 
 Peter; the loving John; the irresistible Stephen; de- 
 voted Paul, once and again at the table of their Lord 
 
 46 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 and ours — made our communion seasons the house of 
 God and the gate of Heaven. And oh, how many of 
 the ministers of God who delivered those addresses, 
 how many of the communicants who heard them, have 
 gone through that gate to drink the new wine with 
 their Master in the kingdom of Heaven! 
 
 Right here I must interject a word about the weekly 
 prayer-meetings, which were held from house to house, 
 at the homes, alternately, of the villagers and country 
 people. To have tried to find anything sensational 
 in them would have been to search for hen-teeth. But 
 the same Jesus was in their midst that made the upper 
 room what it was on the Day of Pentecost, and the 
 house of Mary, the mother of Mark, what it was when 
 the prayed-for Peter knocked at the door a delivered 
 man. 
 
 Dr. McCarrell also, for many years, alternated the 
 winter season with the pastoral visit and the cate- 
 chetical class. The pastoral visit was a simon-pure 
 dealing of God with the individual soul, and the cate- 
 chetical class an effort to ground the people in the 
 truth. 
 
 Now, for a little while, let us transfer ourselves to a 
 Sabbath service of the olden time. On the right of the 
 pulpit sat the family of the pastor, the little boys then, 
 now in the service of the church. Back of that I recall 
 the Meloys and the Mehaffeys. Going toward the 
 door, on the north aisle, in the first wall seat on the 
 north side, are Mr. and Mrs. Hoon, who are still here 
 to testify for the Master they have served so long. 
 Then comes that grand figure, Mrs. Flack, the daugh- 
 ter of Dr. John Anderson. Mr. Mealy is still left to 
 
 47 
 
History of the 
 
 recall that bright-faced wife and mother whose old age 
 was like Heaven's benediction. And our old family 
 pew awakens thoughts unutterable. Oh, how much of 
 the Henderson, and, I believe, all of the Stewart pew, 
 are in yonder city on the hill! And those quaint 
 Alexander girls — Faithy's voice once heard was never 
 forgotten — as it made a person think of the North 
 of Ireland. Then the Bearlys and Brockmans, and 
 next, the Mecrackens; and how can I have forgotten to 
 notice the Ritezels in my way? I turn my face toward 
 the pulpit, and two or three seats before the pulpit 
 are rilled with the young men of the community. Then 
 come the Lucas pew and the Craig pew; and I 
 think of John as, with some college companion, he 
 enters the door; of Joe as he never turned an eye from 
 the preacher; of Will as he sleeps in a southern land. 
 Then Mr. Humes's; the McLains, ever present. I walk 
 over to the southwestern corner, and where are Mr. 
 and Mrs. McConaughey and Warren and Wylie and 
 Kate? — in Heaven. Then Mr. John Kelley's pew. 
 Stately Mrs. Dennison has exchanged her pew for a 
 place in the heavenly temple. Going along the wall 
 pews of the south aisle, Mr. and Mrs. Cooper are not 
 there; but I will never forget the white head that rose 
 above the entrance of the next pew — Mr. Warrell. 
 The next was occupied by Mr. Campsey. Not far be- 
 hind was one whom everybody knew to respect — John 
 Laird, than whom the Claysville Church never had a 
 more devoted adherent. I turn my face to the pulpit 
 again, and, passing along, see once more the Finleys, 
 the Woods, and the Donaheys. 
 
 And as I recall the families of this church and think 
 4 3 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 of such women as Mrs. William McLain; as the faith- 
 ful Mrs. McCarrell; as the noble Mrs. Flack; as that 
 exhibition of womanly dignity, Mrs. Thomas Miller, 
 formerly Mrs. Truesdell; as that quiet and noble 
 character, Mrs. Hugh Craig; as the motherly Mrs. 
 Robert Woods; as the excellent Mrs. McConaughey 
 (and this period can only properly be finished by 
 speaking of every wife and mother of the Claysville 
 Israel) — I say that if the ancient Horace felt that it 
 was something that he had raised a monument more 
 enduring than brass, I feel that in the history of this 
 church, in the men and women both at home and 
 abroad, in the citizens and soldiers who have been 
 faithful to their country and their God, the wives and 
 mothers of the Claysville Church, because they were 
 as brave as Deborah and as prayerful as Hannah, and 
 as true to their children and grandchildren as Eunice 
 and Lois, and as true to Christ as the women at the 
 cross and sepulchre, are able to point to this church, 
 this community, to those who live in it, to those who 
 have gone from it, and say, as Sir Christopher Wren 
 said of St. Paul's in London: " If you wish to see our 
 monument, look around you." 
 
 Thus I have endeavored to restore the palimpsest 
 of the Claysville Presbyterian Church. De Quincey 
 tells us that " a palimpsest is a membrane or roll 
 cleansed of its manuscript by reiterated successions." 
 He instances a parchment that originally contained a 
 Grecian tragedy. In the course of time the monks 
 wanted to use it, and made it the transcript of one of 
 their legends. Then the age of chivalry came on, and 
 somebody used it for a knightly romance. 
 
 49 
 
History of the 
 
 Now; the chemistry by which the monks thought 
 that they had erased the Grecian tragedy — by which 
 the authors of the knightly romance thought that they 
 had erased the monkish legend, was imperfect. The 
 more elaborate chemistry of modern times has restored 
 the original writing. The incidents which link this 
 church to every individual directly or indirectly con- 
 nected with it are like the original writing on that 
 parchment. That writing may be written over with 
 the toils and triumphs of earth, so written over that 
 we may not see this church's story of the individual. 
 But just as the romance from that Greek parchment, 
 which some young girl may have adored, has perished; 
 just as that knightly legend which may have deluded 
 some boy has gone — so all that this whole world is to 
 the men and women, the boys and girls of this church, 
 will fade away to show the story of what this church 
 has done for these men and women and boys and girls 
 in relation to eternity. I accommodate to my purpose 
 the following: 
 
 Chiselling for God 
 
 A stone-cutter was at work under his shed, chiselling 
 on a block of stone, preparing it to be placed in the 
 walls of some edifice. A friend stepping in asked the 
 question: 
 
 " What is to be done with this stone? " 
 " I have not seen the plan," was the stone-cutter's 
 reply; and on he went with his chiselling, content pa- 
 tiently and steadily to work day by day, getting it ready 
 for its designed place — chiselling, chiselling, chiselling. 
 
 50 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 The history of the Claysville Church is the history 
 of many patient and earnest workers who spent this life 
 chiselling for God — the faithful minister in his ap- 
 pointed sphere, the humble and devoted wife at home 
 among her children, and a thousand other workers 
 who steadily pursued their course, day after day, until 
 life ended. 
 
 They did not " see the plan," and yet they toiled in 
 hope. They knew that the great Architect knew 
 exactly where to place each stone in the building, and 
 they went on with their chiselling — it may be, beguil- 
 ing the weary hours with a song. 
 
 Think you the Master will not pay them their wages? 
 As in His presence they are enjoying their wages, they 
 speak to us from Heaven, saying: " He will." * 
 
 * Chancellor Day. 
 
 51 
 
History of the 
 
 A Sketch of Alexander McCarrell, D.D., 
 
 THIRTY-SEVEN YEARS PASTOR OF THE PRESBY- 
 TERIAN CHURCH OF CLAYSVILLE, PENN. 
 
 By Rev. William H. Lester, D.D., 
 Pastor of the Presbyterian Church of West Alexander, Penn. 
 
 The Psalmist's words : " The righteous shall be in 
 everlasting remembrance," may justly be applied to 
 our departed brother. " None knew him but to love 
 him." His pleasant manners, tender heart, fervent 
 piety, strength of Christian character, and devoted life 
 impressed every one who knew him. These qualities 
 under God were greatly blessed in promoting the 
 growth and strength of this church, and making it a 
 power in this community. 
 
 Alexander McCarrell was born near Cross Creek 
 village, Washington County, Pennsylvania, June 15, 
 1819. 
 
 Very precious memories clustered around the hour 
 of his childhood. His father, a moral man, did not 
 become a professed follower of the Saviour till quite 
 late in life. His mother was a devoted Christian. Her 
 example, prayers, and instruction left their impress 
 on his son — the " child of the covenant." He has 
 told me it was the aim and effort of her life that he 
 should become a minister of the Gospel. When only 
 
 52 
 
j^d^i^uzi^y^^L^aAx^C. 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 a small boy he was a constant attendant with her in 
 the Sabbath services of God's house. In early life he 
 became a subject of grace, and united with the church 
 of Cross Creek, of which John Stockton, D.D., was the 
 pastor. The mother found in her pastor a faithful 
 adviser and helper. lie assisted him in his studies and 
 prepared him for Washington College, from which he 
 graduated in 1841. Brother McCarrell regarded Dr. 
 Stockton as his " father in the Lord," and always spoke 
 of him with great respect as the man who, more than 
 any other, turned him to the Saviour and the ministry. 
 In the college his record was that of a diligent stu- 
 dent and a consistent Christian. In the town his 
 " godly walk and conversation," his straightforward 
 life, commended him to all. He was taken under the 
 care of the Presbytery of Washington in 1841. His 
 theological studies were under the direction of Dr. 
 Stockton. He was licensed April 17, 1844, and or- 
 dained by the same Presbytery, April 17, 1845. With 
 a heart full of the love of Christ and souls, he was 
 ready for his work. Previous to this he was married 
 to Miss Martha McLain, a daughter of Mr. Wm. Mc- 
 Lain, long a ruling elder in this church. Her brothers, 
 John and Joseph McLain, served in the same ca- 
 pacity many years, and have been a tower of strength 
 in the Claysville Church, withholding no labor, 
 money, or self-denial to promote its welfare. 
 
 In his wife he found a " helpmeet " worthy of his 
 heart and work. I have seldom seen a woman of more 
 tender, prayerful, consecrated spirit, whose whole life 
 was so bound up in her husband's work of saving 
 souls as was hers. 
 
 53 
 
History of the 
 
 He began his ministerial life in the church of Unity, 
 Greene County, Pennsylvania, in 1846, giving a part of 
 the time as a supply to the church of Claysville. His 
 labors were so blessed that in 1852 he was called to 
 this church, over which he was installed as pastor. 
 This relation continued until his death, 1881. The 
 Unity home was a log cabin in the yard of Mr. Brad- 
 dock, and was given to the young preacher without 
 rent. The salary was small ; the house had one room, 
 and the conveniences were few. But no murmurs 
 came from the occupants, no self-denials discouraged 
 them in their work; they sought not theirs, but them; 
 they labored to save souls, and they gathered in the 
 harvest. 
 
 Three children were born to them, on whom God 
 set the seal of His covenant blessing. Like their 
 parents, the sons have done a noble work in the church 
 of Christ. The father has told me that in the old log 
 church of Unity and the log house of one room they 
 had some of the happiest days and most blessed en- 
 joyments of their lives. The spirit of Christ in the 
 heart makes everything bright and beautiful, even in 
 poverty. 
 
 His life-work was, however, done in Claysville. 
 Thirty-five years he prosecuted his vocation without 
 interruption and with great success. His zeal was un- 
 tiring and his labors unremitting. In all this period of 
 pastoral work he took no vacations for bodily recu- 
 peration and rest, until infirmity of health compelled 
 it. He toiled on perseveringly, hopefully, until he 
 could no longer work for the Master. He died in the 
 pastorate — the harness on when he fell. This was 
 
 54 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 what he had prayed for and wanted — to go direct from 
 the earthly labor to the unending rest. 
 
 I will notice briefly only a few traits of the character 
 and life of Brother McCarrell. 
 
 I. He was an industrious man, prompt and faithful 
 in everything he undertook. He was not a man of 
 profound and varied learning. The constant calls in 
 all his ministerial life — for pastoral work, visiting the 
 sick, attending funerals outside his own congregation, 
 preaching in revival services in other churches, and his 
 own pulpit work — forbade this. His Bible, Concord- 
 ance, and a few wisely chosen books, well read, were 
 his books of study. As our congregations lay side by 
 side we were close neighbors, and I knew more of 
 his preaching than that of any other man in the Pres- 
 bytery. He did not point his sermons with sensational 
 incidents — nothing to provoke levity fell from his lips. 
 The sacredness of his calling and solemn import of his 
 message forbade that. " I am determined to know 
 nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified " per- 
 vaded every discourse. Doctrine, duty, and experi- 
 ence were happily combined in his pulpit efforts. 
 When he stood at the sacred desk his appearance was 
 so solemn, his words so tremulous with emotion, and 
 his soul so full of the tender and beseeching spirit of his 
 Lord, that every hearer felt he was in the presence of a 
 man who had just come from the mercy-seat and re- 
 ceived the anointing of the Holy Spirit. One sermon 
 preached in my own pulpit, in a time of revival, espe- 
 cially impressed itself on my mind. It was Eliezer's 
 appeal to the father of Rebekah for the daughter's 
 hand in marriage to Isaac, his master's son. " And 
 
 55 
 
History of the 
 
 now if ye will deal kindly and truly with my master, 
 tell me; and if not, tell me, that I may turn to the right 
 or to the left." It was a plea full of tears with souls 
 out of Christ for an immediate decision in the matter 
 of personal acceptance of the Lord Jesus. The sermon 
 was full of power. It was greatly blessed of God. I 
 felt then that he came up to Paul's measure of the 
 true minister of the Word: " We are ambassadors for 
 Christ, as though God did beseech you by us, we pray 
 you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." It 
 was " in the demonstration of the spirit and of power." 
 He often preached in this manner. No one ever 
 laughed under his sermons. Multitudes here wept. 
 With him the pulpit was too sacred a place for trifling. 
 He was a born Presbyterian. The doctrines set forth 
 in the Catechisms and Confession of Faith, he heartily 
 accepted and preached. They were the creed of his 
 head and heart; yet he was a man of broad Christian 
 views, ready to reach a fraternal hand to those who 
 differed from him. The first step looking to the union 
 of the old and new school branches of the church was 
 taken at the Assembly's meeting in Newark, N. J., 
 1864. Brother McCarrell was a member of that As- 
 sembly. About forty ministers and elders signed a 
 paper, of which he was one, in the interest of a union 
 of the two branches of the church. I asked him why, 
 in the absence of instruction from his Presbytery, he 
 did it. He replied, " It was my own act. We are all 
 brethren, and we must come together to do the Lord's 
 work." 
 
 2. In the spirit and power of prayer he surpassed 
 almost any one I have ever known. 
 
 56 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 In reading the private diary of Dr. Andrew Bonar, 
 published since his death, I was impressed with the 
 spirituality of the man born of prayer. A large part 
 of his waking hours was spent in prayer. He did 
 nothing except by prayer. I was reminded of Brother 
 McCarrell. He was a wrestling Jacob. His face, like 
 that of Moses, shone from spiritual contact with his 
 Lord. There was not a house in the Claysville con- 
 gregation that was not hallowed by his prayers. In 
 the sick-rooms of his people he was welcomed because 
 he was a " son of consolation " and prayer. I have 
 often seen him so overcome by his feelings that he 
 could hardly go on with the service. Not far from the 
 close of the Civil War, when brethren were alienated 
 and the spiritual condition of our border churches was 
 low, I assisted in a week's preaching before his winter 
 communion. The Sabbath was a stormy winter day; 
 the congregation was small, and there seemed to be 
 very little religious interest among the people. He 
 and his wife were in great distress over the condition 
 of the church. They went apart to pray. That night 
 it was all changed. The Spirit of the Lord came upon 
 the assembled people. More than a score of anxious 
 souls asked for prayer; the meetings were continued, 
 and a large number were converted and united with the 
 church. On the night of that Pentecostal outpouring 
 there Was little sleep in that house. I could hear that 
 man and woman, through the thin partition that sepa- 
 rated our rooms, agonizing in prayer until near the 
 break of day, and, Jacob-like, they prevailed. 
 
 3. Justice requires I should speak of Brother Mc- 
 Carrell as a pastor. In this work he excelled. He 
 
 5 57 
 
History of the 
 
 never was a strong and robust man, yet in all seasons 
 and in all kinds of weather, at all hours, he responded 
 to every call. His winning way, warm heart, and 
 well-chosen words fitted him for pastoral work. In 
 sickness, among his own congregation and those not 
 of his church, he was sought for and his labors greatly 
 blessed. 
 
 He was wise to win souls for Christ. Those in doubt 
 and spiritual trouble went to him for guidance and 
 counsel. He lifted the veil from many a doubting 
 Christian, and led him to the light and to peace. Anx- 
 ious inquirers sought him, and his happy way of deal- 
 ing with them was blessed in their conversion. 
 
 He went to every house in the congregation each 
 year in pastoral visitation, except the last year or two, 
 when he was unable through bodily infirmity. He 
 knew every member of the congregation personally, 
 and every child he could call by name. He loved the 
 children; they loved him. They felt at home with 
 him and enjoyed his company. He had the happy gift 
 of speaking to people in the matter of their personal 
 salvation as much as any man I have known. Like 
 one of whom I have read, " he looked on every man 
 he met as a possible saint," and he sought to have him 
 become such. There are peculiar persons in almost 
 every church, hard to approach on the subject of their 
 personal salvation. Pastors hesitate to do it. He did it, 
 even in the case of strangers, with such rare tact as 
 never to give offence and always to have a courteous 
 hearing. 
 
 He was a man of remarkable promptness in keeping 
 his appointments and fulfilling his engagements. He 
 
 53 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 never failed unless providentially hindered, and his 
 brethren felt he could always be depended upon. His 
 last work was done when he was physically unable for 
 it. It was the writing of the annual narrative of the 
 state of religion of this church for Presbytery. It was 
 written with a trembling hand, and when read he had 
 gone to the redeemed in Heaven. He was for many 
 years the stated clerk of the Presbytery. The minutes 
 were always correctly kept and with great care. If the 
 writing clerk blundered, or his work was illegible, it 
 was the frequent remark, " Brother McCarrell will 
 make it right when he transcribes them on the Presby- 
 terial Book," and it was left to him. 
 
 He was a conscientious and systematic giver to the 
 benevolent work of the church. He never had a large 
 income, but as money came to him, a tithe was set 
 apart to the Lord's cause. After his death a sum of 
 money was found in an envelope, appropriately 
 marked, to be given to the Boards. 
 
 He was an excellent Presbyter. He was wise in 
 shaping and carrying on the business of the body. I 
 never knew him to lose the balance of his temper, or to 
 say an unkind or ungentlemanly word in debate. His 
 self-control was such that he was never called upon to 
 retract or modify any remark he had made. While this 
 spirit of kindness was so manifest, this readiness to de- 
 fer td others was so marked, he was firm in his convic- 
 tions and decided in his opinions. When it came to 
 matters of conscience and principle he was as immov- 
 able as a rock. He would not yield to any man. He 
 was not obstinate, but unflinchingly true to what he 
 believed to be right. The last time he was at Pres- 
 
 59 
 
History of the 
 
 bytery was in December, four months before his death. 
 A matter to which he was opposed came before the 
 body. It was postponed to the April meeting for final 
 action. He arose to his feet with difficulty. He could 
 only stand by holding the back of the seat, so weak 
 was he. He said, " If that matter is passed upon af- 
 firmatively by this body, and I am alive, I shall enter 
 on the record my solemn protest." These words were 
 the last words he ever spoke in Presbytery, and were 
 indicative of the man. 
 
 4. He was a happy Christian. It could not be other- 
 wise. With a buoyant and a hopeful temperament, a 
 heart full of love to his Saviour, and a life so conse- 
 crated and abounding in good works, he must be a 
 happy man. He was too modest to parade his piety 
 to the world, but every one who knew him felt the 
 power and charm of that " life which was hid with 
 Christ in God." The peace within was manifested in 
 the spirit of the man in his daily life, which was a 
 " living epistle read and known of all men." 
 
 The blessed fruit of his work and life abounded. Its 
 hallowed influence radiated in an ever-widening circle 
 beyond all measurement. Many young men were pre- 
 pared for college by him who have entered the minis- 
 try. The impress of his character was stamped on 
 them, and, like him, they have and are doing good 
 work for the Master. Had he done nothing but this, 
 his life would have been well spent and worthy of 
 honor. 
 
 In the early years of his ministry, when his health 
 was comparatively good, he was sought for in pro- 
 tracted meetings by the neighboring churches. He 
 
 60 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 was adapted to this work and blessed in it. He la- 
 bored in many revivals in these congregations, and was 
 greatly blessed. 
 
 But he was married to the church of Claysville. He 
 could say to it, as Paul said to the Corinthian Chris- 
 tians, " Ye are in my heart to live and die with you." 
 If I were to give the result of Brother McCarrell's life 
 in a word, it would be the Church of Jesus Christ in 
 Claysville. 
 
 When he came to this congregation its membership 
 was small, its spirituality low, and the outlook not 
 flattering. He "coveted no man's silver or gold." 
 He came to " strengthen the things which remained 
 and were ready to die." He gave himself without any 
 reserve to the building up of this Zion. He had 
 anxious days and nights. He sowed in tears. He 
 reaped in joy. His labors were full of blessing. " What 
 hath God wrought! " This church, large in numbers, 
 abounding in liberality, vigorous in Christian work, 
 united in the bonds of the Spirit, is the God-given fruit 
 of his life. 
 
 He was not a perfect man. No one was so con- 
 scious of this as he. A sight of himself made him 
 humble and kept him close to the fountain of all fitness 
 and strength. I only claim for him the ability and 
 gifts, of other men, made attractive and useful by the 
 indwelling presence of his Lord. 
 
 In closing, I venture to lift the curtain of his home 
 life, and see him as the husband and father of the 
 family. Mrs. Martha McL. McCarrell was his long- 
 time wife and companion, passing away only a few 
 months before him. They were heart-satisfied with 
 
 61 
 
History of the 
 
 each other. So united were they in affections, SO similar 
 in their sympathies, ami SO one in their lite-work, it 
 " seemed as if they had but one soul between them." 
 She entered into his work with all her heart, and was 
 no less loved and respected, and. in her sphere, no less 
 useful than he. It was in every sense a Christian 
 family. The children look hack to that home, so full 
 of precious associations of their sainted father and 
 mother, with thankful hearts. When he was at the 
 meetings of Presbytery or preaching for his brethren, 
 he was contented until his work was done: then noth- 
 ing could keep him. His feet and heart were home- 
 ward turned. Their children were the children of the 
 covenant, becoming God's children in early life. The 
 eldest son. lion. S. J, M. McCarrell, is an elder in the 
 Presbyterian Church in Harrisburgh, and a faithful 
 worker in the vineyard. Rev. Win. A. McCarrell, of 
 Shippensburgh, Penn., Rev. J. J. McCarrell, of Mc- 
 Keesport, Penn., and Rev.T. C. McCarrell.of Waynes- 
 boro, Perm., are ministers in the Presbyterian Church. 
 It is enough to say of them — they honor the home, 
 name, and religion of their parents. One daughter, 
 Lizzie, was called to the Master in her girlhood, giving 
 comforting assurance of her interest in the Lord. 
 
 The summons to " come up hither " fust came to the 
 wife. It was a gradual failing of her strength, extend- 
 ing through several months. 1 was attending a fu- 
 neral of one of my members who died while on a visit 
 in Claysville. It was only a few days before her death. 
 1 went to their house. She was calm, and peacefully 
 awaiting the time of her departure. It was just such 
 a closing of the earthly life as one might look for in 
 
 62 
 
REV. W. A M'.CAKKEI.I. 
 
REV. J. J. McCARRELL, D.D. 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 one who had lived so near her Lord, and experienced 
 so fully of His saving grace. It was the going down of 
 the sun without a cloud in its sky. Her husband was 
 broken-hearted. He leaned upon me and wept bit- 
 terly. " She has been so much to me in my life, my 
 home, and my work, I cannot give her up. It will be 
 well with her — but what will I do? " were some of the 
 words that came from his stricken heart. From that 
 time he began to fail in health. Her death he re- 
 garded as the call to him to set his house in order. Un- 
 able to discharge his duties in the churcn, his people 
 relieved him of all care in this respect by securing 
 supplies for the pulpit for several months, a kindness 
 he fully appreciated. He sometimes thought he would 
 be able to take up his work, but rest brought no return 
 of strength. He gradually sank, and entered into 
 rest, April 18, 1881. 
 
 I was often with him during his illness. He was 
 assured of his interest in the Saviour. I think doubts 
 never troubled him as the end came near. It was a 
 happy going home. His funeral service was in the 
 church where he had so long preached, conducted by 
 his brethren of the Presbytery. A mourning congre- 
 gation followed him to the grave, in which he was 
 gently laid by his four sons, at the side of their sainted 
 mother. They rest securely under the covenant prom- 
 ise of " even so them that sleep in Jesus, will God bring 
 with Him." 
 
 63 
 
History of the 
 
 Address 
 
 By Henry Woods, D.D., 
 
 Professor of Latin in Washington and Jefferson College, and Pastor of the 
 East Buffalo Presbyterian Church, Washington County, Pennsylvania. 
 
 It is my privilege to bring greetings to the church 
 of Claysville on her diamond birthday from a congre- 
 gation which has special reasons for taking a deep in- 
 terest in these exercises. East Buffalo and Claysville 
 churches occupy contiguous territory. They were or- 
 ganized near the same time. They were united in 182 1 
 under the pastoral charge of Rev. Thomas Hoge, 
 neither of them having had a settled pastor before. Sev- 
 eral ruling elders exercised their office in both churches 
 at different periods in their lives. In this list are found 
 the names of Joseph Donahey, Sr., Archibald Brown- 
 lee, and Joseph Donahey, Jr. Many ties have been 
 formed in the passing years between the families of 
 these churches, that make them sharers in the mem- 
 ories we have met to embalm. 
 
 When I first came into this vicinity to enter Wash- 
 ington College as a student, the Claysville Church was 
 creditably represented in the halls of learning, as she 
 has been ever since. The affectionate regard in which 
 the pastor, Rev. Alexander McCarrell, was held by the 
 students whom he had encouraged to seek a liberal 
 education, was known to all associated with the Clays- 
 
 64 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 ville boys. At that time my acquaintance began with 
 the historian of to-day, Dr. Birch, an acquaintance 
 which soon ripened into a friendship which years have 
 only served to strengthen. As his guest in his father's 
 house, I spent a Sabbath in Claysville in the summer 
 of 1861, and preached for Dr. McCarrell at one of the 
 services. From that occasion dates my personal knowl- 
 edge of the man whose influence is still felt so widely 
 and so beneficently in this church and community. 
 My intercourse with him was only occasional, until I 
 became a member of the Washington Presbytery. In 
 the first year of my labor at Upper Ten Mile, we as- 
 sisted each other at communion services. Similar ex- 
 changes were made several times after I began my 
 ministry at East Buffalo, and to me they were seasons 
 of refreshment and delight, the memory of which I 
 would not willingly let die. As a guest at the manse, 
 when the services in connection with the Lord's Sup- 
 per were protracted more than is now customary, it 
 was my privilege to get something of an inside view of 
 the home life of one of the godliest men I have ever 
 known. And gradually was he sustained in his work 
 by his excellent wife, whose influence was a power not 
 only at home, but throughout the congregation. It 
 was not difficult to understand how, from a family 
 reared in such an atmosphere of virtue and piety, three 
 sons should go forth to preach the Gospel, and the only 
 other son become an elder in the church and an active 
 worker in every good cause. To this devoted pastor 
 and his wife the congregation was a larger family, the 
 care of which was upon their hearts in a degree only 
 less than the solicitude felt for their own children. The 
 
 65 
 
History of the 
 
 pastor possessed, in a measure that is quite unusual, 
 the confidence of the young people. Their plans in 
 life were freely communicated to him in the assured 
 expectation of sympathy and helpful advice. More 
 than one case has come incidentally to my knowledge 
 of young persons from this church who, being brought 
 under conviction of sin while attending school or 
 college, at once opened correspondence with the 
 home pastor as the one to whom they could open their 
 hearts with least reserve. At all points he touched 
 the lives of those under his ministry. Never have I 
 witnessed more sincere and affecting tributes of love 
 than were rendered by his people when this good 
 man was borne from this sanctuary to his last resting- 
 place. 
 
 As a member of Presbytery, Dr. McCarrell was es- 
 teemed and loved by his brethren. He was in many 
 respects a model Presbyter. He was punctual in his 
 attendance upon the meetings, ready for any duty that 
 was laid upon him, and free from bitterness toward 
 those from whom he differed in opinion. For fifteen 
 years he served as stated clerk, longer than any other 
 incumbent of the office in the history of the Presbytery. 
 The records of these years are a monument of his ac- 
 curacy and painstaking. 
 
 At the invitation of the session, I presided at the 
 meeting of the congregation which elected Rev. James 
 L. Leeper as Dr. McCarrell's successor. His ministry 
 was characterized by vigor and success, and its termi- 
 nation by a call to another field of labor was regretted 
 by all his co-presbyters. With the present pastor, my 
 interchanges have been frequent, and to him and his 
 
 66 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 people I tender hearty congratulations on this interest- 
 ing anniversary. 
 
 May Heaven's richest blessings be upon them in the 
 coming years, and upon the work that is to be done in 
 this part of the Lord's vineyard. 
 
 67 
 
History of the 
 
 Address 
 
 By James I. Brownson, D.D., LL.D., 
 Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Washington, Penn. 
 
 The Rev. Dr. James I. Brownson spoke in sub- 
 stance as follows : * 
 
 Having declined to deliver one of the formal ad- 
 dresses of this most interesting occasion, for reasons 
 wholly personal, I come the more gladly, under a modi- 
 fied invitation, to unite my warm congratulations with 
 those of the brethren who have preceded me. If I may 
 not rival their eloquent utterances, I can promise not 
 to be behind them in fervent sincerity. With each of 
 them I can heartily say: " Blessed is the church and 
 happy must be its officers and members who can re- 
 count the mercies of a covenant-keeping God which 
 have crowned the fidelity of nearly three generations of 
 Christian believers." 
 
 I am not a stranger to the history which has been 
 passing so richly in review before us to-day. I knew 
 the founder of this church, Mr. Hoge, as a college 
 boy gets to know a venerable leader in society. I was 
 a fellow-student with Mr. Gordon, who for a time sup- 
 plied the pulpit here. The Rev. Peter Hassinger and 
 myself for several years occupied contiguous pastor- 
 
 * Because of the lack of time this address was delivered 
 only in part. 
 
 68 
 
Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 ates in Westmoreland County, after his service in this 
 field. And I sat at the feet of Dr. McConaughey, my 
 revered college president, for nearly four years. Of 
 course, therefore I can add my testimony to their char- 
 acters, and to what I know must have been their 
 excellent work in the early upbuilding of this church. 
 The fruits of their evangelical labor still abide and will 
 ever, though they sleep. Besides the immediate good 
 accomplished by each in his own time and way, they 
 were joint contributors to the subsequent stability and 
 growth of the memorable pastorate of the late Dr. 
 Alexander McCarrell, so admirably portrayed by the 
 historian of to-day and other speakers. 
 
 At my entrance as a co-presbyter and pastor in 1849, 
 I found this faithful servant of the Lord in the middle 
 of his service as stated supply, which ripened into the 
 responsibilities of a pastor in 1852, and as such he con- 
 tinued under manifest blessing from Heaven until 
 death took him to his reward in the spring of 1881. 
 It was his habitual delight to " feed the flock of God, 
 over which the Holy Ghost had made him overseer." 
 It was his holy passion to " preach the Gospel both 
 publicly and from house to house." The material of 
 his official and private ministration was just that pro- 
 vided in the divine Word for souls made hungry and 
 thirsty for the bread and water of eternal life by the 
 Holy Spirit. His centre of Sabbath proclamation was 
 the cross of Christ, and through the week, whether 
 upon the street or in the homes of his people, as op- 
 portunity offered, this great theme inspired his tongue 
 and was radiant from his face. With the fullest sym- 
 pathy of a godly wife, his was a model Christian home, 
 
 69 
 
History of the Claysville Presbyterian Church 
 
 to which troubled souls resorted for spiritual counsel, 
 and from the altars of which his own children went 
 forth in like spirit to be living epistles of the same 
 grace. Written upon many human hearts, as well as 
 in the Book of God, are the indelible records of that 
 personal, family, and pastoral consecration. The wit- 
 nesses thereof shall never die. 
 
 But, after all, death does remove even the saints of 
 God from mortal sight. " The fathers, where are they? 
 And the prophets, do they live forever? " Where now 
 are your Hoges and your McCarrells; your Donaheys 
 and Brownlees; your McLains and your Craigs, and 
 your long line of officers and unofficial members of this 
 church; your good men and good women who filled 
 these seats in the past generations? Yet the church is 
 still, as ever, the living " body of Christ," with its 
 " members in particular." And this body, by vital 
 union with its head, shares his perpetual life. Newer 
 methods await younger hands and fresher blood for 
 their execution. Rev. James L. Leeper has carried 
 with him to his successful Indiana pastorate the record 
 of four years of very active and prosperous labor here, 
 and the Rev. Frank Fish, taking up the mantle of the 
 long succession in 1886, has, with ability and zeal, 
 brought down the history to this completed period of 
 three-quarters of a century. Let now the congratu- 
 lations of his brethren intermingle with those of his 
 people upon his attainment of the Lord's best earthly 
 gift to a pastor — a prudent wife! Long may they live 
 in joyful union, and large may the company be who 
 shall hail them as instruments of their salvation in the 
 day of the Lord Jesus! 
 
 70 
 
The Thomas Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
The Thomas Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 The diamond anniversary of the Claysville Presby- 
 terian Church awakened the deep interest of the ven- 
 erable Mrs. Esther Holmes Hoge Patterson, 1728 
 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, Penn., a daughter of the 
 Rev. Thomas Hoge. The result of that interest ap- 
 pears in a bronze tablet, which is described as follows 
 by the Claysville Recorder: 
 
 The members of and visitors at the Presbyterian 
 Church will take great delight in what is perhaps one 
 of the finest tablets in Western Pennsylvania outside 
 of the larger cities. It is to the memory of the father 
 of the Claysville and other Presbyterian churches, that 
 grand old man — Rev. Thomas Hoge. It is placed on 
 the wall back of the pulpit, about six feet above the 
 rostrum, and facing the audience. The tablet is of 
 solid bronze, four feet ten inches wide by two feet four 
 inches high, with round corners. Its weight is 375 
 pounds. Around the outer edge is a beaded border; 
 within is scrollwork about four inches deep. Next 
 the inscription is more beaded work, turning off at the 
 upper and lower central points and forming an oval 
 • frame for the excellent bust portrait of Rev. Hoge. 
 It is the work of the artist-sculptor, Joseph Lauber, 
 whose fame is not merely national, and whose portrait 
 
 6 73 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 of General Washington adorns the national Capitol. 
 To the left of the portrait is the inscription : 
 
 IN LOVING MEMORY OF THE 
 REV. THOMAS HOGE, BORN MAY 3, 
 1775, IN TYRONE, IRELAND ; DIED 
 JANUARY 23, 1846, IN PHILADEL- 
 PHIA, PENN'A. FIRST PASTOR AND 
 FOUNDER OF THIS AND OTHER 
 CHURCHES. 
 
 To the right are these words: 
 
 FOR OTHER FOUNDATION CAN 
 NO MAN LAY THAN THAT IS 
 LAID WHICH IS JESUS CHRIST.— 
 1 COR. 3:11. THIS TABLET IS 
 ERECTED BY HIS DAUGHTER, 
 ESTHER HOLMES HOGE PATTER- 
 SON. 
 
 The formal unveiling of the tablet took place on 
 Thursday, October 8, 1896, and is the subject of an 
 article in The Presbyterian Banner, October 14, 1896, 
 from which is taken the following extract: 
 
 HONOR TO A FIRST PASTOR 
 
 The town of Claysville, Washington County, Penn., 
 is located in the midst of a fertile agricultural region, 
 
 74 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 and was a place of considerable note in the palmy days 
 of the " National Pike," along which wagons and 
 stage-coaches moved in almost unbroken procession, 
 and its inhabitants and also those of the neighborhood 
 have been distinguished for general intelligence and 
 sturdy Presbyterianism. But it is not too much to 
 say that the special distinction of Clavsville clusters in 
 and around its Presbyterian church, of which the Rev 
 Thomas Hoge was the founder, and from which so 
 many ministers of the Gospel have gone forth 
 
 To the people of that church last Thursday was a 
 delightful occasion. On that day a tablet to the mem- 
 ory of its first pastor, Rev. Thomas Hoge, donated by 
 his daughter, Mrs. Esther Holmes Hoge Patterson, of 
 Philadelphia, was unveiled in the presence of a lar-e 
 assembly, consisting mostly of the grandchildren and 
 great-grandchildren of those to whom Mr Hoge had 
 ministered. The tablet, which is an exquisite work of 
 art, by Tiffany & Co., of New York, was presented to 
 the church, on behalf of Mrs. Patterson, by J. T Noble 
 Esq., and was received, on the part of the congrega- 
 tion, by the pastor, Rev. Frank Fish. Rev. Henry 
 Woods, D.D., of Washington and Jefferson College 
 read a sketch of the church of Buffalo, of which he is 
 pastor, also founded by Mr. Hoge. Rev. G. W F 
 
 u- ?•?" LL - D " ° f New York ' sketch ed the times 
 m which Mr. Hoge lived and labored, his character 
 and the results of his work. Among those present 
 were the following descendants of Mr. Hoge- Robert 
 Patterson (a son of the donor), wife and son, of Pitts- 
 burgh, and Miss Hazeltine, a granddaughter of Mrs 
 -ratterson. 
 
 75 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 Remarks 
 
 Made by J. T. Noble, of Claysville, Penn., October 8, 1896, 
 in Presenting Tablet of her Father by Mrs. Esther 
 Holmes Hoge Patterson to the Claysville Presby- 
 terian Church. 
 
 This church has just completed seventy-five years of 
 history, and is just entering upon the last quarter, 
 which, when completed, will make up the century of 
 history. In reviewing the seventy-five years already 
 completed we see much that is gratifying as well as 
 much that is full of sadness, such sadness as neces- 
 sarily comes to every church and every community. 
 There has been much that has required hardships 
 and self-denials in connection with this church, but, 
 after all, its work has been crowned with such suc- 
 cess as to make the hardships and self-denials on 
 the part of so many, matters of much gratification and 
 pleasure. The work of this church has been full of 
 successes, and it has proven itself in a multitude of 
 respects the equal of any church in the Presbytery of 
 Washington, and I think I may say the equal of any 
 church of like character in Western Pennsylvania. Its 
 success has been so great as to engage the interest and 
 admiration of people in many parts of the country. In 
 one respect I may say this church stands out very 
 prominently, and I think I may justly say as promi- 
 
 76 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 nently perhaps as any church in the Washington Pres- 
 bytery — for the number of young men who have be- 
 come prominent in professions, as well as for the large 
 number of useful citizens it has furnished to so many 
 different communities. 
 
 To no one is this church so much indebted for its 
 success and usefulness, and this community as well for 
 its rapid advancement and development, as it is to the 
 early efforts and privations of the Rev. Thomas Hoge. 
 Mr. Hoge bore much the same relation to this com- 
 munity and this region of country as did the Rev. 
 John McMillan and the Rev. Thaddeus Dodd to the 
 regions of country east and south of us. A man of 
 sturdy Scotch-Irish ancestry, well educated at the Uni- 
 versity of Edinburgh; possessing more means than was 
 usually found among ministers of that day; having a 
 strong and vigorous constitution, but with no desire 
 to be a preacher in that popular sense which his op- 
 portunities, his education, and his general surroundings 
 would have naturally afforded to him — but his whole 
 ambition and desire seemed to be simply to establish 
 Christianity permanently in this section of country 
 which was then upon the frontier. He was a man of 
 great ability. His ability was oftentimes recognized 
 by the frequency with which he was elected Moderator 
 of ttie Presbytery, and the many years that he served as 
 its Stated Clerk; and then, again, by being chosen as 
 Moderator of the Synod. No minister of his time was 
 more highly regarded by his co-presbyters and co- 
 workers than was Mr. Hoge; and, had he so desired, 
 his ability and the high order of his attainments, the 
 high esteem in which he was held, on several occasions 
 
 77 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 would have placed within his reach some of the most 
 desirable pulpits in the country; but he preferred to 
 labor in the way of extending and establishing Chris- 
 tianity by building churches in this new and unde- 
 veloped country, a work for which he was especially 
 fitted and for which he seemed to be especially set 
 apart. The hardships which he endured in coming on 
 horseback each and every Sabbath morning for a 
 period of fifteen years to preach to this congregation; 
 the hardships which he endured visiting the widely 
 scattered families in times of sickness and death; giv- 
 ing at least one-third of the money himself necessary 
 to erect this building, which has been occupied by 
 this congregation for the last sixty-five years — so fully 
 demonstrates his singleness of purpose, and his devo- 
 tion to that single object — to found Christianity in this 
 region of country for the generations that were to 
 come after. He was largely instrumental in having 
 this church erected at a time when the early settlers 
 were practically without money and were struggling 
 to clear these farms and establish homes for themselves 
 and families. Mr. Hoge was also valuable to the peo- 
 ple of this section at that time in many directions, pro- 
 curing for them assistance in the way of money, and 
 also furnishing them valuable information and advice 
 as to how to clear their farms and build themselves 
 homes, he being a man who was deeply interested in 
 agriculture and familiar with the wool-growing indus- 
 try, a nucleus to the thrift and prosperity which this 
 industry afterwards brought to all our people. 
 
 From 1835 to 1846 this church was supplied by a 
 number of pastors who, on account of a variety of 
 
 73 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 reasons, encountered many difficulties in endeavoring 
 to maintain this church organization, and not until the 
 year 1846, when the Rev. Alexander McCarrell became 
 pastor, were the splendid foundations that were laid by 
 Mr. Hoge builded upon successfully. Mr. McCarrell 
 possessed such qualities as enabled him to successfully 
 supplement the work which had been begun by Mr. 
 Hoge. He continued the pastor of this church for a 
 period of thirty-six years. Under his ministry the 
 lines put out by Mr. Hoge were extended in many 
 directions, and through his earnest labors this church 
 grew continuously. He was not a man who depended 
 so much upon the eloquence of preaching in the 
 achievement of his success, but by sympathy and the 
 gentleness of his nature, and the wonderful regularity 
 with which he performed all his duties, he most suc- 
 cessfully extended the boundaries of this church and 
 accomplished a remarkable work, so that when he laid 
 down his life in the year 1881, he left this church a 
 legacy to his successor, a stronghold which will stand 
 forever as a monument especially to the memory of 
 the Rev. Thomas Hoge and himself. 
 
 Mrs. Patterson, a daughter of the Rev. Thomas 
 Hoge, living at 1728 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, is the 
 only surviving member of the Rev. Thomas Hoge's 
 family, she having attained the ripe old age of eighty- 
 six. She is a most interesting and remarkable woman; 
 remarkably active in body, and still taking the keen- 
 est interest in all passing events. Mrs. Patterson has 
 more than an ordinary interest in this church to-day 
 because of her father's connection with it, he being 
 its founder and first pastor; and she herself feels that 
 
 79 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 to some extent she assisted her father in rocking it in 
 the cradle of its beginning, because it was her custom 
 in her early life to visit this church and the people of 
 this section with her father, being acquainted with 
 many of the old families whose names are recorded on 
 the first rolls of this church, a number of which she 
 has recalled to me in conversations during the last 
 year. Mrs. Patterson feels a just pride in the history 
 and the work of this church. When we come to re- 
 view the seventy-five years of history of this church it 
 is certainly a history that is remarkable, and affords 
 to no one more, perhaps not so much, gratification 
 and pleasure than to Mrs. Patterson. Her father was 
 to this country a benefactor, whose memory the mem- 
 bers of this congregation and the people of this region 
 will ever cherish and hold in lasting regard. 
 
 Mrs. Patterson has desired me to convey her kind- 
 liest greetings to this congregation to-day, and to as- 
 sure you that in the closing days of her life she retains 
 the deepest interest, in fact an interest that she never 
 felt before, in the welfare of the people here and the 
 prosperity of this church. She desires me to say that 
 it would have given her the greatest of pleasure to 
 visit these scenes of her early days had it been possible 
 that her surroundings would have permitted such a 
 visit. Nothing would have given her greater pleasure 
 than to have been present at these interesting exer- 
 cises which are in honor of her estimable father. She 
 desires me to formally present to you this beautiful 
 tablet, accompanied with her best wishes for the wel- 
 fare and for the continued growth of this church, and 
 hopes that it may ever serve as a reminder of the long 
 
 80 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 years of the labor of love which her father so highly- 
 enjoyed and so earnestly prosecuted in this new coun- 
 try in his early manhood; a love which he so fittingly 
 and so feelingly emphasized by preaching his farewell 
 sermon to the people here in whom he had such an 
 abiding interest, from the text, " And finally, Brethren, 
 I say farewell." 
 
 81 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 Reception of the Tablet 
 
 By Rev. Frank Fish, 
 
 Pastor of the Presbyterian Church, Claysville, Penn. 
 
 The Committee on Arrangements has given me the 
 honor, which I gratefully acknowledge, of being the 
 Claysville Presbyterian congregation's representative 
 in formally receiving this beautiful, artistic, and costly 
 tablet — or, at least, the custodianship of it — a solid 
 work of bronze, 4 feet 10 inches long by 2 feet 4 inches 
 high, weighing 375 pounds, requiring weeks for its 
 making; the work of the first artists in the land; a lov- 
 ing daughter's tribute to the memory of the founder 
 of our church. 
 
 Allow me to say through you, Mr. Noble, the 
 deputed representative of Mrs. Patterson in the pres- 
 entation of this memorial of her revered father, that 
 we heartily thank her for intrusting us with such a gift, 
 and promise that we will always give it the care that 
 its value and importance demand. 
 
 We thank her for the honor she has put upon us, 
 the favor she has done us, the lesson she has taught us, 
 and the blessing she has given us. 
 
 We thank her for the honor she has put upon us. 
 To be the recipients, or even the custodians, of a gift 
 so costly — such a work of art, so lasting in value and 
 condition; such an ornament to the building, both this 
 
 82 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 and any succeeding building-, however handsome — is 
 no slight honor. We appreciate it. 
 
 We thank her for the favor she has done us. The 
 Rev. Thomas Hoge, in starting this church, opened 
 up a spring of living waters, which have flowed on in 
 increasing volume under his own and succeeding min- 
 istries; a stream of Gospel privileges, church ordi- 
 nances, Sabbath observance, Bible study, moral and 
 religious influences, and other blessings which have 
 purified and ennobled our community, our homes, our 
 friends, our souls, our lives, and our eternal future. 
 In starting this church, Mr. Hoge planted a tree of 
 life, a Gospel tree, whose shade has protected multi- 
 tudes from the scorching heat of sin and sorrow, whose 
 leaves have been healing to many a sin-sick soul, and 
 whose fruit has been the food and delight of saved 
 spirits, many of whom are now in glory. For starting 
 this stream of spiritual blessings, for planting this tree 
 of life, we are the debtors of Rev. Thomas Hoge. Yea, 
 for this building, now sixty-six years old, itself a monu- 
 ment to his labors, precious to many from its sweet 
 associations and memories of loved ones now in 
 Heaven; of souls borne into the kingdom of Christ; 
 of hearts cheered, comforted, and inspired, we are the 
 grateful debtors of Mr. Hoge. As he is thus a man 
 whom in gratitude we delight to honor, it is a favor to 
 us when honor is done his memory; when publicity 
 and permanence are given to his ministry; when this 
 costly tablet is erected as his memorial to be observed, 
 studied, and reflected on Sabbath after Sabbath, and to 
 keep his name and work fresh and bright for perhaps 
 hundreds of years. Whoso honors our benefactor 
 
 83 
 
' The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 does us a favor. For this favor his daughter has done 
 us, we thank her. 
 
 We thank her for the lesson she has taught us. What 
 a graceful act is this honor done a father! Observers 
 of the times tell us that the young of these days need 
 badly to learn the duty of the fifth commandment. 
 Flippant speech, heedless disregard, slighting treat- 
 ment, indifferent feelings towards parents, are too 
 common. What an object lesson of filial respect is 
 this costly tablet! A picture right before our eyes of 
 filial love, pouring out treasure on the honored parent. 
 Were Thomas Hoge to enter that door to-day which 
 he used to enter, and behold this tablet to his mem- 
 ory, would not his heart be moved, his lips tremble, 
 and his eyes fill with tears at this exhibition of a daugh- 
 ter's love and respect? With this tablet before the 
 eyes of the children and youth of this congregation, 
 saying in trumpet tones, " Honor thy father and thy 
 mother, that thy days may be long upon the land 
 which the Lord thy God giveth thee," our young peo- 
 ple will be constantly encouraged and stimulated to 
 give honor, obedience, and reverence to their parents, 
 even though at heavy expense of comfort and pleas- 
 ure. As parents, teachers, and friends of the young, 
 interested in their welfare and well-doing, we feel 
 grateful for this object lesson of honoring parents. 
 
 Churches and tablets, stone and bronze, will all 
 crumble into dust, but an act of love, a deed of duty 
 like this, will never perish. Engraved on God's im- 
 perishable tablet, the record of this beautiful tribute 
 to a father's memory and work, with all other deeds 
 of love and righteousness, wil shine out and be read 
 
 8 4 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 with admiration by redeemed throngs when this tab- 
 let and church and world will be no more. 
 
 We thank her for the standard she has set our pulpit 
 and church. Foundation-layers determine the shape 
 and character of the building. The founders of our 
 country — the Pilgrims, the Huguenots, the Quakers, 
 the Scotch-Irish — determined the Christian, Protestant 
 character of the United States. So the founder of a 
 church determines the character of that church. As 
 this admirably appropriate text on the tablet reminds 
 us, Father Hoge founded this church on Jesus Christ, 
 the only foundation for any Christian church, or creed, 
 or character, the foundation already laid by God Him- 
 self, the Giver of Christ. On Jesus Christ — the Per- 
 son Jesus Christ, the Gospel of Christ, the Bible of 
 Christ, as indorsed or authorized by Him, where alone 
 Jesus Christ is found — were this church of Claysville 
 and that of East Buffalo founded. 
 
 So this tablet, with its record of foundation-laying, 
 with its scriptural description of the foundation laid, 
 with the noble face of the human founder visibly set 
 forth, and his eye now watching the course of this 
 church from above the pulpit where he himself 
 preached the old, old Gospel truths, is now a public 
 plan — the architect's plan — to direct all succeeding 
 builders how to build up the church and character of 
 this people, an anchor to hold this pulpit and church 
 to the old moorings, to Christ and the Bible. In the 
 shadow of this tablet this pulpit and church cannot, 
 dare not, drift away into a new theology, another Gos- 
 pel, a mutilated Bible, a different Saviour. This face 
 and record of him who laid the foundation true to his 
 
 85 
 
rih- Hogi hitmorial Tablet 
 
 Master .mil commission would publicly rebuke .uui 
 denounce any such depai ture. 
 
 Will you then, Mr. Noble, extend to Mrs. Patterson 
 our gratitude and ou] good wishes? Our desire, hope, 
 and prayei are thai in these last days oi her long life 
 she in.i\ more than evei enjoy the calming peace and 
 the gladdening hope and all the precious promises her 
 revered father held out here to the people of his day. 
 
 \s she enters and passes through the valley of the 
 shadow ot death, may she find the l .ord Jesus w ith her. 
 lu-r Shepherd; His rod and staff comforting her. ac- 
 cording as her father taught the people here. When 
 the silver cord is loosed and the golden howl is broken, 
 
 when the lleshlv taheruaolc is dissolved. and, true to her 
 father's ( rOSpel, her soul is taken up to 1 leaven to he at 
 home with Christ, then may she receive the welcome, 
 the crown, the home, the glory, her lather preached 
 here, ami there ma\ she meet her sainted father, and 
 he forever with him. in the rest, the sons;', the service 
 of the heavenly lite; and with him and all her loved 
 ones enter into all the blessings of the eternal home 
 
 he pictured out to the people here. We deeply regret 
 
 her inability to he present with us to dav. and our 
 inability to look upon her face, hut if never in this lite, 
 yet in the city of God we hope, by the grace of our 
 I oul. to he permitted to see her face to face and en- 
 io\ her and her sainted father, to the influence of whose 
 
 labors we are largely indebted for our blessed hopes. 
 
 May the 1 leaven of Thomas Mode's preaching and 
 >yment he the home of us all! 
 
 
7 he Iloge Memorial Tablet 
 
 Address 
 
 I5y George W. F. BlRCH, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 We arc here to-day because the history of the 
 Christian church in this community and the reverent 
 love of a child and grandchildren for an honored an- 
 tor testify, through tin- tablet which has just been 
 unveil':'!, that the good which Thomas Hoge did dur- 
 ing the seventy and more years of mortality was not 
 interred with his hones when he was laid in the house 
 appointed for all living. And while i appreciate the 
 • iiMiifi- ance of the poet's appeal : 
 
 "Can storied urn or animated bust, 
 
 to its i arth n i all the fleeting dust ? " 
 
 yet 1 must say that the face which stands out from this 
 tablel recalls that command of the Emperor Con- 
 Btantine l>y which the cities of Greece and Asia were 
 despoiled of tlnir monuments to arid to the attractions 
 of Constantinople. 'I << this Edward Gibbon refers in 
 his "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman 
 Empire" when he writes, "The trophies of memora- 
 ble wars, the objects of religious veneration, the most 
 finished statues of the gods and heroes of the sages 
 and poets of ancient, times, contributed to the splendid 
 triumph of Constantinople/' and gave occasion to the 
 remark of the historian Cedrenus, who observes with 
 some enthusiasm " that nothing- seemed wanting ex- 
 
 87 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 cept the souls of the illustrious men whom those ad- 
 mirable monuments were intended to represent." 
 
 So on this day, when this old meeting-house makes 
 its mark as the " Westminster Abbey " of Claysville, 
 the fact that the bas-relief which centres our interest 
 on this occasion, is an exact copy of a wax portrait 
 which reproduced its living subject eighty-five years 
 ago, and that in it persons now living recognize the 
 founder and the first pastor of the Claysville Presby- 
 terian Church — this fact, I insist, is enough to make 
 our enthusiasm burst forth in the word: Nothing 
 seems wanting here but the soul of the good and faith- 
 ful man whom this admirable work of art is intended 
 to represent. " Nothing seems wanting," did I say? 
 Indeed, it does only seem so. For the Holy Ghost has 
 given us the story of the proto-martyr Abel in order 
 that we may know that in the faith which has had, does 
 have, and will have its outcome in the history of this 
 church, we have the soul, beaming from the eye and 
 swelling forth from the lip, of this likeness of Thomas 
 Hoge. For by this church he, being dead, yet speak- 
 eth. The value of the historical pictures hanging in 
 the Rotunda of the Capitol at Washington which were 
 executed by John Trumbull consists in the fact that 
 the interest in the figures presented in those paintings 
 finds its reason in the consideration that for the most 
 part they are the life-likeness which the painter trans- 
 ferred to the canvas. A fellow-artist paid a high com- 
 pliment to Gilbert Stuart when he remarked, " How 
 fortunate it was that a painter existed in the time of 
 Washington who could hand him down looking like 
 a gentleman ! " One of the lights of English literature 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 tells us that " portrait painting is painting from recol- 
 lection, and from a conception of character, with the 
 object before us to assist the memory and understand- 
 ing." 
 
 So the artist who framed the wax into the life-like- 
 ness which reappears in this bronze, deserves our 
 thanks for handing down the one whom we honor to- 
 day, looking like a gentleman, and has conveyed to us 
 a character study which it will be the work of this 
 occasion to delineate. This delineation, rightly per- 
 formed, will be a demonstration of the Scripture pro- 
 verb: "The memory of the just is blessed," as it will 
 be the revelation of a godly parent, a faithful minister, 
 a public benefactor, an individual contribution which 
 the Bible has immortalized in the eleventh chapter of 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews. But if that portrait could 
 speak, the godly, faithful, benevolent man would tell 
 us that just as faith-filled Abraham sometimes dis- 
 trusted God; as patient Moses was impatient; as brave 
 Elijah fled from Jezebel; as the man after God's own 
 heart, David, stained his career with an act of gigantic 
 iniquity; as Time's recording angel has linked forever 
 Peter's noble confession with Peter's base denial, so he 
 fought his battle with the imperfections of human 
 nature, and entered Heaven, not on account of in- 
 herent righteousness, but on account of imputed 
 righteousness, as he preached and prayed and lived the 
 truth set forth in the Thirty-second Psalm: 
 
 " Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin 
 is covered. 
 
 " Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not 
 iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile." 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 And like David in his climb toward Heaven, he made 
 descents, but every restoration was a higher ascent. 
 
 This delineation will also be a demonstration of the 
 proposition that the undercurrent of the progress of 
 Christianity in general, and of this church in particular, 
 in this community, is the ministry of Air. Hoge. We 
 are told that " it was long a subject of wonder how 
 the water is always flowing into the Alediterranean Sea, 
 whilst there is apparently no outlet, till it was explained 
 by ascertaining its undercurrents. In 1683 such a 
 strong undercurrent was discovered, which goes out by 
 the Straits of Gibraltar. A vessel full of stones was 
 lowered, and the current was found to be so strong 
 that it dragged the boat along, despite the upper cur- 
 rent." 
 
 So when human life commenced to congregate in 
 this town, Mr. Hoge turned into its channel the 
 streams of that river which makes glad the city of our 
 God. Once and again the moral current of this church 
 and community has been in the wrong direction, but 
 because the force of the undercurrent of the olden 
 time has not been, to use the word of another, " tran- 
 sient like Cherith, nor muddy like the Nile, nor furi- 
 ous like Kishon, nor treacherous like Job's deceit- 
 ful brooks, nor ' naught ' like those of Jericho," this 
 church and community have, in the main, shown the 
 gladness of the city of our God, as the streams of this 
 undercurrent have appeared in Ralph Erskine's classi- 
 fication : " the perfections of God, the fullness of Christ, 
 the operations of the Spirit running in the channel of 
 the covenants of promise." 
 
 The sight of this memorial will awaken and make 
 90 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 permanent a new interest in the history of this church 
 and congregation. During the preparation of this 
 paper an issue of the New York Observer came to 
 hand, and I found in it an item which reads as follows: 
 
 " Can the common people be made to take an interest in 
 history ? It appears that they can be, if only the right means 
 are employed for that purpose. A much needed step, for 
 example, has lately been taken in the direction of making 
 Westminster Hall, in London, more evidently a symbol of his- 
 tory to the crowds who every week visit it. A tablet has lately 
 been put up in the wall close to the stairs which descend 
 into the crypt, thus marking the position of an archway which 
 for upward of one hundred and thirty years was the principal 
 means of access to the old House of Commons. Another 
 inscription locates the spot where the Earl of Stafford stood 
 during his impeachment before the House of Lords. It is said 
 that the Saturday crowds who visit Westminster invariably 
 throng around a tablet, that has been in position some time, 
 which shows the place where Charles I. stood his trial. It is 
 clear that the run of people appreciate history when they know 
 where the history is." 
 
 This quotation is the voice of our own experience. 
 Every visitor to Washington City stops to think when 
 he notices on the floor of the Pennsylvania Depot the 
 brass star that marks the spot where President Garfield 
 fell. As you ride over the Pennsylvania Railroad from 
 Monmouth Junction to Freehold, N. J., as you ap- 
 proach the latter place you pass a signboard with the 
 inscription, "Moll Pitcher's Well," recalling the woman 
 heroine of the bloody battle of Monmouth, which was 
 no insignificant factor of the success of the American 
 Revolution. The first time I was in Hartford, Conn., 
 I hunted for the site of the Charter Oak, and it was a 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 1 1 satisfaction to read the story carved on the mon- 
 ument that marked it. 
 
 So this memorial will be a memory of childhood; a 
 
 permamenl reminder of the wilderness which saw the 
 
 [innings of fliis tabernacle of Divine worship; an 
 
 index finger which will help the antiquarian in his 
 
 studio <>f the past. 
 
 The proper commencement of a sketch of Thomas 
 Hoge is a -lance at the heraldic story of his name. 
 From Burke's "Landed Gentry of Great Britain and 
 Ireland " and other authorities the statement is drawn 
 which runs as follows: "It is the well-known Nor- 
 wegian name of many a fierce viking, a word which 
 recalls the private bands of Northmen who plundered 
 the coast of Europe in the eighth and ninth centuries, 
 and who are no inconspicuous figures in the traditional 
 and probably mythological history of America. The 
 ancienl Scandinavia (the modern Norway and Sweden) 
 was the home of those Gothic tribes who brought with 
 them from the cradle of humanity the religion and 
 language of the Aryan race. Aryan is a name prob- 
 ably meaning ' noble,' given to themselves by the 
 ancestors of the leading nations of Europe and India. 
 As yet they are a small people of Central Asia, feed- 
 ing their flocks near the source of the Oxus. They 
 were the direct descendants of Japheth. 
 
 "The name may be found in various nationalities, 
 as follows: Germany, Iloche; France, Hugo and 
 Hogue; Norway, Hacon and Hang; Holland, Haig 
 and Hague; Scotland, Hogg, Hoge, and Hog; Den- 
 mark, Hooch; Saxon, High and Haah. In England 
 the name is generally written Hogg, but it occurs in 
 
 92 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 old family writings and papers as Hoogg, Hogge, 
 Hodge, and Hoddge. 
 
 " The coat of arms of the Hoge family of Scotland 
 presents — argent, a cross crosslet; sable, between three 
 bears' heads; erased azure; crest, an oak tree — mean- 
 ing, I suppose, that the members of the family who 
 made that coat of arms their sign manual were ready 
 to lay down their lives to the death in behalf of the 
 cause which they defended. 
 
 " So that the ancient family of Hoge, whether we 
 spell the name Hogg or Hog or Hoge, was of no vul- 
 gar origin, as its members have claimed their descent 
 from one Haug of Norway, a gallant robber and de- 
 stroyer in his day, who doubtless praised Odin and 
 Thor by drinking from a cup made from the skull of 
 a victim. 
 
 " The great antiquity of the surname of Hog in Scot- 
 land will appear, as we learn that its use is coeval with 
 the retirement of Cospatrick, Earl of Northumberland 
 about the time of the Norman Conquest. The sur- 
 name became hereditary in the reign of Malcolm Can- 
 more, and was first assumed by the proprietors of the 
 land of Hogstown, in the shire of Angus. In the 
 bond of submission in 1296 (six hundred years ago) 
 Alexander Hog is styled Alexander De Hogstown. 
 We^can at least conceive something of the nature of the 
 environment of Alexander De Hogstown when we 
 remember that the leading figure in the events which 
 preceded and resulted in the accession of Malcolm Can- 
 more to the throne was the Macbeth in whose case 
 the truth of history has been sacrificed to the fancy 
 with which William Shakespeare filled its framework. 
 
 93 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 So that the man who seems to have been the success- 
 ful general who led in the revolution which overthrew 
 Duncan and confirmed his pretensions to the throne — 
 the man who during eighteen years sustained his 
 sovereignty, showed liberality to the church, and fell 
 at last, for aught we know, like a hero — this man 
 comes down to us linked with the madness of Lady 
 Macbeth, the murder of Duncan, the ghost of Banquo, 
 the revenge of Macduff, as facts attending his career 
 were transformed by Shakespeare to point the moral 
 he had in view. 
 
 " The heraldic story tells us that one of the Hogs of 
 Scotland landed in Ireland in 1656. This member of 
 the Hog family doubtless found Ireland prepared for 
 his coming by the policy of Oliver Cromwell. The 
 iron rule of that man of renown had, according to 
 Macaulay, ' waged war resembling that which Israel 
 waged on the Canaanites; smote the idolaters with the 
 edge of the sword, so that great cities were left without 
 inhabitants; drove many thousands to the Continent; 
 shipped off many thousands to the West Indies, and 
 supplied the void thus made by pouring in numerous 
 colonists of Saxon blood and of Calvinistic faith.' " 
 
 So when Thomas Hoge was born, May 3, 1775, the 
 family which still exists in England, Ireland, Spain, and 
 the United States had been in Ireland one hundred and 
 nineteen years. At his birth and throughout his 
 childhood and young manhood Ireland was in a state 
 of ferment, political and religious. On the 19th of 
 April preceding the date of his birth (an interval of 
 fourteen days), the American Colonists had unfurled 
 the flag of freedom as a thing to die for at the battle of 
 
 94 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 Lexington. It was as a boy who had passed his eighth 
 year that he heard of the treaty of peace which con- 
 firmed Great Britain's acknowledgment of the thirteen 
 colonies as free and independent States. A boy would 
 not be indifferent to the circumstances set forth by 
 John Mitchel in his " History of Ireland," that " All 
 eyes in Ireland were turned to this impending strug- 
 gle, and the obvious community of interest which 
 Ireland had with those transatlantic colonies, made 
 their case the theme of conversation in private circles 
 as well as of debates in Parliament. The attention of 
 the country was still more strongly aroused when the 
 Continental Congress, amongst other forcible ad- 
 dresses issued at this time (1774), directed one to the 
 ' People of Ireland.' That prince among orators, that 
 distinguished Henry Grattan, declared that the ' lib- 
 erties of America were inseparable from the liberties 
 of Ireland; that the rights of America were the only 
 hope of Ireland and the only refuge of the liberties 
 of mankind.' " 
 
 From the time that Mr. Hoge drew his first breath 
 until he fled from his native land during the Rebellion 
 of 1798, the noise of conflict filled his ears. Mr. Hoge 
 grew up in a country which a statesman declared to be 
 unfit to govern itself on account of its " corrupt aris- 
 tocracy," " ferocious commonalty," " distracted gov- 
 ernment," and " divided people." An integral part of 
 Mr. Hoge's life in Ireland is related in Green's " His- 
 tory of the English People," as follows: " An associa- 
 tion of ' United Irishmen,' begun among the Protes- 
 tants of Ulster with a view of obtaining Parliamentary 
 reform, drifted into a correspondence with France 
 
 95 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 and projects of insurrection. The Catholic peasantry, 
 brooding over their misery and their wrongs, were 
 equally stirred by the news from France, and their 
 discontent broke out in the outrages of ' Defenders ' 
 and ' Peep-o'-day Boys,' who held the country in 
 terror. For a while, however, the Protestant land- 
 owners banded together in ' Orange Societies,' and 
 held the country down by sheer terror and blood- 
 shed. 
 
 " At last the smouldering discontent and disaffection 
 burst into flame. Ireland was, in fact, driven into 
 rebellion by the lawless cruelty of the Orange yeo- 
 manry and the English troops. 
 
 " In 1796 and 1797 soldiers and yeomanry marched 
 over the country, torturing and scourging the ' crop- 
 pies,' as the Irish insurgents were called, in derision 
 from their short-cut hair. Their outrages were sanc- 
 tioned by a Bill of Indemnity, passed by the Irish 
 Parliament, and protected for the future by an Insur- 
 rection Act, and a suspension of the habeas corpus. 
 Meanwhile, the ' United Irishmen ' prepared for an 
 insurrection which was delayed by the failure of the 
 French expeditions, on which they had counted for 
 support, and, above all, by the victory of Camperdown. 
 Atrocities were answered by atrocities, when the revolt 
 at last broke out in 1798. Loyal Protestants were 
 lashed and tortured in their turn, and every soldier 
 taken was butchered without mercy. 
 
 " The rebels, however, no sooner mustered fifteen 
 thousand men strong, in a camp on Vinegar Hill, near 
 Enniscorthy, than the camp was stormed by the Eng- 
 lish troops, and the revolt utterly suppressed." 
 
 96 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 I have not been able to learn the precise part which 
 Mr. Hoge took in the Rebellion of 1798. 
 
 As Dungannon, a town in his native county Tyrone, 
 was the scene of the famous Convention of the Vol- 
 unteers in 1782, the probability is that the youth of 
 seventeen was a champion of the constitutional auton- 
 omy of Ireland. 
 
 The significant factor in the career of Thomas Hoge 
 is his attendance at the University of Edinburgh, 
 which must have commenced, if it were not completed, 
 during the second decade of his life. As to the advan- 
 tages which he enjoyed at that notable seat of learning, 
 it is enough to say that the faculty numbered among 
 its members some of the greatest scholars of the 
 age. 
 
 Dugald Stewart was in the chair of moral philoso- 
 phy, who, in Lord Cockburn's estimate, " was one of 
 the greatest of didactic orators, recalled the finest of the 
 old eloquent sages," and warranted the assertion that 
 " no intelligent pupil of his ever ceased to respect 
 philosophy, or was ever false to his principles, without 
 feeling the crime aggravated by the recollection of the 
 morality that Stewart had taught him." As the course 
 of moral philosophy, besides ethics proper, included 
 lectures on political philosophy, the thought is sug- 
 gested that Thomas Hoge's connection with the Irish 
 Rebellion may have been his application of Stewart's 
 lectures on the theory of government. 
 
 The head of the Edinburgh faculty during Thomas 
 Hoge's student life was the distinguished Principal 
 Robertson, whose rank in philosophy and literature 
 will be understood as I name the historic triumvirate 
 
 97 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 of the eighteenth century — Hume, Robertson, and 
 Gibbon. 
 
 As I name Sir Walter Scott, who made forgotten 
 history sparkle with the electric fire of his imagination; 
 Francis Jeffrey, who brought to the Edinburgh Re- 
 view the work of at once " the best critic and the best 
 reviewer of the age"; Lord Cockburn, whose pleadings 
 as a lawyer were remarkable for clearness, pathos, and 
 simplicity; Francis Horner, the great political econo- 
 mist; Sydney Smith, who was too human, too witty, 
 too tactless, too buoyant, too logical, and too inde- 
 pendent to reach the preferments on earth which lay 
 within the scope of his capabilities; Henry Brougham, 
 who, as he drove off one morning from the presence 
 of Samuel Rogers, the poet, occasioned the remark of 
 the latter, " There go Solon, Lycurgus, Demosthenes, 
 Archimedes, Sir Isaac Newton, Lord Chesterfield, and 
 a great many more in one post-chaise " ; Thomas 
 Brown, afterwards so remarkable for his originality 
 and subtlety in the domain of psychology; James 
 Mill, the historian, political and mental philosopher, 
 who will never be forgotten as the father of John Stuart 
 Mill; Sir James Mackintosh, the catholic-minded man 
 of culture; Sir Archibald Alison, the celebrated his- 
 torian — as I mention these names you will have some 
 idea at least of the college world of Thomas Hoge. 
 He must have known something of that " Debating 
 Society," founded by Henry Brougham, where embryo 
 legislators, judges, and preachers tried their early 
 powers. 
 
 Then, too, think of the men who appealed to Thomas 
 Hoge's interest as an Irishman. There was Henry 
 
 98 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 Grattan, who, Protestant though he was, is described 
 by a Roman Catholic historian as " a man of pure 
 spirit and noble genius; an accomplished scholar and 
 a poet, whose scholarship and poetry gave way to a 
 grand, peculiar, and electric oratory, unsurpassed, 
 probably unequalled, by the greatest speakers of any 
 age or nation — not only a consummate orator, but a 
 patriot in the largest and broadest sense." 
 
 There was John Philpot Curran, who reached the 
 pinnacle of his fame in his defence of the accused in 
 the State trials which took place in connection with the 
 spirit of rebellion which caused Mr. Hoge to flee from 
 his native land. There was Edmund Burke, to whom 
 Lord Brougham accords a station among the most 
 extraordinary persons that have ever appeared. And 
 old Dr. Johnson said of him, " Burke, sir, is such a man 
 that if you met him for the first time in the street, 
 where you were stopped by a drove of oxen, and you 
 and he stepped aside to take shelter but for five min- 
 utes, he'd talk to you in such a manner that when 
 you parted you would say, ' This is an extraordinary 
 man.' ' There was William Pitt, whom Macaulay de- 
 clares to be " the first English minister who formed 
 great designs for the benefit of Ireland." 
 
 That portion of the world's chronology which is 
 measured by Thomas Hoge's life on the other side of 
 the water is one of the mile-post epochs in the history 
 of mankind. It is filled with the seed events of hu- 
 man annals. There are the American Revolution, the 
 French Revolution, the wars of Napoleon, the for- 
 mation of the Constitution of the United States of 
 America, the origination of the Sunday-school, the 
 
 99 
 
 L.of! 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 prison work of John Howard, the construction of 
 Sir William Herschel's great telescope, the discovery 
 of vaccination. 
 
 So the year 1798 marks the time when the Scotch- 
 Irishman, Thomas Hoge, in the twenty-third or 
 twenty-fourth year of his age, first touched the shores 
 of America, at the port of Philadelphia. The City of 
 Brotherly Love was at that time the seat of govern- 
 ment and the chief city of the republic. Thomas Hoge 
 doubtless observed what McMaster so graphically de- 
 scribes, "No other (city) could boast of so many streets, 
 so many houses, so many people, so much renown." 
 There had been made the discoveries which carried the 
 name of Franklin to the remotest spots of the civilized 
 world. There had been put forth the Declaration of In- 
 dependence. There had long been held the delibera- 
 tions of Congress. No other city was so rich, so extrav- 
 agant, so fashionable. Seven years before, 1784, (Rich- 
 ard Henry) Lee had described the place (Philadelphia) 
 to Washington as an attractive scene of amusement 
 and debauch. Lovel, another writer, had called it a 
 place of crucifying expenses. But the features that 
 most impressed travellers from distant lands were the 
 fineness of the houses, the goodness of the pavement, 
 the filthiness of the carriage-ways, the regular ar- 
 rangement of the streets, and the singular custom of 
 numbering some and giving to others the names of 
 forest trees. When Thomas Hoge struck Chestnut 
 Street, long since given up to the demands of com- 
 merce, and lined with warehouses and shops, he would 
 at once perceive the fashionable walk of the Phila- 
 delphians. There, on any fine day when business was 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 over, the bank closed, and the exchange deserted, 
 crowds of pleasure-seekers gathered to enjoy the air 
 and display their rich clothes. As the gentleman of 
 the last century passed him he would notice that he 
 wore a three-cornered cocked hat, heavily laced; that 
 his hair was done up in a cue, and its natural shade 
 concealed by a profusion of powder. His coat was 
 light-colored, with diminutive cape, marvellously long 
 back, and silver buttons engraved with the letters 
 of his name; that his small clothes came scarce to his 
 knees; his stockings were striped; his shoes pointed 
 and adorned with huge buckles; his vest had flap 
 pockets; his cuffs were loaded with lead; that partici- 
 pation in the Revolutionary War would make him af- 
 fect a military bearing and speak very frequently con- 
 cerning campaigns; that when he bowed to the damsels 
 that passed him, he took half the sidewalk as he flour- 
 ished his cane and scraped his foot. As Thomas 
 Hoge saw the lady responding to the salutation as she 
 gravely returned it and courtesied almost to the earth, 
 that which greeted his eyes would seem strange to us. 
 Thomas Hoge's day was the day of gorgeous brocades 
 and taffetas, luxuriantly displayed over cumbrous 
 hoops which, flattened before and behind, stood out 
 for two feet on each side; of tower-built hats, adorned 
 with tall feathers; of calash and muskmelon bonnets; 
 of high wooden heels, fancifully cut; of gowns without 
 fronts; of fine satin petticoats, and of implanted teeth. 
 The implantation of teeth was introduced by a French 
 physician who, according to report, reaped a small 
 fortune from the ladies by the performance of the oper- 
 ation. In one of his advertisements, which is yet ex- 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 tant, announcing it to be his business to transplant 
 teeth, it is declared that he has, within the six months 
 just passed, successfully transplanted one hundred and 
 twenty-three, and assures those having front teeth for 
 sale that he will give two guineas for every sound one 
 brought him. It is to be hoped that if Thomas Hoge 
 were invited out to dine he was not embarrassed by a 
 specimen of table manners in vogue at that time. A 
 French prince who was travelling in our country, in 
 one of his letters speaks of what took place when he 
 accepted an invitation to dine with the lady of Robert 
 Morris. He was repeatedly asked to have his cup 
 refilled. He consented. When he had swallowed the 
 twelfth cup of tea, his neighbor whispered in his ear, 
 and told him when he had enough of the water diet he 
 should place his spoon across the cup, else the hostess 
 would go on urging him to drink tea until the crack 
 of doom. 
 
 Mr. Hoge would also find Philadelphia in the midst 
 of a business panic on account of the threatened war 
 with France. America was preparing for a conflict 
 with her whilom ally, and Washington had been ap- 
 pointed Lieutenant-General. The proposed exactions 
 of the French Minister Talleyrand, acting in behalf of 
 the French Directory, had filled all America with the 
 cry, " Millions for defence and not a cent for tribute." 
 
 And he, doubtless, landed in Philadelphia to receive 
 the greetings of many whom he had known as friends 
 in his native land. Hence he would be introduced into 
 the circle of the Presbyterian congregations and would 
 meet their ministers, and thus would be brought into 
 contact with some of the best preachers and pastors 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 that ever adorned American Presbyterianism — such 
 men as Drs. Ashbel Green, James P. Wilson, and 
 Samuel Stanhope Smith. 
 
 But his sojourn in Philadelphia was comparatively 
 brief. Leaving Philadelphia, he came to Carlisle, 
 Penn., doubtless travelling over the road which ran 
 from the seat of American civilization into the wilder- 
 ness of what was then the far West. As one tells us, 
 "its course, after leaving the city, lay through the coun- 
 ties of Chester and Lancaster, then sparsely settled, 
 now thick with towns and cities, and penetrated with 
 innumerable railways, and via Shippensburgh went 
 over the Blue Ridge Mountains to the little town of 
 Bedford." 
 
 As Cumberland County was largely settled by 
 people from the North of Ireland, he must have been 
 attracted thither in the hope of renewing the acquain- 
 tances of his boyhood in Tyrone. Carlisle was remark- 
 able in those early days as the home of culture and 
 comfort. Some traveller of that day noted the cir- 
 cumstance that it contained no less than three hundred 
 stone houses. Our country in its early days received 
 many of its most celebrated men in all the professions 
 from Carlisle's Dickinson College. As a licentiate of 
 the Presbytery of Tyrone, Ireland, he would naturally 
 affiliate with the Presbyters of the town and vicinity. 
 There was that pioneer of liberal education in America, 
 Dickinson's distinguished President, Dr. Charles Nis- 
 bet, and his erudite successor, Dr. Robert Davidson. 
 There was Francis Herron, the young pastor at Rocky 
 Spring, who was afterwards to do the first works of a 
 ministry which has made Presbyterianism what it is 
 
 103 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 in Pittsburgh and the part adjacent thereto. There was 
 a young licentiate, but a year younger than himself, 
 Matthew Brown, to whom he linked himself in a life- 
 long friendship. Neither were Carlisle and its neigh- 
 borhood beyond the range of the archery of Cupid, 
 and Mr. Hoge met his blessed fate by his marriage to 
 Miss Elizabeth City Holmes. The conduct of his 
 courtship does not seem to have interfered with his 
 superintendence of an academy in Northumberland, 
 Penn. So that Mr. Hoge did his part in the great 
 work accomplished by the classical school for God and 
 country during his career as a preceptor. 
 
 Afterwards we find Mr. Hoge at Greensburgh, 
 Penn., where, according to the recollection of his 
 daughter, Mrs. Esther Holmes Hoge Patterson, he 
 served the church as a ruling elder. His removal from 
 Greensburgh to Washington, Penn., was the occasion 
 of a call to the same office on the part of the church 
 there. 
 
 On April 17, 1876, Mr. Hoge was taken under the 
 care of the Presbytery of Ohio on his certificate as a 
 licentiate from the Presbytery of Tyrone, Ireland. 
 The same Presbytery ordained him to the full work 
 of the Gospel ministry as an evangelist. His appli- 
 cation for ordination was the result of the earnest 
 advice of such men as Drs. Francis Herron and 
 Matthew Brown. Just about this time he was called 
 to one of the Presbyterian churches of Pittsburgh. 
 
 The opposition of Mrs. Hoge constrained him to 
 decline the invitation. As a member of the Presbytery 
 of Ohio, Mr. Hoge acted as stated supply of the 
 churches of Upper Ten Mile and East Buffalo. Some- 
 
 104 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 where about this time he was chosen a member of the 
 Board of Trust of the Synod of Pittsburgh, for the 
 prosecution of missions, and was also elected to suc- 
 ceed the Rev. Francis Herron as stated clerk of the 
 Synod. 
 
 The name of Thomas Hoge appears as one of the 
 original members of the Presbytery of Washington, at 
 its organization, October 19, 1819. This Presbytery 
 made him its Stated Clerk in 1822 for two years. In 
 1823 he was elected Moderator of the Synod of Pitts- 
 burgh. In 1827, 1829, 1830, 1831, and 1832 he served 
 the same body as a clerk. 
 
 The initial step in the organization of this, the Clays- 
 ville Presbyterian Church, was taken when, in 1820, 
 Joseph Henderson and Barnet Bonar invited him 
 whom we delight to honor to-day, to preach the Gos- 
 pel in this village. He organized this church in Sep- 
 tember, 1820, and was its stated supply, in connection 
 with East Buffalo, until June 27, 1821, when he was 
 installed the pastor of the united churches. 
 
 Mr. Hoge discharged the duties of the Claysville 
 pastorate until some time in the year 1826, when, at his 
 own request, the relation was dissolved by the Pres- 
 bytery of Washington. After an interval of two weeks 
 he resumed his labors as stated supply, and continued 
 his service until about the middle of the year 1828. In 
 1830 the congregation earnestly requested Mr. Hoge 
 to return to his former pastorate. He acceded to its 
 request and was again installed. During the interval 
 he had been engaged in evangelistic work, and had 
 organized a church at Mount Nebo, near Washington, 
 Penn. During the same interval the Claysville Church 
 
 8 105 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 had been supplied by appointment of Presbytery. The 
 people seemed willing to call a Rev. Abner Leonard. 
 Mr. Leonard, however, declined the acceptance of a 
 call. 
 
 The second pastorate of Mr. Hoge continued until 
 1835, when the relation was again dissolved at his own 
 request, and he was afterward dismissed to the Pres- 
 bytery of Philadelphia. True to his old love for the 
 evangelization of the world, he acted as treasurer of the 
 Board of Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the 
 United States of America from the year 1842 until his 
 death in 1846. 
 
 Although everything with Mr. Hoge was subor- 
 dinated to his work as a minister of the Gospel, he 
 was a thorough man of affairs. Like the men of 
 Issacher of the olden time, he had an understanding 
 of the times and was the peer of any man among 
 the early settlers of this region in public spirit. Such 
 men as Josiah Truesdell and George Wilson found 
 in him an earnest, sympathizing second to their 
 efforts to make Claysville a prosperous town. The 
 house in Washington, Penn., which generations have 
 known as the Green Tree Corner, was built by Mr. 
 Hoge, and was his residence as well as a place of 
 business for his sons, Abram Holmes Hoge and 
 Thomas Hamilton Hoge. During their day in West- 
 ern Pennsylvania they were large buyers of wool, 
 and took great interest in sheep and the business of 
 wool-growing. 
 
 So that I say to-day what Mrs. Patterson directed 
 me to say when we celebrated the organization of the 
 church, that Mr. Hoge, her father, was always a 
 
 106 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 preacher and never a merchant. According to his 
 means, he aided his sons in order that they might en- 
 gage in trade. As far as he was concerned, he knew 
 nothing among men save Jesus Christ and Him cru- 
 cified. 
 
 In the controversies which agitated the Presbyterian 
 Church in his day, Mr. Hoge was an old-school ortho- 
 dox, conservative man. The Bible truths as they are 
 set forth in the Westminster Confession and Cate- 
 chism were certainties to him, and he preached and 
 defended them with his characteristic energy and de- 
 termination. His cotemporaries regarded him as a 
 man of thorough learning, and I have heard the men- 
 tion of him as a preacher of power. 
 
 How he loved this church building! The edifice 
 was the fruit of his enthusiasm. After pledging one- 
 third of its cost, he took a trip to Philadelphia and 
 obtained the money. I only wish that the beautiful 
 pulpit of Mr. Hoge's day had been left to emphasize 
 the exquisite taste of the memorial tablet. 
 
 Seven persons are still living (November 24, 1898) 
 who remember to have seen Mr. Hoge. They are / 
 John Birch, Anthony A. Mealy, John Finley, Joel V 
 Truesdell, Joseph R. McLain, Miss Mary McLain, 
 and Mrs. T. C. Noble. They describe him as 
 of medium height, stout build, and of pleasing ad- 
 dress. 
 
 When he was seventy years of age he had the appear- 
 ance of a man of sixty. It was the habit of Mr. Hoge 
 to come to Claysville on horseback. Many a Sabbath 
 he enjoyed the companionship of his daughter Hettie 
 over the road from Washington to Claysville. To-day 
 
 107 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 she must be thinking of those rides as, though absent 
 in body, she is present in spirit at this service. 
 
 One of Mr. Hoge's Claysville homes was the hotel 
 of Mrs. Calohan, whom the most of us afterwards knew 
 as Mrs. John Kelley. A part of the time he made his 
 sojourn with the Truesdell family. The sad story of 
 the accident which took Mr. Truesdell away in the 
 prime of life is one of the indelible incidents of the his- 
 tory of Claysville. It is interesting to know that the 
 last friend Mr. Truesdell recognized on earth was Mr. 
 Hoge. 
 
 As has been already intimated, Air. Hoge at the time 
 of his death was residing in Philadelphia. His family 
 consisted of four sons and two daughters, viz. : Abram 
 Holmes, who died in Chicago several years since; 
 Thomas Hamilton, William, and James, who have 
 passed away; Esther (Hettie), who became Mrs. 
 Joseph Patterson, and now lives at 1728 Spruce Street, 
 Philadelphia; and Elizabeth, who was the third wife of 
 General Pleasonton, of Philadelphia, and died but 
 recently, consecrating a considerable portion of her 
 wealth to several of the Boards of the Presbyterian 
 Church. She also endowed the Thomas Hoge Ward 
 of the Presbyterian Hospital of Philadelphia. 
 
 Abram Holmes Hoge was, for a number of years, 
 Collector of Internal Revenue at Chicago. His wife's 
 maiden name was Jane C. Blackie. Her father, Cap- 
 tain Blackie, commanded the vessel which carried the 
 first missionaries to China and India. He was a cousin 
 of John Blackie, the celebrated Greek professor of the 
 University of Edinburgh. 
 
 Mrs. Abram Holmes Hoge and Mrs. Mary A. Liv- 
 
 10S 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 ermore were the founders of the Sanitary Commission 
 which did such efficient service in our Civil War. Mrs. 
 Hoge was also one of the founders and long the Pres- 
 ident of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of 
 the Northwest. She was the author of a book entitled 
 " Heroes of the Rank and File," which Secretary 
 Stanton called " an imperishable monument to the 
 memory of the ' Boys in Blue.' " Dr. Delano, of the 
 Baptist Church in Evanston, 111., fitly summed up her 
 life as he called her " one of Chicago's bravest pioneers, 
 a saintly mother, a gracious wife, a noble member in 
 the church militant, a friend of God's true ministers, a 
 helper of the poor, an inspirer of missions, a loving 
 counsellor in grief, a patient pilgrim in the highway 
 of trial." 
 
 But what is a picture without its background? The 
 background in this case was Abram Holmes Hoge. 
 
 And what shall I say for Mrs. Patterson, who rises 
 up this day to call her father blessed? The good cheer 
 of the faith which her father taught her frees old age 
 from the winter of discontent, and makes an interview 
 with her a benediction. 
 
 The apostle Paul, in I Corinthians vii. 31, would 
 have us, as Francis Jacox puts it, " use the world as 
 not abusing it for the reason that the fashion of this 
 world passeth away." The expression is said by Gro- 
 tius and others to be borrowed from the theatre, and to 
 refer to the scene-shifting of the stage. Life here be- 
 low has verily its histrionic aspects; the fashion of it 
 passeth away much as do the scene-painter's creations, 
 the stage-carpenter's framework, the spectacular ef- 
 fects and dissolving views, nay, the very actors them- 
 
 109 
 
The Hoge Memorial Tablet 
 
 selves. For all the world is in some sense a stage, 
 and all the men and women merely players. 
 
 " They have their exits and their entrances, 
 And one man in his time plays many parts, 
 His acts being seven ages." 
 
 " The measure of a happy life," writes Lord Shaftes- 
 bury, he of the " characteristics," is not the fewer or 
 more suns we behold, the fewer or more breaths we 
 draw, or meals we repeat, but from the having once 
 lived well, acted our part handsomely, and made our 
 exit cheerfully — or to print it as he wrote it for the 
 lovers of old books' sake, " And made our exit cheer- 
 fully and as became us." 
 
 So Thomas Hoge, amid the shifting scenes of his 
 life — as it shifted from Tyrone to Edinburgh, from 
 Edinburgh to Tyrone, from Tyrone to Philadelphia, 
 from Philadelphia to Carlisle, from Carlisle to North- 
 umberland, from Northumberland back to Carlisle, 
 from Carlisle to Greensburgh, from Greensburgh to 
 Washington, from Washington back to Philadelphia, 
 to God's Acre — lived well, acted his part handsomely, 
 and made his exit cheerfully because his life kept step 
 to the heavenly rhythm of the word which has been 
 cut into this bronze: " For other foundation can no 
 man lay than that is laid which is Jesus Christ "; and if 
 he could fill that face with what he knows, as he sees 
 Jesus Christ as He is, methinks he would close this 
 address with the word: 
 
 " How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, 
 Is laid for your faith in His excellent word ! 
 What more can He say than to you He has said, 
 To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled ? " 
 
Our Village Home 
 
Ki \ . G W. F. B1R( 11, D.D., II .1'. 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 A SKETCH OF CLAYSVILLE, WASHINGTON CO.,TENN., 
 By George W. F. Birch, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 I wish that I could strike from Goldsmith's harp 
 notes such as the imperishable numbers which en- 
 shrine " Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain." 
 
 I covet that acquaintance with the springs and ac- 
 tions of human life, that profound sympathy with 
 human conditions, that real kinship with human na- 
 ture which George Crabbe brought to light when he 
 described the " Borough " as its church, its sects, its 
 electors, its lawyers, its physicians, its tradesmen, its 
 clubs, its social meetings, its players, its inns, its alms- 
 house, its hospital, its poor, its Peter Grimes, its pris- 
 ons and its schools; compose what William Howitt 
 called " the strangest, cleverest, and most absorbing 
 book " he had ever read. 
 
 I long for that power of imagination, that creative 
 faculty — that love of nature — that insight of human 
 character which made Scott the poet and Scott the 
 novelist call forth from the mountains, lakes, cities, 
 homes, and traditions of his native Scotland, incarna- 
 tions of heroism, humor, and uniqueness which are 
 historic. 
 
 I would like to have the prerogative whereby Will- 
 iam Wordsworth revealed that the ordinary walks of 
 
 113 
 
Our Village Howe 
 
 life preach the grand truth that, as an American critic 
 puts it, " The beautiful is not confined to the rare, the 
 new, the distant — to scenery and modes of life open 
 only to the few; but that it is poured forth profusely 
 to the common earth and sky, gleams from the loneli- 
 est flower and lights up the humblest sphere; that the 
 sweetest affections lodge in lowliest hearts; that there 
 are sacredness, dignity, and loveliness which few eyes 
 rest on; that even in the absence of all intellectual cul- 
 ture, the domestic relations can quietly nourish that 
 disinterestedness which is the element of all greatness 
 and without which intellectual power is a splendid 
 deformity." 
 
 I feel in my present task the need of that grace, 
 melody, and variety by which Henry Wadsworth 
 Longfellow has responded to every emotion which 
 thrills the heart of humanity. 
 
 My subject deserves the smoothness, the elegance, 
 the thoughtfulness with which the genius of William 
 Cullen Bryant crystallized his observation of the every- 
 day life of American homes and communities. 
 
 As I recall the dainty pictures of home, childhood, 
 boyhood, which are the charm of Ik Marvel's " Rev- 
 eries of a Bachelor," I crave, as I trace some recollec- 
 tions of Claysville, Washington County, Pennsylvania, 
 Our Village Home, the right to exclaim, " I, too, 
 am a painter! " 
 
 For in Our Village Home, Goldsmith, methinks, 
 would have found his village preacher, his village 
 schoolmaster, and his village inn. Crabbe could have 
 sung of alley, lane, and street in describing our 
 " Borough." Scott would have discovered the ma- 
 
 114 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 terial to mould the Antiquary or Jennie Deans or 
 Dumbiedikes. Wordsworth would have been ac- 
 quainted with a Benjamin the Wagoner, evolved the 
 story of Peter Bell, caught the " Song of the Spinning 
 Wheel," and experienced many a phase of the " Ex- 
 cursion." Longfellow would have known a veritable 
 Village Blacksmith, heard the " Old Clock on the 
 Stairs," and contemplated " My Lost Youth." Bryant 
 could have evoked his " Thanatopsis," described the 
 " Old Man's Funeral," and walked through the groves 
 to the music of the " Forest Hymn." Ik Marvel could 
 have made us look through our tears at the home of 
 our childhood. 
 
 Hence if we cannot make the story of Our Village 
 Home flash with the light of these stars of the literary 
 firmament, I may at least venture with the flicker of 
 my little lamp to interest and amuse, if not to instruct 
 and impress. 
 
 Moreover, the aim of this chapter is not without 
 Scripture warrant. Indeed its appropriate text is 
 found in the farewell song which Moses " spake in the 
 ears " of his countrymen: " Remember the days of old, 
 consider the years of many generations; ask thy 
 father and he will show thee; thy elders and they will 
 tell thee." (Deuteronomy xxxii. 7.) The philosophy 
 of this direction appears in the thought that " Human 
 progress is entirely dependent on the memory. By 
 this power the mind retains or recalls knowledge once 
 acquired, and thus garners the materials of thought, 
 comparison, and deduction. Memory is at once the re- 
 corder of the intellect and the storehouse of the affec- 
 tions. Without this faculty of mind man w r ould be a 
 
 "5 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 perpetual novice — his past a blank, his future imbecil- 
 ity — indeed he would not be man." 
 
 So I recall the invocation which opens a poem by 
 Willis Gaylord Clark: 
 
 " Come, Memory, with thy power to paint and sing 
 The vanished glory of life's little spring ! 
 Back o'er the soul the light of childhood pour, 
 And bring its blossoms, though they bloom no more. 
 To fancy's eye unfold each braided wreath, 
 Once twined on sunny brows, undimmed by death. 
 Bring back the tale and lay of yore so dear 
 Which fell in sweetness on the thirsty ear. 
 When hope was singing like the lark at morn, 
 And all the flowers of earth were newly born, 
 Thanks for thy bidden aid — at thy command, 
 As by the magic of the enchanter's wand, 
 A thousand scenes returned to life arise 
 Softer than moonbeams in the eastern skies ; 
 Upspring a thousand roses fresh with dew 
 And round my path their radiant tints renew. 
 Their breath seems floating where the winds prevail, 
 And birds and brooks give music to the gale. 
 Mid skies where fancy moves the frolic wing 
 Life's train of morning stars arise and sing." 
 
 Our Village Site 
 
 Beautiful for situation was Our Village Home. The 
 original survey of the locality designated it as " Super- 
 fine Bottom." Its horizon was narrowed by the high 
 hills which inclosed the indented valley, along which 
 the houses lined its single street. Those hills were 
 magnificent parks of the noblest trees of the forest. 
 They were crowned with the towering poplar, the 
 
 116 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 cathedral elm, the giant oak, the tall ash, the royal 
 black walnut, the stately wild cherry, the straight 
 hickory, the symmetrical maple, the expanding syca- 
 more. To the north, to the south, to the east, to the 
 west, wherever we looked, we saw a grove fit for the 
 temple of a God. How beautiful those hills when 
 spring dotted them with the white of the dogwood; 
 when summer enrobed them in its luxuriant green; 
 when autumn touched them with its tints of scarlet and 
 gold; when winter gave them the whiteness of its snow 
 and the sparkle of its ice! 
 
 These forests of Our Village Home swarmed 
 with animal life in the days of the Indian, and within 
 the lifetime of the writer often rewarded the patience 
 and skill of the hunter. An occasional wildcat or lone 
 wolf recalled the days and dangers of the pioneers. 
 Among my first recollections of the county paper are 
 the announcements of " The Circular Hunt," which 
 summoned every man, weapon, and dog from far and 
 near to the capture of the crafty fox. That " same 
 old coon," adopted in the " Forties " as the watch- 
 word of a political party, was the frequent occasion of 
 the most exciting sport, as before the flare of torch and 
 the bay of dog he made a brave fight for life. That 
 strange mixture of craft and dulness known as the 
 opossum was an enemy of the hen-roost and lover 
 of N the egg-basket, to which no lady of the farm gave 
 any quarter. The nomenclature of our folklore had 
 no word more familiar than " possuming," drawn from 
 the well-known instinct of the animal, when caught, to 
 feign death which became life when relieved of the 
 presence of the captor. 
 
 117 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 I will never forget the squirrel hunts, which enlisted 
 the interest of every marksman in town and county. 
 The stillness of the early morn would be broken by the 
 crack of the rifle; hill and hollow would be traversed 
 as long as the sun was above the horizon. The hunters 
 would come in witli their tale of game in the evening, 
 the aggregate running up into the hundreds, and the 
 day's enjoyment would close with a banquet — in the 
 old-time parlance a supper — at which the victors in the 
 hunt were the guests of the defeated. 
 
 What boy of Western Pennsylvania has not traced 
 along the snow the course of the odd, the quaint, and 
 the ludicrous rabbit? 
 
 I can hear even now the bird-chorus, whose war- 
 blings hailed the opening of the day, filled the woods 
 with their music, and were the voices of the night 
 to the inhabitants of Our Village Home. A yearly 
 epoch was reached when the pretty, sweet-voiced blue- 
 bird appeared as the harbinger of spring. I recall the 
 rich, mellow notes of the catbird; the loud, clear, vo- 
 ciferous note of the blackbird; the twitter of the swal- 
 lows, the "wee-whit-wee-e-whit" which names the pee- 
 wit, the musical cry of the robin, the scream of the 
 hawk, the caw of the crow, the cackle of the wild 
 geese, and the quack of the wild duck, as they left the 
 snow and sleet of the north for the bright skies and 
 warm breezes of the south; the clatter of the martens, 
 the mimic of the blue jay, the " Bob White " of the 
 quail, the love-song of the bobolink, and last, but by 
 no means least, the whoop of the owl, Christopher 
 North's " Nimrod of the night and cat with wings." 
 Indeed the birds made our village forest the exposition 
 
 118 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 of the faith-inspiring question of our Lord, " Are not 
 five sparrows sold for two farthings and not one of 
 them is forgotten before God? " (Luke xii. 7), recalling 
 the " Childhood Hymn " of Mrs. Hemans: 
 
 "Tribes of the air ! whose tavored race 
 May wander through the realms of space, 
 
 Free guests of earth and sky ; 
 In form, in plumage, and in song, 
 What gifts of nature mark your throng 
 
 With bright variety ! 
 
 " Nor differ less your forms, your flight, 
 Your dwellings hid from hostile sight, 
 
 And the wild haunts ye love. 
 Birds of the gentle beak ! how dear 
 Your wood-note to the wanderer's ear, 
 
 In shadowy vale or grove ! 
 
 " Others no varied song may pour, 
 May boast no eagle plume to soar, 
 
 No tints of light may wear ; 
 Yet know, our Heavenly Father guides 
 The least of these, and well provides 
 For each with tenderest care. 
 
 " Shall He not then thy guardian be ? 
 Will not His aid extend to thee f 
 
 O safely mayest thou rest ! 
 Trust in His love ; and even should pain, 
 Should sorrow tempt thee to complain, 
 Know what He wills is best." 
 
 With such an environment our village must have 
 been the home of the hunter. There was Perry, the 
 shoemaker, whose gun was his boon companion, and 
 whose career seemed to be a pendulum swinging be- 
 
 119 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 tween the bench and the woods. There was Samuel, 
 the blacksmith, and his dog Bounce, whose bark at the 
 foot of a tree seldom failed to locate a squirrel. There 
 was Asbury, the merchant, whose Nimrodic exploits 
 I do not forget, but which I cannot repeat. I did all 
 my hunting as a carrier of the game which others shot, 
 several vigorous kicks on the part of the gun having 
 convinced me that I would never be a marksman. 
 
 The following story stamps my reputation as a 
 hunter: An adventurous American who was shoot- 
 ing small game in Germany, said to his host that there 
 was a spice of danger in shooting in America. " Ah," 
 said the host, " you like danger mit your sport! Then 
 you go out shooting mit me. The last time I shoot 
 my brudder-in-law in the schtomack." 
 
 Among the memories of our village hunting-ground 
 is the case of an Irishman fresh from the Green Isle, 
 who, soon after his arrival, thought that he would take 
 a gunning excursion in America. Noticing a peculiar- 
 looking bird, he fired, and brought to the ground a 
 screech-owl. Turning to the boy who was his com- 
 panion, he shouted, " Jimmie! Jimmie! " and gave him 
 the charge to run home and tell his father that he had 
 killed his Satanic Majesty himself. 
 
 The stream which skirted the southern boundary 
 of Our Village Home was a branch of what was known 
 as the Dutch Fork of Buffalo Creek. The village, 
 being near its upper springs, knew it as a mere brook, 
 which, as it went on winding, twisting, leaping, dash- 
 ing, growing, became Porter's Run, Anderson's Run, 
 Coon Island Dam, De France's Dam, Cracraft's Dam, 
 Waugh's Dam, until, in the mouth of the Buffalo, it was 
 
 120 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 lost in the Ohio River. The boys knew its swimming- 
 places as the first hole, the second hole, the third hole, 
 whose preeminence was emphasized by calling it the 
 big hole. Its minnows, suckers, chubs, and catfish 
 filled many a villager with the enthusiasm of Izaak 
 Walton. It was not unusual to return from a fishins: 
 expedition without a bite, but it was very unusual to 
 return without a fish story. The customary bait was 
 the ground-worm, and in the search for it we felt, if we 
 did not verify, the following observation : " Darwin 
 estimated that there are in gardens 53,767 worms to the 
 acre. This tallies with our count when we were dig- 
 ging the garden and didn't care a nickel about finding 
 worms; but when we wanted bait for fishing, the 
 garden didn't pan out a dozen worms to the acre. 
 They had all emigrated to the garden of some other 
 fellow who never goes fishing." In the case of our 
 village stream the piscatorial results were so meagre as 
 to confirm Dr. Johnson's definition of fishing, which, 
 according to the old cynic, was a process carried on 
 by a line with a hook at one end and a fool at the other. 
 But while the fish did not make our village stream 
 their haunt, its banks were the home of the lively, play- 
 ful, weather-gauging muskrat. Another clerk of the 
 weather made our brook his feeding-place if we are 
 to accept the English tradition that the kingfisher al- 
 ways turns his breast towards the quarter from which 
 the wind is blowing; the kingfisher so swift of flight 
 that I can even now see the streak of blue which 
 marked his course through the air. Besides, to visit 
 our brook was to see the only real dragon of God's 
 creation, as we could not help but observe the glitter- 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 ing colors of that active and voracious creature, the 
 dragonfly. 
 
 But the forest-clad hills and the meandering stream 
 were not the only environment of our village. Our 
 brook not only lined its hanks with the bending wil- 
 lows, crowned them with the lily and dotted them 
 with the modest violet; not only refreshed the roots 
 of the giant oak and the shading elm, but it feasted 
 our eyes with green fields and waving harvests. 
 
 Those fields were alive with the hum of insect move- 
 ment as the ear drank in the tenor of the honeybee, 
 the treble of the wasp, the baritone of the bumblebee, 
 the deep, thundering bass of the hornet. Were the 
 men who bore the deadly brunt of Gettysburg, or who 
 laid down their lives in the Wilderness, braver than 
 when, as our village boys, they were the soldiers in em- 
 bryo who stormed the home of the yellow-jacket, or 
 returned to town from a battle with the terrible hornet, 
 waving his nest as their trophy? 
 
 As I write I recall the nights which were filled with 
 the " drummings, bellowings, chatterings, and pip- 
 ings " of the " Minstrels of the Marshes." And who 
 is not familiar with William Black's " chatterer," " tell- 
 tale," " scandal-monger," whom every boy knows as 
 " katydid "? 
 
 Our Village Street 
 
 The principal, perhaps it would be nearer accuracy 
 to state the only street of Our Village Home was, from 
 the year 1818 to the year 1850, one of the interesting 
 points in the United States of America. For our vil- 
 
 122 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 lage avenue was the Great National Road which, in the 
 days of my early boyhood, was the main artery of com- 
 munication between the East and the West. Indeed, 
 the location of the National Road was the occasion of 
 the existence of our village. So Our Village Home 
 became a relay station of the stage-coach. It was a 
 halting-place of that old timer of Western Pennsyl- 
 vania whose imperishable likeness has been drawn by 
 Thomas Buchanan Read in his " Wagoner of the 
 Alleghenies." Its taverns furnished the resting-place 
 of the traveller for the night. 
 
 As life budded from infancy into impressible child- 
 hood, I would stand by the window or at the palings 
 of the yard fence, hour after hour, transfixed by the 
 constantly moving panorama afforded by the National 
 Road. So vivid was the impression and so imbedded 
 by constant repetition that it is graven upon my mem- 
 ory with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever, and 
 I gaze upon that panorama as if I were back in child- 
 hood's realm of wonderland. 
 
 The National Road in the early " Forties " is to me a 
 reproduction of the Appian Way, over which that dis- 
 tinguished prisoner, the Apostle Paul, travelled to 
 Rome. In the " Life and Epistles of Paul," by Cony- 
 beare and Howson, this ancient thoroughfare is de- 
 scribed as " that road which was at once the oldest 
 and most frequented in Italy, and which was called, in 
 comparison with all others, the ' Queen of Roads.' " 
 To travel over it was to be, we are told, " on the most 
 crowded approach to the metropolis of the world, in the 
 midst of prsetors and proconsuls, embassies, legions, 
 and turns of horse; to their provinces hasting or on 
 
 123 
 
Our I'illage Home 
 
 return; which Milton, in his description of the city 
 enriched with the spoils of nations, has called us to 
 behold in various habits on the Appian road." 
 
 So the old pike was kept smooth by a steady stream 
 of travel eastward and westward. All hours of the day 
 and night resounded with the blast of the coachman's 
 horn. A Conestoga wagon was nearly always in sight 
 with its team of six and eight horses, in many cases at 
 each step sending forth the melody of sweet-toned 
 bells. It was unusual to travel very far without meet- 
 ing the private conveyance and hundreds of horse- 
 men and footmen, who, in the pursuit of business, 
 sought health and recreation as they threaded their 
 way through the valleys and over the hills of the mag- 
 nificent highway. Drove after drove of horses, cattle, 
 hogs, and, as I remember in one instance, turkeys 
 passed on their way to the Eastern markets. Our vil- 
 lage street's registry of travel enrolls presidents, sena- 
 tors, congressmen, army officers of every grade, mer- 
 chants, tourists, Indians — indeed, we may say, every 
 class and condition of humanity. Our villagers shook 
 hands with Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, 
 James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, Henry Clay (whose 
 monument was the pike, and whom the village hon- 
 ored by its name), Lewis Cass, Thomas H. Benton, 
 Thomas Corwin, and scores of others, whose names 
 are identified with the progress and greatness of our 
 country. How we boys were wont to gather around 
 the heroes of the Mexican War on their way to the 
 front or returning home! I can yet see the long- 
 haired May, who made the famous charge at Palo 
 Alto; that magnificent specimen of man, the noted 
 
 124 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 Captain Walker of the Rangers, who came home, 
 raised a company, and went back to the seat of war to 
 fall before the aim of a Mexican lancer. 
 
 But there was scarcely a mile of the highway that 
 did not have its local habitation and its name. There 
 was Sugar Hill, Weirich's Hill, Coulson's Ridge, Cald- 
 well's Hill, McClelland's Hill, Warrell's Hill, Coon 
 Island Hill, Dug Hill, the Three Ridges' Hill, at the 
 base of which runs the line which separates Pennsyl- 
 vania from West Virginia, and whose top, when 
 reached by climbing up what was known as Hard- 
 scrabble Hill, found the climber satisfied that there was 
 something in a name. 
 
 Any account of the old pike would be incomplete 
 without the mention of those bridges which are the 
 admiration of observers even to this day, as they stand 
 as if they were constructed but yesterday. The S 
 Bridge at once recalled the letter of the alphabet to 
 which it owed its name. Wickery's Bridge was the 
 locality of a supposed murder and as the fatal termina- 
 tion of a runaway which threw a coach, with its team, 
 passengers, driver, and all, into the ravine which it 
 spanned. 
 
 The " Monument," which stood on the road between 
 Triadelphia and Wheeling, was an object of universal 
 interest as well as a point of departure. It was enough 
 to satisfy inquiry concerning a traveller, to learn that 
 he passed the " Monument " at any given time; or to 
 locate an occurrence, to remark that it took place on 
 this or the other side of the " Monument." This 
 monument was a testimonial on the part of Moses 
 Shepherd, and Lydia, his wife, to that magnificent 
 
 125 
 
Our Ullage Home 
 
 figure whom America will never forget as the latest 
 generation extols the name of Henry Clay. Mr. and 
 Mrs. Shepherd erected the monument as a token of 
 their appreciation of the great Kentuckian's agency in 
 the construction of the National Road. 
 
 It was my privilege during (if my memory be not at 
 fault) the year i860 to pass part of a morning in a 
 visit to Mrs. Shepherd, when, having passed the ninety- 
 fourth milestone, she was looking down through the 
 vista of bygone years from a bright and cheery old age. 
 She was familiar with the foundation builders and con- 
 stitution makers of our nation. It was, indeed, some- 
 thing for a person on the threshold of active life to 
 gather from her treasury of recollections eye and ear 
 impressions of the men who were leaders when forensic 
 power was a potent factor in the legislative hall, and 
 the cunning of the orator a prevailing power in political 
 campaigns. 
 
 Of course a boy would be interested in the names of 
 the stage-coaches which once thronged the old pike. 
 Every State of the Union was represented in the Na- 
 tional Road Stage Company. Its rival, the Good 
 Intent Line, took a wider range in its coach nomen- 
 clature. With my pen in hand, I look across fifty 
 years and find the names which a little boy was wont to 
 read as the coach rushed by, standing out plainly and 
 distinctly on the tablet of memory. And I spell out 
 this moment the coach titles : Granite State, Bay State, 
 Buckeye State, Keystone State. I became familiar 
 with the great men of the day as the big letters which 
 made Rough and Ready, at once suggested General 
 Taylor; as the stage register enrolled General Cass, 
 
 126 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 Colonel Benton, and Henry Clay. I was introduced 
 to every phase of fancy in the use of the names Fash- 
 ion, Pathfinder, Ivanhoe, Industry, and Chancellor. I 
 took lessons in geography, as I pronounced Yucatan, 
 Tampico, Buena Vista, Ashland, Raritan, and Panama. 
 
 Oh, I am a boy again as, moved by the absorbing 
 ambition to be a stage-driver, it was my habit with the 
 touch of imagination to change billets of wood into 
 horses, and turning the wood-pile into a stage-mount, 
 my ideal box, pick up the ropes and spliced straps 
 which were my ideal reins, and cracking my real whip, 
 shout to the near leader, make a dexterous cut at the 
 off leader, and lean over to strike the right and left 
 wheel, and throwing out my improvised mail at the 
 visionary post-offices along the route, thus ride by the 
 hour, on the wings of fancy, over the road from my 
 home to the county seat. 
 
 And it is the boy in me now which makes me wish 
 for the pen with which Charles Dickens, in " Martin 
 Chuzzlewit," describes Tom Pinch's famous ride from 
 Salisbury into London. There was a "Yo-ho!" in 
 every hilltop and valley from Wheeling to Washington. 
 
 Kind reader, let us go over the old pike as the olden- 
 time people were wont to do some fine forenoon during 
 the month of May. The Cincinnati boat is at the 
 Wheeling wharf. The Ohio stage has come to the 
 door of the Wheeling tavern. We have chosen our 
 line of coaches, either the Good Intent or National 
 Line (commonly called the Old Line). We have se- 
 cured the privilege of sitting with the driver. He may 
 be venerable Billy Rome, or modest Bobby Mc- 
 Elhenny, gentlemanly Dave Gordon, good-natured 
 
 127 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 Paris Eaches, steady Joe Henderson, patriarchal 
 Watty Xoble, merry Archie McNeil, daring Jack 
 Bailiss, neighborly Joe Whisson, lofty Tobe Banner, 
 imperious Dave Armour, boisterous John Zinn, grace- 
 ful Jim Burr, fatherly David Bell, genial John Mc- 
 Elree, dignified John Ruth, garrulous Jim Schaverns, 
 or great, big John Hoon. 
 
 The passengers are seated, the mails are deposited, 
 and climbing up Wheeling Hill, looking to the left, you 
 think of McCulloch's fearful leap from the summit to 
 the Ohio River, which runs as it did when Adam Poe 
 released himself from the death-hug which he re- 
 ceived in its waters from Big Foot, the Indian. These 
 historic traditions remind you that the region through 
 which you are riding is the scene of the hand-to-hand 
 struggle by which the white man wrested from the 
 savage the region of the Upper Ohio. 
 
 Down the eastward slope of Wheeling Hill you fly, 
 and roll on through Fulton and up the north bank of 
 the Wheeling Creek, and passing Steenrods, Stelles, 
 and Hornbrooks, so beautiful for situation, until from 
 the valley of Elm Grove you look up the way by the 
 Shepherd mansion, through the trees to the stone 
 church known as the Forks of Wheeling, where full 
 proof was made of his ministry of the Gospel by that 
 humble country pastor, that consistent Christian, that 
 acute theologian, that firm Presbyterian, known 
 through all the region as Father Hervey. 
 
 On, on, up the narrow valley to Triadelphia, and 
 who that has ever seen it will forget the Cottage Inn, 
 spread out like an Eastern caravansary, with its colos- 
 sally proportioned landlord, Frank Lawson? 
 
 128 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 " Get up, Bill! " " Hurry on, Tom! " " Keep up, 
 Nellie!" "Behave yourself, Bet! " " Gee up! " and with 
 a crack of whip you whirl on as the cattle slaking their 
 thirst in the run, as the sheep scampering up the hill- 
 side, the farmer looking up from his plough, the boy 
 leaning on his hoe, the housewife rushing to the door 
 to look at the stage, are left behind; and we stop 4 at 
 Brotherton's for a change of team. It was not until 
 I was engaged upon this transcript of reminiscence, 
 that the light of past days flashed upon this spot as a 
 hive of tender memories. The Brotherton stage-stand 
 was my first dwelling-place away from home. I feel 
 this moment the pangs of that homesickness. Neither 
 has the mental vision lost the impression of that quiet 
 old man, that motherly matron, whose old-fashioned 
 Pennsylvania ways made their traveller's rest a real 
 home. 
 
 Our fresh horses soon carry us into Pennsylvania 
 to the foot of Scrabble Hill, and, reaching its summit, 
 we are in West Alexander, where we call to mind three 
 citizens at whom it was not possible for an irreverent 
 man to sneer without telling the truth as he designated 
 the triumvirate as King George, Lord Colin, and 
 Christ McCluskey; because King George's store was 
 the exchange of Donegal Township; Lord Colin, his 
 brother, would have been a man of mark in any com- 
 munity; and if a burning love of souls, a consuming 
 zeal in the advancement of God's Church, an untiring 
 devotion to the benefit, temporal and spiritual, of every 
 man, woman, and child in the community ever made 
 any man worthy to wear the name of Christ, that man 
 was the Rev. John McCluskey, D.D., so long the 
 
 129 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 pastor of the Presbyterian Church at West Alexan- 
 der. 
 
 Dr. McCluskey answered the prayer which our Lord 
 directs the church to make, as through his superin- 
 tendence of the West Alexander Academy from eighty 
 to one hundred laborers were introduced into God's 
 harvest. 
 
 We linger a moment at the summit of Scrabble Hill 
 to recall the good times of which the old building, once 
 known as Lawson's Tavern, was the centre. Joseph 
 Lawson, wagoner and innkeeper, was a unique char- 
 acter. At one time defiant of both God and man, he 
 became one of the meekest and lowliest disciples of 
 Jesus. He went down to the grave mourning because 
 he never received any tidings of his beloved boy and 
 namesake, Joe, after he entered upon the bloody cam- 
 paign of the Wilderness. 
 
 We cannot leave West Alexander without placing 
 on record the town's deserved title as the Gretna Green 
 of America. Whatever may be the truth concerning 
 the matches which are made in Heaven, the record 
 shows that Squire Sutherland and Squire Mayes made 
 several thousand matches at West Alexander on the 
 earth, of which some five thousand are said to have 
 been elopements. Doubtless the parties to these mar- 
 riages shared in many cases the experience which has 
 found expression in the story of the colored gentleman 
 who, during the performance of the ceremony at his 
 second marriage, when the clergyman asked the bride, 
 " Do you promise to love, honor, and obey? " inter- 
 rupted the parson with the request, " Stop right dar, 
 sah; say that over again, sah, in order dat de female 
 
 130 
 
Oar Village Home 
 
 may ketch the solemnity ob de meanin'. I'se been 
 married before." 
 
 But we are all aboard again. How the hoofs clatter, 
 and the limestones as it were shoe the horses with 
 sparks of fire as we whirl around the ridge, and with a 
 glance at the attractive hostelry of John Valentine, 
 with a bow to Billy McCleary, at the quaint polygonal 
 toll-house; with a thought upon the poet of the Done- 
 gal Highlands who looked out upon the valley from 
 the top of Coon Island Hill, we fly like the wind down 
 the steep incline to Coon Island, which may have ex- 
 isted during that geologic period known as the coon 
 age! To pass Coon Island was to remember that a 
 mile or two northward dwelt old John Hupp, the 
 Indian fighter and deer hunter, and that a little further 
 on was the site of the old block-house which protected 
 the wives and children of the brave pioneers of Done- 
 gal Township. On from Coon Island we bowl up 
 the valley which, as I look back upon youth, resurrects 
 a boy friend whose sesquipedalian utterance made the 
 hearer feel that the dictionary had been the mother's 
 milk of his infancy, and which as we near its end 
 makes me think of that stern old matron whom we 
 knew as Aunt Margaret. 
 
 Mounting the western rampart of " Our Village," 
 clearing the summit marked by Porter's Spring, we 
 bring up at the home of my playmates, the Kurtzes, 
 or at the home of my playmates, the Dyes and the 
 Walkers. I have known the wheels to scarcely cease 
 revolving before the horses were changed. How the 
 rival lines would race down our village street, and 
 quiet Billy Rome would use the lines as if he were 
 
 131 
 
Our Village Ha 
 
 seized with the jerks, the lazy whip of Bobby Mc- 
 Elhenny would be charged with electricity, and the 
 stentorian lungs of John Zinn would change his team 
 into the likeness of four scared rabbits! Then how the 
 whips would crack and the wheels would spin as the 
 prancing teams left for the eastward on the gallop! 
 
 The last look at Our Village Home was from the 
 residence of one of whom I often think as I look upon a 
 sickle as he thrust it into the standing grain bare- 
 headed and barefooted. The next house brings the 
 tears, as its father and mother were like brother and 
 sister to my father and mother. The bench of the 
 same hill brought us to a signboard on which was in- 
 scribed the announcement, " Entertainment for Man 
 and Beast," accompanied by the picture of a tumbler 
 and a square piece of cake, which every boy in the 
 neighborhood understood to mean Grannie McFar- 
 land's spruce beer and gingerbread. The next house 
 was the home of a man who reached old age drinking 
 more whiskey and staggering less than any drunkard 
 I ever knew. It is not long until Mrs. Caldwell, from 
 her famous inn, surveys us through her spectacles. 
 The next hilltop recalls a pair of black eyes which 
 brought a crowd of devotees to the shrine of their 
 owner. In another moment our minds are occupied 
 with the beautiful home and plethoric purse of Big 
 Billy Brownlee. And but a mile to the southward is 
 the Alrich meeting-house, where Gospel simplicity 
 was demonstrated by the veteran mathematical pro- 
 fessor of Washington College. 
 
 But we have not yet reached the Red Barn. " Gee 
 up! " shouts our driver, and on we glide through 
 
 132 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 Rankintown until we turn the corner at Chestnut and 
 Main Streets in Washington to stop at the Old Man- 
 sion, or to be nearer the Catfish at the tavern of the 
 famous stage agent, Edward Lane. 
 
 Hence we indulged in no fancy when we esteemed 
 our village highway to be a world centre. It kept our 
 little town in touch with the round globe. It appealed 
 to all that was elevating in the beautiful and all that 
 was stirring in the romantic. 
 
 To-day the National Road is a mere wagon track, 
 fringed with green. A ride over it will show only 
 here and there a traveller. The various neighbor- 
 hoods through which it runs give it a little stir morning 
 and evening. The innumerable caravan which once 
 moved to and fro over it has, for the most part, joined 
 " the innumerable caravan which moves to the silent 
 halls of death." 
 
 The following lines on " The Old Country Road," 
 written by James Newton Matthews for the Ladies' 
 Home Journal, so aptly describe " The Old National 
 Road " that I accommodate them to my purpose. 
 
 " Where did it come from, and where did it go ? 
 That was the question that puzzled us so 
 As we waded the dust of the highway that flowed 
 By the town like a river — the old National Road. 
 
 \ 
 
 *' We stood with our hair sticking up thro' the crown 
 Of our hats, as the people went up and went down. 
 And we wished in our hearts, as our eyes fairly glowed, 
 We could find where it came from — the old National Road. 
 
 "We remember the peddler who came with his pack 
 Adown the old highway, and never went back ; 
 
 133 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 And we wondered what things he had seen as he strode 
 From some fabulous place up the old National Road. 
 
 " We remember the stage-driver's look of delight, 
 And the crack of his whip as he whirled into sight, 
 And we thought we could read in each glance he bestowed 
 A tale of strange life up the old National Road. 
 
 "The movers came by like a ship in full sail, 
 With a rudder behind, in the shape of a pail — 
 With a rollicking crew, and a cow that was towed 
 With a rope on her horns, down the old National Road. 
 
 " Oh, the top of the hill was the rim of the world, 
 And the dust of the summer that over it curled 
 Was the curtain that hid from our sight the abode 
 Of the fairies that lived up the old National Road. 
 
 " The old National Road ! I can see it still flow 
 Down the hill of my dreams, as it did long ago, 
 And I wish even now I could lay off my load, 
 And rest by the side of that old National Road." 
 
 O glorious old pike! In thy day the route of trans- 
 portation, the path of the emigrant, the delight of the 
 traveller, well hast thou finished the work which the 
 country gave thee to do. For thou art the inspiration 
 of that mighty instinct that doth unite earth's neigh- 
 borhoods with friendly bands. 
 
 Our Village Hearthstone 
 
 Our Village Home might not quicken the fancy of 
 the poet nor excite the attention of the historian. Its 
 <l\vcllings might curl the lip of the architect with a 
 sneer. Its limited extent might prove nothing else 
 
 i34 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 than a prison to the man of the world. But the old 
 hearthstone makes it poetry and history and beauty 
 all the world to me, simply because there is no place 
 like home. The perennial freshness with which mem- 
 ory clothes the family nest explains the pathos which 
 moved our whole nation when the news flashed over 
 the wires that the remains of John Howard Payne had 
 been brought to the home into which he crystallized 
 every home by those strains to whose music the heart 
 of humanity responds in the world-wide chorus: 
 
 " Home, home, sweet, sweet home." 
 
 It took five dwelling-places to make my early home. 
 I analyze the composite picture as I stand once more 
 on the long porch, whose outlook was the whole length 
 of the village street; as I walk up the locust-canopied 
 line; as I drink from the old spring which has never 
 within the memory of " the oldest inhabitant " failed 
 to pour forth its cooling stream; as I walk through the 
 front yard, with its evergreens, its quaking aspen, its 
 silver maple, its beds of pinks, verbenas, geraniums, its 
 roses, red and white; its vines, wrapping trellis and wall 
 in their embrace. 
 
 " When thoughts recall the past " I find Old Dog 
 Tray in the field of vision as I whistle for Bony and 
 Bulk and Watch and Bruiser. I would I were a boy 
 again as I ride and drive old Suke, Bet the mother and 
 Bet the colt; as thus Alexander was on Bucephalus; 
 Tarn O'Shanter, 
 
 " Mounted on his gray mare Meg, 
 Skelpit on through dub and mire, 
 Despising wind and rain and fire." 
 
 135 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 But Don Quixote was never on Rosinantes. A daily 
 walk to and from the pasture field made me know 
 when the cows came home. 
 
 In the light which crowned the home hearthstone I 
 contemplated the movements of the world as chron- 
 icled by newspapers of the time. Tom Grayson's 
 lively pen and George Hart's thoughtful summary in 
 the Washington Examiner; John Bausman's graceful 
 style in the Washington Reporter; Seth T. Hurd's witti- 
 cisms in the Washington Commonwealth; the weekly 
 compendium of events in Alexander's Express Messen- 
 ger; the fund of tale and miscellany in the Saturday 
 Evening Post; the sensible editorials and interesting 
 resume of the Dollar Newspaper (the weekly edition of 
 the Philadelphia Ledger) — all contributed their part to 
 make the boy a man of affairs in embryo. 
 
 The home library, although not colossal, has been 
 no unimportant element of my intellectual life. 
 Haven's illustrated " Book of Trades " gave me 
 an insight of the various things that man's hand 
 finds to do. Chauncey Goodrich's " History of the 
 United States " was so frequently read that its vivid 
 narrations of the " Battle of Saratoga," the " Trea- 
 son of Benedict Arnold," the " Capture of John 
 Andre," the " Desertion of Sergeant Champe," the 
 " Death of Washington," and the " Funeral of Will- 
 iam Henry Harrison " are indelibly imprinted on my 
 memory. 
 
 A small collection of books (not more than twenty 
 volumes), known as " Parley's Cabinet Library," 
 riveted the enthusiastic interest of youth. I recall the 
 sketches of Josephine, Mrs. Barbauld, Lady Hester 
 
 136 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 Stanhope, Hannah More, Martha Washington, and 
 Abigail Adams, in the volume entitled " Famous 
 Women " ; of Solon, Socrates, Plato, Alcibiades, De- 
 mosthenes, Cicero, Csesar, and Seneca, in " Famous 
 Men of Ancient Times " ; of Cromwell, Charles the 
 First, William Penn, in " Famous Men in Modern 
 Times " ; of Zerah Colburn, Admiral Crichton, Cas- 
 par Hauser, Daniel Lambert, and John Elwes, in 
 " Curiosities of Human Nature," along with as good 
 a description as I ever saw of England and Eng- 
 lishmen, in " Manners and Customs of European Na- 
 tions." 
 
 I still feel the impression of the truth in its im- 
 perishableness, its heroism and its triumph, which 
 came to me when I grasped D'Aubigne's " History of 
 the Reformation." A factor of my life has been the 
 useful information, secular and religious, which I ab- 
 sorbed from a Sunday-school library issued by the 
 London Religious Tract Society. 
 
 I also foraged on the literary wares of my neighbors, 
 and was very much attracted by the " Legends " of 
 George Lippard in the work entitled " Washington 
 and his Generals." I turned the pages of Captain 
 Marryat's " Peter Simple " with the keen interest of 
 a boy who was learning his first lesson in what Wash- 
 ington Irving called " the chivalry of the ocean." I 
 was deeply moved by Jane Porter's touching story of 
 " Thaddeus of Warsaw " and her tales of " The Scot- 
 tish Chiefs." I took a short excursion into that the- 
 saurus of the past known by our fathers as " Rollin's 
 Ancient History." The summer days will never be 
 forgotten in which I read Shakespeare and Byron. I 
 io 137 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 remember well how the literary circle in Our Village 
 Home was stirred by the appearance of Macaulay's 
 " History of England," Harper's Monthly Magazine, 
 and " Uncle Tom's Cabin." 
 
 But the dear ones around the village hearthstone! 
 Where are they now? No longer on Sunday evening 
 do we read aloud from the Bible, each taking his or 
 her turn, from the father to the youngest child; recite 
 the answers of the Catechism, worship God in song, 
 and bow to Him in prayer. No longer do we make 
 the walls ring with music, sacred and secular, vocal 
 and instrumental, as with the aid of the neighboring 
 boys and girls we drummed the piano, scraped the 
 riddle, buzzed with the jewsharp, thundered with the 
 bass-viol, and waked the guitar. No longer do we 
 wait for the college vacation or for the yearly home- 
 coming of those who had gone out from the old nest, 
 so that the old circle may be itself again. The father, 
 full of years and rich in the love and respect of the com- 
 munity, still sits at the fireside. Death, however, has 
 made us understand the philosophy of Wordsworth's 
 " We are Seven." No more as I turn the corner from 
 the depot do I see mother at the gate waiting to wel- 
 come me home. Dear, lovely Frank, my companion 
 brother, of prodigious memory, of brilliant imagina- 
 tion, quick intellectual perception, acute moral sense, 
 had scarcely entered into the activities of earthly life 
 ere he mounted to the higher life, saying: " I shall soon 
 see greater things than you." Dear, modest, quiet 
 Willie wanted us to sing because death was open- 
 ing his ear to the swelling harmony of the New Jeru- 
 salem. 
 
 138 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 God be thanked for my village hearthstone! 
 The vacant chambers where the loved ones slept are 
 sanctuaries. The empty chairs where the loved ones 
 sat are altars. As I saw the cradle in which I was 
 rocked, my heart was touched by the following lines: 
 
 MY CRADLE 
 
 A dark little closet stands under the stair, 
 With some scraps of old furniture stocked, 
 
 And save these few things it is dusty and bare — 
 
 A most unfit place for an object so rare ; 
 
 Yet something I prize very highly is there: 
 'Tis the cradle in which I was rocked. 
 
 To me, oft as I've gazed on the treasure before, 
 Sweet thoughts of my childhood have flocked, 
 Of the playmates and friends of those bright days of yore, 
 Of the father whose face I shall never see more, 
 And the mother who bent with fondness o'er 
 The dear cradle in which I was rocked. 
 
 I've had many a couch since in it I have lain ; 
 
 The cold world has scorned me, and mocked ; 
 My bravest endeavors have proved all in vain ; 
 The joys have all flown that I hoped would remain, 
 And it seems naught is left me but sadness and pain 
 
 And the cradle in which I was rocked. 
 
 The path of my life is so rugged and steep, 
 And with so many hardships is blocked, 
 
 That my feet grow so weary I scarcely can creep ; 
 
 But there's no room to rest, and there's no time to weep 
 
 Though I fain would return and again fall asleep 
 In the cradle in which I was rocked. 
 
 139 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 But as oft as I open that old closet door 
 
 The mystery of love is unlocked : 
 I seem to become mother's baby once more ; 
 My heart swells with love and with hope as of yore, 
 And I pray with much faith as I kneel on the floor 
 
 Near the cradle in which I was rocked. 
 
 Roy. 
 Morrow, O. 
 
 Our Village Population 
 
 Our Village Home numbered about three hundred 
 souls. Among these there were the peers of the three 
 hundred who followed Gideon to victory as well as of 
 the three hundred who, with heroic Leonidas, taught 
 the proud Xerxes that there were Greeks who would 
 cheerfully die for their country. Lord Byron sings 
 the following prayer: 
 
 " Earth ! render back from out thy breast 
 A remnant of our Spartan dead ; 
 Of the three hundred grant but three 
 To make a new Thermopylae." 
 
 The history of Our Village Home has more than 
 one Thermopylae. The one who met death so bravely, 
 the one whom I saw plunging into the death-damp 
 of an old well to save human life, the one who would 
 not be driven from his determination to secure an 
 education — each made a new Thermopylae. 
 
 The range of nativity in our village population was 
 quite extensive. It included, besides those to the 
 manor born, the members of a colony from the North 
 
 140 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 of Ireland, the h-dropping Englishman, the Mary- 
 lander, and the Pennsylvania Dutchman. Our village 
 was unique in the absence of the colored people. I 
 remember but one resident, and an occasional visitor, 
 whom all Washington County knew as " Dungy and 
 his sugar-sticks." It was the current report concern- 
 ing the taffy pedler that he prepared for pulling his 
 molasses candy by spitting on his hands. 
 
 Our village population was a very distinct revelation 
 of the kaleidoscope of human nature. Every grade 
 of talent, every feature of eccentricity, every variety 
 of taste, seemed to have its subject in our little town. 
 There was Uncle Bobby, whether at the blacksmith's 
 forge on the weekdays or in the elder's pew on the 
 Sabbath, so wise, witty, religious, and humble. There 
 was Uncle Watty, who, a retired stage-driver, was a 
 venerable gentleman. There was Squire Miller, a 
 man of wide reading and great mental acuteness, 
 whose conversation was an education. And what 
 genuine old ladies were the admiration of Our Village 
 Home! They were the doctors, nurses, counsellors, 
 and helpers of the whole community. The active citi- 
 zens were, as a rule, intelligent, industrious, and 
 abreast of the times. There was a general impression 
 of the value of money, illustrating an American trait 
 which was brought to the attention of Professor Park, 
 of Andover, during a tour of Germany. Dr. Park 
 was standing by a magnificent building. A German 
 professor approached him and said, " I perceive, sir, 
 that you are an Englishman." Professor Park smiled 
 and made no reply. A moment later the professor in- 
 quired, " Do you know the cost of this building? " 
 
 141 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 The German at once exclaimed, " I perceive, sir, that 
 you are an American. I do verily believe that when 
 an American comes to stand before the great white 
 throne, his first words will be, ' How much did it 
 cost?'" 
 
 The good wives of the town, in more cases than 
 one, had their husbands under good control. I think of 
 several who bring to mind the related experience of the 
 stranger who called at forty-eight different houses in 
 Cleveland, and asked, " Is the boss home? " There was 
 no man home in any one instance, and yet forty-seven 
 of the women promptly replied: " Yes, sir! What do 
 you want?" 
 
 Like all other communities of imperfect humanity, 
 our native place gave a home to the village gossip. 
 Neither was the wag of tongue confined to the gentler 
 sex. The thirst to gather and retail statements, con- 
 cerning persons rather than things, developed many a 
 masculine talebearer. I recall special instances of the 
 clatter, " I heard," " You don't say," " I don't believe 
 it," " There must be something in it," " Said I," 
 " Said he," " Said she." So that we were familiar with 
 a phenomenon noted by one of our leading periodicals, 
 as follows: " We have many times been an unwilling 
 listener to the ' said she ' and ' said I ' narrations in 
 public conveyances, and elsewhere; but never knew an 
 instance where the ' said I's ' didn't say all the smart 
 things, and the ' said she's ' all the stupid, vicious ones, 
 or where the 'said I's ' didn't come off victorious in the 
 end." 
 
 A near relative of the gossip was the exaggerator. 
 This character seemed to thrive on visits to the Great 
 
 142 
 

Our Village Home 
 
 West. The prairies in their extensiveness, and his 
 native valleys in their narrowness, gave the truth a 
 distortion which was simply amusing. We were ac- 
 customed to hear accounts of the richness of the land 
 which were fully equal to the railroad's agent's praise 
 of the Arkansas Valley. His narrative was so extrava- 
 gant that he was asked if there was anything that 
 wouldn't grow there. " Yes," he answered quickly, 
 " pumpkins won't." " Why not? " was the question. 
 The reply was: " The soil is so rich and the vines grow 
 so fast that they wear out the pumpkins, dragging 
 them over the ground." 
 
 The stage-driver and the wagoner fairly revelled in 
 the big story. The big story was the ideal in which 
 they clothed their real experience of the incidents, both 
 humorous and tragical, which marked the prosecution 
 of their calling. Their contact with every phase of 
 human nature made them the news-gatherers and the 
 news-distributors of the communities along the Na- 
 tional Road. They were so often in perils of storm 
 and darkness and snow and ice and mud as to com- 
 pel the most wonderful feats of expertness in the man- 
 agement of their teams. It must be confessed that the 
 narratives which these feats evolved were mainly im- 
 aginary. Yet the historical background of their big 
 stories is just as true as that from which came forth 
 the wondrous literary creations of Sir Walter Scott. 
 Hence there is a rough though true photograph of the 
 real in a tradition of Our Village Home that a company 
 of wagoners were talking once of their exploits in con- 
 nection with the spring mud through which they were 
 often compelled to wade. At last old Billy M , 
 
 i43 
 
Our I 'Mage Home 
 
 whom I can see as if it were but yesterday, contributed 
 his tale. " That's nothing," said he. He declared 
 that once when he was on the road with a six-horse 
 team he drove at a place where the mud was so deep 
 that all he had to guide him were the ears of the horse 
 in the lead. The same man gave a true photograph 
 of what we would have felt under similar circum- 
 stances when, referring to a time when he was load- 
 ing his wagon in Baltimore, he affirmed that in going 
 from the store to the wagon with a bag of lead on his 
 shoulders, he sank to his knees in the pavement. 
 
 A cousin german of the exaggerator was the pro- 
 fessional politician. The newspaper of his party was 
 so much the political Bible of this individual, that 
 where it praised he commended, and where it abused 
 he denounced. The village store and the village bar- 
 room were, by turns, the forum of this tribute of the 
 people. His vocabulary was so familiar to the ear of 
 childhood that, before I was twelve years of age, I 
 knew whether I fully understood or not of the " Tariffs 
 of '42 and '46," the " Buckshot War," the " United 
 States Bank," "Whig and Democrat," "Tory and 
 Locofoco," " Neutral and Abolitionist," " Tippecanoe 
 and Tyler too," " Salt River," besides being acquainted 
 with every phase of county politics. 
 
 The word " Abolitionist " is the wand which wakes 
 from memory two men who were members of that 
 party when it was but a handful of corn upon the top 
 of the mountains. One was a real prophet of fire and, 
 though without a liberal education, a natural genius; 
 an impassioned orator; breath, blood, bone, and muscle 
 an agitator. Neither the bitter taunt nor angry threat 
 
 144 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 nor contemptuous sneer could drive our village 
 Wendell Phillips from the crusade in behalf of the 
 slave. 
 
 However, the investigations of the village senate, 
 in its several places of assembly, were not confined to 
 the political horizon. I have known the company in 
 the village store to resolve itself into a committee of 
 the whole on mathematical, especially arithmetical, 
 problems. The arbiter of the science of quantity in 
 the community was the proprietor of the brick store, 
 whose delight in the solution of a problem was in pro- 
 portion to its intricacy of statement. 
 
 I cannot forbear the introduction of one of the arith- 
 metical jokes of the village traditions. Two persons 
 
 of the vicinity, known as Mr. B and Patrick C, 
 
 had met to make a final settlement for work done for 
 the former by the latter. The former presented his 
 statement of the account, and asked the latter if he 
 were satisfied. According to the story, Patrick took 
 the calculation and commenced: " Nort from nort and 
 nort remains." Then, with an expletive as full of 
 vigor as it was destitute of reverence for the third 
 
 commandment, he asserts, " Mr. B. , you owe me 
 
 fifty cents." 
 
 Our village senate would often leave the store and 
 the barroom for the schoolhouse and resolve itself 
 into a debating society. The village disputants used 
 to wrestle with such questions as involved the com- 
 parative merits of a tariff and a direct tax. I reach 
 over the lapse of years and turn the leaves of the old 
 record book, and " Is there more pleasure in pursuit 
 than in possession?" My ears recall the eloquence 
 
 145 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 that was poured forth concerning Napoleon Bonaparte 
 and the Duke of Wellington. 
 
 The literary world seems to be determined that the 
 close of the nineteenth century shall not be blind to 
 that " little Corsicar\ " who was the prominent figure 
 in the political world at its opening. As my thoughts 
 go back to the days of our village debating club, I am 
 convinced that it was about as successful in its homely 
 analysis of the character of Napoleon as the most 
 acute and judicial of our historians. Sir Archibald 
 Alison asserts that there is no man who can say that 
 he has a clear conception of what Napoleon's character 
 actually was — brave, without being chivalrous; some- 
 times humane, seldom generous; insatiable in am- 
 bition, inexhaustible in resources; without a thirst 
 for blood, but totally indifferent when his interests 
 were concerned; without any fixed ideas in religion, 
 but a strong perception of its necessity as a part of the 
 mechanism of government; a great general with a 
 small army, a mighty conqueror with a large one; 
 gifted with extraordinary powers of perception and the 
 clearest insight into every subject connected with man- 
 kind, without extensive information derived from 
 study, but the rarest aptitude for making himself mas- 
 ter of every subject from actual observation; ardently 
 devoted to glory, and yet incapable of the self-sacrifice 
 which constitutes its highest honors; he exhibited a 
 mixture of great and selfish qualities such as, perhaps, 
 never were before combined in any single individual. 
 His greatest defect was the constant and systematic 
 disregard of truth which pervaded all his thoughts. 
 
 The same writer adopts the sentiment of another, 
 146 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 who styled Wellington " a Caesar, without his ambi- 
 tion; a Pompey, without his pride; a Marlborough, 
 without his avarice; a Frederick, without his infidelity." 
 Of course, as a part of that sovereignty which our 
 Constitution has put into the hands of the people, our 
 village debating society would canvass questions in 
 which it would take issue for and against such men 
 as Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and Daniel Webster. 
 I simply advert to these names to refresh our minds 
 with respect to these great men. 
 
 Henry Clay 
 
 It is generally conceded that neither ancient nor 
 modern times has presented a so nearly complete 
 specimen of natural eloquence, or a so great power of 
 adaptation to the assemblies whom his wondrous 
 oratory made the subjects of his will. In the personal 
 memories of E. D. Mansfield there is the record of 
 an incident in connection with the " disgust " which 
 Mr. Clay, by some vote in Congress, had created 
 among his mountaineer constituents, known as the 
 " Hunters of Kentucky." Mr. Clay called a meeting, 
 and, in the course of his speech, fixing his eye on one 
 of his old supporters, said: " Suppose, my friend, you 
 had an old rifle which you had borne through the 
 hills many a day, and it had never failed you; but now 
 you put it to your shoulder and it snapped, but hung 
 fire, would you break the stock and throw it away, or 
 would you try it again? " 
 
 " I would try it again. We'll try you again, Harry 
 Clay! " shouted the hunters. 
 
 147 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 Our Village Home had an especial interest in Henry 
 Clay. Its founders saw in the Great Commoner and 
 staunch friend of the National Road the man whom 
 they delighted to honor, and gave the new settlement 
 his name. In his journeys to and fro from Washing- 
 ton, it was his wont to stop and cordially greet the 
 inhabitants of our little town. Well do I remember 
 the day when I formed one of a group which gathered 
 at the stage station to await the arrival of Henry Clay. 
 The impression of that venerable face, the tones of that 
 voice which had been the occasion of such marvels 
 of the orator's cunning, that fur cap and blue coat, will 
 never be dislodged from my memory. 
 
 John C. Calhoun 
 
 We have no reason to believe that he would have 
 shrunk from the consequences of the seed that he 
 planted as the Apostle of Secession. Let it suffice 
 here to quote Daniel Webster's description of his elo- 
 quence: " It was plain, strong, terse, condensed, pre- 
 cise; sometimes impassioned, still always severe. Re- 
 jecting ornament, not often seeking far for illustration, 
 his power consisted in the plainness of his propositions, 
 in the closeness of his logic, and in the earnestness and 
 energy of his manner." 
 
 Daniel Webster 
 
 Thomas Carlyle met Daniel Webster during his visit 
 to England. In a letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson he 
 says: " Not many clays ago I saw at breakfast the 
 
 148 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 notablest of all your notabilities, Daniel Webster. He 
 is a magnificent specimen. You might say to all the 
 world, ' This is your Yankee Englishman; such limbs 
 we make in Yankee land! ' As a Logic-fencer, Advo- 
 cate, or Parliamentary Hercules, one would incline 
 to back him at first sight against all the extant world. 
 The tanned complexion; that amorphous, crag-like 
 face; the dull, black eyes under their precipice of 
 brows, like dull anthracite furnaces needing only to be 
 blown; the mastiff mouth accurately closed — I have 
 not traced so much of silent Berserker rage that I re- 
 member of in any other man." 
 
 But I must not forget that our village population 
 was but a section of 
 
 Our Village Neighborhood 
 
 Alexander, Brownlee, Carson, Craig, Dickey, Egan, 
 Henderson, Hutchinson, McMillen, Marshall, Me- 
 cracken, Meloy, Moore, Robinson, are surnames 
 which show that our part of Washington County was 
 the Canaan of the North of Ireland, the Beersheba 
 where the Scotch-Irishman pitched his home, his 
 school, and his church. Some of these surnames are 
 remarkable for their connection with the same Chris- 
 tian name. Thus in one case the community dis- 
 tinguished the members of a family connection as 
 " Big Billy," " Little Billy," " Miller Billy," " Patton 
 Billy," Hutchinson Billy," " Laughing Billy," " Blue 
 Billy," and " Slim Jim," and " Blue Jim." Another 
 family had a member whom the whole country jocosely 
 stamped as " Imaginative Jim." To the northward 
 
 149 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 from Our Milage Home there was a colony of Penn- 
 sylvania Dutch, who seemed to take to the Christian 
 name of Christopher. 
 
 Our village neighborhood was given up to the work 
 of agriculture. The farmer of our community was 
 one 
 
 " Who with peculiar grace his station filled, 
 By deeds of hospitality endeared, 
 Served from affection, for his worth revered. 
 A happy offspring blessed his plenteous board ; 
 His fields were fruitful and his barns well stored. 
 And (flocks) he fed : a sturdy team ! 
 And lowing kine that graz'd beside the stream. 
 Unceasing industry he kept in view — 
 The fields his study, nature was his book. 
 And as revolving seasons changed the scene 
 From heat to cold, tempestuous to serene, 
 Through every change, still varied his employ, 
 Yet each new duty brought its share of joy." 
 
 One peculiarity of our farmers was the line they 
 drew between the value of an article while it was for 
 sale and after it was sold, thus confirming the word of 
 the writer of the Book of Proverbs: " It is naught, 
 it is naught, saith the buyer; but when he is gone his 
 way, then he boasteth;" and bringing to mind the 
 somewhat ludicrous but significant story mentioned by 
 Augustine, in which a theatrical mountebank an- 
 nounces to his audience that at his next entertainment 
 he will show every man what is in his heart. When he 
 stood before the immense concourse, he redeemed his 
 pledge by a single sentence: " Vili vultis emere et caro 
 vendere." — " You wish to buy cheap and sell dear." 
 Although they were so neighborly, so hospitable, and 
 
 150 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 so accommodating that they would share with you any 
 product of the farm, yet it was like pulling a tooth to 
 draw from them the least denomination of the current 
 coin of the realm. I recall a man who, when he went 
 to pay for a farm, would make one think of a person 
 going to mill. He would ride into our village, sitting 
 on a bag thrown across the saddle, the stones at one 
 end of it being balanced by a half-bushel of half-dollars 
 at the other. The panorama of memory presents more 
 than one who were in sympathy with the old farmer, 
 who, as the story goes, came into his town looking for 
 an editor's table on which to build a hen's nest. He 
 explained that he had learned from the papers that the 
 biggest eggs were always laid on the editor's table, and 
 he wished to ascertain whether the papers lied or not. 
 
 The tables of our village neighborhood were marvels 
 of culinary skill. The boys who sauntered from town 
 could find the way to this one's honey and to that one's 
 jam. Although it was not customary to eat by 
 courses, I believe that few of our vicinage would 
 have been as unsophisticated as the new member of 
 Congress who sent home the following description 
 of his experience at a dinner in the Capital of the Na- 
 tion. " There was nothing on the table when I got 
 there but some forks and spoons and bricky-brac. 
 Presently they brought in some soup. As I didn't see 
 nothin' else, I thought I'd eat all the soup I could, 
 though soup is a mighty poor dinner to invite a fellow 
 to. So I was helped four times, and then come on 
 the finest dinner I ever see, and there I sot," groaned 
 he, " chock full of soup." 
 
 A marked feature of our village neighborhood was 
 
 151 
 
Our Ullage Home 
 
 the intermarriage of kin. In no small number of in- 
 stances the marriage knot was the tie of consanguinity, 
 making the genealogical record a story of mixed 
 phenomena. 
 
 Neither the opposition of parents nor the unfavor- 
 able comment of the neighbors prevented the young 
 people of our community from giving the marriage 
 pledge in early life. My recollection of early mar- 
 riages convinces me that the dire prophecies concern- 
 ing them have not, by a great deal, been fulfilled. It 
 was rather " John Anderson, my jo John," from the 
 beginning to the end. There was nothing of the feel- 
 ing that was said to have inspired a Detroit girl who 
 married at fifteen so as to have her golden wedding 
 when it would do her some good. 
 
 Let me not be understood as conveying the idea that 
 every household of our region was free from family 
 jars. There were commotions which suggested the 
 story of a North Carolina justice of the peace, who 
 married a couple as he sat enthroned in state on the 
 back of a mule, and the animal, for once realizing that 
 bigger trouble was going on than he could produce, 
 kept his heels still. 
 
 It is no exaggeration to state that the Book of our 
 village neighborhood was the Bible. The Sacred 
 Oracles furnished the children with their stories. The 
 youth stored away the Scripture system of truth as 
 they said " the questions " of the Shorter Catechism 
 on Saturday in the secular school. " Rouse's Version " 
 of David's Psalms was the standard hymnology of 
 Southwestern Pennsylvania during the earlier decades 
 of the present century. The public service of the Sab- 
 
 152 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 bath over, the afternoon of God's holy day found each 
 member of the family with the Word of God in hand. 
 Consequently, when such a community congregated in 
 the church, the preacher was in touch with the electrify- 
 ing power of an intelligent audience. You would have 
 searched in vain for the editor, whom the story locates 
 at St. Louis, who, having by accident received in his 
 morning mail some proof-sheets intended for the em- 
 ployees of a religious publishing house, after glancing 
 over them, rushed to the city editor, yelling, " Why 
 in the world didn't you get a report of that big flood? 
 Even that slow, old religious paper across the way is 
 ahead of you. Send out your force for full particulars 
 — only one family saved. Interview the old man. His 
 name is Noah." 
 
 The truth of history, however, demands the mention 
 of that sui generis, the horse jockey. This individual 
 kept the summer afternoons from being monotonous. 
 He was as regular as a clock at every public gathering. 
 A satisfactory explanation of his contracts was always 
 on the end of his tongue, something like that of the 
 following colloquy. " You told me, sir, that the horse 
 was entirely without fault, and yet he is blind," said 
 an irritated loser to the successful dealer, and was 
 answered with the air of injured innocence: " I do not 
 regard blindness as a fault, sir. It is a misfortune." 
 More than one of our horse jockeys gave heed to the 
 advice of a gentleman of color. " My advice to the 
 Hoosier brudder am not to lie or deceive in tradin' 
 mules, but to answer as few queshuns as he kin, and 
 seem sort of keerless whether his offer am 'cepted or 
 not." 
 
 11 i53 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 It must be confessed that our village neighborhood 
 was rather litigious. My father was a justice of the 
 peace, and the Saturday was lonesome which was not 
 set down for a lawsuit. Many a purse was emptied by 
 disputes about trifles. The two Abolitionists already 
 mentioned, whom I shall call the Squire and Malachi, 
 were the parties to one of the traditional lawsuits of 
 the locality. The Squire's son Dan had a flock of 
 ducks which, it was claimed, had been devoured by 
 Malachi's old sow. Malachi brought suit for dam- 
 ages. The case lasted for years, and ran the gauntlet 
 of several courts and a board of arbitration. The 
 most prominent lawyers of the Washington County 
 Bar exhausted their knowledge of law and powers of 
 eloquence in the issues involved, piling up the costs 
 into the hundreds of dollars, and throwing the matter 
 into such a condition of entanglement that the whole 
 neighborhood was alive with the question: " Did the 
 pig devour the ducks, or did the ducks eat the pig? " 
 
 But I cannot erase from my memory the woe, the 
 sorrow, the contentions, the babbling, the wounds 
 without cause, the redness of eyes with which the 
 demon of intemperance stamped his victims in our 
 village neighborhood. In my boyhood days the bar- 
 room of the village tavern was a village centre. The 
 sot, the tippler, the dram drinker, the bitters'-taker, 
 the get-up-early-in-the-morning thirst, gave it a con- 
 tinual run of business. It did its work so thoroughly 
 in the ruin of individuals, in the misery of families, in 
 the waste of capabilities and opportunities, that I want 
 no better temperance lecture than to walk through the 
 old village graveyard, which the village bar-room has 
 
 154 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 sown so thickly with the drunkard's grave. And if in 
 our village neighborhood it is the general rule in this 
 year of grace for families to have, as old Ben Franklin 
 puts it, " wood on the fire, meal in the barrel, flour in 
 the tub, money in the purse, credit in the country, con- 
 tentment in the house, clothes on the back, and vigor 
 in the body," I believe that the reason is to be found in 
 the fact that for the last thirty years there has not been 
 a licensed bar or saloon in Our Village Home. I be- 
 lieve, further, that our village neighborhood is a proof 
 of the proposition that the best way to promote the 
 growth of temperance is to foster and develop and 
 enforce the temperance that there is in the laws that 
 we have. Still further, I believe that our village neigh- 
 borhood is a proof of the proposition that a community 
 can be prepared for, and trained to, the practice and 
 support of prohibition. 
 
 As a matter of course, in such a survey as the fore- 
 going, I have dwelt upon the impressible features of 
 our village and its neighborhood. I have said nothing 
 of that majority whose lives were so quiet and unevent- 
 ful that their earthly history finds its model in the fifth 
 chapter of the Book of Genesis, as in their case life 
 is summed up in their birth, their families, and their 
 death. But did they live in vain? Nay, verily. The 
 average acquaintance with the Bible on the part of the 
 community, the average parental training, warrant the 
 following interpretation of their quiet lives: 
 
 "In a valley, centuries ago, 
 Grew a little fern leaf, green and slender, 
 Veinings delicate and fibres tender, 
 
 Waving when the winds crept down so low. 
 
 "i55 ~ 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 Rushes tall, and moss and grass grew round it ; 
 Playful sunbeams darted in and found it ; 
 Drops of dew stole down by night and crowned it ; 
 But no foot of man e'er came that way — 
 Earth was young and keeping holiday. 
 
 "Useless? Lost? There came a thoughtful man 
 Searching nature's secrets far and deep ! 
 From a fissure in a rocky steep 
 
 He withdrew a stone o'er which there ran 
 Fairy pencillings, a quaint design, 
 Leafage veining, fibres clear and fine, 
 And the fern's life lay in every line. 
 So I think God hides some souls away, 
 Sweetly to surprise us the last day." 
 
 And I expect to find many such surprises when, in 
 the light of the resurrection morn, I meet the popula- 
 tion of Our Village Home and its neighborhood. 
 
 Our Village Holiday 
 
 The principal holidays of Our Village Home were 
 the battalion muster (commonly designated by the 
 little children as the pcrtallion muster) and the Fourth 
 of July. The people were too Scotch-Irish to attach 
 any significance to Christmas. A New Year's call was 
 a thing unheard of. Still, both Christmas and the 
 New Year were recognized by big dinners and often 
 by the traditional country ball. 
 
 The battalion muster was signalized by the annual 
 visit of the Brigade Inspector. The battalion stands 
 out in line before my vision on the hill to the south 
 of Our Village Home. Dutch Fork had sent forth its 
 
 156 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 train bands. The Wheeling Hills had contributed 
 their legions. There were the West Finley Rifles, 
 with their green-coated fifer and drummer, and I will 
 never forget how they were wont to scream and beat 
 " The Devil's Dream." There were " The Blues," of 
 Our Village Home, with its military band of boys, 
 marching to the strains of such tunes as " Rory 
 O'More," " The Campbells are Coming," " Yankee 
 Doodle," " St. Patrick's Day," and " The Girl I Left 
 Behind Me." 
 
 But that dress parade — that regimental line. So 
 many uniformed and so many weaponed. Three 
 streaks of regulation uniform at the right: " The Clays- 
 ville Blues," "The West Finley Rifles," and "The 
 Buffalo Artillery." Then followed a variegated mix- 
 ture, made up of Sunday-go-to-meeting suits, war- 
 muses, hunting shirts, and waistcoats whose color was 
 relieved by the whiteness of the shirt sleeves. The 
 variety of weapon was worthy the curiosity room of 
 an arsenal. There were the army musket, the State 
 rifle, the six-pounder, the bayonet, the artillery cutlass, 
 the broadsword, the walking cane, the hickory shilla- 
 lah, the alder stalk, and — memory fails me to tell of the 
 other articles through which the yeomanry showed 
 their ability to strike for their altars and their fires. 
 The f}eld officers, in their array of plume and blue and 
 tinsel, were simply stunning. 
 
 The battalion muster was the set time for the pugi- 
 listic encounters with which our ancestors usually ad- 
 justed their differences. And we boys, following the 
 example of our elders, when we opposed each other on 
 the playground, found it oftentimes more convenient 
 
 i57 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 to say, " Just wait until the perlallion muster and I'll 
 lick you." The " big muster " was also the day on 
 which the man who only got drunk occasionally in- 
 dulged himself. So that when evening came, there 
 were several blackened eyes and staggering forms. 
 
 I recall with a glad heart the old-time celebrations 
 of the Fourth of July — the procession to the church, 
 with the " Village Blues " as the escort, Cal King and 
 Josiah Carroll, filers; James Noble and Aaron Patter- 
 son, tenor; and Alexander Wallace and Marcus Dean, 
 bass drummers. The exercises at the church! What 
 an array of officers! President, vice-presidents, and 
 secretaries. Sometimes there were present some old 
 Revolutionary soldiers, who still " lingered on the 
 shores of Time," as well as a more numerous company 
 of the soldiers of the War of 1812, to occupy the seats 
 of honor. Then came, first, the minister's prayer, 
 then the reading of the Declaration of Independence, 
 then the oration. Among the orators were the Hon. 
 John H. Craig and the Hon. Sherrard Clemens, both 
 bearing family names in our village neighborhood. 
 
 From the church the procession returned to the 
 village tavern. Turkey, roast beef, roast pig, pie, 
 cake, and coffee were the usual constituents of the bill 
 of fare afforded by the dinner. Then came the toasts: 
 " The President of the United States." " The Gov- 
 ernor of the Commonwealth." " The Heroes of the 
 Mexican War." " The Ladies, God bless them." 
 
 I believe in the celebration of the Fourth of July. 
 
 I sincerely trust that " the old-fashioned Fourth " will 
 
 never become so antiquated as to become distasteful to 
 
 the American people. The God of nations has given 
 
 158 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 it a Scriptural warrant in the national festivals ordained 
 in the Constitution of the Hebrew Commonwealth. 
 The question of the Hebrew children: " What mean ye 
 by this service?" suggests the information which the 
 Fourth of July ought to give to the boys and girls of 
 America. 
 
 The foregoing picture gives the most prominence 
 to The Village Blues. We thought it a grand 
 spectacle to see them marching along the street with 
 glittering flintlock muskets, blue coats, and white 
 pants. By general consent they were the essential, the 
 attractive constituent of every " big muster " and 
 Fourth of July. One of my early recollections is the 
 interest with which we looked for their return from 
 the Pittsburgh Encampment. Then, too, under their 
 auspices an encampment was held on the village out- 
 skirts, which became an epoch in our domestic annals. 
 I suppose that every boy turned out to help the 
 " Blues " escort the visiting commands to the camp- 
 ing-ground. This very moment I hear the roar, and 
 see the smoke, and witness the charges of the Ten 
 Mile Rangers, in the sham battle. I must confess 
 that I have always liked the pomp rather than the 
 circumstance of war. This is certainly an honest con- 
 fession, for, as a little boy, I quivered and trembled as, 
 at least a half mile away, I looked on that sham battle. 
 Certainly on that day I could have gone beyond Ar- 
 temas Ward. He was perfectly willing that all his 
 wife's relatives should enlist. I could have added all 
 my uncles, aunts, cousins, even the most distant of my 
 kith and kin. 
 
 There were several wearers of military titles in or 
 
 159 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 near Our Village Home. There was the venerable 
 Col. Benjamin Anderson, who saw service in the War 
 of 1812. His old age was the figure of a gentleman 
 wearing a crown of glory. There was Major Joseph 
 Bryant, who was a welcome visitor at the fireside, and 
 sat in the company which was wont to gather about 
 in the home or in the village store, with the dignity of 
 an oracle. There was Major Irwin, a prince among 
 neighbors, yet of unflinching fearlessness in the utter- 
 ance and maintenance of his opinions. There was that 
 magnificent personality, Captain Rider, who would 
 spend many a pleasant evening instructing the little 
 boys in the military manual; the legislator who, be- 
 cause he was fifty years ahead of his neighbors, and 
 voted that the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad should 
 have the right of way through Washington County, 
 Pennsylvania, was so shamefully treated by our vil- 
 lagers that he left for the West, to become an honored 
 citizen of the State of Iowa. There was the dignified 
 Capt. Charles Cracraft, who impressed a boy as a 
 master of the English language. There was Capt. 
 James Anderson, whom the whole community recog- 
 nized as the officer who was born, not made. 
 
 I select for description but two of the eccentricities 
 
 of our military organization. Jonathan had the 
 
 reputation of being one of the most awkward creatures 
 that ever wore a uniform or handled a gun. It would 
 have struck a stranger as very singular that he should 
 always march at the rear of the company. His sur- 
 prise would have disappeared if he had known that 
 Jonathan could scarcely go through the simplest 
 manoeuvre of the manual of drill without threatening 
 
 160 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 to remove the headgear of every comrade within ten 
 feet of him, or exposing him to bodily harm. The 
 story went the rounds that he had been known to walk 
 clear out of the ranks to fall over a stone or log lying 
 by the wayside. Hence he was relegated to the rear, 
 where he could have plenty of room, and, without en- 
 dangering others, fall all around. 
 
 Another member of the company was known as 
 
 " ." The " Village Blues " were invited to 
 
 accept the hospitalities of the military of Wheeling 
 on a certain Fourth of July. Dinner was prepared at 
 the McLure House, at which ice cream and water- 
 melon were served as dessert. The ice cream was a 
 revelation to our friend, and it struck him as one of the 
 most delicious things that had ever passed his lips. It 
 did not take him long to transfer the contents of the 
 plate. The waiter, noticing its emptiness, politely in- 
 quired if there was anything else he would have. 
 
 " Yes," says " ," " you may give me another sasser 
 
 of cold puddin' and another slice of watermillion if you 
 have any more about the house." In the relation of 
 his adventure at Wheeling, he observed that the din- 
 ners at the McLure House were as good as the dinners 
 that were given at a certain farmhouse when they had 
 the threshing machine. 
 
 Our Village School 
 
 " Oh, were you ne'er a schoolboy ? " 
 
 Then the reader will not wonder that the boys and 
 girls of the past crowd out the scenes of the present. 
 I have a distinct impression of my first teacher, James 
 
 161 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 Graham, but time has swept the incidents of his tute- 
 lage from the tablet of memory. Another early in- 
 structor, Simon Meredith, exhibited every phase of 
 temper as the pendulum swung between the extremes 
 of kindness and cruelty. He was followed by one of 
 the most womanly women I ever knew, Miss Margaret 
 K. Bell. She was succeeded by Dr. John McCall, an 
 able teacher and a stern disciplinarian. The next di- 
 rector of my studies was John P. Gamble, who took 
 great pride in the progress of his scholars. In the fore- 
 going list are to be included Thomas H. Atkinson and 
 George Bright Birch. 
 
 As I have pondered over my early school life I am 
 convinced that my education was rather mechanical 
 than thoughtful; that my teachers helped me in the 
 wrong way; that I memorized rather than grasped; 
 that I was not drilled in the art of expressing that 
 which I really knew. 
 
 But when I was in my fourteenth year, a teacher 
 (James Ely) came who did all this, and the world of 
 knowledge which spread out before me produced an 
 enthusiasm and delight like that which made Colum- 
 bus so glad when the New World first greeted his 
 vision. 
 
 As I write, my schoolmates emerge from the shades 
 of the past, and I see sober Tommy Ritezel. My head 
 touches that of Bill Humes, as together we hunt for the 
 unknown in the problems of arithmetic and algebra. 
 I study that combination of ability, kindness, and ill 
 temper known as Aaron Scott. I listen to the oracular 
 statements of Dan Miller. I feel, this moment, the 
 depression of the loneliness which possessed my soul 
 
 162 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 when the Rider boys, George and Tom, went to Iowa; 
 when the Kurtz boys, Ike, Morgan, Bill, and Tom, 
 moved to Ohio. Who that ever knew Mark Dill will 
 forget the appearance of a certain face when the good 
 humor of his nature dissolved it into a grin? There 
 was Bill Cracraft, whose speech found its analogy in 
 the discharges of a Gatling gun. Jack Lloyd, in pluck 
 and positiveness, was worthy to bear the name of Gen. 
 Andrew Jackson. What a wide range of discussion 
 filled the time which two boys, Nelse McNeal and my- 
 self, took in our morning and evening walks to and 
 from the cow pasture. Curious Sam Rickey; the Tom 
 Nobles, known respectively as Squire's Tom and 
 Becky's Tom; the Abercrombies, Chester, Ned, and 
 Joe; the Gourleys, John and his brothers and cousins; 
 the Mecrackens, Sam and John; the Warrells, Bob, 
 Bill, and John; the McGills, Jim, Joe, and Sam; the 
 Stewarts, Bill and Reed; the boy of affairs, Kep. 
 Walker; companionable Jim Kerr, as it were, resurrect 
 the old schoolhouse with its lessons and the old play- 
 ground with its sports. 
 
 And as I close this roll-call of memory with the 
 names of Mary Mecracken, now in Denver; of Mary 
 Miller, now in Indiana; of Margaret Jane Mealy and 
 Mary Bell, now in Heaven, I once more bask " in the 
 laughing light and life of childhood " ; I once more 
 partake of " the gaiety that has known no check " ; I 
 once more act " the frankness that has felt no chill " ; 
 I once more indulge " the hope that has never with- 
 ered " ; I once more realize " the joys that fade in 
 blossoming." 
 
 A marked change in text-books took place during 
 163 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 my school life. At its commencement the " New 
 England Primer," with its pictures illustrating such 
 couplets as 
 
 " In Adam's fall 
 We sinned all." 
 
 "Youth forward slips 
 Death soonest nips." 
 
 " The British king 
 Lost States thirteen " — 
 
 gave the primary scholar the first lessons in history, 
 theology, and patriotism. Lindley Murray's " Eng- 
 lish Reader " and the " Western Calculator," with its 
 pounds, shillings, and pence, were put into the hands 
 of the more advanced scholars. We used to make the 
 walls ring on the announcement, " Spelling Lessons," 
 with the enunciation of the letters as Lyman Cobb and 
 Salem Town arranged them into words. Our drill- 
 books in the English language were Cobb's and Mc- 
 Guffey's readers, McGuffey's being the more attrac- 
 tive on account of the illustrations. Perhaps my 
 schoolmates will remember the boy on the back of the 
 St. Bernard dog in McGuffey's " Second Reader " ; 
 the " Knowledge is Power," with the " ' I see, I see,' 
 said the little man " in McGuffey's " Third Reader " ; 
 the story of Inkle and Yarico in Cobb's " Fourth 
 Reader " ; the " Vision of Mirza " and the play of 
 " William Tell " in McGuffey's " Fourth Reader." I 
 do not know that our schools have ever had better 
 literature than the specimens which were gathered to- 
 gether in our readers. 
 
 One of my best text-books was Parker's " Progres- 
 164 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 sive Exercises in English Composition." It taught us 
 to tell what we thought. Greenleaf's " Arithmetic " 
 gave me the best idea of figures. Davies' " Algebra " 
 initiated us into the unknown of the x. Smith gave us 
 the parts of grammar. 
 
 There was a sad lack of uniformity in our text-books. 
 The schools were not graded. Instruction, for the 
 greater part, was individual. 
 
 School government in the days of our youth recog- 
 nized corporal punishment as the rule rather than the 
 exception. It was generally understood that if the 
 schoolmaster did not thrash the big boys, those young 
 gentlemen would assume the control of the school- 
 master. Indeed, the teacher felt that until this ques- 
 tion was settled his school was not in full operation. 
 I am aware that the general crusade against corporal 
 punishment has been successful. Yet I will risk call- 
 ing attention to the following from that great medical 
 authority, the London Lancet: 
 
 SCHOOL CHASTISEMENTS 
 
 " Some grown persons would seem to think that there is no 
 true place for chastisement in a system of education. Such, at 
 all events, is our impression of those, and there are many par- 
 ents among them, who regard an ordinary beating given in 
 school as almost an indictable form of assault. People of this 
 kind have evidently forgotten the singularities of their own 
 wayward youth, or perhaps their lives knew only a genial and 
 untroubled springtime of good conduct. In neither case can 
 their judgment be relied upon to form a rule of discipline for 
 the guidance of school teachers. The bad boy will continue 
 to deserve, and to repay with better behavior, his needful 
 thrashings, and even the good boy will sometimes err and will 
 
 165 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 profit by corporal reproofs. The truth about physical punish- 
 ment, we may take it, is that it is indispensable — an evil, per- 
 haps, but a necessary one. It must be borne, but in order to 
 attain success with the least possible amount of injurious fric- 
 tion, it must also be regulated. There must be no impulsive 
 pulling about, no random strokes with the hand or the ruler, no 
 ear-boxing with its probable sequel — the ruptured tympanum. 
 The head should never be struck, not even slapped. We may 
 say the same of the body, but for one most tender but safely 
 padded prominence which appears to mark the naturally 
 appointed seat of childish affliction. We need hardly empha- 
 size the importance of guarding jealously against all displays 
 of temper while inflicting punishment. No doubt this is diffi- 
 cult with refractory children, but such a degree of self-govern- 
 ment as will enable parents or teachers to avoid the angry 
 moment is nevertheless requisite for success. A case occurred 
 lately which illustrates this point. It was that of a boy who 
 was beaten about the back and hand the day following a school 
 misdemeanor. Singularly enough, he injured his head next 
 day, and being at the time in poor health, though believed to 
 be well, died in a week from tubercular meningitis. At once 
 his teacher was blamed, but proof being brought that the 
 chastisement inflicted , was deliberate, orderly, and propor- 
 tionate, though the means employed were not quite regular, 
 he was entirely exonerated at a subsequent inquest. It would, 
 indeed, in many cases render the duties of a schoolmaster as 
 barren as difficult if he were not allowed a reasonable freedom 
 in physical correction. The possible occurrence of such inci- 
 dents as the above must, however, impress what we have said 
 as to method in its application." 
 
 A popular feature of our village school was the 
 examination and exhibition at the end of the term. A 
 stage was erected. The seat of honor was occupied 
 by the school directors of the district. There was not 
 standing room left for any who endeavored to push 
 
 166 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 their way into the crowd which thronged the building. 
 Music, declamation, dialogue, and essay, serious and 
 humorous, relieved the monotony of the examination. 
 
 But our village schoolhouse was also the scene of 
 amateur theatricals, which were disguised by the name 
 of exhibition. Those performances cover the extent 
 of my attendance at the theatre. The favorite plays 
 were " Richard the Third " and " William Tell." For 
 weeks previous to their occurrence these exhibitions 
 were the talk of every household. I remember two of 
 the members of the orchestra, which varied in size, but 
 was generally confined to John Hoon and Thaddeus 
 C. Noble, as they played on the clarionet. The 
 former became a Presbyterian elder, and the latter was 
 well known in the political, commercial, and religious 
 circles of Washington County. A friend has told me 
 that, although this orchestra was often encored, its 
 music, in this later day of the world, would set your 
 teeth on edge and make your hair stand straight out. 
 The person, Dick Lamborn, who represented Richard 
 the Third was a consummate actor. Billy Ritezel, 
 who appeared as Queen Margaret, has been a printer, 
 newspaper editor, and publisher in Washington 
 County, and editor in and legislator of the State of 
 Ohio. 
 
 The closing performance of these exhibitions was 
 an impersonation of our colored brethren. Alfred 
 Prowitt, who was the " white man " who made him- 
 self the " nigger minstrel " of the occasion, died at a 
 good old age a short time since. How he could sing 
 "Dandy Jim," "Coal Black Rose," and "Gumbo 
 Chaff " ! 
 
 167 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 The schoolhouse yard furnished ample space for the 
 sports of childhood. We played " town-hall," " alley- 
 ball," " corner-ball," and " cat-ball," " prisoners' base," 
 and " hunt the horn." We had our repertoire of those 
 quaint doggerels known as counting out rhymes, such 
 as 
 
 I 
 
 " Onery, twoery, Ickory Ann, 
 Filison, Folison, Nicholas, John ; 
 Queebie, Quawbie, English Mary, 
 Stringelum, Strangelum, Buck. 
 
 II 
 
 " Onery Urey, Ickory Avey, 
 Halibout, Crackabout, Tamboavey, 
 Mingo, Mango, Merry go Me, 
 Humbly, Bumbly, Ninety-three. 
 
 Ill 
 
 " Hayley, Mayley, Chickenny, Chaw, 
 Heepy, Peepy, Craney, Aw." 
 
 In the early period of my attendance at our village 
 school its curriculum was mostly confined to the three 
 R's. It was never widened so far as to embrace Ger- 
 man, French, etc. I smypathize with those who be- 
 lieve that but one language ought to prevail in the 
 American common school, and that language is the 
 English. There ought to be no such thing as a 
 German-American. There always will be, however, as 
 long as the encouragement is given to the difference 
 of tongues among the people. The fact ought to be 
 everywhere as a Michigan man is said to have put it: 
 
 168 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 " I don't believe in this learning German, Spanish, 
 French, or any foreign language. Why, I lived among 
 a lot of Germans and got along with them just as well 
 as if I had known their language; but I didn't, not a 
 word of it." 
 
 On being asked, " How did you contrive it? " he re- 
 plied: " Why, you see, they understood mine." 
 
 An amusing phase of this idea is presented in the 
 following: A German enters a restaurant. An Irish 
 waiter greets him with " Good morning! " " Wie 
 gehtes? " answers the German. "Wheat cakes!" shouts 
 the Irishman to the kitchen. " Nein, nein! " protests 
 the German. To which the Irishman responds, " Faith, 
 and you'll be lucky if you get three." 
 
 All hail the common school! Rejected be the 
 thought, paralyzed be the effort, overthrown be the 
 church that would hinder, cripple, pervert, sectarianize, 
 destroy the common school. We cannot do without 
 this means of the general education of the people. 
 Without this fulcrum of rational freedom our Republic 
 is a failure. 
 
 Our Village Church 
 
 In the present paper it is proposed to present the 
 church of Our Village Home after the manner of a 
 composite picture, as we consider it in its interdenomi- 
 national aspect rather than in its particular phase of 
 Christian life and doctrine. 
 
 The Presbyterian house of worship was the prin- 
 cipal building of Our Village Home. The beauty of 
 its location served to render one less sensitive to the 
 12 169 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 plainness of its architecture. The congregation which 
 gathered within its walls embraced the main portion of 
 the community. Its history is the registry of the in- 
 crease which God has given to the planting of Thomas 
 Hoge, and to the watering of Peter Hassinger, John 
 Knox, William Wright, George Gordon, John Mil- 
 ler, David McConaughey, Nicholas Murray, Alex- 
 ander McCarrell, James L. Leeper, and Frank Fish. 
 And as I think of the three generations which have 
 worshipped in that church; of the sons of Levi who 
 have gone forth from those family pews to serve God 
 in the Gospel ministry; of the praises, the prayers, the 
 sermons, the communions, the Sunday-school ses- 
 sions, the singing schools, the revivals, which made 
 the Presbyterian meeting-house of Our Village Home 
 the house of God and the gate of Heaven — I feel that 
 the ideal is the logical consequent of the real when I 
 affirm that the venerable pile is a monument whose 
 proper inscription is, " Be thou faithful unto death, and 
 I will give thee a crown of life." 
 
 At the west end of Our Village Home there stood 
 the church home of a little band of the disciples of 
 John Wesley. Its exhibition of the consecration and 
 zeal of the noble founder of Methodism caused the 
 venerable men, godly women, and stalwart Christians 
 who made the quarterly meeting the event of the year, 
 to be a power for good in the community. Its roll of 
 ministers is an honorable one. I have a dim recollec- 
 tion of Rev. Mr. McCaskey. Among my first im- 
 pressions of the power of personal presence in a 
 preacher, one was derived from a little boy's view of 
 the famous presiding elder, Battelle. The utterances 
 
 170 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 of Father Hudson, that old man eloquent, are still ring- 
 ing in my ear. To look upon the venerable Father 
 Hudson was to feel that you were before a man of 
 God. The time would fail me to tell of Messrs. Deeves, 
 Dempsey, Pugh, McGuire, Turner, Morrison, Boyle, 
 and others forgotten here, but not forgotten in God's 
 book of remembrance. 
 
 As I write, the congregation rises before me, the 
 males on one side of the house and the females on the 
 other, and Father Noble and Father Milligan are in 
 the Amen corner; that miracle of grace, John Zinn, is 
 shouting " Hallelujah " ; James and Samson Patterson 
 are holding to Christ in true Methodist fashion; that 
 man of affairs, Samuel D. Rickey, is walking with the 
 God who took him to Heaven, and sweet-tempered 
 Phillip Sliffe is singing the songs of Zion. 
 
 Several families of Our Village Home worshipped 
 God in the Associate Church of South Buffalo. This 
 church represented the " straitest sect of the Presby- 
 terians " in our community. They praised God in 
 Rouse's version of the Psalms of David. They were 
 averse to occasional hearing. Their religious services 
 were somewhat protracted. They observed the Thurs- 
 day fast-day. They reverenced the holy Sabbath. 
 
 The South Buffalo pulpit was filled by able men. 
 " I always bowed in reverence before the good, grey 
 head " of Rev. David French, whose name was a 
 household word throughout the region during my 
 childhood. As long as he lived, the church customs 
 of the olden time were faithfully observed. Once I 
 heard him fencing the tables on a communion occa- 
 sion. He certainly proved that no one ought to sit 
 
 171 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 down at the Lord's Table who was not on the right side 
 of the Ten Commandments. After Mr. French came 
 that fearless advocate of truth, that well-instructed 
 scribe, that genial companion, Rev. Dr. James Carson. 
 He was followed by the Rev. Alexander McLachlan, 
 under whose pastorate the meeting-house at South 
 Buffalo has been exchanged for the most beautiful 
 church in Our Village Home. 
 
 The South Buffalo Church emphasized the family- 
 idea of the church. The names of Brownlee, Carson, 
 Crothers, Graham, Grimes, Knox, McMillen, McNeal, 
 Milligan, Ralston, Sawhill, reminded one of the fami- 
 lies which clustered around the Tabernacle of the Wil- 
 derness. 
 
 But the rush of past recollections brings to view a 
 little church which stood on a hill a few miles to the 
 southward from Our Village Home. On that spot, 
 for nearly a century, the denomination with which 
 Peter Otterbein has linked his name has lifted the 
 banner of the cross. During my boyhood it was noted 
 for exhibitions of the phenomena of the old-time re- 
 ligious revival. The personality most prominently 
 identified with the history of the Zion Church of the 
 United Brethren in Christ was known by young and 
 old as Joshua Stoolfire. As a type of the emotional 
 in religion, he was a marked instance. As I think 
 of the times that Heaven came to him in the little 
 church, the Zion of Dutch Fork transforms itself into 
 the Mount Zion of the Book of Revelation, and the 
 voice of Joshua Stoolfire helps to swell the sound of 
 many waters which ascends to the Lamb that was 
 slain. 
 
 172 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 Thus the Presbyterian, the United Presbyterian, the 
 Methodist, and the United Brethren churches were 
 the one Church of the Living God of Our Village 
 Home. " The unity of Christians," it has been well 
 said, " is not found in formality, in credal expression, 
 in propositional theology, in ecclesiastical arrange- 
 ment; down in the centre of the heart, in a place un- 
 touched, so to say, by human fingers, their lies the 
 common organic nerve that unites Christendom in its 
 worship and its hope." 
 
 And now I can only express my feeling concerning 
 Our Village Home by the accommodation of the 
 thought with which old Bishop Home closed his 
 " Meditations on the Psalms " : " Happier hours than 
 those which I spent amid its scenes I never expect to 
 see in this world. Very pleasantly did they pass, and 
 they moved smoothly and swiftly along." 
 
 It is sweet to have the Present smile upon us. We 
 look forward into the Future with all the charms of an- 
 ticipation. As we look back at Our Village Home of 
 the Past, " while our tears fall upon her," do we not 
 at least " dream that she smiles just as she did of yore"? 
 As the years roll by is not that Past dearer still? This 
 is natural, for 
 
 " N Who that recollects young years and loves, 
 Though hoary now, and with a withering breast, 
 And palsied fancy which no longer roves 
 Beyond its dimmed eye's sphere, 
 But would much rather sigh like his son 
 Than cough like his grandfather ? " 
 
 O thou spot in which our spirit dwelt beneath the 
 i73 
 
Our Village Home 
 
 glorious dawning of life! beloved world of boyhood! 
 Though round and round thy boundaries the pigeons 
 could fly in five minutes; though the martens, as they 
 wheeled around the signboard box, described a circle 
 which took in the surrounding forests, there is not 
 in all the earth such an interchange of woods and 
 meadows, glens, dells, and rocks; such living beings as 
 those with which memory peoples our infancy and boy- 
 hood, whose voices, laughter, eyes, forehead, hands so 
 often grasped, arms linked in arms, have become 
 scarcely more than images and echoes. And I set 
 the strains of my heart to Christopher North's music 
 as I say: " Melancholy and not mirth doth he hope to 
 find who, after a life of wandering, and maybe not with- 
 out sorrow, comes back on the places and homes 
 wherein to his eyes once grew the flowers of Paradise." 
 Flowers of Paradise are ye still; for praise be to God 
 the sense of the old home is still strong within us, and, 
 methinks, we could feel the beauty of the scene though 
 our heart were broken. 
 
 174 
 
Appendix 
 
Appendix 
 
 The Genesis of Claysville 
 
 I am indebted to the Claysville Recorder of Novem- 
 ber 17, 1897, for the following article: 
 
 A TRAMP PRINTER. 
 
 Samuel Haslett is the name given by a tramp printer 
 Who sauntered into the Recorder office last week. 
 Sixty summers and more he had seen, for he has been 
 a printer for nearly fifty years, and had only recently 
 come from the Pacific coast. He was clothed in a 
 rough suit and wore long iron gray hair and beard, 
 and in his prime must have been a man of striking 
 appearance. 
 
 But the curious part of his appearance here — his 
 first visit — it will be interesting to note, is that 100 
 years ago his grandfather, John Purviance, owned all 
 the land that Claysville is built upon. He said one 
 of Purviance's daughters was now living in Butler 
 County, and is past ninety years of age. 
 
 Looking up a little history we find that Claysville 
 is a part of a tract of land taken up by Thomas Waller 
 on a Pennsylvania warrant dated February 25, 1775, 
 and surveyed the second day of the following April 
 
 177 
 
Appendix 
 
 as " Superfine Bottom." It adjoined the Robert 
 Walker tract of 420 acres taken up by a Virginia cer- 
 tificate dated January, 1780, that of Robert Henry and 
 other lands of Thomas Waller. The " Superfine Bot- 
 tom," which embraces the site of Claysville, was 
 passed by transfer to John Purviance. The old 
 Wheeling road was opened through it. By this road, 
 not long after the year 1800, Purviance opened a tav- 
 ern in a large two-story log house having three rooms 
 on the lower floor and four on the upper floor. This 
 house stood on the lot now owned by Thomas Griffith 
 and occupied by D. K. Irwin, landlord of the Bell 
 House. Purviance had been keeping tavern a num- 
 ber of years when the preliminary survey was made 
 for the great National Road from Wheeling to Cum- 
 berland. When it became certain by the final surveys 
 for location made under Col. Eli Williams, that the 
 route of the road would pass his house, Purviance 
 promptly surveyed and laid out a prospective town. 
 He was a believer in the use of printer's ink and ad- 
 vertised in the Washington Reporter. The issue of 
 April 21, 1817, contained this advertisement: 
 
 Claysville. — The subscriber having laid off a number of 
 building lots in the new town of Claysville, will offer the same 
 at public sale on the premises, on Thursday, the eighth day 
 of May next. Lots will be sold agreeably to a plan or plot 
 exhibited on the day of sale. 
 
 Claysville is distant ten miles from Washington westward, 
 and about eighteen east of Wheeling and six from Alexandria 
 (West Alexander). The Great National Road from Cumber- 
 land to Wheeling, as located by Colonel Williams and con- 
 firmed by the President and now rapidly progressing toward 
 its completion, passes directly through the town. The lots 
 
 178 
 
Appendix 
 
 contain a front of fifty feet on the road and a depth back of 
 two hundred feet, with suitable and convenient avenues to 
 each block of lots. The " scite " of the town is beautiful, well- 
 watered, a fertile country around it and a good population. 
 To persons who may purchase and improve the present sea- 
 son, the subscriber will give timber for any frame building 
 that may be put without price. On the day of sale the terms 
 of credit will be made known. 
 
 John Purviance. 
 
 The first house built on the site of Claysville after it 
 was laid out by Purviance was erected by Simon Shurr 
 on property now owned by the Claysville Real Estate 
 Company, where the First National Bank now stands. 
 Following were houses built by a Mr. Miller and one 
 by Wm. Brownlee, a tailor, now occupied by W. R. 
 Jones and John Denormandie. 
 
 This tramp printer's grandfather also gave the lot 
 on which the first schoolhouse and the old Presby- 
 terian Church in this place were built, $225.50 being 
 subscribed to erect a school building. He is also said 
 to have donated the old cemetery lot. 
 
 In 1835-36, John Birch was the tax collector, and 
 William Milligan the town clerk, of the Borough of 
 Claysville. The following names appear on the tax 
 list: 
 
 James Armstrong, George Aston, John Barr, 
 Thomas Anderson, William Brownlee, John Brock- 
 man, Andrew Bell, Joseph Bryant, Abraham Brewer, 
 John Birch, Moses Bell, Basil Brown, Alexander 
 Chapman, Uriah Clarke, Lawrence Coffield, Eckart 
 Carrol, Samuel Cooper, Samuel Gamble, Aquila Gar- 
 retson, John Garret, Henry Giger, James Graham, 
 
 179 
 
Appendix 
 
 William Humes, Joshua Howard, James Harvey, 
 Sarah Hartzel, Joseph Henderson, Esq., Inggling 
 (sign maker), Henry Jamison, Lewis Jones, Dr. James 
 P. Kerr, Charles Knight, Hester Kurtz, John Kelly, 
 Daniel Kurtz, William Knox, Thomas Knox, Joel 
 Lamborn, William Milligan, Thomas Miller, Esq., 
 John Marshall, Robert McNeal, Thomas McGiffin, 
 Esq., John McCracken, Joseph McCracken, William 
 Moor, Jonas Mills, Lemon McCarrell, James Noble, 
 William Porter, John Patterson, David Richey, John 
 Ritzell, Daniel Rider, Susanna Ralston, James 
 Shanon, Simon Shur, Mathias Snyder, James Sawhill, 
 JT-riiesdeLTs (estate), Thomas Williams, Mrs. Vansickle, 
 Robert Woods, George Wyth, Alexander White, 
 James Wallace, George Wilson, William Jones. 
 
 The order with reference to delinquents, was that 
 " in case goods and chattels cannot be found suffi- 
 cient to satisfy the same (tax) with costs, you are 
 authorized to take the body of such delinquent and 
 convey him to the jail of this county, there to remain 
 until the taxes with costs be paid, or secured to be 
 paid, or otherwise discharged by due course of law." 
 
 Extract from the records of the Sunday-school, 
 
 1847: 
 Officer: Rev. Alexander McCarrell, Superintendent. 
 Managers: John Birch, S. D. Rickey, James Noble. 
 
 Classes 
 boys 
 1. Teacher: W. Darby. 
 
 Scholars: G. Hair, Morgan Kurtz, Joseph Noble, 
 
 180 
 
Appendix 
 
 W. Kurtz, Jackson Loyd, James McCay, K. Walker, 
 John Moore, J. Abercrombie. 
 
 2. Teacher: J. Patterson. 
 
 Scholars: James Noble, David Marshall, F. A. 
 Birch, C. Haskinson, John Mills, J. Denormandie, 
 George Cracraft. 
 
 3. Teacher: W. McCarriher. 
 
 Scholars: George A'lcCay, William Craig, George 
 McCarriher, Robert Mitchell, Joseph Craig. 
 
 4. Teacher: T. C. Noble. 
 
 Scholars: G. W. F. Birch, William Humes, Thos. 
 Ritzel, Aaron Scott, Daniel Miller, George Rider, 
 Isaac Kurtz. 
 
 5. Teacher: Alexander K. Craig. 
 
 Scholars: George Miller, Wm. Wallace, Samuel 
 Rickey, Martin Moore, Thomas Noble, 1st, Thomas 
 Noble, 2d, William Stewart, Joseph McKee. 
 
 GIRLS 
 
 1. Teacher: Margaret McCaskey. 
 
 Scholars: Mary McCracken, M. J. Mealy, Nancy 
 Miller, M. A. Moore, Anna M. Rider, Mary Bell, 
 Hester Meloy, Mary Meloy. 
 
 2. Teacher: Sarah McLain. 
 
 Scholars: N. C. Mounts, Deborah Russell, R. Anne 
 Scott, Mary Jane Scott, Mary E. Curry, Hannah R. 
 Craig, Mary Anderson. 
 
 3. Teacher: Nancy McLain. 
 
 Scholars: Harriet Campsey, Susan Campsey, S. 
 Ligget, M. Mills, M. Campsey, E. Campsey, H. 
 Blythe. 
 
 1S1 
 
Appendix 
 
 4. Teacher: F. Alexander. 
 
 Scholars: E. Nease, Julia A. Mealy, Frances Mc- 
 Kce, Frances Loyd, Mary A. Miller, Eliza Mills, C. 
 Ligget, E. Cracraft, C. Mcllvaine, Ann E. Aber- 
 crombie. 
 
 BIBLE CLASS 
 
 Teacher: Rev. Alexander McCarrell. 
 
 Members: John McLain, William R. Walker, M. 
 McCarrell, Hugh Craig, Thomas Atkinson, Findley 
 Robinson, Joseph McLain, M. H. Dean, T. S. Irwin, 
 Calvin King, M. L. Stilhvagen, D. C. Cracraft. 
 
 Sarah McLain, Miss Campsey, M. J. Rider, S. Rob- 
 inson, Mary A. Ritezel, Margaret Anderson, Rachel 
 Warrell, M. A. Noble, M. J. Humes, Hannah Mc- 
 Cracken, Rebecca Henderson, Margaret A. Craig, 
 Sarah Warrell, Mehitable Noble, Mary McLain, 
 Susan Humes, Charlotte George, Frances George. 
 
 The following scholars received Testaments as a 
 reward for memorizing the Scriptures : 
 
 Verses. Verses. 
 
 Thomas Ritzel 323 George W. F. Birch. . . 350 
 
 Mary Bye rs 1,027 Mary Alexander 253 
 
 Mary E. Curry 456 M. A. Moore 260 
 
 J. Craig 456 Mary Bell 265 
 
 W. Craig 360 George McCay 350 
 
 James Woods 351 Margaret Hall 268 
 
 Susannah Ralston 350 Margaret J. Mealy 262 
 
 Harriet Campsey 350 Emma Tjano 253 
 
 Mary Meloy 265 Margaret Campsey. .. . 250 
 
 Extract from the report of the gentleman wlio had 
 182 
 
Appendix 
 
 charge of the Claysville School during the year 1844. 
 We give it without any alteration in the way of correc- 
 tion. 
 
 Names of Scholars. Age. 
 
 Jno. Humes 12 
 
 M. Lamborn 15 
 
 C. Garrotson 14 
 
 E. Dickinson 13 
 
 Thos. Kerr 14 
 
 Wm. Ritzel 14 
 
 D. Callohan 15 
 
 C. King 15 
 
 Matilda Lamborn 11 
 
 M. Ritzel 11 
 
 M. J. Rider 11 
 
 Jack Lamborn 17 
 
 Jno. Kerr 1 1 
 
 Jno. Noble 12 
 
 C. Anderson 16 
 
 M. Noble 17 
 
 J. McNeal 17 
 
 Jas. McNeal 15 
 
 Sam. Henderson 15 
 
 Wilm. McConahey 16 
 
 Isaac Kurtz 10 
 
 David McConahey 11 
 
 James Kerr 10 
 
 Thos. Ashbrook 12 
 
 Nelson McNeal 10 
 
 Lemon Shannon 10 
 
 Geo. Rider 10 
 
 Wilm. Humes 10 
 
 M. Walker 11 
 
 James Anderson 21 
 
 Will. Anderson 14 
 
 Names of Scholars. Age. 
 
 S. Lindley 20 
 
 M. Ashbrook 15 
 
 E. Ashbrook 11 
 
 M. Ashbrook 9 
 
 M. McNeal 7 
 
 Wm. Dennison 12 
 
 Jam. Dennison 10 
 
 Jno. Dennison 6 
 
 Jane Dennison 8 
 
 M. Kerr 7 
 
 A. M. Rider 8 
 
 Jas. Woods 10 
 
 Jno. Woods 8 
 
 Jane Anderson 13 
 
 Jno. Worrell 11 
 
 S. Worrell 14 
 
 C. Humes 13 
 
 E. Meredith 13 
 
 H. McCracken 15 
 
 L. Cooper 16 
 
 Sam. McCracken 15 
 
 Jno. McCracken 10 
 
 M. McCracken 7 
 
 Jas. Noble 12 
 
 Jos. Noble 8 
 
 Thomas Noble 9 
 
 Mahe. Noble 13 
 
 M. J. Noble 13 
 
 N. M. Walker 12 
 
 Thos. Ritzel 10 
 
 Ann Gourley 9 
 
 183 
 
Appendix 
 
 Names of Scholars. Age. 
 
 M. Kurtz 7 
 
 W. Kurtz 6 
 
 Wm. Woods 6 
 
 M. Dille 12 
 
 M. J. McConahey 6 
 
 Hen. Gourley 8 
 
 Rob. Gourley 1 1 
 
 Jno. Gourley 5 
 
 Jas. McCay 5 
 
 Geo. McCay 7 
 
 Deb. Russel 10 
 
 R. Milligan 16 
 
 T. Russel 9 
 
 R. Wells 17 
 
 J. Wells 15 
 
 Thos. Dougherty 12 
 
 Jas. McConahey 12 
 
 Jane McConahey 1 1 
 
 McConahey 7 
 
 Aa. Scott 12 
 
 R.Scott '.... 8 
 
 W. Worrell 16 
 
 Bright Birch 18 
 
 J. Mills 9 
 
 M. A. Bennett 9 
 
 S. McDonald 17 
 
 Joe. McCracken 10 
 
 Jos. McKee 7 
 
 Names of Scholars. Age. 
 
 D. Miller 7 
 
 M. Miller 6 
 
 George Birch 6 
 
 Jos. White 9 
 
 J. Lloyd 7 
 
 F.Lloyd 6 
 
 C. Coler 7 
 
 O. Tiffany 6 
 
 S. Ligget 7 
 
 Jno. Ligget 9 
 
 L'ggett 5 
 
 Har. McDonald 11 
 
 R. Newlan 8 
 
 M. Bell 7 
 
 R. Meredith 8 
 
 M. Shannon 14 
 
 Thos. Rider 5 
 
 Mary Anderson 12 
 
 M. J. Mealy 6 
 
 J. Peek 12 
 
 A. Peek 9 
 
 Fran. McKee 6 
 
 S. Sprout 7 
 
 Syl. Sprout 8 
 
 C. Humes 6 
 
 Wil. Kerr 6 
 
 S. M. McKee 8 
 
 The foregoing report contains a comment on each 
 scholar, such as the following: 
 
 "An extraordinary boy; very attentive, and has 
 made progress that riper years might envy." — " A 
 very good boy, and has made excellent progress." — 
 " A very studious girl." — " Has improved very much." 
 
 184 
 
Appendix 
 
 " More attention would be desirable; too fond of 
 writing." — " Would learn if he would." — " Learns 
 very well, but he is ihard to keep at it." — " A good boy, 
 but hard to keep at his books." — " An extraordinary 
 boy to learn figures." — "Industrious." — "Learns well; 
 came very irregularly." — "Learns very well; an ex- 
 traordinary boy; an excellent speller off the book." — 
 "Smart boy; learns well; mischievous." — "When at 
 school, learns." — " Learns well, but is fond of quar- 
 relling 1 ." 
 
 Remarks of Joel Truesdell,* 
 West Alexander, Penn. 
 
 It affords me a great deal of pleasure to be with 
 you on this anniversary occasion. My memory car- 
 ries me back nearly sixty years at least. I believe 
 that I am the oldest person now living in this vicinity 
 who was born in Claysville — this church being but two 
 years older than myself. I remember some of the 
 first members of this church, the first elders and their 
 successors to the present time. I remember Rev. 
 Thomas Hoge very well; heard him preach when I 
 was a boy not more than six years old. 
 
 The first church building, as you are all aware, was a 
 very plain one. Many of the seats were without backs, 
 and the pulpit was unpainted. I attended the Sunday- 
 school in this old building at a very early age. The 
 
 *The copy for this interesting address was received too late 
 for proper classification. 
 
 13 185 
 
Appendix 
 
 late Joseph Donahcy led the singing. His father was, 
 perhaps, the superintendent; at any rate he was present 
 in some capacity. We recited Scripture and received 
 blue and red tickets — for ten blue tickets we received 
 a red one. 
 
 I remember when the bricks for the present building 
 were made. My father had the contract for building 
 it, as Dr. Birch has told you — and just now I want 
 to thank him for the tribute he has paid him, which 
 I know he deserved. Thomas Gourley made the 
 bricks on the lot north of the alley running east and 
 west. This lot is on what now constitutes the new 
 extension. I think the kiln was located on the pres- 
 ent Greene Street. I remember — while this kiln of 
 brick was being made — of going out to Mr. Gourley's 
 and staying all night. After supper I was put to bed 
 with one of the boys and slept the sleep of the just. 
 Many of you may remember the humble log house 
 in which Mr. G. lived. The older members of this 
 church will remember that slaves bought in Virginia 
 and Maryland were taken through this region to the 
 South for sale. When a young boy, as I remember, 
 I heard of two slaves who were handcuffed together 
 and who had made their escape. The story was told 
 that Mr. Gourley saw them, broke their handcuffs and 
 sent them on their way to liberty. I believe this to be 
 true as I have never heard it contradicted. A reward 
 that had been offered was no inducement to Mr. 
 Gourley to assist in their return. These scenes are 
 happily no more witnessed. 
 
 Dr. Birch received to-day a letter from Mrs. B. F. 
 
 186 
 
Appendix 
 
 Jones, of Pittsburgh, which I now read to you. The 
 Jones family was one of the early families of Claysville. 
 B. F. Jones will be remembered as the Chairman of 
 the National Committee during the campaign when 
 Mr. Blaine was a candidate for President. The Jones 
 family and that of my father were always on the most 
 intimate terms. Jacob Jones, the father, lived to be 
 over ninety years of age, his wife having died some 
 years before. Of seven sons of Jacob Jones only two 
 are now living — General G. A. Jones, of Mount 
 Vernon, O., and B. F. Jones, of Pittsburgh, before 
 mentioned. Mrs. Frazier, the oldest daughter, is liv- 
 ing at Beaver, Penn., and perhaps other daughters are 
 living. 
 
 I will omit saying anything about the successors of 
 Mr. Hoge, as Dr. Birch has told you all that I know. 
 I have heard them all preach. 
 
 I note with pleasure the many young people of this 
 church who have taken an active part in making this 
 anniversary a success. Two generations have passed 
 away during my remembrance, and the mantles of the 
 departed ones must rest on your shoulders. And may 
 God give you grace to perform your duty in such a 
 manner as will redound to His glory and the good of 
 the church. I may say of this church that I have 
 known it in adversity and in prosperity. I believe that 
 God has always been with you and is still with you, 
 and if you are faithful in duty to Him, He will abide 
 with you unto the end. 
 
 And now my prayer is that " Peace may be within 
 your walls and prosperity within your palaces." " That 
 your sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; 
 
 187 
 
Appendix 
 
 that your daughters may be as corner stones polished 
 after the similitude of a palace; and that you may al- 
 ways be that people whose God is the Lord." 
 
 Keithsburg, Mercer County, III. 
 
 September 19, 1895. 
 
 Messrs. Irwin, T. B. Craig, Sr., T. G. Noble, and 
 others, Committee of Invitation. 
 
 Claysville, Washington Co., Penn. 
 
 My dear Brethren: — Your kind invitation to your 
 anniversary occasion received. In response would say 
 that it would afford me supreme delight to be present 
 with you, and bear some humble part by presence and 
 word, in your festivities in planting the seventy-fifth 
 milestone in the pathway of the grand old church by 
 which the loving Master has led you, " lo, these many 
 years," but absence from home, the long interval of 
 distance, expense, and the pressure of business and 
 work in this, my new and only field of missionary 
 labor (having recently come on the field), deny me, 
 at this time, a pleasure, under other circumstances, I 
 should certainly enjoy. 
 
 As memory recalls the past, what hallowed asso- 
 ciations! what signal manifestations of the Divine! 
 what greetings and friendships! what influences 
 spiritual! what godly men in pulpit and home and 
 citizenship! what children, trained in the nurture and 
 admonition of the Lord, witness to the Christian 
 
 188 
 
Appendix 
 
 character of the household the fathers and mothers 
 who have so faithfully carried out their vows and 
 covenants with God in the history of Washington 
 County Presbyterianism ! Of the Rev. Thomas Hoge, 
 who filled your pulpit as the first pastor for fifteen 
 years, and Rev. Peter Hassinger, who succeeded him 
 for four years, I had no particular knowledge. The 
 historic is all I know in reading; but with the sainted 
 McCarrell, who served your church for thirty-five 
 years, I had the most pleasant relationships in Presby- 
 tery, in interchanges of communion service, and fellow- 
 ship and in his own home, of precious and endeared 
 memory. What a grand man he was socially! Con- 
 tact with him was enchantment, delight; he seemed to 
 lose himself in making others happy. As a minister, 
 while he honorably carried his " D.D.," there was no 
 walking on ecclesiastical stilts; his character, while 
 sacrificing naught of principle, was of the " circulat- 
 ing " order: it showed best among the people with 
 whom he was ever in living contact; he always had a 
 " Good morning " or a " How do you do? " for the 
 non-churchgoer and the unsaved. His sermons were 
 studied and preached in prayer and the richness of 
 the Gospel of Christ. His prayers — as I have listened 
 to them — seemed to be an unction from the Spirit. I 
 shall never forget a prayer of his, at the close of a 
 sacramental season, when, with the tears coursing over 
 his cheeks, he pleaded with God for those who had 
 again refused " to do this in remembrance of me." 
 Those seed-sowings beside all waters have not been 
 lost; his tears have been put into God's bottle, and his 
 works follow him, while he has entered his rest with 
 
 189 
 
Appendix 
 
 Eagleson, Stockton, Marquis, and Greer, of the old 
 Presbytery of Washington. 
 
 I should love to hear the addresses of the brethren 
 at your anniversary. Their names certify their interest 
 and character, especially of the sons of the church. 
 May not their orthodoxy on the lines of a German 
 rationalism and biblical inerrancy have its parentage 
 in a godly training in church and homes around Clays- 
 ville? When I would write of the eldership my eyes 
 fill with tears, for tender, sundered ties are touched, and 
 the recollections of years now past crowd themselves 
 upon me. Oh! what names! what characters! rise up 
 before me: Henderson, Craig, Noble, McKee, Mc- 
 Lain, Sawhill, and others whom I might name. What 
 witnesses for Christ in a devoted eldership ! The church 
 having such Aarons and Hurs to uphold the hands 
 of the pastor must " go forward." You may find men 
 with more pomp and finish, and much of it too, like our 
 Sabbath day clothes put on for the time, but better men 
 called to the work and willing to work never honored 
 their calling as elders than those in Claysville Church 
 and others in the churches of the old Presbytery. 
 
 Of the remaining I must not speak at length. I 
 remember many of them (some of them associated with 
 that " big turkey arrangement ") (ask Jonathan about 
 this?), good Christian men. I honor their memories 
 — and your noble women. God bless them! Any- 
 thing I might say could not increase their good name. 
 I wish you to see that old patriarch, Hon. John Birch; 
 give him a good Presbyterian shake for me and my 
 kindest greetings; remember me to the many friends 
 in Claysville and surroundings. In concluding this 
 
 190 
 
Appendix 
 
 already too long epistle, I want to unite with you in 
 thanksgiving to God for all His tender mercies shown. 
 I congratulate Bro. Fish, his session, and member- 
 ship upon the God-given success and prosperity of the 
 church in the past, in the present. As verified by the 
 past, let the Davidic sentiment be your inspiration 
 in the years to come: "Walk about Zion, and go 
 round about her: tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well 
 her bulwarks, consider her palaces ; that ye may tell it 
 to the generation following. For this God is our God 
 for ever and ever: he will be our guide even unto 
 death " (Ps. xlviii. 12-14). 
 
 Fraternally yours in X, 
 
 J. D. Walkinshaw. 
 
 The Invitation and Programme 
 
 You are cordially invited to attend the Seventy-fifth or Dia- 
 mond Anniversary of the Presbyterian Church, at Claysville, 
 on Friday, September 20, 1895, when we will commemorate 
 the organization of our church, revive old and pleasant mem- 
 ories and the early struggles of a church which has been so 
 
 richly blessed of God. 
 
 W. A. IRWIN, 
 
 T. B. CRAIG, SR., 
 
 T. G. NOBLE, 
 
 W. J. BURNS, 
 
 \ J. T. NOBLE, 
 
 Committee. 
 
 Programme 
 
 1:00 P.M. 
 
 Devotional Exercises. 
 
 Address of Welcome, . . . W. A. Irwin, Claysville, Penn. 
 
 Response, . . Rev. Francis M. Hall, Conneautville, Penn 
 
 History of the Church, Rev. G. W. F. Birch, D.D., New York. 
 
 191 
 
Appendix 
 
 The Pew of the Church, . . Rev. J. M. Mealy, D.D., New 
 
 Wilmington, Penn. 
 Reminiscences of Pastors and Presbytery: 
 
 Rev. W. H. Lester, D.D., West Alexander, Penn. 
 
 Rev. Wm. Speer, D.D., Washington, Penn. 
 
 Rev. Henry Woods, D.D., Washington, Penn. 
 
 Rev. D. A. Cunningham, Wheeling, W. Va. 
 
 Rev. J. I. Brownson, D.D., Washington, Penn. 
 
 7:30 P.M. 
 
 Opening Exercises. 
 The Church and College, . . . Rev. J. D. Moffat, D.D., 
 
 Washington, Penn. 
 The Boy at Church, . . Rev. A. A. Mealy, Bridgeville, Penn. 
 The Social Church, . . Rev. E. O. Sawhill, Allegheny, Penn. 
 
 Voluntary Remarks. 
 Programme interspersed by special music, including " Songs 
 
 by Ye Olde Folks." 
 
 Aledo, Mercer County, III. 
 September 17, 1895 
 
 Messrs. W. A. Irwin and Martin Finley. 
 
 Dear Sirs: — I received your letters in due time, 
 stating your arrangement to hold and celebrate the 
 seventy-fifth anniversary of the Claysville Presbyterian 
 Church on the 20th of this month, and that you have 
 so kindly invited my presence with you, to participate 
 in the solemn services of the day in giving thanks to 
 Almighty God for His fostering care over His church 
 of Claysville. 
 
 I am sorry that circumstances will not permit me 
 to be present in person; therefore I send you this letter 
 regarding the earlier history of the church, so far as 
 my knowledge goes. 
 
 The Claysville Church was organized in the fall of 
 192 
 
Appendix 
 
 1820 by Rev. Thos. Hoge. I commenced going 
 regularly to the Claysville Church in 1828, when they 
 were occupying the old church building. 
 
 In the summer of 1830 there were communion 
 services; the church not being large enough to hold 
 the people, arrangements were made to hold the meet- 
 ing in a grove near by. A tent was erected. Rev. Hoge 
 preached the sermon from the words: " Prepare to 
 meet thy God, oh Israel." 
 
 These words seemed to stir the hearts of the people, 
 showing that God was in the midst with convincing 
 and converting power. 
 
 One young man was so deeply affected that he burst 
 into tears and went into the grove to be alone for 
 meditation. There were fifteen received into the church 
 on profession of faith, and eight received by letter. 
 It was a solemn scene when those fifteen came for- 
 ward and were received into full membership in the 
 church; it was also a glad scene to the parents and the 
 church. 
 
 The Church Record is full until Rev. Wm. Wright 
 became stated supply from 1841 to '42. During this 
 time, at one of our meetings shortly before Mr. Wright 
 left, the Church Records were presented to be looked 
 over. He was looking them over and remarked, " If 
 this book goes to Presbytery in this shape it will not 
 come back." Then some one of the session asked for 
 what reason. His answer was, " It is so informal." 
 One of the session said, " Mr. Wright, you take it and 
 fix it in shape to go before Presbytery." That was the 
 last we saw of the book until after he left. I found the 
 book in his room with a part of the records cut out 
 
 193 
 
Appendix 
 
 and destroyed. I went to Presbytery with the book 
 in a worse shape than when Mr. Wright got it. When 
 I explained matters, there was severe criticism against 
 him. 
 
 If you look at the old book you will see how much 
 of the record is missing. 
 
 In 1856 we had another manifestation of the Spirit's 
 power. About twenty were received on profession, and 
 others by letter. This was under the pastorate of Rev. 
 McCarrell, the winter before we left Claysville. I am 
 so glad God has still remembered His church in Clays- 
 ville. As I look back over the past and remember the 
 names of those who were ruling elders in the church 
 with me, and who were ruling elders when I was re- 
 ceived into the church — Jos. Donahey, Sr., Archibald 
 Brownlee, Thos. Stewart, Wm. McLain, Geo. Mc- 
 Conahey, Hugh Craig, Nicholas Bearly, John Hoon — 
 who have all passed away with the exception, perhaps, 
 of one or two, it makes a deep impression on my mind 
 when I remember the happy days which we spent to- 
 gether in the church. 
 
 I hope that the blessings of God may continue to 
 follow the labors of the present and coming session 
 and pastors, and that the Church of Claysville may be 
 a bright and shining light that others may see their 
 good works and glorify our Father which is in 
 Heaven. 
 
 And with these greetings to the brethren and Church 
 of Claysville, I will close. Please remember me in 
 your meeting. 
 
 I remain your brother in Christ, 
 
 Robert Woods. 
 194 
 
Appendix 
 
 To the Christian brethren and sisters of the Pres- 
 byterian Church of Claysville. 
 
 September, 1895. 
 
 When I first read in the county paper a notice that 
 you were to celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary of 
 the dear old church, my earnest desire was to be with 
 you — to mingle once again in this world with dear 
 brethren and sisters in the Lord — to sit once more 
 within the old sacred walls where, for a goodly number 
 of years, it was my blessed privilege to sit under the 
 ministry of that faithful and devoted man of God, Dr. 
 McCarrell. This desire to be with you, under the cir- 
 cumstances, seems to be denied me, and I send these 
 lines to tell you that my love for and interest in the 
 old church's welfare and prosperity remain with me 
 and have never forsook me during these many years. 
 Since I felt constrained, as I trust from duty and con- 
 viction, to sever my connection with the dear old 
 church and connect myself with another, how could it 
 be otherwise, that I should not cherish such feelings 
 towards a place connected from earliest childhood 
 with the holiest and most sacred associations — a place 
 where, if ever I experienced that greatest of all changes, 
 that change wherein only a man begins truly to live, 
 the change from death unto life called the " new 
 birth," it was there — a place where for many years I 
 enjoyed uninterruptedly the means of grace in which 
 my soul was often filled with " joy unspeakable and 
 full of glory " and " a peace that passeth all under- 
 standing," where I seemed to " sit in heavenly places in 
 Christ Jesus" ? How could I but cherish toward such 
 a place the warmest feelings of interest, how could my 
 
 195 
 
Appendix 
 
 prayer be other than " Peace be within thy walls and 
 prosperity within thy palaces " ? " If I forget thee, O 
 Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning." 
 
 My connection with the church commenced in the 
 early years of Dr. McCarrell's ministry. My whole 
 soul was absorbed in religious things. They filled my 
 waking hours, and often in the night, when sleepless, 
 I wanted to read on no other subject. How I longed 
 for the Sabbath when I could give myself wholly 
 to these things, and how precious to me were the 
 communion seasons observed regularly every three 
 months ! How eagerly I looked forward to them — a ser- 
 vice Friday and Saturday, two on Sunday, and a con- 
 cluding one on Monday! They were verily feast times 
 to my soul. How I longed to hear those venerated 
 men that assisted the pastor on those occasions, such as 
 Dr. Stockton, Dr. Eagleson, Dr. McKennan, Dr. Mc- 
 Cluskey, Dr. Brownson, Dr. Lester, the two Herveys, 
 and the two Griers, and others I need not name! 
 How they thrilled and profited my soul by their able 
 expositions of Bible truth, and what an unction 
 seemed to attend their words so that the old truths 
 seemed fresh and new! What sweet and heavenly and 
 soul-satisfying seasons they were to me, and how often 
 on Monday have I went away sad and burdened at 
 heart that so long a time would elapse before I could 
 enjoy another! I have reason to bless God that my 
 Christian life began under such a devoted and conse- 
 crated man as Dr. McCarrell. Few men were so wholly 
 given to the work, or could say more truly with Paul, 
 " This one thing I do." What a high ideal of what 
 the Christian life should be he ever held before his peo- 
 
 196 
 
Appendix 
 
 pie, and how tenderly and solemnly and with many tears 
 did he warn and entreat the sinner to turn and live! 
 What a work he accomplished for Claysville and vicin- 
 ity, eternity alone can reveal, and how long its influence 
 will last in this world, who can tell? But I will weary 
 you. I will close with one of the weighty inferences 
 of St. Paul. He had been speaking of the Resurrec- 
 tion, of the glorious reunion of all the saints in their 
 heavenly home, of their final victory over sin, death, 
 and hell. He says, " But thanks be to God who giveth 
 us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. There- 
 fore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, 
 always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much 
 as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." 
 
 Joseph F. Craig, 
 
 Reserve, Kan. 
 
 Shippensburg, Penn., August 27, 1895. 
 Mr. W. A. Irwin, Claysville, Penn. 
 
 My dear Friend Will: — Your letter inviting me to 
 attend the seventy-fifth anniversary of the old church 
 at Claysville on the 20th of next month, came while I 
 was away from home on my vacation. I came home 
 only a few days ago, and I now hasten to reply. It 
 would give me the greatest pleasure, on many ac- 
 counts, to be present at this anniversary, for I love the 
 old church, and anything I could do for its true pros- 
 perity I would do most cheerfully. It was in this 
 church that my sainted father spent the most of the 
 years of his life and almost all of his ministerial life, 
 and it was for this church that he toiled and prayed and 
 sacrificed; and it was here that the Lord gave him such 
 
 197 
 
Appendix 
 
 signal success, and he now wears in heaven, as I be- 
 lieve, the many seals of his faithful ministry. The very 
 fact that so many of the sons of this church have gone 
 into the ministry is the mark of a success which any 
 preacher of the Gospel might well covet. It was in 
 this dear old church that I spent the days of my child- 
 hood and youth, and there, as I trust, I gave myself 
 to the Lord and to the ministry of the Word. It was 
 in this church that many of my beloved kindred lived 
 and labored, and it was from this church that they 
 went to " join the general assembly and church of the 
 first-born in heaven " ; and here, also, were and are 
 many of my best earthly friends. For these and many 
 other reasons I shall never cease to love the old church 
 and to pray for her true prosperity. Yet, notwith- 
 standing all of this, I feel that it would not be best for 
 me to go there at the present time. Quite a number 
 of my relatives have but recently gone out of the 
 church; quite a number are still in it, and I fear that 
 my coming to this anniversary at this time would not 
 be altogether comfortable for me. Taking everything 
 into consideration, I feel that it would be better for me 
 just now to stay away. I have taken no part whatever 
 in the controversies which have rent the old church; 
 I want to take no part now. That there have been 
 sad faults and mistakes on both sides, every one must 
 admit. My prayer to God is that all of these breaches 
 may be healed; that the past may be forgotten; that all 
 may forgive, as they hope to be forgiven; and that by a 
 mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit on those who 
 have gone out as well as on those still in the old church, 
 those who have gone out may come back to the 
 
 198 
 
Appendix 
 
 church of their fathers, and all being " bound together 
 in the bonds of Christ's love," the church may have a 
 more glorious future than it has ever had in the past! 
 
 For this consummation I will ever pray; and if there 
 is anything that I can do to bring it about I will do it 
 most cheerfully. I want it to be distinctly understood 
 that that old church is my church, and for it I will ever 
 stand. I regret exceedingly that I cannot see my way 
 clear to attend the proposed celebration. You can 
 easily see the position in which I am placed. I thank 
 you for the invitation, and I trust you may have a 
 profitable and pleasant time. I will be glad to have 
 a full report of the proceedings. If there is anything 
 which I can do, let me know. With kindest regards 
 to you and all inquiring friends, 
 
 I am, yours most sincerely, 
 
 W. A. McCarrell. 
 
 Keokuk, Iowa, Septeviber 16, 1895. 
 W. A. Irwin, Claysville, Penn. 
 
 Dear Sir: — Your letter and invitation, inviting me 
 to the diamond anniversary of the Presbyterian Church 
 of Claysville, Penn., received, and I am sorry to write 
 you that my business engagements are such that I 
 cannot accept the invitation and be present on that 
 interesting occasion. Nothing would give me greater 
 pleasure than to go back among my old friends and the 
 associates of my childhood days and participate in the 
 celebration of the three-quarter century anniversary 
 of the existence of the old church where I received my 
 religious education. There are so many hallowed 
 memories around the old church where I spent my 
 
 199 
 
Appendix 
 
 early life that it would be certainly a very great privi- 
 lege to be present with those who will be assembled 
 there, and listen to the reminiscences of its life and 
 history, and if I could possibly spare the time I would 
 consider it a high privilege and honor to be permitted 
 to have a voice in the proceedings. I know you will 
 all enjoy the occasion, and I can assure you that my 
 best wishes will be with you upon that day. 
 
 May the Divine Master who has followed that 
 church through all these years and given it so great 
 success, and from whose bosom have gone out so many 
 candidates for the Gospel ministry, cause it to be as 
 highly blessed in the future as it has been in the past. 
 I am, very truly yours, 
 
 John E. Craig. 
 
 3447 Prairie Ave., Chicago, Sept. 15, 1895. 
 W. A. Irwin, T. B. Craig, Sr., and others of the Com- 
 mittee, Claysville, Penn. 
 
 Gentlemen: — Your kind invitation to be present on 
 the 20th inst. on the occasion of the seventy-fifth anni- 
 versary of the Presbyterian Church of Claysville, Penn., 
 is just received. I thank you. The time is so short 
 I will not be able to arrange my business so as to 
 attend. This I very much regret. 
 
 To me there is no spot on earth about which so 
 many pleasant, sacred memories cluster as about the 
 dear old Church at Claysville. There, under the tutor- 
 ship of the sainted McCarrell, who was to me both 
 teacher and friend, I was rooted and grounded in the 
 wholesome doctrines of the church, through its 
 
Appendix 
 
 Shorter Catechism and Bible teachings. Through 
 these teachings came habits of logical thought which 
 have ever had an influence upon my life-work. 
 
 I would love again to meet the dear friends of my 
 youth and mingle my tears with theirs to the mem- 
 ory of the sainted McCarrell and others of the dear 
 ones who have joined him. 
 
 Trusting the occasion may be one of the greatest 
 enjoyment to you all, I am, 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 John M. Hoon. 
 
 Aledo, III., September 16, 1895. 
 T. B. Craig, Claysville, Penn. 
 
 Dear Sir and Brother: — Your kind invitation to the 
 Diamond Anniversary of the old home church to 
 hand. What a stream of loving memories it brings to 
 us! A glance at the programme shows so many names 
 of old day and Sabbath-school associates. We are 
 sorry to have to send our regrets instead of being pres- 
 ent in person, but will be there in thought and spirit 
 on that day. Our Presbyterian Church here has quite 
 a number who claim the old Brick Church as their 
 parent church. Robt. Woods (whose failing strength 
 only keeps him from being with you), Wm. Woods, 
 John G. and Nannie McGuffin, A. W. Henderson and 
 wife, Mrs. Anna Hammond (ne'e Henderson), and J. 
 F. Henderson, are those we can call to memory at 
 this time. That the day may be a glorious and long- 
 to-be-remembered one in social and spiritual blessing, 
 and that you may all be spared for many years of 
 14 201 
 
Appendix 
 
 useful work in the Master's vineyard, is the wish of 
 your friends. 
 
 A. W. Henderson. 
 
 J. F. Henderson. 
 
 Concordia, Kansas, September 16, 1895. 
 T. B. Craig, Sr., Claysville, Penn. 
 
 My dear Friend: — Your letter of invitation to be 
 present or write a letter for the seventy-fifth anniver- 
 sary of the Claysville Presbyterian Church is at hand. 
 It is not possible for me to be present, and the time 
 is too brief to write more than to tell you how I would 
 like to be there. I often think of my old church; two 
 names always rise before me in this connection: Rev. 
 Alexander McCarrell and A. K. Craig. It would 
 hardly seem like home to me without them. While 
 the church has had many godly men, the impressions 
 of my youth, or childhood rather, that the above two 
 men were " the church," cling to me. Now, the prin- 
 cipal statement I want to make in this letter is the 
 hope that all the addresses, speeches, letters, etc., will 
 be published in book form. I think you could sell 
 enough to cover expenses. I will promise to take one. 
 To me the next best thing to being piesent will be 
 to read all about it; the book would prove valuable to 
 future generations. If you have not made arrange- 
 ments along this line I trust you will consider it. 
 Trusting that the blessing of our Heavenly Father may 
 be on the church in the future as in the past, 
 I am, yours truly, 
 
 William F. Sawiiill. 
 202 
 
Appendix 
 
 Waynesboro, Penn., August 27, 1895. 
 
 Mr. W. A. Irwin. 
 
 Dear Friend: — Your favor of August 13th, informing 
 me of the proposed celebration of the " seventy-fifth " 
 or " Diamond Anniversary " of the Claysville Presby- 
 terian Church, on September 20th next, was duly 
 received. 
 
 I thank you for your cordial invitation to be present 
 and take part in the exercises of that occasion. It 
 would afford me great pleasure to be with you at that 
 time. The old church is very dear to me, both because 
 it was the church of my youth and especially because 
 of father's long connection with it as pastor. I find, 
 however, that it will not be convenient for me to at- 
 tend the anniversary exercises. I regret very much 
 that I cannot be present to join with you all in calling 
 to mind the work and the men of the past. I will be 
 with you in spirit, if not in person. 
 
 I sincerely hope that you may have a most pleasant 
 and profitable anniversary. And I earnestly pray that 
 the present members of the old church may be blessed 
 with an abundant outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon 
 them, and that in the spirit of " the fathers " they may 
 enter with new zeal upon the Lord's work during the 
 closing quarter of the century. May the last twenty- 
 five years of the hundred years of the church's history 
 be the best! 
 
 Thanking you again for the invitation, and wishing 
 you all abundant success, and with kindest regards 
 for you personally, I am, 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 Tiios. C. McCarrell. 
 
 203 
 
Appendix 
 
 Obituary 
 
 Died November 29th, Thaddeus Clark Noble, of 
 Claysville, Perm., in the sixty-fourth year of his age. 
 
 A good man has gone to his reward. A life has 
 passed away that leaves behind it an influence for good. 
 The light in a happy home has been quenched in the 
 darkness of death, and yet the sad hearts that are left 
 are not without consolation. A long life of constant 
 service in the cause of Christ, an untiring zeal and un- 
 wavering testimony for Jesus, give absolute assurance 
 that he who has gone has entered into the rest pre- 
 pared for the people of God. 
 
 T. C. Noble was born December 29, 1818,. in Amwell 
 Township, but most of his life was spent in the town 
 of Claysville. His life was a busy and industrious one. 
 Constantly and actively engaged in extensive business, 
 he was a public benefit to the community in which he 
 lived. He was strictly honorable and upright in his 
 dealings, and his character for honesty was without 
 reproach. He was a public man. He promoted by 
 his influence and means every useful enterprise. He 
 was a patron of education and one of the earliest advo- 
 cates of temperance. He was kind to the poor and he 
 never turned a deaf ear to the cry of the needy. A 
 kind and devoted husband and one of the best of 
 fathers, he was especially happy in the relations of 
 home. As a citizen he conscientiously discharged his 
 duty to the State by an active and intelligent participa- 
 tion in public affairs. As a member of the community 
 
 204 
 
Appendix 
 
 he constantly promoted peace and, although engaged 
 in extensive business, never was a party to a lawsuit. 
 But, above all, as the crowning virtue of his life, he 
 was a humble, devoted, and faithful Christian. His 
 voice and influence in the church were always for peace 
 and harmony. He was a liberal giver to all the be- 
 nevolent enterprises of the church. His place in the 
 church on the Sabbath was seldom ever vacant, and 
 his voice was ever heard in the social prayer-meeting. 
 He was an active member of the Young Men's Chris- 
 tian Association until declining health forbade the 
 work in which his heart was engaged. He loved chil- 
 dren, and it was his special delight to do them good. 
 For many years he had been the faithful and efficient 
 superintendent of the Claysville Presbyterian Sabbath- 
 school. His punctuality was remarkable. In all 
 these many years the writer only remembers two Sab- 
 baths which he missed being in his place until illness 
 kept him away, and even then his heart was in the 
 school. The Sabbath before he died he told his wife 
 he thought he could go. We will ever remember his 
 untiring and unwearied efforts to impress Scripture 
 texts on the minds of the children. No doubt the seed 
 thus sown and consecrated by prayer will bring forth 
 a rich and abundant harvest. His record is on high, 
 and his reward is sure. His home is with the blood- 
 washed throng in the city which has no need of the 
 light of the sun, for the Lamb is the light thereof. 
 Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from hence- 
 forth: yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from 
 their labors; and their works do follow them. 
 
 Alexander K. Craig. 
 205 
 
Appendix 
 
 The following item is furnished by one of the 
 leading physicians of Pittsburgh : 
 
 " I desire to personally acknowledge and express 
 my thanks to Mr. J. T. Noble for the interest that he 
 has taken in not only the historical exercises of this 
 church, but particularly the memorial exercises. He 
 was the first to visit Mrs. Patterson, of Philadelphia, 
 and engage her interest in these exercises, as well 
 as to renew her interest in this church and its future 
 welfare. It was especially fitting for him to do so, 
 as this church had its origin through the influence 
 of the Rev. Thomas Hoge and his grandfather 
 Truesdell." 
 
 206 
 
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