#
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 Witt
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 TO PISGAH AND HER PEOPLE: 
 
 In reverent memory of her fathers, 
 With loving hope for her children. 
 And with grateful love for her 
 Men and women of today. 
 
 THE AUTHOR.
 
 "COME IN AND REST AND PRAY."
 
 The Pisgah Book 
 
 1784-1909 
 
 A MEMORIAL, A LESSON, 
 AN INSPIRATION 
 
 "Remember the days of old. 
 Consider the years of many generations: 
 Ask thy father and he will show thee; 
 Thine elders, and they will tell thee." 
 
 Deuteronomy, xxxii : 7 
 
 By W. O. SHEWMAKER 
 
 Pastor of Pisgah Church 
 
 at Pisgah, Woodford County, Kentucky 
 
 1909
 
 Jforeniorb 
 
 N preparing the following record and sketch of Pisgah 
 it has been the purpose of the writer to present, in as 
 convenient, durable, and attractive form as seemed 
 practicable, a brief, accurate, authentic and readable 
 account of the Pisgah church and community as they have been, 
 and as they are to-day, in order that there might be an available 
 and reliable record of the chief events in Pisgah's history, a suit- 
 able memorial of its past, and an appropriate souvenir of the one 
 hundred "and twenty-fifth anniversary recently celebrated by the 
 church. It is hoped that this purpose has been, at least in part, 
 accomplished. At any rate, the record of Pisgah is now available 
 to all who may be interested in it, and, as far as it has been possible, 
 with the known sources of information, it has been made accurate. 
 It is also as complete as the sources would permit. These sources 
 are chiefly the records of the Presbyteries of Transylvania and 
 West Lexington, the Session Books of the Pisgah church, the fare- 
 well sermon of Dr. Blythe, and certain family and neighborhood 
 traditions which seem, as to their essence at least, to be trustworthy. 
 These have been supplemented by the recognized authorities, David- 
 son's History and Eice's Memoirs. 
 
 The labor and time involved in the proper use of all these have 
 been greatly lessened by reason of the writer's having access to the 
 careful and complete chronicle of the church, prepared at the 
 direction of the Presbytery of West Lexington for the celebration of 
 its centennial in 1899, by the painstaking and efficient Clerk of 
 Session of the Pisgah church. Dr. E. S. Hart. 
 
 The record is as full as seemed consistent with the brevity deter- 
 mined upon at the outset. It has been a matter of regret that here- 
 tofore we have so largely neglected to record that portion of our story 
 which was in the memories, and on the lips, of the venerable men 
 and women, whose lives connected the present with our remotest 
 past, who only lately have passed to the bright, but unresponding 
 shore. And it is in the hope that we who are alive and remain may 
 take to heart the lesson of this fact and preserve the more carefully, 
 for them that come after us, the continuing story of Pisgah and her 
 people, that tliis book is made.
 
 THE GATES OF PISGAH. 
 
 1
 
 Af? 5^5- 
 
 ^is^gaf), ttje ^lace 
 
 ISGAH is not a city, nor a town, nor even a village. 
 Nor does it pretend, or desire, to be any of these. It 
 is a railway station, a postoffice, and a community. 
 But besides these, and before these, it is a church. 
 It is the church that has given both name and character to all the 
 rest. In our own day it is difficult for a railway station, or a post- 
 office to escape being labeled with the name of some Jones or 
 Brown, or other person, or family, of prominence in the locality, or 
 in the affairs of the railroad or community. And when these 
 modern institutions were about to be established under the shadow 
 of the old Pisgah church that had been founded before they were 
 dreamed of the same rule would have prevailed had not one, closely 
 associated with the railroad, and also a descendant of Pisgah, 
 being aware of the pre-eminence of the church over every other 
 institution of the vicinity, insisted convincingly and successfully 
 before the less perfectly informed members of the management that 
 the new station and postoffice could bear no other name than that 
 which the whole region had already borne for a century. No less 
 noteworthy is the fact that the name Pisgah was given to the settle- 
 ment in the pioneer days. For in those times by truer right, and 
 with greater appropriateness, the early settlements in Kentucky 
 were called, in nearly every case, by the names of their founders. 
 Thus there were "Boonesborough," "Harrod's Station," "Crow's 
 Station," etc. And even in the case of the establishment of the 
 pious McAfee company, while their church was called, with full 
 realization of the meaning of the name, "New Providence," yet 
 their settlement was known, as it is to this day, by their own name. 
 On the other hand, the region round about Pisgah seems to have 
 never been called by any other name than that with which it may be 
 said to have been baptized — its Christian name, Pisgah. 
 
 Eight miles due west of Lexington, Ky., and five miles from 
 Versailles, on the waters of the little stream called Shannon's Eun, 
 a few hundred yards from the station on the Louisville Southern 
 railroad, a mile from the Lexington and Versailles turnpike and 
 
 S
 
 interurban trolley line, and fronting immediately upon the turn- 
 pike that comes up from Fort Garrett, crosses the Lexington and 
 Versailles road, and leads to Mt. Vernon ; within a short distance of 
 the line separating the counties of Woodford and Fayette, in the 
 former of these Kentucky counties, is the site of the building itself. 
 Here on a spot beautiful for situation, within the original area of 
 two acres set apart for her by one of her pious founders now marked 
 from the roadway by the arbor vitae's hedge of unfailing green, 
 her gray stone walls covered with the ivy's clinging mantle, guard- 
 ing the sacred dust of the blessed dead that sleep at her feet, and 
 keeping ceaseless vigil over the homes of her children still dwel- 
 ling on the lands of their forefathers, stands the church that sym- 
 bolizes so much in the history of the Pisgah community and the 
 State of Kentucky.
 
 Cfje ^torp of ^iggaf) 
 
 A CENTURY AND A QUARTER OF HISTORY 
 
 HIS is not a long period in the history of some 
 countries, such as China, or Europe, or England. 
 But it is long in the history of the United States, 
 and of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. It is also a 
 longer lifetime than can be yet claimed by any great proportion of 
 the churches of America. And measured by events and the prog- 
 ress of history it is actually a long period in the history of the 
 world — much longer than the number of its mere years. 
 
 POLITICAL CHANGES 
 
 Within it are such far-reaching events as the French revolution, 
 the realization of the British Empire, the freedom of South 
 America, the rise of Germany, the decay of Spain, the new birth of 
 Japan, and the awakening of China. It begins also before the 
 formation of the government of the United States, and includes 
 the entire history of the American people as a separate nationality. 
 Pisgah church has witnessed the slow process of peacemaking with 
 England after the revolutionar}^ war, and the tedious labor of the 
 five disheartening years in which the colonies strove to agree to a 
 permanent and united government. When she was already eight 
 years old she heard as news that she was no longer a part of Vir- 
 ginia, but of the new State of Kentuck5\ And her members doubt- 
 less united with other early congregations of Transylvania Presby- 
 tery in heeding the request of that body that prayer be offered for 
 'God^s blessing on our army,' then marching under Mad Anthony 
 Wayne against the Indians. 
 
 LITERARY EVENTS 
 
 The first ministers of Pisgah, in so far as the}^ had access to 
 books of their own day, were reading the eighteenth century writers. 
 When Pisgah church was organized all that great body of litera- 
 ture from which her pastors have been quoting for the last fifty 
 years which belongs to the age called "Victorian," was yet unwi-itten 
 
 7
 
 even as to a single syllable; neither its writers, nor the great Queen 
 whose name it bears, had yet been born. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES AND INVENTIONS 
 
 In no sphere is the period of Pisgah's liistory of greater length, 
 so far as can be told by the measure of events, than in that of 
 science. The discoveries in the field of pure science have been 
 among the most important ever made, while altogether the most 
 startling achievements ever wrought by man are the inventions that 
 will always mark the period as one of the greatest in the history 
 of man. In but one sub-division of this great sphere we find ample 
 illustration of this statement. When the pioneers of Pisgah estab- 
 lished their church there were no railroads anywhere in the world. 
 The s^^nftest means of transit on land was by stage coach; they 
 traveled in the rich, but wilderness country of their new location 
 on horse back, or afoot, over roads of mud, or along the trail left 
 by the Indian, or the buffalo. On the waters there was nothing that 
 went more swiftly than the sailing vessels that took months for the 
 journeys now made in days. For it was twenty-five years before 
 the waters of the Hudson were stirred by the clumsy wheels of the 
 ^'Clermont.'' And now the grey walls of the old churcli have for long 
 given back without alarm the echo of the whistle and rush of the 
 train ; have become accustomed to the rattle of the trolley, and 
 even the desecrating honk of the automobile intruding upon the 
 sacred silence of her very gates. While in all probability some of 
 her lineal descendants in the State across the river, which they 
 helped to people, have been startled by the wliir of the wings of the 
 Wrights. 
 
 CHANGES IN THE RELIGIOUS WORLD 
 
 Nor have there ])een wanting in this period great and many 
 changes in the spliere with which the life of Pisgah as a church is 
 more intimately connected. One of these of a world-wide character 
 is the modern foreign mission movement. In the narrower field of 
 Kentucky alone Pisgah has witnessed, and been affected by religious, 
 theological, and ecclesiastical movements that have been of no small 
 moment in the history of the church at large. In her infancy she 
 saw the young commonwealth given over to "French infidelity" 
 and the frivolity and vice tlint always accompanied it, and which 
 
 8
 
 were the more likely to appear where it flourished on a wild and 
 new soil such as Kentucky was in those days. The church witnessed 
 also, and profited by, the revival that finally came, when in the 
 beginning of the last century the wonders of the triumphs of the 
 gospel in Kentucky overshadowed every other feature of her pictur- 
 esque, exciting, and far-famed life. She saw the rise, growth, and 
 at least partial absorption, of the Cumberland Presbyterian church. 
 She is a quarter of a century older than the Christian denomina- 
 tion^ one of whose originators was a member of the Presbytery of 
 which she is a part. Within her own denomination she has seen 
 the organization of the two different Presbyteries to which she 
 has belonged, the beginning of her own Synod, the meeting of the 
 first General Assembly of the Presbyterian church in the United 
 States, the founding of every theological seminary that the church 
 in this country has ever had, and besides the Cumberland schism, 
 the break between "Old School" and "New School," the rupture 
 brought about by the war, the healing of the former, and the growth 
 of the two vigorous and effective Presbyterian churches, North 
 and South, that were the fruits of the latter. And yet we are 
 reminded of the actual shortness of the one hundred and twenty- 
 five years by the fact that in the life of Pisgah church more than 
 half of that time has been covered by the ministry of but two men, 
 that of Eev. Jas. Blythe, who served sometimes as pastor, and 
 sometimes as stated supply, but continuously, for forty years, and 
 that of Eev. Rutherford Douglas, whose pastorate extended un- 
 broken for more than thirty. 
 
 tlTfje ^torj) of tfje Cfjurcij 
 
 In the year 1783, some eight years after the first permanent 
 settlement in Kentucky, there came into its bounds the first minis- 
 ter of the gospel of the Presbyterian faith and order. He came at 
 first only to look at the new land with a view of investing in some 
 portion of it, thereby to provide for his large and dependent family. 
 He came as did so many of the first Kentuckians, from Virginia, 
 where he was pastor at the Peaks of Otter. 
 
 The settlers around Harrod's Station, as it was at tliat time, 
 many of whom were Presbyterians, or of such families, asked him 
 to come and be their pastor. After due and proper deliberation he 
 consented, and moved to Kentucky in October of that year, 1783. 
 This was the Eev. David Eice, loiown to Presbyterian history in 
 
 9
 
 Kentucky as "Father" Eiee. His loneliness as pastor and evan- 
 gelist was soon relieved by the arrival in Kentucky of the Eev. 
 Adam Kankin, who also came from Virginia, Augusta County, at 
 the call of the Presbyterians of Lexington, and there in the summer 
 or fall, (authorities differ) organized the first Presbyterian clmrch 
 under the name of ]\It. Zion. He also (his autobiography is given 
 as the authority for this statement) about the same time took 
 charge of the congregation at Pisgah, or, as it was then nearly 
 always called Mount Pisgah. This is the first written reference ta 
 Pisgah that the writer has been able to find, or to trace. It will 
 be obsferved that it is not a record of the formal organization of the 
 church, and the implication is that there was a compact body of 
 Presbyterian people already in the neighborhood, having more or 
 less coherence of a religious, if not an ecclesiastical kind. It is 
 repeatedly stated by historians of the period that Dr. Eice in his 
 labors on the other side of the Kentucky river was hard worked in 
 gathering congregations, and in giving them that coherence which 
 seems to have already existed among the people of Pisgah. The 
 inference from the few and meager historical references as to the 
 virtual existence of a congregation at Pisgah before the arrival of 
 any minister is supported by an uncontradicted tradition, which 
 tells that very soon after the Stevenson, Gay, Dunlap, and Mcll- 
 vain families, who were the first to settle in the Pisgah neighbor- 
 hood proper, had left the fort in Lexington, and had completed 
 their own log houses in which to live, they built both a church 
 building, and a scliool house, of the same sort. In other words, 
 there seems good ground for believing that the origin of Pisgah 
 church, as a church, goes back of even the arrival of the first Presby- 
 terian minister Avho ever had the care of it. x\t any rate, in the 
 autumn of 1784, at the latest, the Eev. Adam Eankin found a con- 
 gregation awaiting him at Mount Pisgah. It will be noticed again, 
 that the church in Lexington was named not for the town, indeed, 
 but Mount Zion ; Init Pisgah seems to have been named already, 
 and by its church name, and that only. 
 
 It is in the next year that we come upon one of those brief, but 
 to the historian precious, official references that for the instant 
 gives firm footing as to the history of Pisgah church. It will be 
 borne in nunn that there was. of course, no separate Presbytery at 
 this time in all Kentucky. The Presbytery of Hanover, in Virginia 
 was the one in whose bounds this region was included. The need 
 
 10
 
 of co-operation and unity among the scattered, but increasing con- 
 gregations of Presbyterians being felt, there was called a Confer- 
 ence of representatives from them all. This met at the Cane Run 
 church, in what is now Mercer county, on the 30th day of March. 
 1785, and found that there were represented five congregations, 
 ~Tliere were present, besides the representatives of the congrega- 
 tions, three ministers, Eev. David Eice, Eev. Adam Eankin, and 
 Eev. Jas. Mitchell. But after the conference, Mr. Mitchell went 
 back to Virginia and succeeded Mr. Eice at the Peaks of Otter. 
 This conference had representatives from Cane Eun, Paint Lick. 
 New Providence, Salem and Mt. Zion, (or Lexington). But when 
 it met again in July of the same year we find among the representa- 
 tives of the twelve congregations and neighborhoods that had sent 
 delegates two from Mount Pisgah. This is the first bit of official 
 record concerning the church that has been preserved to us, so far 
 as is known at present. We have the names of the two men in 
 whose persons she made her first recorded, and doulDtless her 
 very first, appearance in any ecclesiastical assembly. They were 
 William Evans and William Scott. 
 
 This conference marks the beginning of regular Presbyterian 
 order in Kentucky, and by the recommendations of its two meetings 
 the churches were instructed as to a proper mode of organization, 
 and encouraged to carry it out. It is worth while to look back 
 upon that old meeting, through the vista of the years. Let us 
 picture, if we can, the old log meeting-house, (then not so old 
 either), its rough appointments, its wild surroundings; the grave 
 and dignified men who have gathered there; the two ministers. 
 David Eice, the pious, energetic, practical, forceful, and f arsighted : 
 and Adam Eankin, the able, restless, fanatical, destined to con- 
 stantly tear down what he had huilt up; and the delegates, hardy 
 men, and strong, marked out from a time whose godlessness is 
 emphasized and deplored by that very meeting, by their interests 
 in the church and its affairs. We know the names of them all, and 
 it is perhaps well enough to record them again here. There were 
 Wm. Maxwell and Jno. Todd, from Jessamine Creek; Henry Mc- 
 Donald and Thos. Cavin, from Walnut Hill; Jno. McConnell and 
 David Logan, from Mt, Zion (Lexington) ; Thos. Maxwell, from 
 Paint Lick; Jacob Fishback and Andrew Elders, from the forks of 
 Dick's Eiver; Eobert Caldwell and Samuel McDowell, from Con- 
 cord (Danville) ; Jno. Templin and Caleb Wallace, from Cane 
 
 11
 
 Kun; Jas. McCoun and Geo. Buchannan^ from New Providence; 
 Geo. Pomeroy and Jno. Veecli, from Hopewell; Jas. Beard and 
 Jas. Allen, from Salem; Jas. Davies and Jno. Snoddy, from Whit- 
 ley's Station and Crab Orchard, and our owti representatives from 
 I'isgah. Besides these, there were two men destined to play no 
 small part as diligent ministers of the Word in this Western 
 Country, who were present as probationers for the ministry, but 
 not yet ordained. They were -las. Crawford and Terah Templin. 
 ^^'e can see them all there, met in solemn session on that far-off 
 Tuesday in the warm July weather, listening to the opening sermon 
 of Mr. Pice from the text, "For Zion's sake I will not hold my 
 peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest until the righteous- 
 ness thereof go fortli as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a 
 lamp that burneth." Isaiah, 62:1. 
 
 They had come over the mud roads and along the wilderness 
 trails (fairly good as highways no doubt just at this midsummer 
 season, which is indicated also by the large attendance) through 
 the lonely, gigantic forest of which a modern Kentucky writer has 
 said that the world will not look upon the like of it again, besides 
 the deep cane brakes, fording the creeks and the River whose 
 solemn grey cliffs look down upon us, as unresponsive and unmoved 
 by our swift crossing on the bridge that unites their lofty fronts 
 as they did upon the slow and painful passage of the men of the 
 Cane Eun Conference. They had made the journey on horseback, 
 with their saddle bags and haversacks. It is not a very smft, or 
 easy trip. But it was worth while. And we are thankful that 
 among them were Wm. Evans and Wm. Scott, of Mt. Pisgah. 
 
 In the next 3'ear one of the larger and more tangible results of 
 this conference appears. For the new Presbytery is organized at its 
 instance, at Danville, in the eourt_house there, on Tuesday, October 
 17th, 1786. The names of the elders present are given in the 
 minutes of that meeting, but not the churches from which they 
 came. It has not been possible for the writer to identify the 
 churches by the names of the men, and therefore it cannot be stated 
 with certainty that Pisgah was represented there by a ruling elder. 
 Her pastor, however, the Rev. Adam Rankin, was there. 
 
 Within eighteen months Pisgah began to figure at least a little 
 in the business of the Presbytery. For at the spring meeting in 
 1788 a commission was appointed to determine the bounds of the 
 congi-egation of Bethel church, and those under the care of Mr. 
 
 \2
 
 Eankin. It will be remembered that on one side the Mt. Zion con- 
 gregation at Lexington, and on the other, that of Pisgah touched 
 the territory of Bethel. This matter seems to have been amicably 
 disposed of. But not long afterwards, the Presbytery finds itself at 
 its fourth regular meeting, obliged to hear an appeal of "Elder 
 Wni. Scott," of Pisgah, who had been suspended from the commun- 
 ion of the church by the session of which he was a member. His 
 offense was that he had often invited Baptist ministers, and on one 
 occasion had permitted a Methodist minister to preach in his own 
 house. Mr. Scott now appeals to the Presbytery against this 
 decision of his fellow elders at Pisgah. Presbytery takes the matter 
 •under grave andT deliberate consideration, and decides against the 
 session, and, in favor of Mr. Scott, restoring him to his church 
 privileges. But Presbytery receives notice from Mr. Scott's pastor, 
 Eev. Adam Eankin, that the matter will not be suffered to rest 
 here, and that he will appeal to Synod, the Presbytery judging 
 however, that an appeal in the case would be irregular. Through 
 this incident we may indeed get a view of the smallness and bitter- 
 ness that could appear even in religious matters, and the exhibition 
 by able and earnest men; but at the same time there is given in 
 bold relief the true character of the Presbytery as a liberal body by 
 its high-minded and just decision. But afterwards Mr. Scott ap- 
 pears as an elder from Clear Creek church, and not of Pisgah. 
 
 In the meantime there is a most commendable interest being 
 manifested by the ministers at least, in the work of home missions. 
 And at the meeting of Transylvania Presbytery in October, 1790, 
 a collection for this purpose is called for in all the congregations, 
 and special persons are appoinic 1 in each one to collect the funds. 
 We have all the names and their locations preserved to us in the 
 records of the Presbytery. The collector appointed for Pisgah was 
 Moses Mcllvain. It is in April, 1791 that Pisgah again attracts 
 special attention on the floor of Presbytery. It is recorded that a 
 petition was then presented to the Presbytery from a number of 
 persons in the Pisgah congregation requesting that they be relieved ;- 
 of the pastoral care of the Eev. Adam Eankin. The Presbytery 
 found upon investigation that is was not sufficiently informed of 
 the circumstances to act finally on the matter, and ordered an 
 adjourned meeting at Pisgah itself to hear the whole case. And so, 
 they met again on the third Tuesday of May, the very next month. 
 Thus Pisgah had its first meeting of the Presbytery. jS^ow, when it 
 
 13
 
 met in the fragrance and beauty of the mid-May weather in the old 
 log church under the shadow of the mighty forest, there appeared 
 at the session a man not seen at this Presbytery before. He is a 
 young licentiate of a North Carolina Presbytery, and he comes with 
 the proper credentials, asking permission to labor in the bounds of 
 Transylvania, which before the adjournment is "most cheerfully 
 granted." He it is who preaches, the opening sermon here at 
 Pisgah, his text being, "For thus saith the Lord God; Behold I, 
 even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out." Ezekiel, 
 34:11. This young man was James Blythe. After this sermon 
 they "endeavored to get the mind of the people," and failing to do 
 so at that sitting adjourned until the next day. And finally before* 
 leaving Pisgah they came to the conclusion that since it appeared 
 that the pastor of Pisgah, Rev. Adam Rankin, had been absent for 
 more than a year, without arrangement having been made" for the j 
 supply of his place^, the church should have permission for the time / 
 being to ask Presbytery to furnish supplies to its pulpit. The \ 
 licentiate who had just come among them was appointed to do this 
 for the present, and also to supply at Lexington, the other part of 
 Mr. Rankin's field left unprovided for by his absence. And thus 
 began that "connection of forty years" to which reference is made 
 in tlie sermon with which, in 1832, Dr. Blythe bade farewell to the 
 Pisgah people. Mr. Rankin was still pastor. Bl3'^the was a supply. 
 And even now he was to preach but one Sunday in a month. Mr. 
 Crawford of Walnut Hill, and Mr. Shannon, of Bethel, were each 
 to supply one Sunday. 
 
 And it is a fact that not only Pisgah, but apparently nearly, if 
 not quite all, of the churches were supplied in this fashion, few, if 
 any having service by the same minister every Sunday in the 
 month. At the successive meetings of Presbytery Pisgah presents 
 her formal request for supplies, until in April, 1702, when Adam 
 Rankin, now returned from Europe where he had been for some - 
 two vears, is brought to trial under charges long pending against 
 him in the Presbytery. These grew out of Mr. Rankin's fanaticism. 
 He believed that it was wrong to use in public worship any kind 
 of hymns except _psalms, and that Watt's hymns were especially 
 unallowable. He undertook to excommunicate persons who dis- 
 agreed with him. Besides this he was convinced that he received 
 divine guidance through dreams. The discussion precipitated tlie 
 question of his veracity. In the long run, he was first censured. 
 
 14
 
 and then, when he publicly renounced the jurisdiction of the Pres- 
 bytery and proceeded on his own way, collecting followers around 
 him, he was formally deposed from the Presbyterian ministry, and 
 his charges declared vacant. This was in October 1793. 
 
 On June 12th, 1793, we find Presbytery in session at Bethel 
 church, where a call for the services of licentiate Jas. Blythe, as 
 regular pastor was presented by the Clear Creek church and by the 
 Pisgah Church, the service to be rendered to both churches. The 
 exercises connected with his ordination and installation were 
 entered upon at Clear Creek at a special meeting of the Presbytery 
 on July 25th, 1793, and continued at Pisgah at 2 o'clock in the 
 afternoon of the 27th. 
 
 Just how long this joint arrangement between these neighbor- 
 ing congregations was in effect the writer has not been able to 
 determine. But the Clear Chreek church no longer exists as a 
 separate congregation. Twice after this Pisgah shared her pastor 
 with a neighbor, when for a short time Dr. Douglas served Mt. 
 Sterling as well as Pisgah, and afterwards divided each Sunday 
 between Pisgah and Bethel. With the exceptions of Mr. Eankin's 
 joint supply of Lexington and Pisgah, Dr. Blythe's service at Clear 
 Creek, and the arrangement with Dr. Douglas just mentioned, 
 Pisgah has had the full possession of her pastors. 
 
 In the following year, 1794, the Presbytery in its regular spring 
 meeting at Woodford church, not far from Pisgah, took an action that 
 increased the importance of Pisgah as a pastoral charge, and at the 
 same time indicated the estimate in which the neighborhood was 
 already held. It then and there determined to establish a gram- 
 mar school under its own care. Elaborate plans were made for its 
 •operation. Pisgah was chosen as its location. A part of the plan 
 was the support of needy students. Men were appointed through- 
 out the Presbytery to collect funds. At Pisgah the collector was 
 again Moses Mcllvain. An account of this institution is given 
 below in the '^Story of the School." 
 
 The first regular meeting of the Presbytery at Pisgah for 
 ordinary routine business was that of October 6th, 1795. No doubt 
 the opening of the new Grammar School had something to do with 
 determining the choice of Pisgah as the meeting place. In 1796 
 when Presbytery is in session in its fall meeting, at the town of 
 Paris, a committee is appointed to visit and "examine the Gram- 
 mar School at Pisgah." This committee was made up of Rev. R. 
 
 15
 
 Marsliall, Eev. Jas. Blythe, and Eev. Jas. Welch. In 1799, in the 
 spring of that year — Pisgah, without moving its location, found 
 itself within the bounds of another Presbytery. For the Presby- 
 tery of Transylvania was divided, and Pisgah fell in the bounds of 
 West Lexington, of which she has ever since been a part. And in 
 1802 the Sj^nod of Virginia parts with tliese Western Presbyteries, 
 and Pisgah is in the new Synod of Kentucky. The older records 
 of this Presbytery never show what churches were represented at 
 the meetings, although the names of the ruling elders, as well as 
 of the ministers, are always given. But judging from the known 
 fact of the importance of Pisgah in the church organization of the 
 day, the prominence and influence of her pastor. Dr. Blythe, and 
 the appearance of certain names on the roll of Presbytery that we 
 recognize as those of Pisgah families, it is fair to conclude that 
 the church was represented with tolerable regularity at the sessions 
 of the church courts. When we come to the year 1808 we open 
 Pisgah's own record. It is doubtful that a church book was kept 
 before that date. For there is nothing in the record of Presbytery 
 to show that it required in the very early times any such thing, as 
 it does now. And besides that, the opening statement of the clerk 
 who prepared the book beginning with the year 1808 is such as to 
 at least imply that there was no previous record accessible to him. 
 Indeed he alluded in no way to any other. But whatever may have 
 been the requirement of Presbytery at the first we know that the 
 books of the churches had to be before that body at least as early 
 as 1809. For on October 10th, 1809, the record shows that Pisgah's 
 book was before Presbytery, which was meeting in regular session, 
 in the fair fall weather at Pisgah itself. We find that the early 
 custom at the communion services, record of which is carefully 
 preserved, was that the pastor was assisted by one or more ministers. 
 We are also told by historians that these services were long and 
 tedious, the people were served at tables in relays, an exhortation 
 being given to each table as it was seated, and that somtimes the 
 sun would be going down over tlie tall tree tops as a Presbyterian 
 congregation would be filing away through the wooded lands from 
 their all day worship. And besides this, before there was any 
 actual communion service, the tables, as we are told, were always 
 carefully "fenced ;" that is to say a long and elaborate warning was 
 proclaimed by the minister against the unworthy eating and drink- 
 ing of the bread and the cup. 
 
 16
 
 Moreover the young people were never expected to, and seldom 
 did, partake of the communion. There was, liowever, a custom 
 (which Dr. Blyth at least followed) of meeting the young people, 
 and sometimes the whole congregation, and asking them questions 
 as to doctrine at least, and probably as to experience also. While 
 Dr. Blythe was serving as Pisgah's pastor he was elected, and served 
 as professor in Transylvania University, acting for a while as its 
 President. This meant that he lived in Lexington. He came out 
 over the roads through the long years to meet his regular appoint- 
 ments at the church. And when he came one day in his two- 
 wheeled gig tradition declares that the whole country side was 
 excited with admiration and wonder, for it was the first wheeled 
 vehicle for human travel ever seen in that locality. We do not 
 know what was the success of Mr. Moses Mcllvain in collecting 
 either the home mission funds, or those for needy students, Avhich 
 he was appointed to receive from the Pisgah people, but in 1810 we 
 read that the church promised Dr. Blythe a salary of $130, and 
 was in arrears; an.d in 1S19 we find the first recorded collection 
 to be $10.00, for expenses of the Commissioners of the Presbytery 
 to the General Assembly, and after that the next record of the kind 
 is that in 1820 the church contributed $20.00 to the contingent 
 fund of the theological seminary at Princeton, New Jersey. 
 
 An event of importarce in the life of the church is the erection 
 of its second, and permanent, house of worship. In 1812, a little 
 further up the slope than the site oi the log building, they placed 
 their stone house, bare and grim prhaps, but beautifully placed, 
 and standing as was fit in those times of war, like a fortress, "four 
 square to all the winds that blow." 
 
 Although Dr. Blythe lived in Lexington and was a man of 
 varied occupation, editing a magazine in addition to his work in 
 the college, and the organized life of the church must have suffered 
 thereby, yet we find that it prospered in a very real way. For 
 instance, in the church year 1827-1828 there was a revival in 
 Pisgah resulting in seventy-seven additions, seventy-six of them 
 by examination, more than doubling the membership of the church. 
 It was either in 1827 or 1828 that Pisgah's Sunday School was 
 organized. The tradition is that a library was gotten at the begin- 
 ning, and the first librarian was J. Watson Mcllvain, who only 
 within the last few years fell asleep to rest beneath the sod of the 
 
 17
 
 yard of the church, within whose portals he had been baptized as 
 an infant, and which his grand-father had helped to found. 
 
 Thus the smooth current of this peaceful history of a country 
 church flows onward , with its sermons, communion seasons, 
 baptisms, marriages, and funerals, showing in its records at least, 
 little, if any, trace of the religious, theological and ecclesiastical 
 storms that raged in Kentucky in the early years of the last century. 
 That movement which resulted in the formation of the 
 Cumberland Presbyterian church, does not appear to have affected 
 Pisgah at all. And it is altogether probable that this appearance 
 is in accord with the actual facts. For that movement had its 
 center in the western portion of the state, and while it did have 
 effect in central Kentucky, founding churches in the vicinity of 
 Danville, for instance, yet its main currents set in other directions. 
 Neither do the excitement and agitation which led to the formation 
 of the congregations following the leadership of Barton Stone 
 during this same time appear to have seriously disturbed Pisgah; 
 although one of the great meetings connected with this movement 
 was held at the neighl)oring church of Bethel, and the pastor of 
 that church, Eev. E. Marshall, was so prominent in the movement, 
 then called by the name of "The New Light," that the people iden- 
 tified with it were of spoken as "Marshall ites." The Shakers also 
 at this time made incursions into Kentucky, and carried away 
 from this very region the ministers Houston and Dunlavy, besides 
 not a few families. But this heresj'' likewise failed to find any 
 victims among the people of Pisgah. The immunity of this church 
 from lasting injury through tliese serious disorders tliat were 
 effecting every denomination, and almost every neighborhood, west 
 of the Alleghanies, may be traced in part at least to the fact that 
 very early in this period of disorder the Presbytery of West Lex- 
 ington took special precautions in the instruction of the people 
 and in demanding a certain standard of orthodoxy from applicants 
 for ordination; that from among a Presbyterian ministry in the 
 State of a lower average in equipment and native ability than tliat 
 of the same ministry in tlie older parts of the country, her pastor, 
 Dr. Bl\'ihe, ^tood out with but one or two others, a man of com- 
 manding ability and large furnishing, his influence and guidance, 
 both in his own congregation and in the church assemblies being 
 against the extravagances, disorders and errors of the time; and, 
 finally, that at Pisgah none of the disorderly and exciting camp 
 
 18
 
 meetings of the era were ever held. Ultimately, but pro'bably at a 
 later period, when the followers of Barton Stone were merged in 
 the movement to which Alexander Campbell gave such able direc- 
 tion, Pisgah did suffer losses. And in certain congregations of the 
 Christian denomination in Central Kentucky may be found today 
 some of the descendants of Pisgah's founders; for instance, the 
 Dunlaps, some of the Gays, and Steeles, not a few of whom live 
 on their ancestral lands within the domain of the church of their 
 fathers, the churches of which they are today a part being only the 
 stronger and better for their membership in them. But during all 
 the period of the first two decades of last century Pisgah seems to 
 have become more thoroughly organized and more vigorous as a 
 church of the Presbyterian order. 
 
 In 1S38 occurred an event which marked an epoch in Pisgah's 
 history. For forty years, either as stated supply or as pastor, for 
 more or for less of his time, but imbrokenly for all that period, 
 Jas. Blythe had served her with distinguished ability. We would 
 have thought his life already well-nigh spent. Here he had lived 
 it, had reared his family, had seen a favorite son go forth -with 
 hundreds of others of the best blood in Kentucky to the War of 
 1812, to meet death at the River Raisin, and here he was now already 
 an old man. But he is called to the Presidency of Hanover College 
 in Indiana, and with the same spirit which prompted him as a youth 
 to heed the call of the "West still strong within him, he accepted this 
 invitation to the yet newer West. In the fall of 1832 he preached 
 his famous farewell sermon to his devoted parishioners at Pisgah. 
 We do not have any record of his having received a higher salary 
 than the $130.00 of 1830, but we may at least be permitted to hope 
 that a part of Pisgah^s unrecorded improvement was a greater gen- 
 erosity in this respect before the close of his pastorate. 
 
 Pisgah's third pastor was the Rev. Joseph Cunningham, of the 
 Synod of Alabama, a call for whose services was placed in his hands 
 by West Lexington Presbytery September 7, 1832, which he ac- 
 cepted. His installation took place in the spring of 1833. But his 
 health failed rapidly, and he was released from the care of the 
 church in September of the same year. For long his body rested 
 in Pisgah church-yard, but in recent years was removed by his 
 daughter, Mrs. Freeman, to St. Louis, Mo. Brief as was Mr. Cun- 
 ningham's pastorate, there are evidences that he was undertaking 
 his work with energy and system. In any long pastorate, especially 
 
 19
 
 one of the kind that Dr. Blythe's was, it nearly always happens 
 that the routine business of the congregation falls into more or less 
 irregularity and confusion, however perfect the work may be in 
 other re?])ects. Mr. Cunningham is evidently bent upon thorough 
 organization. He is apparently living among the people, which 
 Dr. Blvthe had not done, and has evidently induced the session to 
 appoint — a? the records show it did appoint — a committee to find 
 out the number of members ''in regiilar communion in this church." 
 This was done in January, 1833. On March 30, the committee 
 reports the membership, not 130, as their last report to Presbytery 
 in the year before had shown, but 80, which is given as the approx- 
 imate membership. ^ 
 
 On Friday, November 22, 1833, the congregation is in special 
 session, under either the grey skies of lute autumn or in the hazy 
 beauty of Indian summer, whichever the month of November 
 brought that year, Eev. Nathan H. Hall acting as Moderator by 
 request of the people. The object of the meeting is to call a 
 pastor. The name of the Eev. Jacob F. Price is proposed. He re- 
 ceives a unanimous vote. A formal call is made out and signed by 
 the elders. The amount of salary is specified therein, being the 
 sum of ^loO. That promised to Mr. Cunningham is not a matter 
 of record. This call was to have been presented at the next spring 
 meeting of the Presbytery. 
 
 But it was not until the fall meeting — September 24, 1834 — 
 that it was actually before the Presbytery. And Mr. Price was not 
 installed until five years later, serving the church meanwhile as 
 stated supply, or pastor-elect. Mr. Price was the only native Ken- 
 tuckian to serve the church as pastor from 1784 to 1897. He was 
 a native of Clark County, and from the records of the church, 
 seems to have been a man of energy and force. He, too, lives with 
 the people. He is diligent in preaching, often having afternoon 
 services at some private house. Collections are more frequent; 
 communion services grow more regular. There are also cases of 
 discipline, and the meetings of session are frequent and filled with 
 business. He is careful also about church records, and he himself 
 is clerk of session after the death of Nathaniel Ferguson, who, after 
 having served as clerk from the beginning of the year 1808, wrote 
 his last minute September 4, 1836, and entered into rest on the 
 21st of the same month. It was during the pastorate of Mr. Price 
 that there was held in the grove that then stood across the road 
 
 20
 
 from the church the great camp-meeting. It was in 1841. It be- 
 gan on the twenty-third of September and continued until the after- 
 noon of October the fourth. Twenty-one tents were pitched for the 
 worshipers, and throughout the lovely autumn days and soft, 
 though cool, nights, the preaching went on. The ministers assist- 
 ing in it at different times were Robert J. Breckinridge, W. Y. 
 Allen, N. I.. Rice, N. H. Hall, J. G. General, J. H. Logan, Wm. L. 
 Breckinridge, Jno. F. Coons, J. J. Bullock, R. Davidson, J. D. Mat- 
 thews, J. Lyle, Wm. R. Preston, G. W. McElroy, C. Stuart, J. C. 
 Harrison, J. K. Burch. There were fift3'-six additions to the! 
 churches of the vicinity, as follows : Bethel, 4 ; Woodford, 5 ; and 
 Pisgah, 47. There has been a vast change since the wild meetings 
 of forty years, or even thirty years before. Much more numerou^ 
 are the able and effective ministers, much higher the tone of preach- 
 ing, very different the staid, orderly crowds from the noisy congre- 
 gations of the older time, and very different also the results from 
 those of the meetings of the "Great Revival." This was the first 
 and only camp-meeting ever held at Pisgah. This was also the period 
 of another religious controversy. The Old School and New School 
 were battling within the ever dividing, yet, always unified, field of 
 Presbyterianism. Some churches divided. Pisgah church was, of 
 course, affected by the controversy. But once more there was no 
 great injury. It did not "split." Mr. Price and his session were 
 Old School, as were the most of the congregation. The strife 
 seems to have been here reduced to a minimum, although it does 
 not appear that the pastor was a man to compromise even for the 
 sake of peace. 
 
 In IS J 7 the General Assembly met in Richmond, Va. There 
 was no train of sleepers and diners taking us through the Cumber- 
 lands and over the Blue Ridge in a certain number of hours. The 
 telegraph had only a year or two before carried its first item of 
 news when it had announced the election of James K. Polk to the 
 Presidency. One of the commissioners to the General Assembly was 
 Pisgah's pastor. The session was over and they were coming home, 
 he and Dr. J. J. Bullock, in the creaking, toiling stage coach, when 
 suddenly Mr. Price was stricken. And there he died, his traveling 
 companion and fellow presbyter bringing his body home to Pisgah. 
 There Dr. Bullock conducted the funeral in the presence of a large 
 congregation. And there stands today, in the church-yard, a taste- 
 
 21
 
 ful monument erected by the congregation, above the dust of their 
 faithful, laborioui^i and efficient pastor. 
 
 Dr. Price had died on June 3, 1847. His burial took place on 
 Sabbath evening, June 6th, and on the next day Dr. Bullock 
 preached the funeral, the text being the first four verses of the 
 fourteenth chapter of John's gospel. 
 
 The weeks slip by, and there is no permanent provision for the 
 supply of Pisgah's pulpit, though the services seem to have been 
 provided at least with tolerable regularity. But on Friday, August 
 "^Oth, of that same year, there begins in this vacant church a series 
 of services preparatory to communion. They continued until Sep- 
 tember 6th. Rev. David S. Tod was present all the time, and acted 
 as Moderator. Others assisted at various times. Among them Eev. 
 S. M. Bayless. There were during these meetings forty-three ad- 
 ditions, forty-two by examination. On September 7th, Rev. S. M. 
 Bayless is asked by the congregation to become their stated supply 
 until January 1st, 1848. This arrangement is effected, and on 
 January 2d the congregation elect Mr. Bayless pastor. In Feb- 
 ruary of that year, on the 24th, Presbytery meets in called session 
 at Pisgah. The call from the church is placed in the hands of Mr. 
 Bayless. He accepts. The salary promised in the call is $550 
 (note the advance), and on that winter day the Presbytery pro- 
 ceeds to ordain and install Pisgah's fifth pastor. It is while Mr. 
 Bayless is acting as stated supply that on January 8, 1848, Pisgah 
 elects her first trustees. They are the elders of the church, who 
 happen at that time to be Wm. Allen, Jno. Neet, Jno: Martin and 
 Jas. Berryman. 
 
 In July, 1851, there died a devoted member of the Pisgah 
 church. He gave to the church, in addition to the original two 
 acres given for the site by his father and mother, Samuel and Jane 
 Stevenson, the pioneers, a tract of thirty acres for a parsonage. 
 In grateful recognition of the generosity of this original Pisgah 
 family, the congregation, on the recommendation of the session, by 
 voluntary contributions, erect a monument in the church yard, 
 which perpetuates the memory of these donors to this day. This 
 was done soon after the death of Robert Stevenson, the action of 
 the session being on August 27, 1851. In the following spring Mr. 
 Bayless resigns, removing to Indiana, from which state he had come. 
 In the meantime, he had married Miss Bettie Milton, a daughter of 
 one of Pisffah's families. This pastorate seems marked by a busy 
 
 22
 
 development in the life of the congregation. There are the same 
 important meetings of session as in the pastorate of Mr. Price, and 
 every evidence of an increasing system, order and force. Mr. Bay- 
 less died in Indiana some time after his removal from Kentucky. 
 
 Fronj about this time nntil the following spring the regular 
 stated supply of this church is Eev. W. C. McPheeters, who also 
 became a member of the church upon examination, being so received, 
 according to the records of the church, on March 6, 1853. It is 
 just here, and during a vacancy in the church that we come upon 
 the first recorded election of deacons. It is on March 13, 1853. 
 Jas. Gay and Jno. Valentine were chosen. But the record is made 
 as if it were not a new thing. The language used is the same as 
 that in which the election of elders, held at the same time, is re- 
 corded. The record compiled by Dr. Hart, to which reference is 
 constantly made for this part of the church's history, states that 
 deacons were known to have served earlier than this, and gives the 
 names of certain of them. There were none, however, in 1808 — 
 unless there has been a great oversight on the part of the clerk of 
 session in those days, who compiled and recorded a list of all the 
 members and otlicers of the church, and of the families connected 
 with the congregation. It must be remembered also that the office 
 of deacon was not fully developed in our churches until modern 
 days. Many Presbyterian churches, both in Scotland and in this 
 country, have not considered the office necessary, and have had no 
 deacons. Xot only does Pisgah elect new deacons while the pas- 
 torate is vacant, but at that same meeting, with the spring weather 
 upon them, and all the pressure of the season's work, they appoint 
 a committee with full power to proceed with the building of a par- 
 sonage. This is to be, of course, on the thirty acres given them by 
 Eobert Stevenson, and immediately adjoining the grounds of the 
 church. This committee was composed of Dr. R. H. Wason, Jno. 
 N"eet, Wm. Allen, Jno. Valentine and Jas. Gay. There is no re- 
 corded report of this committee. But that their duty was per- 
 formed is witnessed by the parsonage itself and the memory of Pis- 
 gah. Back of a pasture of blue grass, which still retains the char- 
 acter of a woodland, though many of the ancient trees that saw 
 the laying of tlie foundation of the minister's dwelling have since 
 fallen, nnd looking out through a vista of trees toward the turn- 
 pike, stands today the same commodious dwelling that the dili- 
 gence of this comm-ittee, the pious generosity of Eobert Stevenson, 
 
 23
 
 and the kindl\- interest of the congregation made possible a half 
 century ago. It has been added to and improved, from time to 
 time, but the original building, which is the entire front of the 
 present structure, has never been changed. It is a frame house, 
 but built in ihe spacious style of the time, with large, airy rooms 
 and wide double windows, being also ornamented inside with as 
 tasteful and chaste woodwork as will be found anywhere. No defi- 
 nite record of its cost has been preserved, but in the report to the 
 Presbytery die next spring, ISbi, the congregational expenses for 
 that year appear in the sum of $2,100. This may or may not in- 
 clude the pastor's salary. But we can be confident in believing that 
 it included wliat had been paid out in building the parsonage. This 
 building, then, cost at least $1,500 in money, exclusive of materials 
 on the ground and contributed labor; and perhaps as much as 
 $2,100. We arrive at this by subti'acting $600 from $2,100. For 
 Pisgah is now paying the former sum to its pastor, besides the use 
 of the parsonage. The church had remained vacant until the late 
 aiiiumn. Il" is in the midst of the corn harvest, and perhaps at the 
 hog-killing fcason, in the frosty November weather, that they meet 
 and call the Eev. Kobt. W. Alien. 
 
 This call was made on November 27, 1853 ; and on December 
 20th, the Presbytery met at Pisgah, as it had at other times, to 
 install the new pastor. The formal presentation and acceptance of 
 the call occurred, but the installation was postponed, at the request 
 of the pastor-elect and the people, until Saturday, January 7, 1854. 
 Mr. Allen came, as did Mr. Bayless, from the state of Indiana. He 
 and Mrs. Allen, who at this date still survives, were the first to live in 
 the new parsonage. On April 4, 1857, Mr. Allen resigned the care 
 of Pisgah. He went thence to Jacksonville, 111., where he died. 
 
 The current of the church life of Pisgah moves smoothly through 
 the three years of Mr. Allen's pastorate. And with the beginning 
 of the next pastoi-ate we are at the threshold of what may be called 
 the modern era in Pisgah's history. 
 
 Here we (in.ote from the chronicle of Dr. Hart : "In October, 
 1857, the church secured Pev. Eutherford Douglas as supply for 
 her pulpit, and in February (it was the 27th) following extended him 
 a call to the pastorate, which he accepted. And (he) was regularly 
 ordained and installed on ;\pril 22, 1858, by the Presbytery of West 
 Lexington, -wliir-h convtmcd in the church for that purpose." This 
 pastorate was terminated only by the death of Dr. Douglas, at his 
 
 24
 
 home, "Trevilla," between Pisgah and Lexington, April 8th, 1890. 
 He spent his entire ministerial life in charge of this church. For 
 several years he lived in the parsonage. During the last years of 
 the period each Sunday was divided between Pisgah and the neigh- 
 boring church. Bethel. His actual pastorate was more than thirty- 
 two years long, and so far is the longest continuous pastorate in the 
 history of the church. Mrs. Douglas is yet spared to us, and is still 
 a member of Pisgah. In this long time many things occurred in 
 the life of the church itself, and in other spheres the events 
 in which would affect its life. 
 
 It begins when the war cloud was lowering. An early portion 
 of it is the period of this storm that burst over tlie whole land. It 
 includes the material, commercial, and educational development 
 of Kentucky in modern ways. The records of the church show but 
 little of these charges, and one must read carefully and con- 
 tinuously between the lines. The reports of the church to the suc- 
 cessive meetings of Presbytery show an improvement in the system 
 and regularity of giving. And the amounts given become larger. 
 The salary with which Dr. Douglas began was $700, the largest up 
 to that time recorded in the history of the church. Meetings — 
 ^'protracted" meetings they were then, "evangelistic" is what they 
 are now — are frequently held. Additions to the church mark all 
 these. But there are also many dismissals. The children of Pis- 
 gah are beginning to seek homes in other places, even as their 
 ancestors left their native haunts for the wilds of Kentucky when 
 it was a new land. So there does not appear any great gain in 
 actual membership. 
 
 The division of the Presbyterian church into Northern and 
 Southern, which took place hard upon the war, and as one of its 
 fruits, disturbed the life of Pisgah church but little. Once more 
 it weathered a storm, violent as ecclesiastical storms are always 
 likely to be, and, in this case involved in all the fierce passion of a 
 bloody civil struggle. It did not divide. Once more, from the con- 
 fusion and conflict, Pisgah emerges, united, compact and vigorous. 
 In 1868, the old stone building, where foundations were laid to 
 the echo of the guns of 1812, was remodeled. From the ancient 
 square style it was changed to gothic. Dr. Hart writes : ''The 
 walls up to the window sills, the whole northern wall, all the floor- 
 ing and foundation, were left just as they were built in 1812. But 
 the rest was made new." Some twenty years afterwards Dr. Eobert 
 
 25
 
 C. James placed within it a beautiful aud complete set of stained 
 glass windows in memory of his mother, a devoted member of 
 Pisgah. An oriole window of the same kind was placed above the 
 pulpit, by the congregation, in memory of Dr. Douglas. The wood- 
 work and interior decorations are in keeping with the gothic build- 
 ing and the windows, while the exterior is covered with ivy. Grief- 
 stricken as Pisgah M'as at the loss of Dr. Douglas we find that as 
 early as October 15th, 1890, alive to the need of continuing her 
 regular work and service, she calls to the pastorate, the Eev. Eras- 
 mus E. Ervin, from the Presbytery of Tuscaloosa, Ala, at a salary 
 of $800.00, with tlie use of the parsonage of course. He accepted, 
 and was regularly installed in November 17th, 1890. Mr. Ervin. 
 resigned, and at his own request was released from the care of 
 Pisgah to take charge of the church at De Funiak Springs, Florida. 
 He, at the time of this writing, resides at Kingstree, S. C, and has 
 charge of a group of churches in the vicinity. Evangelistic meet- 
 ings and earnest pastoral attention characterized this pastorate. 
 Additions to the church were the fruits of these efforts. 
 
 Without undue delay Pisgah called Eev. Coleman 0. Groves, a 
 student at Louisville Theological Seminary, on April 7th, 1897, the 
 salary to be $600.00. He accepted and was ordained and installed 
 on June 12th, 1897, Presbytery meeting at Pisgah for the purpose 
 of his examination. Mr. Groves is a native Kentuckian. He came 
 to Pisgah unmarried, but in a few weeks married Miss Mary Wood- 
 son, of Louisville. At the very beginnig of his pastorate a meeting 
 was held in which Eev. Joseph Hopper, known widely as "Uncle 
 Joe," did the preaching. Twenty-four names were added to the 
 roll. Mr. Groves resigned on November 8th, 1903, to remove to 
 Florida, where he first became pastor of the church of Braiden- 
 town, and afterwards of the Orlando church, which he continues 
 to serve. 
 
 Pisgah again acted with her accustomed promptness, and on 
 May 10th of that same year called Eev. W. 0. Shewmaker, then 
 residing at Georgetown, Ky., and until some months previous the 
 pastor of the church there. The salary named was $600. He 
 accepted, and was installed on September 27th. He is the present 
 pastor. 
 
 26
 
 THE OLD ACAJJK.MV. 
 "Oh ' Where are the spirits liriglit 
 Who filled these halls with life and lit;ht?" 
 
 I
 
 Cfje Motv of tije ^cfjool 
 
 HEN the history of Kentucky to this time is fully written 
 the school that will appear in it as the center of 
 potent influence will not be the one taught in the 
 "little red school house" that is the shrine of other 
 parts of our land. But it will be the private school, gathered under 
 some true disciple of learning and master of teaching, under the 
 patronage of the fathers of the neighborhood, determined that their 
 children should not grow up in ignorance while the legislative 
 mills slowly ground their meagre grist, and the needed pul^lic 
 education waited on the law's delay. Such a school, a private one, 
 if you will, but a school of tJie neighborhood, was that which was 
 started at Pisgah at about the time of the founding of the church. 
 For it was a Presbyterian church, it must be borne in mind. And 
 while the modern proverb has gone abroad that you can not have 
 a Presbyterian church in a town without a bank, it was at least in 
 old times true that where a Presbyterian church was there also was 
 a school. And unto this hour it is true that the Presbyterian young 
 folk are in school somewhere, though their parents may not l)uild 
 as many schools as they once did. It is to tradition alone that we 
 are obliged to go for the beginning of the story of education at 
 Pisgah. But no tradition was ever clearer or more unbroken, than 
 that about the time the church was built, and not for from it, a 
 school house was also built. It is pictured as of logs, of course, but 
 a double log house. Between the two rooms was the "passage" as 
 we call it, or "dog-trot," as our Virginia neighbors say, or hall, as 
 our children will have to hear it called in order to have any idea of 
 it. In one of these the teacher lived. In the other he taught. Tra- 
 dition has not taken the trouble to remark that he was a bachelor. 
 Of course he was. "Were not all those "jolly old pedagogues" of 
 "long ago" single men ? The spring that still sends its stream forth 
 from under the Pisgah hill furnished the water for the bare-foot 
 boys and girls who loitered around it with the school bucket, while 
 the lessons were running their weary course up in the school house 
 a hundred and twenty-five years ago. Married, or single, whichever 
 
 27
 
 he actually was, the story that comes down to us preserves his name. 
 It was Andrews. The first of it has fallen into the silence of those 
 ancient years. Nor is there any chronicle of his length of service. 
 All else that has come to us is that he moved from Pisgali to Ohio. 
 There is also either a genuine tradition, or a guess of a somewhat 
 later time, that he sometimes conducted religious services there at 
 Pisgah. And this may help to account for the apparent ease with 
 wliich the congregation of the Eev. Adam Rankin was formed 
 when we first hear of Pisgah as a church. Ten years after the 
 known beginning of church life at Pisgah we find the Presbytery 
 of Transylvania establishing a grammar school and a public sem- 
 inary. That education was flourishing about the log house of Mr. 
 Andrews may be surely inferred from the fact that though the 
 Presb3i;ery covered all Kentucky it seems to have quickly chosen 
 Pisgah as the place for its new school. The tuition was fixed at 
 four pounds, (about thirteen dollars in United States money) a 
 year. Mr. Andrew Steele was appointed by Presb^^tery as teacher. 
 In the spring of 1796 he was succeeded by James Moore, and on 
 October 6th of the next j'ear Jno. Thompson is successor to Mr. 
 Moore. The school was under the care of Presbyter}-, and a minis- 
 ter of the Presbytery was to be appointed to take oversight of it ; the 
 teacher was to be appointed by the Presbytery, and promising 
 3^ouths were to be sought out to be educated. If they were unable 
 to provide for themselves the church was to contribute to their 
 support. And it was recommended that a contribution be made for 
 this purpose; all heads of families to give annually for four years, 
 "two shilling and three pence." The president of the Seminary was 
 to be a minister. But there were to be no efforts used to induce 
 pupils to change their religious beliefs, "any further than is con- 
 sistent with the general belief in the gospel system, and the practice 
 of vital piety." The trustees were to be twenty-one in number, one 
 half to be always Presbyterian ministers of Kentucky Presbyteries. 
 Forty-seven gentlemen in the various congregations were appointed 
 to collect money for the project. A charter was procured for the 
 Seminary, under the title, "The Kentucky Academy." This was 
 in December 1794, some eight months after the first action of the 
 Presbytery. While the Grammar School went on, collections for 
 the Seminary were pushed. Subscriptions and donations in the 
 State amounted to upwards of one thousand pounds, or $3,333 in 
 the federal currency of the time. "Father" Rice and Dr. Blythe 
 
 28
 
 the pastor at Pisgali, were sent to the General Assembly of 1795. 
 and presented the cause of the Kentucky Academy throughout the 
 East;, collecting nearly $10,000. George Washington subscribed 
 $100, Jno. Adams $100, and Aaron Burr $50. Dr. George Gordon 
 of London, England, secured for the young Seminary a small, but 
 valuable, library and "philosophical apparatus," or as we should say. 
 laboratory equipment. That equipment however, was chiefly, if not 
 entirely, an air-pump, microscope, telescope and prisms. The 
 money from abroad amounted to eighty pounds, two shillings and 
 six pence. The very names of these English friends of the Ken- 
 tucky Presbyterians who gave these contributions have been pre- 
 served to us. 
 
 But in the meantime Paris and Harrodsburg are alive to the 
 fact that the institution is to be a reality. And they each want it,. 
 But the Grammar School is already at Pisgah, the people there are 
 interested and offer inducements and — (and we think this is no 
 small factor in the result) — Dr. Bl3^the is also at Pisgah. So the 
 Grammar School is transferred with all its property to the Ken- 
 tucky Academy, which opens in the fall of 1797, not at Paris, or 
 at Harrodsburg, but at Pisgah. The Transylvania Seminary was 
 open at Lexington, as it had been for some years before the found- 
 ing of the Pisgah school. Indeed, the Pisgah school was a protest 
 against the action of the tni.stees of Transylvania in placing at 
 the head of that institution Mr. Toulmin, a Unitarian. Pisgah 
 outstripped the older institution in town, although Mr. James Moore, 
 who had been deposed to make room for Mr. Toulmin, had been 
 recalled to be its head, the la iter having resigned to become Sec- 
 retary of State. 
 
 Finally, on December 22, 1798, the Legislatnre, acting upon 
 the request of the trustees of the Kentucky Academy and the trus- 
 tees of Transylvania Seminary, united the two into one institution 
 to be called Tlie Transylvania University. The board of the new 
 institution was to be twenty-one in number, the majority to be 
 Presbyterians : the charter cnuld not be changed except upon a pe- 
 tition of at least eleven of the trustees, and the board was self- 
 perpetuating. But Pisgah did not send away her interest in edu- 
 cation along with the institution, and a flourishing school was main- 
 tained there during the greater part of the last century, now under 
 one teacher, and now under another. Its fame and influence were 
 especially great when Dr. Louis Marshall, who lived in the neigh- 
 
 29
 
 borhood, and who was an elder in Pissrah church, conducted it. As 
 a teacher he had great reputation. He was a brother of the great 
 Chief Justice ^Farshall. The famous Kentucky orators, Thomas 
 F. and Edward ^Marshall, were his sons. In later times Prof. Al- 
 mon Spencer, the father of Prof. A. E. Spencer, of Clinton, S. C, 
 conducted a flourishing academy at Pisgah, and most of the present 
 generation of Pisgali's grown people received at least their earlier 
 school training from him. The introduction of rapid transit which 
 has put all the Central Kentucky country into close and easy con- 
 nection with the towns has made the need for a local school at 
 Pisgah less keenly felt than it was in former times. And since the 
 resignation of the school in 1907 by the present pastor of the 
 church, who had taught a few pupils for three years previous, there 
 has been no school in the historic school house at Pisgah. The 
 district school is located less than a mile from the church. 
 
 The history of Transylvania University was soon such that the 
 Presbyterian people of the state turned their attention to the 
 founding of a new institution, and ultimately obtained the Centre 
 College. So that, in a very true sense, from Pisgah has sprung two 
 noteworthy institutions of learning. 
 
 The late Col. W. C. P. Breckinridge vvTote of the Pisgah school 
 as follows : "As mere examples of the youth who have been taught 
 there we might select at random the families w^ho have made a 
 mark upon the history of Kentucky. As, for instance, the four 
 Crittenden brothers, John J. Crittenden, Henry Crittenden, 
 Thom.as Crittenden and Robert Crittenden; or the Breckinridge 
 brothers, Cabell Breckinridge, John Breckinridge, Robert J. Breck- 
 inridge and William Breckinridge; or the Marshall brothers, 
 Thomas F. Marshall, Judge William C. Marshall and E. C. Mar- 
 shall." Col. Breckinridge, himself, was a student there. 
 
 Through the loving labor of the ladies of the church, a few 
 years ago, the old stone building, where the famous school had so 
 long been taught, was remodeled. Tt stands, modest and tasteful, 
 just to the rear and side of the church, a perpetual memorial to 
 Pisgah's past as a center of education. 
 
 3(;
 
 THE SCHOOL HOUSE OF TODAY, 
 On the site of the old building.
 
 ^3fi 
 
 Wl)t ^torp of tfje Communitp 
 
 ITCH of it has already been told; for the church and 
 school not only affected the life of the community, 
 but were also channels through which that life moved 
 and in which it expressed itself. The story of either 
 of them is also a part of the story of the community. But, of 
 course, there is a story separate from that which belongs to them. 
 Eor, after all, what is told of them does not form the whole of Pis- 
 gah's history. There is, therefore, something else to tell. This story 
 of the community comes to us, in the form that we' have it, solely 
 through the lips of the people. It is not a wi'itten history. But it has 
 come from father to son by word of mouth. This means that there 
 is much of it that is not told at all. For there are many interesting 
 chapters of it hidden away in old letters, family Bibles and the 
 mouldy records of the offices of the county courts. Even if all 
 of this had as 3^et been gathered together the limits of this slight 
 volume would not permit its full record here. What is put down 
 here is that Avhich is current, the tradition received from, the 
 fathers. Xor does it come from a time more remote than the first 
 settlement of the locality. If it was followed beyond that, it would 
 take us back across the mountains into A^irginia, and across the 
 ocean into the north of Ireland, and thence to Scotland. Other 
 threads of it that unite here at Pisgah would lead us to the same 
 native haunts of Presbyteriani.^m beyond the seas, but through 
 Pennsylvania instead of Virginia. And there is reason to believe 
 that Merry England, as well as the sterner lands just mentioned, 
 would be found if still other threads of the story were followed to 
 their starting place. 
 
 "The story runneth thus": It was in wild March weather in 
 the year 17 80 tliat Samuel Stevenson and Jane Gay, his wife, came 
 from the fort in Lexington to live in their log cabin, their new 
 home, erected on the lands which they had surveyed in the new 
 Kentucky country. It stood upon the wooded point of land just 
 west of the present site of the church. The house had been built 
 by Stevenson and his slaves, with the help of his brothers-in-law, 
 
 31
 
 Alexander Diinlap and John (iay, and their friend, Closes Mc- 
 Ilvain. In the same season were built the homes of Dunlap and 
 Agnes Gay, his wife; of John Gay and Sally Lockridge; of Moses 
 Mcllvain and Margaret Hodge. These homes were within a mile 
 of each other and each near to a spring of water. The grant of 
 land had originally been acquired and the claim located by Samuel 
 Stevenson. He and Dunlap had each married sisters of John Gay. 
 These were Sf^otch-Irish A'irginians, all from Augusta Coimty in 
 Virginia. One almost certain indication of the Scotch-Irish origin 
 of the Gays, at least, is the fact that tlie name was once pronounced 
 "Guy" — as unto this hour the unmixed Scotch-Irishman of West- 
 ern Pennsylvania, for instance, speaks of today as though he were 
 talking of "to die." These were they who settled the immediate 
 neighborhood. But we use the term community in the broadest 
 sense, and make it include Pisgah's permanent congregation. About 
 the same tinie, even earlier, pioneer Presbyterian families had set- 
 tled in the region, the furthest not being more than six miles 
 away. Among them were the Aliens, Scotts, Evanses, Garretts 
 (who came to Fort Garrett in 1778), Eennicks, Martins, Longs, 
 Fergiisons, Burriers, Blacks, Eobbs, Elliotts, Watsons, Campbells, 
 Howes, Steeles, Wardlaws, Youngs' and Stewarts. Another pioneer 
 family, only three miles from the church, was that of the Wasons, 
 who came out from the Lexington stockade in 1780 or 1781. At 
 the first, though a part of the community in every sense, they were 
 members of the Associate Reformed Church in Lexington. Fi- 
 nally they became members of Pisgah, Dr. R. H. Wason being one 
 of its elders. 
 
 Three families of Stevensons settled here, none of them related 
 to each other. At a somewhat later period otiier names appear 
 among the people of Pisgah. Among them are Marshal Is, Hardins, 
 Richeys, Stones, Smedleys, Spencers, Youngs, Taylors, Berrymans, 
 Miltons, Linghamfelters, McPheeters, Castlemans, Bohannons, 
 MoCroskeys, Scrogins, Stogdols, Coxes, Wallaces, Alexanders, 
 Hedgers, Wheelers, Worleys, Coffmans, Jameses, Halls, Andersons, 
 Eastons, Carrs, Kinkeads, Armstrongs, Whittingtons, Aikins, 
 Thompsons, Boardmans, Lytles, Waltzes, Fraziers, Burnams, 
 Berrys, Hamiltons. Besides these, there were doubtless others near 
 the first. And certainly, from iime to time, new families have come 
 into the community and to the church. This narrative does not 
 attempt to give any complete list of Pisgah's people. 
 
 32
 
 THE LATEST IMMIGRATION OF PRESBYTERIANS 
 
 Shortly after the Civil War there occurred a distinct migration 
 into the Pisgah community and church which markedly affected 
 the life of both. It consisted of the removal from Alabama to 
 Pisgah of four Presbyterian families, namely, the Powells, Fal- 
 coners, McEachins, and Harts. 
 
 About twenty-five years ago the introduction of the culture of 
 tobacco brought into this neighborhood several families from other 
 counties. Many of them have become permanent residents of the 
 community, and r^ome of them members of Pisgah church; as, for 
 instance, the Smithers family, the Littrells, Brewers, and Wises. 
 
 The actual story of the community could be fully writ- 
 ten only by writing the history of each of these families, 
 and of the others whose lives have mingled to form the 
 main current of that of Pisgah. This, of course, is beyond our 
 province, as well as our powers. Only the outstanding features of 
 the history of the people as a whole can be noted. It is not even 
 then a "thrilling^' history in the ordinary sense of that phrase. But 
 it is a history full of human interest. It is not filled with pictures 
 of desperate scenes painted in fierce colors. But there abound in 
 it sweet and charming scenes of home-life: of quiet, pastoral lands; 
 of grazing cattle, shadowed pastures, rich meadows, and fields of 
 waving grain and standing corn. It is the history of a simple, 
 brave, refined and high-minded people. There is warrior blood in 
 some of them, and there are not wanting among them those who 
 have given their blood to their country. But they have sent no 
 great captain into the army. They have been, and are, interested 
 in education. But no great scholar has gone from them. They are 
 industrious, prudent, thrifty, knowing the money value of an acre 
 of ground, or a head of live stock to the last cent. But no immense 
 fortune has been accumulated by any of them. Their history can 
 not but be lacking in sensational events. And this means also that 
 to the criminal history of Kentucky, which at its shortest is all 
 too voluminous, and to the reputation for violence which the state 
 has so long borne, the Pisgah community has contributed exceed- 
 ingly little. Her people have been home-making and God-fearing. 
 Thus have they lived. And so their annals are simple. These are 
 made up of the records of births, marriages, deaths. And even so 
 their history is fraught with the interest which centers in those 
 
 33
 
 great words, and which makes the tale of any novelist worth the 
 telling and the hearing. 
 
 The community has taken its part in public matters as a body 
 of staunch dependable citizens, voting clean tickets with a clear 
 conscience. Not always have they agreed as to the policy proper 
 in these matters. They, indeed, seldom vote unanimously. The 
 community ic no longer, nor has it been for many years, prac- 
 tically one church. On the contrary, descendants of the original 
 Pisgah church are found in the neighboring churches of other de- 
 nominations. They live, however, neighbors, friends, and kindred 
 to those who still cultivate the faith of their fathers at the altars 
 which their common ancestors were united to build. They differ on 
 questions of both politics and religion, but without unseemly strife 
 and with mutual respect and good will. They have contributed to 
 the strength cf other communities by the sending of their people 
 to dwell in new places. Towns and cities of our own state, and of 
 other states, especially those of the older and the newer West, have 
 received these recruits from the strong, wholesome life of Pisgah; 
 and they are not the worse thereby. 
 
 Of course this history is not without its darker pictures, its 
 pages that we cannot help wishing need never have been written. 
 For it i.^ a bit of human history, and such pages are always to be 
 found in it. The record of Eden is not without them. And they 
 will always be foimd in the bistory of man until his annals become 
 those of the City "where no evil thing cometh to despoil what is 
 fair." The Pi«gah people have had their tragedies, but not of the 
 kind that make tbe material of the sensational newspapers. They 
 have had their estrangements and their heartburnings, but they 
 have striven to live at peace with all men. They have had their 
 deep ami awful sorrows, but these have been bravely borne. A 
 hundred and twenty-five years is, after all, a short time, long as 
 it may sound. And we realize it when we attempt to uncover the 
 life of a people whose existence as a community has been no longer 
 than that. We find that to write their history means not only to 
 reveal the secrets of the dead, but also to unveil the holy places of 
 the living. 
 
 Therefore, we close the book even as we are opening it. It is 
 evident that as a whole the people of Pisgah have not sought tlie 
 
 34
 
 more brilliant, but not always" clesiral:)le, prizes of life, but rather 
 those more substantial if less glittering rewards, the winning of 
 which brings less clanger both to character and good fortune. And 
 herein lies a part of the secret of their continuity as a community, 
 and of their prosperity. 
 
 35
 
 Ct)p Spirit of Bisiqaf) 
 
 JTTEKE is such a thing. Pisgah is not one of those 
 communities the separate parts of which tempt one 
 to believe in the possibility of a fortuitous concourse 
 of atoms. The people are homogeneous. Their 
 unitLHl life lias manifested the same characteristic. Further than 
 that, there has been a distinct spirit emanating from the commu- 
 nity. In making an assertion of this sort the writer possesses the 
 advantage of not being native to the community and at the same 
 time a resident in it for a term of years sufficiently long to justify 
 his claim to speak on this subject. He approaches it from with- 
 out, and yet s^^npatheticallv and not ignorantly. His knowl- 
 edge of other Kentucky communities also is sufficiently full 
 to at least enable him to detect anything distinctive in this one. 
 But even so he cannot claim to be the only, or even the original, 
 discoverer of the Spirit of Pisgah. This fact, of course, only con- 
 firms him in his conviction that there is such a spirit. For instance, 
 a venerable man, whose knowledge of the people of Kentucky and 
 of all the South is as great, perhaps, as that of any man anywhere, 
 but who has never been connected in any direct Avay with Pisgah, 
 said only lately to the writer that there had gone out from it (the 
 church was especially in his mind") a strong and clearly distin- 
 guishable influence, an influence for good. 
 
 We seek, then, to discover just what is this Spirit of Pisgah. 
 We naturally expect to find it illustrated in its past. Turning the 
 pages that we have just written, we find tliat the Pisgah people 
 came to Kentucky, not as hunters, nor as Indian fighters, nor as 
 adventurers. "Many such did come. But the people who came to 
 Pisgah came as men of peace. Thev were settlers. Their peaceful 
 character is again sho\Mi in the fact that but very few of them 
 went to any of the wars in which the country has been involved 
 since they came here. And, further still, the persistent refusal to 
 let their life as one people be disrupted by political, religious, or 
 personal quarrels, illustrates the same love of peace. Dr. Bl3d:he, 
 in his farewell sermon, remijids his people that on tlie day of his 
 
 36
 
 arrival among them, more than forty years before, he found the 
 church divided and distracted. Adam Rankin had his devoted 
 friends here. But while ruling elder, Wm. Scott, appeals to the 
 Presbytery against the action of the session, vrhich his pastor ap- 
 proved, and afterwards appears as an elder in Clear Creek, there 
 is no wholesale leaving of the church to escape from the eccentric 
 pastor. And when the Presbytery takes the painful, but necessary, 
 action deposing Rankin from the ministry, there is no body of 
 people at all at Pisgah, though a large one at Lexington, to rally 
 around him to form an independent church. On the contrary. Dr. 
 Blythe distinctly reminds the people that, young and unknown as 
 he was, God blessed his efforts to the healing of all strife. The 
 ways of Pisgah are the paths of peace. 
 
 In the quiet safety of the lives that have been lived here there 
 has also been shown unvarying and cautious prudence. There is 
 no recklessness. The spirit of the mere adventurer, either as In- 
 dian fighter or as gambler, was not the one that prompted them to 
 come to these fair lands. Nor have they treated their inheritance 
 as a stake. This is not to say that they are miserly, for that they 
 are not. But they have, with, careful judgment, planned to acquire, 
 and keep, the sweet and pleasant comfort with which they are sur- 
 rounded. 
 
 The history of Pisgah shows also a spirit of high loyalty. A 
 brilliant woman once said to the writer that loyalty was "loving- 
 ness." And the loyalty shown by Pisgah, at least, gives ground 
 for such a definition. Pisgah loves her past. It is said that her 
 forefathers, while not coming to Kentuclcy as a church moving in 
 one body, as did a certain other historic body of Virginians who 
 came this way, yet brought with them from Virginia the name of 
 the home church there, and transplanted Pisgah from the mother 
 state into this Kentucky wilderness. 
 
 The vast body of our American citizens of today cannot con- 
 ceive the passion with which these people love their lands, which 
 have come down from father to son. Perhaps no one in the world 
 now can understand it except an Englishman. They are loyal also 
 to their traditions, those of sobriety, purity, honor, and piety. In 
 their eyes — of whatever denomination they may be — it is only a 
 natural and altogether to be expected thing that a man be a member 
 of the church. And they are loyal to it. The church is not an 
 outside thing, intruding itself upon their life. It is not a conven- 
 
 37
 
 tion either. It is a natural, necessary and holy institution, part 
 and parcel of their lives. They are loyal to their religious faith, 
 preserving it without parading it ; respecting the opinions of others, 
 and not ashamed of their own. To their pastors they are steadily, 
 encouragingly true, and among the churches and the ministers they 
 are proverbial for this loyalty. It is indeed a matter of wonder 
 that any considerable body of them could have petitioned, as they 
 did, to be released from the pastoral care of Eev. Adam Eankin. 
 It is as clear an indication as one could well have that the provo- 
 cation was great, and that their first pastor, while energetic and 
 able, was yet a man eccentric and difficult. This is the explanation 
 also of the marked and tender devotion to them which seems to 
 have been felt by every pastor who has served them. The feeling 
 pervades the restrained and formal periods of Dr. Blythe's fare- 
 well after foi-ty years. We detect it unto this day in its yellow, 
 crumbling pages. It breathes ia the letter of the dying Cunning- 
 ham, who had lived with them only one year. Jacob Price and TJuth- 
 erford Douglas died among them, each counting them as his very 
 own. And the heart of the widow of Eobert Allen turns unto them 
 tenderly even to this hoiir. While Mrs. Douglas has never allowed 
 herself to be parted from them, despite the necessity of absence in 
 the body. No- will the two men who have been pastors at Pisgah, 
 and who today are j-et on the earth, working happily in other fields, 
 however much their devotion to other people, deny the fact or be 
 offended at this public statement of it, that their love for Pisgah 
 and her people is a thing apart. Of course, it is to be remembered 
 that loyalty doe? not show itself only in the quiet ways just men- 
 tioned. And so we find in the people of Pisgah that the spirit of loy- 
 alty issues in a power of strong protest. A widely known attorney, 
 not a native of Pisgah, not having ever lived there, speaking one day 
 of the establishment of the Kentucky Academy there, said to the 
 writer, "Pisgah was a protest." And so, when occasion offers, the 
 spirit of Pisgah can show itself as a power to front injustice or 
 wrong of any sort. 
 
 It is the almost universal custom today to consider every coun- 
 try community as bcliiiul-hand in all tilings, and as willingly so. 
 Country people are considered altogether unteaehable until they 
 move to town. As a matter of fact, the notion is a baseless super- 
 stition. Here at Pisgah it is clearly imfounded. The people are 
 conservative; but they are not retrogressive. They respect the 
 
 38
 
 past. They would save what is worth keeping. But they do not 
 wish to go backward. Nor do they care to preserve relics — except 
 as relics. They are conservatively progressive. In the ranks of 
 the Lord's hosts the Pisgah church, for instance, may not lead the 
 van; but neither is she of that company whose practice it is "to 
 fire and fall back," nor yet is she of those who "stay by the stuff." 
 But her place is in the center of the firing line. With its advance 
 she moves — and moves forward. This spirit is finely illustrated 
 by two incidents in the life of the church. In the year 1811, we 
 are told, the Presbytery — in a mood of despondency, let us hope — 
 gave official advice to the Versailles, Woodford, and Pisgah churches 
 to imite and build one "commodious house of worship" for all 
 three. Pisgah heard this advice; but she did not heed it. Instead 
 she moved further up her hillside, and built a house of stone — 
 all for herself. And when, in 1868, she went about to remodel 
 that building, she realized the need of a change, dear as the old 
 house was; but she did not fall a victim to mere enterprise. She 
 did not build a structure fitted for the city square, nor yet one for 
 the village street. But she shaped the new roof like the arches of 
 her native woods, planted the clinging ivy about the grey stones' 
 dug from the native limestone, and left her sanctuary a shrine in 
 God's "Out-of-doors." The spirit of Pisgah is a spirit of peace, 
 and ol prudence ; of loyalty and high courage ; that hastes not from 
 the old times, vet thankfully moves toward the new. 
 
 30
 
 ^Ije ^isigaf) of tEobap 
 
 EEE and there are woodland pastures giving a faint 
 suggestion of the glor}^ of the primeval forest that 
 once crowned the gently rolling lands where the 
 ^^ Scotch-Irish from Virginia and Pennsylvania first 
 made their homes in Woodford county, and where their descend- 
 ants dwell today. But the forest has passed away. It is a land 
 of fertile fields, that instantly, with but the slightest encourage- 
 ment from the husbandman, go back to rich pastures fit to keep 
 the finest live stock in the world. The comfortable homes of the 
 last generation have not been allowed, by the children, to fall 
 into decay. On all sides they dot the beautiful landscape, their 
 inviting, sheltering appearance only adding the human element 
 that harmonizes with its beauty. Gradually into these homes are 
 coming the modern conveniences to which cities and towns can no 
 longer claim exclusive right. 
 
 There is a feature of the landscape which is distinctly modern, 
 and which in late years has been introduced throughout Central 
 Kentucky. It is not a beautiful feature. It is the unsightly 
 "tenant house." This is a part of the result of the culture of 
 tobacco. The house itself is a necessity. But its hideous- 
 ness is not. The stock-raising fathers of fifty years ago 
 saw to it that no ugly thing in building or fence should mar the 
 beauty of their homesteads, and their Central Kentucky farms at- 
 tained a world-wide fame. Their sons are making a mistake in 
 not following their example. It is well nigh certain that all over 
 the Blue Grass section this mistake will be seen, and the man who 
 tends a tobacco crop will be given an opportunity to take care of 
 a pretty and comfortable, though not expensive home. And the 
 landlord will see that it is best also for himself. 
 
 The old roll of Pisgah church, that of 1808, is extended to 
 include also a list of the families, recording the parents and all 
 the children, whether the latter were in communion with the 
 church or not. We are impressed by the length of those family 
 rolls. Almost every house seems to have been filled with children, 
 
 40
 
 Such is not the case with the native families of the community 
 today. But the life of the community and of the church is vigo- 
 rous. Neither of them is in a state of decay. The people are not 
 moving away, nor is there any feeling among them that to do so 
 would be either desirable or wise. There is the same spirit among 
 the Pisgah of the present that has been shown by it in the past. 
 And it may be said without qualification, that all that is best in 
 their traditions is not only preserved by them, but is an active and 
 strong force in their lives today. The people of Pisgah are 
 genial, without coarseness; polite, without stiffness; modest, with- 
 out shyness; simple, without crudeness; refined, without snob- 
 bishness, and religious, without sanctimoniousness. 
 
 In its last yearly report to Presbytery, that of April 1st, 
 1909, the church stated its membership as eighty-four, not far 
 from the average for its entire history. The services are well 
 attended, and the spirit of worship that pervades every service 
 (and they are of the simplest sort) does not fail to impress the 
 stranger. The congregation is interested in, and contributes to, 
 all the great work of our Southern Church as a whole. In April 
 of this year she reported for the twelve months previous contribu- 
 tions to all causes, including her own local expenses, to the 
 amount of $1,160. In the church especially there is a growing 
 determination to receive, welcome, and keep all whom God's provi- 
 dence may send to Pisgah, and to seek and find whatsoever work 
 he has given the church to do. 
 
 The Pisgah of today is interested in her past. She has looked 
 into its record, recalled its story, and taken pains to preserve its 
 mementos. But Pisgah is of the present, and she knows it. Like- 
 wise, also, she believes — aye, is very sure, that for her there is 
 also a future. To it she looks with equal hope and gratefulness. 
 
 The Church as it is Today. 
 The roll of members appears as a part of the general roll at the 
 end of this book. 
 
 OFFICERS 
 
 W. 0. Shewmaker, Pastor. 
 
 Euling Elders— E. S. Hart, M. D., W. A. Cox, J. W. Garrett. 
 Clerk of Session — E. S. Hart. 
 
 Deacons — P. G. Powell, Sr., J. Horace Gay, E. H. Wason, 
 Jas. T. Cox, Chairman of Board. 
 
 41
 
 Superintendent of Grounds and Buildings — J as. T. Cox. 
 
 SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 W. A. Cox, Superintendent. 
 
 J. Gay Hanna, Secretary. 
 
 Miss Catherine Falconer, Librarian. 
 
 Miss Mary A. Cox, Superintendent of Primary Department. 
 
 Robert Garrett, Assistant in Primary Department. 
 
 Miss Margaret Hart, Assistant in Primary Department. 
 
 Mrs. Jas. T. Cox, Intermediate Teacher and Home Depart- 
 ment Superintendent. 
 
 Mrs. Mary Mcllvain, Intermediate Teacher. 
 
 E. S. Hart, Junior Adult Teacher. 
 
 W. 0. Shewmaker, Senior Adult Teacher and Normal Class 
 Instructor. 
 
 Number of Pupils, seventy-six. 
 
 SOCIETIES 
 
 The Ladies' Missionary Society. 
 The Douglas Missionary Band. 
 
 SERVICES 
 
 Every Sabbath, 11 o'clock, a. m.. Preaching. 
 Every Wednesday afternoon. Prayer-meeting. 
 Communion Services, once each quarter, on dates announced. 
 Sunday School every Sabbath, 10 o'clock, a. m., regular 
 session. 
 
 Twice each month, at dates announced, the Normal Class. 
 
 SOCIETY MEETINGS 
 
 Ladies Missionary, last Friday in each month. 
 
 Douglas Missionary Band, the fourth Sabbath of each month, 
 in the afternoon. 
 
 Session Meetings, once each quarter, prior to Communion. 
 
 Board of Deacons, once each quarter. 
 
 In addition to the above-mentioned Church organizations, 
 there was formed in 1908 the Pisgah Cemetery Improvement 
 Association. The object of this organization is to give special 
 care and attention to the cemetery and the grounds immediately 
 about the church. It's membership is designed to include not only 
 those who are members of the church, but who may for any reason 
 be interested in the care of the cemetery or the property. It is 
 
 42
 
 organized, however, subject entirely to the authority of the session 
 of the church, the ruling elders of that body being also the trustees 
 of all the church property. They have already in hand a small 
 nucleus of a fund to secure the proper care of the cemetery. It is 
 their purpose to increase this fund until it will yield a considerable 
 income, thus securing the cemetery against the ruin that is the 
 fate of nearly all country grave yards. They are prepared to 
 receive contributions to this fund at all times. The officers are 
 J. Wilmore Garrett, Sr., President, and Miss Mary A. Cox, Secre- 
 tary-Treasurer, with a board of directors. Jas. T. Cox is Superin- 
 tendent of Cemetery. The Association meets regularly twice n 
 year at the call of the President. 
 
 43
 
 ^ift Celebration 
 
 N October 7th, 1909, the Pisgah church celebrated 
 the one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of its 
 founding. The day was perfect. October weather 
 in Kentucky is often as charming as can be found at 
 any season anywhere. The sky was without a cloud, but the bright 
 sunshine fell, softened by the thin haze, which, finer than gos- 
 samer, hung over the whole landscape just sufficiently strong in 
 fiber to give faint tints of amethyst and opal to the atmosphere. 
 The pastures were yet green ; the trees and vines just touched with 
 the first flush of the colors of the fall. Preparations had been 
 made and plans formed for weeks before. The church was deco- 
 rated with potted plants of unbroken green. Just to the east of 
 the school house, and somewhat in front of it, a pavilion forty 
 feet wide and eighty feet long had been stretched. Within this 
 there were tables, chairs, plates, and all the equipment of a dining 
 room for the accommodation of three hundred and twenty-five 
 people. At 10 o'clock, a. m., the following program was begun, 
 and carried out without change. 
 
 10:00 a. m. (In the church). 
 Doxology. 
 
 Invocation — Eev. F. W. Hinitt, D. D., Central University, 
 Danville, Ky. 
 
 Hymn — "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name." 
 Roll call of members. 
 
 Hymn — "The Church's One Foundation.'^ 
 Address: "Pisgah's Past"— Rev. W. 0. Shewmaker, Pisgah. 
 Prayer of Thanksgiving— Lead by Dr. D. Clay Lilly, Nicholas- 
 ville, Ky. 
 
 Hymn— "For All Tlie Saints." 
 ■Reading of Scripture— Psalms 148 and 149. 
 Solo: "Come Unto Me All Ye that Labor and are Heavy 
 Laden" — Miss Beardsley, Kansas City, Mo. 
 
 44
 
 Sermon — Eev, J. S. Lyons, D. D., Louisville, Ky. Text, 
 Is. 32:2. 
 
 The Pisgah Memorial Hymn — By Mrs. Douglas. 
 
 Prayer and Dismissal — Led by Dr. Edwin Muller, Lexing- 
 ton, Ky. 
 
 11. 
 
 12:30 p. m. (At the table). 
 Lunch. 
 Greetings — 
 
 From the First Presbyterian Church, Lexington, Ky. — ■ 
 
 Mr, T. T. Forman, Lexington, Ky. 
 From the Presbytery — Rev. W. 0. Cochrane, George- 
 town, Ky. 
 From Absent Friends — Letters read by Dr. R. S. Hart. 
 Centennial Poems, by Mrs. Douglas — Read by Mr. Desha 
 Breckinridge. 
 
 (a) The Church. 
 
 (b) The School House. 
 
 III. 
 
 3:00 p. m. (The audience being too large for the church, the 
 dining tent was now used). 
 Hymn— "0, Could I Speak the Matchless Worth." 
 Solo: "The Plains of Peace"— Mrs. Cannon, Midway, Ky. 
 Address— Rev. F. W. Hinitt, D. D., Danville, Ky. 
 
 Subject : ''Religion and Education." 
 Prayer — Led by Dr. Lyons. 
 x\nnouncements. 
 Hymn— "0, God of Bethel." 
 Benediction — Rev. L. H. Blanton, D. D., Danville, Ky. 
 
 The lunch was served in successive "tables," fully seven hun- 
 dred people in all partaking, including the Pisgah people them- 
 selves. There were at least five hundred guests. The Memorial 
 Hymn mentioned above, as well as the Centennial Poems, were 
 written by Mrs. Rutherford Douglas, wife of Dr. Douglas, whose 
 pastorate of the church was the longest in its history. She is also 
 the daughter of the famous President of Centre College, the late 
 Dr. John C. Young, her mother being a Breckinridge. She is the 
 mother of Rev. Rutherford E. Douglas, D. D., of Macon, Ga. All 
 
 45 
 
 I
 
 of these relationships, besides her own membership in Pisgah. 
 make it appropriate that she should contribute the verses of 
 the Pisgah Hymn. It is as follows: 
 
 PISGAH MEMORIAL HYMN 
 
 (Tune: "America.") 
 Church of my ancestry, 
 Spot ever dear to me. 
 
 Of thee I sing. 
 Church of their life-long pride 
 Where they in death abide; 
 From hill and valley wide 
 
 Let our songs ring. 
 
 Sing of our fathers bold. 
 Who in the days of old 
 
 Sought the far west. 
 Knightly of soul they were, 
 "T\''ithout reproach or fear," 
 Counting their lives not dear 
 
 In their high quest. 
 
 Here — the long journej'^ done — 
 Here, with the victory won. 
 
 Where they found rest. 
 Stands their loved church today. 
 Ivy crowned, old and grey. 
 In her prosperity 
 
 Blessing and blessed. 
 
 Father in Heaven, do Thou, 
 As in Thy temple now. 
 
 Humbly we bend, 
 Teach us Thy name to bless. 
 Fill us with thankfulness 
 For all the hapj^iness 
 
 Which Thou dost send. 
 
 Our Father's CJod, we lay 
 This, their memorial day. 
 
 Low at Thy feet. 
 Crown it with peace and love 
 From Thy bright courts above; 
 Let it a blessing prove. 
 
 Hallowed and sweet. 
 
 46
 
 Of the occasion one who was present, and who knows whereof 
 he writes, wrote the following which, since it is as much a tribute 
 to guests as to hosts, is here quoted in full: 
 
 (Editorial in Lexington Morning Herald October 8, 1909) 
 
 "we aee sorry por you." 
 
 "We are sorry for all of you who did not go to the celebration 
 of the one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding 
 of Pisgah church yesterday. You may have somewhere gone to 
 some celebration or entertainment you thought delightful; you 
 may sometime in the future go to some other celebration which 
 will be charming; but if you missed the celebration yesterday you 
 will never have an opportunity to attend another just so delightful 
 and so charming. 
 
 "More perfect days may have been. It is possible, we doubt 
 not, for the Lord to make a more perfect day than was yesterday. 
 But He never has yet. In the exquisite setting of woodland and 
 Blue Grass with <^hich Pisgah is surrounded, there were gathered 
 together between five and six hundred of those who have ties to 
 that church, a body of men and women that can not be surpassed 
 — we do not fcelieve equalled — by a similar body of equal numbers 
 in any State in the Union. From far distant neighborhoods came 
 those who, because of ancestral ties or childhood memories, hold 
 sacred the traditions of the church which is unique in Kentucky. 
 
 "We are not so familiar with the history of the churches of 
 Kentucky that we may speak with authority, but we believe Pisgah 
 to be the oldest country church in the State; we have never heard 
 of another church where the pastorate of two men covered a period 
 of nearly three-quarters of a century, as did the pastorate of two 
 of the ministers at Pisgah. The neighborhood of which Pisgah is 
 the center, founded as it was by the most stalwart and most God- 
 fearing type of pioneer immigrants from Virginia, has maintained 
 more than almost any other neighborhood in Kentucky the char- 
 acter impressed upon it by the first settlers. 
 
 "Every time we have the privilege of mingling with a crowd of 
 the country gentlemen and gentlewomen of the Blue Grass, we 
 are impressed, and we were more deeply than usually impressed 
 yesterday by the wonderful character, bearing, intelligence, educa- 
 tion, and social ease of the people. of this region. We do not believe 
 that in any section of America, whether in city or in country, 
 
 47
 
 there could be gathered together a like number of people under 
 like circumstances, as were those gathered at Pisgah yesterday, the 
 average of whom would be as high in all the graces of social life 
 blossoming upon as sturdy character and as real kindliness. They 
 know no superior save God ; they treat no one created in the image 
 of God as inferior. The evidence given of executive capacity in 
 the arrangemeijts for caring for the comfort of those who attended 
 and in providing a dinner which was both delicious and over- 
 abundant, with old ham, mutton, chicken, salads, beaten biscuit, 
 rolls, cakes, pies, coffee — everything in profusion, with no definite 
 knowledge of the number who would attend — there were no R. 
 S. V. P.'s on the invitations — was an evidence of the high order 
 of abilit}' of those in charge of the celebration. 
 
 "We do not comment at the present upon the speeches delivered, 
 of which the news columns of this and other issues of The Herald 
 will tell. We write this simply to express our profound sympathy 
 for all of you poor people who were not so fortunate as to be 
 there " 
 
 I. The Records of a Century. 
 
 "A Session Book or Register of the Church of Pisgah, com- 
 mencing from the beginning of the Year of Our Lord 1808, etc.. 
 etc. This church at the period above mentioned consisted of the 
 following members in communion, to-wit: First, Church Session 
 as follows. James Blythe, Pastor; Francis Allen, James Martin, 
 James Wardlaw, Hugh Ferguson, Isaac Stevenson. Secondly, all 
 other persons in communion, as follows." 
 
 Thus opens the earliest known record of Pisgih church. The 
 names on the roll are given in the general list later in this book. 
 There are fifty-seven members besides officers. The total mem- 
 bership, according to this roll, being sixty-two. Then follows the 
 list of communicants who are heads of families, and their children, 
 Then the old clerk writes : "Next follows in order the proceedings 
 etc., of said church, Births, Baptisms, Marriages, Deaths, Re- 
 newals, etc;" and he is faithful to this. The first entry is, "James 
 and Sally Arm.strong, children of John Armstrong, baptized 
 August, 1808." There is a blank between the month and year, 
 
 48
 
 He intended to get the date exactly from some one who remembered 
 the day. A century has gone, and there the blank is still unfilled: 
 the Armstrong infants having long since grown up and gone the 
 way of all the earth. 
 
 The first death recorded is the next entry, that of William 
 Stevenson, Sr., on July 12, 1808. In the early portion of this 
 book the minutes of the session are but poorly recorded, but the 
 births, marriages, deaths, etc., seem to be carefully put down. 
 The first minutes of Session stands thus: ''May 7th day, 1809. 
 Session met agreeable to appointment; present, James Blythe. 
 mod., together with all the elders. Nancy Kirkham, widow, re- 
 ceived in communion on examination.^' 
 
 The first statistical report recorded in the session book is that 
 of September 20th, 1816. It is as follows: 
 
 Total in communion per last report 42 
 
 Added on examination 2 
 
 Died 2 
 
 Dismissed 2 
 
 Total in communion 41 
 
 Baptized since last communion 1 
 
 Adults 6 
 
 Infants 7 
 
 Total 7 
 
 The yearly report is copied into the book for nearly every year 
 until 1866, when it abruptly ceases to appear. But again we find 
 it regularly recorded each year, beginning with 1893. 
 
 We find the first reference to "the Missionary Society in Pisgah 
 Church" in April, 1831, but there is no account anywhere of its 
 organization. Nor is there any account in the records of the 
 beginning of the weekly prayer-meeting, although there is fre- 
 quent mention in the earlier record of the "concert of pra3^er" for 
 foreign missions, which used to meet on Sunday afternoon each 
 month just before the first Monday in the month. But the reason 
 for mention of this is doubtless the fact that it was customary at 
 these meetings "to lift a collection." The Sunday school is not 
 mentioned except as it begins to appear in the reports to Pres- 
 bytery. Nor is there any record of the organization of the Young 
 People's Society. 
 
 Curious entries to us of today, and destined to grow more so 
 as the generations pass, are such as those notices of members 
 
 49
 
 that are thus recorded, for instance, "Billy, a slave," or "Lucy, a 
 woman of color, belonging to so-and-so."' 
 
 Later on these records show a greater correctness as to form, 
 but their content is often so little as to disappoint us. For in- 
 stance, the record of removals and marriages almost ceases for a 
 long period. We learn from them that the membership of the 
 church has never been large, the very largest ever recorded being 
 150, in 1847, the average being somewhere in the neighborhood of 
 90. The cash salary paid the pastors begins with $130, as re- 
 corded, ascends by degrees to $1,000, descends to $800, and then 
 drops to $600, where it has remained for about twelve years. 
 The church has always responded to calls for contributions to 
 the general work of the church. Pisgah sends commissioners with 
 almost unbroken regularity to the church courts, and her records, 
 though for a long period not before the Presbytery, are as a rule 
 approved when reviewed. 
 
 The clerks, whose diligence has kept these records of a century, 
 have been : 
 
 Nathaniel Ferguson, January 1, 1808 — September 21, 1836. 
 
 Eev. Jacob F. Price, September 21, 1836— June 3, 1847. 
 
 Eben Milton, June 3, 1847— April 10, 1853. 
 
 Dr. R. H. Wason, April 10, 1853— September 9, 1891. 
 
 Dr. R. S. Hart, September 9, 1891— 
 
 Mr. Ferguson, Mr. Price, and Dr. Wason all died in office. 
 Mr. Milton resigned. Dr. Hart is the present clerk. 
 
 Spread upon the minutes of the churcli is the following pa- 
 thetic paper: 
 
 2. The farewell letter of the Rev. Joseph P. Cunningham. 
 
 "25th August, 1833. 
 "To the Dear Brethren of Pisgah Church: 
 
 "The long looked for, and on my part dreadfully painful hour 
 has come. We must separate as Minister and People. To human 
 appearance it is impossible to hope that I can serve you any longer 
 in the Gospel. I fear my days on earth are well nigh numbered 
 Thru grace T ain able to contemplate my latter end with com- 
 posure. I know in whom I have believed. 'I know that my Re- 
 deemer liveth,' that is all sufficient. 
 
 'T^t would be improper to keep you bound or restricted from 
 procuring another minister, whom you so much need, when it is 
 
 50
 
 almost certain I can never serve you again. I trust God will es- 
 pecially direct and bless you in making another selection. You 
 will never admit an unsound or even doubtful man into your 
 pulpit. By the Spirit bring them to the standard — God's Word 
 and the confession of your church. During the four months I 
 served you my uniform and earnest effort was to present the plain, 
 prominent and essential truths of the Gospel. I was always grati- 
 fied to see, as I hoped, such truths acceptable to the congregation. 
 But you have been well indoctrinated in former years if you have 
 attended to the things you have heard. Brethren continue in the 
 faith rooted and grounded, let no vain Jangler deceive you; go on 
 in your long established method of doing all things in peace and 
 the God of Peace will be with you. If I live I shall rejoice tc 
 hear of your order, harmony and firmness in the faith and your 
 abounding in all good works. Don't forget the cause of Christ 
 and don't give up this indispensable evidence that you are a 
 Church of Clu-ist. 
 
 " 'That man may last, but never lives, 
 Who much receives, but little gives. 
 Whom none can love, whom none can thank. 
 Creation's blot. Creation's blank.' 
 
 "Christ shed his blood freely for you, not with silver and gold, 
 shining dust merely, but with the heart's blood of God's Son 
 were you redeemed. 
 
 "I do think that the abundance of worldly good things and the 
 great excitements to the amassing of wealth are the dangers which 
 most beset you now. Eemember who said, 'Ye cannot serve God 
 and mammon,' again, 'How hardly shall they that have riches 
 enter into the Kingdon of Heaven.' Again it is impossible to 
 guard against rancor of the soul. As a tender mother in Israel 
 don't forget your children — when they cry for bread, feed them. 
 By the hope of the church and of society, by the value of immortal 
 souls, I charge you not to neglect the Sabbath school. 
 
 "My dear impenitent friends, seek the Lord while he may be 
 found, call ye upon Him while he is near. I call the Lord to 
 witness that I have warned you of the danger to come and urged 
 you to flee to the stronghold. Brethren, we have lived in peace 
 and we part in peace. With a heart too full to see you and a 
 
 51
 
 hand too leverish and feeble to meet yours, I write farewell to 
 the dear, beloved brethren of Pisgah Church." 
 
 "J. P. Cunningham." 
 
 3. There are, also, in these records resolutions passed at 
 such times as the resignations and deaths of pastors. And there 
 two interesting sets of resolutions of the session passed and re- 
 corded at different times, but both during the pastorate of Mr. 
 Price. They each are a faint echo of the controversy between 
 "Old School'' and "New School," and are both strong indorse- 
 ments of the preacliing and character of their pastor. Now and 
 then also is a record of some case of discipline, the intense feeling 
 and grave issues involved in them being shown by the full record 
 of the testimony of witnesses. The reader of today looks upon 
 these records of real tragedy with wonder, not unmixed with 
 amusement. 
 
 4. A summary of Gospel Doctrine and Christian Duty being 
 a Sermon delivered to the Church and Congregation 
 
 at Pisgah 
 on the resignation of the pastoral charge after a 
 connection of forty years. 
 By James Blythe, D. D. 
 Published by request of the Church. 
 Such is the title of a pamphlet of sixteen closely-printed pages, 
 four by six inches, printed by Thomas T. Skillman, Lexington. 
 Ky., in the year 1832. 
 
 It is accompanied by an introductory note, which is as follows : 
 
 Pisgah, November 6, 1832. 
 Rev. and dear Sir: 
 
 Sincerely approving the doctrines and counsel contained in 
 your farewell sermon to the Pisgah congregation, and from a 
 wish expressed by many of our people, we are induced to ask you 
 to furnish us with that sermon for publication. Believing it 
 will not only be useful to this church, but to the community 
 at large. Very affectionately yours, etc., 
 
 N. Ferguson, 
 Jas. Marten, 
 Jas. Stevenson, 
 John Milton, 
 J. S. Berry man, 
 Rev. J. Blythe, D. D. Pisgah Session. 
 
 52
 
 Dear Brethren : 
 
 I received your note requesting a copy of my last sermon among 
 you, for publication. I will furnish a copy, because I hope the 
 discourse contains nothing but Gospel truth, and such pastoral 
 counsel as may be beneficial to you and your children. I also feel 
 desirous that the churches in Kentucky among which I have labored 
 so long, should be furnished with a succinct view of what I deem 
 to be the doctrines of the Bible and our standards. Praying that 
 God may bless you, and make the sermon promotive of truth and 
 piety, I subscribe myself, dear brethren, yours in the bonds of 
 Christian affection, James Blythe. 
 
 Then follows the text : "Finally, brethren, farewell ; be per- 
 fect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace, and the 
 God of love and peace shall be with you." — 2 Corinthians, 13 :11. 
 
 "We transcribe a short synopsis of the sermon. 
 
 It opens thus : "To recount the past struggles, temptations and 
 felicities of our Christian course, and, with confidence in God to 
 look forward to those that may come, form at once the duty, hap- 
 piness and safety of the Christian." Then, quoting the language 
 of Paul, "And now I go bound in the Spirit unto Jerusalem," etc., 
 the Doctor adds, "Let the Apostle's conduct be our example to- 
 day. While we take a hasty view of the way in which God has 
 led this church and myself, we will be of good comfort. Let us 
 also recount some of the duties which lie before us; and thus close 
 that delightful relation which has subsisted between this church 
 and myself for forty years. The remembrance of the first day I 
 came among you has always been to me a delight and the cause of 
 gratitude. I found this church in a divided and distracted con- 
 dition. Though but a youth and a stranger, God so blessed my 
 feeble efforts that peace and concord were restored. 
 
 At that time I had not the most distant idea of ever being a 
 citizen of this State, yet, perhaps, the events of that day led ulti- 
 mately to the union between this church and myself, which has 
 been so protracted, and so delightful. I became your pastor. For 
 forty years I have labored to know nothing among you but Jesus 
 and Him crucified. * * * * j fggj desirous that this, my 
 last sermon among you, should not be a mere effusion of feeling, 
 but should contain something that, when I am no more with you, 
 may serve the people whom I love more than any other people on 
 earth, as a criterion of truth and a guide in duty. Therefore : I. I 
 
 53
 
 shall in the first place briefly state what I have labored to preach 
 among 3'ou, and, II, Throw together a few directions as to your 
 future duty. I pursue this course that you may be of good com- 
 fort of mind and that you may live in peace." 
 
 Under the fii'st head he reminds them that he has always 
 taught the following doctrines: 
 
 1. "Human nature as it is depicted in the Bible/' 
 
 2. "The doctrine of imputation." 
 
 3. "That intimately connected with man's total depravity, and 
 necessarily growing out of it, his utter inability to help himself." 
 
 4. "The Spirit, the third person in the Trinity, as operating a 
 part as important and distinctive in the economy of grace as that 
 performed by the Savior Himself." 
 
 5. "I have labored to draw you near the cross." 
 
 6. "I have held up Christ to you as a sufferer." 
 
 In division II. he gives them directions as, first, members of 
 the church at large, to contend earnestly for the truth, never 
 bitterly. Second, As Presbj^erians, against heresy and against 
 disorder. Third, "As private Christians," "Be perfect," "Be of 
 good comfort," "Remember the duties of the closet," "Eemember 
 the duty of family religion," "Remember the duties you owe to 
 your children and servants," "Remember the duties you owe to 
 this church in particular." "Be of one mind, live in peace." 
 
 He closes with a tender prayer for "this dear church" in the 
 words of the Apostle Paul, "the God of love and peace shall be 
 with you." 
 
 # 
 
 54
 
 THE PARSONAGE. 
 "The red breast loves to build and warble there."
 
 Centennial ^oemg 
 
 THE CHURCH 
 (By Mrs. C. Y. Douglas.) 
 A hundred years have come and gone, 
 With their alternate light and shade 
 Since from the Fort at Lexington 
 Eode out one morn, a cavalcade. 
 
 A band of sturdy pioneers. 
 
 With hearts of oak and limbs of steel, 
 With wives who had left home and friends 
 
 To follow them for woe or weal. 
 
 Dunlaps and Stevensons and Gays, 
 
 Kindred and friends in the days of yore. 
 
 Brothers in heart in this far off land. 
 With a love they had never known before. 
 
 And from the Fort their ranks to swell. 
 Adventurous spirits, true and tried, 
 
 Came others — lured from distant homes 
 
 By the call of the wild, from the forest wide. 
 
 Wasons and Mcllvains and Stones, 
 
 Aliens and Trimbles, men of miaht. 
 
 Whose sires had braved the stormy seas 
 
 For freedom to worship God aright. 
 
 Age and manhood and youth were there. 
 And happy childhood with the rest. 
 
 And one — a tender infant smiled 
 Upon its mother^s sheltered breast. 
 
 55
 
 We know not if the sun shone fair. 
 Or if the twittering birds of spring 
 Made vocal all the balmy air 
 With their sweet songs of welcoming. 
 
 But even though the wild March winds 
 Moaned "neath a sky of leaden hue, 
 
 We know their hearts were light and gaj, 
 Were not their homes almost in view ? 
 
 Forgotten were their wanderings 
 
 O'er mountains high, through forests drear. 
 Their perils by the swollen stream 
 
 Their nightly vigils kept in fear. 
 
 O'er hill and dale they made their way. 
 Forest and stream and canebrake passed; 
 
 Each pulse leaped high, each eye grew bright. 
 For home, sweet home, was won at last. 
 
 And then as the patriarchs of old. 
 
 Those steadfast souls kneeled on the sod. 
 
 "And the dim aisles of the forest rang" 
 As they reared an altar to their God. 
 
 They laid foundations broad and deep. 
 In humble, earnest, constant prayer. 
 
 And on them reared, in faith and hope, 
 The towers of Pisgah, proud and fair. 
 
 They lived no lives of sloth and ease. 
 
 Those sturdy tillers of the soil. 
 The desert blossomed as the rose 
 
 Beneath their faithful, patient toil. 
 
 Their lives were much as ours are now. 
 
 Pain and pleasure — and strength as their day. 
 
 And one by one, their life's work done. 
 
 They passed from the scenes of earth away. 
 
 56
 
 Where are they now? Those grassy mounds 
 
 In yon churchyard the tale will tell. 
 They all are laid beneath the shade 
 
 Of the church they built and loved so well. 
 
 The infant of the Fort was brought, 
 
 A lonely woman worn and old, 
 In after years from afar to rest 
 
 With her kindred dust in the church-yard mold. 
 
 The storms and snows of ninety years 
 
 Had bowed her form and blanched her head, 
 
 How well that the last of all should lie 
 With the loved and the lost of long ago. 
 
 Peace to their silent sleeping dust. 
 
 Their memories shall never die. 
 In the sacred shrines of our innermost hearts 
 
 We will keep them green forever and aye. 
 
 And so we lay a wreath today 
 
 On the graves of our heroes unknown to fame, 
 Who have left to their posterity 
 
 Their church, their lands, and their spotless name. 
 
 The years shall come and the years shall go. 
 In their ceaseless flight and their silent sweep 
 
 While the worthy sons of their honored sires 
 Their sacred heritage shall keep. 
 
 THE SCHOOL HOUSE 
 (By Mrs. C. Y. Douglas.) 
 Beneath the shadows cold and dim. 
 Of many a gnarled and twisted limb. 
 With hoary walls all grey and grim 
 
 The ancient school house stands. 
 Silent save for the night wind's moan, 
 Round its deserted walls and lone — 
 Fashioned a century agone 
 
 "By long-forgotten hands." 
 57
 
 Encrusting mosses thickly rest 
 Upon its roof. With tranquil breast. 
 The timid bird above her nest, 
 
 Beneath the sheltering eaves, 
 Broods in the solitude profound, 
 The solemn hush that reigns around, 
 Lulled by the low and murmurous sound 
 
 Of softly whispering leaves. 
 
 Oh I Where are all the spirits bright 
 Who filled tliese halls with life and light, 
 And went to battle for the right. 
 With faith and courage high? 
 Alas ! How in the strife they fell. 
 How few returned the tale to tell. 
 And 'mid the scenes they loved so well, 
 In Death's long sleep to lie. 
 
 Some heard in youth their country's call. 
 And sprang to arms, to fight, to fall, 
 Giving for her their life, their all. 
 Wrapped in the soldier's crimson pall 
 
 On many a field they lie. 
 From where the stormy North Winds blow. 
 O'er rockbound coasts and wastes of snow. 
 To where the gulf's bright waters flow. 
 Chanting in numbers soft and slow 
 
 A hero's lullaby. 
 
 Some from these classic shades have gone 
 In splendid line from sire to son. 
 And from a Nation's heart have won 
 
 A Nation's love and trust. 
 Writing high on the roll of Fame 
 The sage's, statesman's, patriot's name 
 In letters that will flash and flame 
 
 When these grey stones are dust. 
 
 58
 
 And some of Love and Faith possessed. 
 With burning zeal and dauntless breast 
 Into the world's broad field have pressed. 
 
 Embassadors of Peace. 
 Bearing aloft in all men's sight 
 Their banner, Christ's evangel bright, 
 Inscribed in characters of light 
 
 With messages of Grace. 
 
 And some. Oh! sweet and blessed life. 
 
 Far from the mad arena rife. 
 
 With pain and passion, sin and strife. 
 
 Their quiet years have passed. 
 Have lived, and loved, and passed away 
 To mingle with their kindred clay 
 'TJntil the shadows flee away 
 
 And the day break at last." 
 
 Come weal ! Come woe ! Whate'er betide 
 Out on Life's ocean wild and wide. 
 They fought and fell always beside. 
 
 Then, Life's brief pageant o'er. 
 Each weary heart sinks down to rest 
 As infant on its mother's breast 
 (Or when or where? God knoweth best) 
 In dreamless slumber deep and blest. 
 
 Till time shall be no more. 
 
 Peace to their dust! Where'er they lie 
 'Neath ocean's wave or sunny sky. 
 Their names, we would not let them die 
 
 As they had never been; 
 But gathering from far and near 
 On this fair spot, to all so dear, 
 A hallowed altar would we rear 
 
 To keep their memories green. 
 
 59
 
 And when we in our turn have done. 
 With all that lies beneath the sun. 
 When pilgrims' feet the race have run 
 And longing hearts the goal have won. 
 
 Softly and reverently 
 Others with gentle hands shall come 
 To bear us to our last long home, 
 And light above each silent tomb. 
 To gild with radiance its gloom — 
 
 The torch of Memory. 
 
 m
 
 ®l)e laoU Caa of n Jlunbreb §tavB 
 
 MEMBERS OF PISGAH CHURCH 1808-1909 
 
 The following names are all those that appear upon the church 
 records written the dates named. No earlier roll than that of 
 January 1st, 1808, is known to exist. Names are copied as they 
 are on the record. 
 
 Moses Mcllvain 
 
 James Stevenson 
 
 Margaret Mcllvain 
 
 Joshua Whittington 
 
 Wm. Mcllvain 
 
 Mary Stevenson 
 
 John Armstrong 
 
 Sarah Dunlap 
 
 James Ritchie 
 
 Archibald Kinkead 
 
 Jane Ritchie 
 
 Wm. Stevenson 
 
 Phebe Ferguson 
 
 Susanna Stevenson 
 
 Arthur Campbell 
 
 Martha Martin 
 
 Elizabeth Campbell 
 
 Susanna Aikin 
 
 Joseph Robb 
 
 Mrs. Sarah Gay Mcllvain 
 
 Mrs. Elinor Robb Logan 
 
 Sarah Gay 
 
 Alexander Black 
 
 Abram, (a slave) 
 
 Agnes Black 
 
 Lucy, (a slave) 
 
 Agnes Steele 
 
 1809. 
 
 Polly Steele 
 
 Nancy Kirkham 
 
 \\"m. ]\IcPheeters 
 
 Agnes Marshall 
 
 Hugh Muldrow 
 
 
 Jane Muldrow 
 
 1813. 
 
 Samuel Stevenson 
 
 Browrn 
 
 Jane Stevenson 
 
 
 1_>1 U W 11 
 
 Mary Stevenson 
 
 
 George Campbell 
 
 1814. 
 
 Nancy Campbell 
 
 Mrs. Mary Lackland 
 
 Nancy Kirkham 
 
 Mrs. Jane Carr 
 
 James Rennick 
 
 
 Mary Rennick 
 
 1816. 
 
 Lydia Rennick 
 
 Mrs. Mary Smith 
 
 Margaret Rennick 
 
 Col. Tunstall Quarles 
 
 John Elliott 
 
 
 Ellender Elliott 
 
 1817. 
 
 Rebecca Allen 
 
 Mrs. Mary Gordon 
 
 James White 
 
 Jane Allen 
 
 Elizabeth White 
 
 Rebecca Gay 
 
 John McMahon 
 
 
 Mary McMahon 
 
 1818. 
 
 Benj. Stevenson 
 
 Cornelius Hoolman 
 
 Mary Stevenson 
 
 Jane Carr 
 
 Mary Long 
 
 Mrs. Campbell 
 
 Joanna Campbell 
 
 Mrs. Polly McCullough 
 
 Margaret Stevenson 
 
 Mrs. Catherine Milton 
 
 Mary Stevenson 
 
 Mrs. Frances Armstrong 
 
 Elizabeth Elliott 
 
 Mrs. Nancy Quarles 
 
 James Stevenson, Sr. 
 
 Livy Bohannon 
 
 
 61
 
 George Burgen 
 Rebecca Burgen 
 
 1819. 
 Mrs. Margaret Compton 
 Wm. R. Thompson 
 Wm. (L.) Breckinridge 
 
 1820 
 Willis Green 
 
 Mrs. Myra Maddison Alexander 
 Chas. Marshall 
 John McClung 
 Wm. Marshall 
 James Boardman 
 Lewis Green 
 Thomas Taylor 
 Billy (a man of color) 
 America Mattox 
 Mrs. Rachel Aluldrow 
 Mrs. Mary Allen 
 Mrs. Matilda Berryman 
 Mrs. Jane Harris 
 Samuel P. Menzis 
 Thos. (Little) Lytel 
 
 1821 
 Mrs. Mary Martin 
 James Stevenson, Jr. 
 Mrs. Martia Hamilton 
 
 1822 
 Mrs. Nancy Watson 
 Mrs. Anny Buford 
 John K. Lee 
 Eliza Raleigh 
 
 Alley (a woman of color) 
 Robert Elliott 
 
 1823 
 Sarah Williams 
 Mrs. Isabella Scott 
 
 1824 
 Mrs. Sarah McClure 
 
 1825 
 Wm. Shaw 
 James Elliott 
 Mrs. Mary Cox 
 
 1826 
 Eliza Jane Stevenson 
 Samuel Shaw 
 Mrs. Sarah Elliott 
 
 1827 
 James S. Berryman 
 Sarah Armstrong 
 Mrs. Susan Hart 
 Mrs. Margaret Thompson 
 
 Samuel Thompson 
 
 Kinkead Gay 
 
 Robt. E. Schrogan 
 
 Eve (coloerd woman) 
 
 Mrs. Jane Worley 
 
 Mrs. Jane Gay 
 
 Mrs. Eliza Jane Stevenson 
 
 Harriet Scrogan 
 
 Mrs. Ann Scrogan Collins 
 
 Mrs. Nancy Young Winkfield 
 
 Hetty (colored person) 
 
 Davie (colored person) 
 
 Hannah (colored person) 
 
 Elizah Milton 
 
 Frederick Waltz 
 
 Wm. Allen 
 
 John Milton 
 
 Louisa Milton 
 
 Mrs. Mary Catherine Taylor Berry 
 
 Wm. Stevenson 
 
 Jane Stevenson 
 
 Bushrod Milton 
 
 George Lingenfelter 
 
 Mrs. Jane Martin 
 
 Hannah W. Blair 
 
 Lucy (colored woman) 
 
 Daniel Orr 
 
 Mima (colored woman) 
 
 1828 
 Lancelot Clark 
 
 Mrs. Elizabeth Ann Stevenson Cooper 
 Mrs. Sarah Elliott 
 John W. Mcllvain 
 (Irene) Hensley 
 Jane Eliza Orr 
 Marth Martin 
 Robt. Martin 
 Samuel Aikin 
 Mrs. Elizabeth Clark 
 Mrs. Sarah Bohannon 
 Isaac (colored man) 
 Airs. Ann Aikin 
 Sophia M. Frazier 
 James Gay 
 Mrs. Catherine Gay 
 Jane Young 
 Elizabeth Waltz 
 Mrs. Lucinda Young McMillan 
 Minerva Scrogan 
 John Buford 
 Emily Stevenson 
 Wm. Rankin 
 Mrs. Margaret Rankin 
 Mrs. Sarah Williams 
 Mrs. Jane Allen Hedger 
 Mrs. "ittaly Martin 
 Mrs. Mary Burnum 
 Andrew Z. Sowin 
 Dabby (woman of color) 
 John Steele 
 62
 
 Wm. Wallace 
 
 Isaac (colored man) 
 
 John Martin 
 
 Jane Simonton 
 
 Margaret Hammons 
 
 James Williams 
 
 Mrs. Sarah L. Frazier Logan 
 
 Robt. Harvey Waso'^ 
 
 Wm. H. Burnum 
 
 Mrs. Margaret S. Stevenson WasonEdmund (colored man) 
 
 Mary F. Aikin 
 Martha Ann McCrosky 
 Mrs. Sophia Smedley 
 James Martin, Jr. 
 
 1836 
 
 America Gaines 
 Samuel Schrogan 
 John W. Stevenson 
 
 Emaline J. Broughton 
 John Martin, Jr. 
 Luther C. Schrogan 
 Milly Davis 
 Elizabeth Schrogan 
 Stephen (colored person) 
 Airs. Mary J. Ritchey Pearson 
 
 1829 
 Mrs. Sarah Ann Young 
 
 1830 
 Mrs. Elizabeth Waltz 
 Frederick Bush 
 
 1832 
 Mrs. Mary Stevenson 
 Mrs. Elizabeth Stevenson 
 Martha McClure 
 Mrs. Emily Milton 
 Sarah Cligget 
 
 M. S. Robinson 
 Chas. W. Castleman 
 
 1837 
 Ralph E. Smith 
 Catherine Hunter 
 Dr. Lewis Marshall 
 .Agatha Marshall 
 Geo. Parsons 
 Miss Eliza Alexander 
 Rebecca Mcllvain 
 
 1838 
 George C. Spencer 
 Amelia Spencer 
 
 1839 
 
 Mrs. P. Craven 
 Louisa Bohannon 
 Mrs. Mary Ann Phillips 
 Miss Nancy McClure 
 Agatha Marshall 
 Cyrus Hedger 
 
 1840 
 Alexander Dinsmore 
 
 1833 
 
 Samuel Aikin 
 
 Ann Aikin 
 
 Mrs. Elizabeth Cunningham 
 
 John j CI f i\/r r- • t, Mrs. Mary Bissell 
 
 Winnery ] Slaves of Mrs. Cunnrngham^^^f^^ ^^^^ ^ ^.^^ 
 
 Mrs. Mary Clagget 
 Mrs. Sallv Elliott 
 Ann Elliott 
 Mrs. Elizabeth Bush 
 Mrs. Jane Berry 
 Hetty (colored person) 
 Thos. Wason 
 Jack (colored person) 
 Nancy (Colored person) 
 Mrs. Jane Ritchey 
 Mary Ann Carlisle 
 ^^'alter C. Ferguson 
 Ferabanite Hensley 
 Mrs. Juliet N. Jackson 
 
 1834 
 Elizabeth Alexander 
 
 1835 
 Mrs. Nancv Ann Milton 
 Mrs. Elizabeth Milton 
 Jane Morgan 
 Mrs. Jane Sandusky 
 
 Bissell 
 1841 
 Mrs. Matilda Cox 
 E. F. Easton 
 Amanda Easton 
 Ebin Milton 
 Hugh Allen, Jr. 
 Augustus Bailey 
 James Wardlow 
 Ann L. McGee 
 Dr. Reuben Berry 
 Gillead Polk 
 Eliza B. Milton 
 Bushrod Castleman 
 Alexander Stevenson 
 Thos. P. Allen 
 Garrot Young 
 Polly Allen 
 Eliza Ann Sullivan 
 Malinda Rennick 
 Eliza McCrosky 
 William Colman 
 Elizabeth Kent Alexander 
 Ann Smedlv 
 63
 
 Catherine Burner 
 William Burrier 
 Rebecca Burrier 
 William Milton 
 Henry Berry 
 Hannah E. Castleman 
 Louisa C. Milton 
 Martha Ann Aikin 
 Samuel Aikin, Jr. 
 Harlow Spencer 
 Susan Risk 
 John A. Stogdel 
 Martha J. Irvine 
 Thomas Young 
 Archimedes G. Elliott 
 Martha Allen 
 John Milton, Jr. 
 Steohen G. Tutt 
 Hulda Ann Elliott 
 Zerilda Sanders 
 Amanda D. Risk 
 Elizabeth Milton 
 Nancy Stogdel 
 John J. Reid 
 Margaret C. Reid 
 Robert Allen 
 William H. Martin 
 John Neet 
 Columbia Offet 
 Allice Ann Allen 
 Jane Abraham Hunter 
 John P. Aikin 
 Samuel Ritchie 
 Elizabeth L. Hunter 
 Mary William Elliott 
 Glass Marshall 
 Mary P. Thompson 
 
 1842 
 Joseph Frazier 
 Robert Wilkerson 
 Addison Milton 
 Elizabeth Florida Milor 
 Sarah Elizabeth Castleman 
 Wm. M. Scott 
 Friend Perin 
 John Jackson 
 Man,' Berry 
 
 1843 
 Eliza Ca colored woman of E, 
 
 John Valentine 
 
 1844 
 
 C. M. Dermont 
 
 1845 
 
 1846 
 Mar>' Jane Sullivan 
 Robt. Stevenson 
 
 Robt. Stevenson, Jr. 
 Margaret McKing 
 Mary Jane Neet 
 Rebecca Allen 
 Mary Allen 
 Louisa Allen 
 A. Cox 
 
 1847 
 James Graves 
 Martha E. McPheeters 
 Virginia Berry 
 Elizabeth W. Stevenson 
 Davidella H. Neet 
 Elizabeth S. Berry 
 Robt. L. Haney 
 Davis S. S. McPheeters 
 Mrs. Isabella Parsons 
 Sarah C. Stevenson 
 Lucy Berry 
 Wm. H. Stevenson 
 Charles W. Price 
 G. Bushrod Stevenson 
 James P. Gay 
 Tarlton C. Miles 
 Mary Waltz 
 
 Virginia L. Neet Moore 
 Clarinda E. Stevenson 
 Lucy Ann Stevenson 
 Nicholas Warden 
 Sarah P.Milton 
 Mary Milton 
 Mary E. Wason 
 Mrs. Margaret Gay Wason 
 Martha C. Castleman 
 Walter Ferguson 
 Mrs. H. C. Bohannon 
 James H. Henderson 
 Chloe J. Price 
 Eliza (colored) 
 Eliza (slave) 
 Judy (slave) 
 Louisa (slave) 
 Harriet (slave) 
 Jacob (slave) 
 Thornton (slave) 
 Hetty (slave) 
 Sallv (slave) 
 Huldah (slave) 
 Mary Jane (slave) 
 Fields) Henry (colored) 
 David Riley 
 Martha Riley 
 
 1848 
 Guy P. Hamilton 
 Marcia TTnniliton 
 David Smith 
 Joseph M. Dean 
 Agnes Gay 
 Robert Garret 
 64
 
 1851 
 Mrs. H. Wheeler 
 
 1852 
 Watson Gay 
 Mrs. F. J. Patrick 
 
 1853 
 Tidbault Milton 
 Harlow Spencer 
 Mrs. F. J. Patrick 
 
 1854 
 James Allen 
 Eliza Allen 
 Margaret A. M. Allen 
 Mrs. Sarah Stevenson 
 T. J. Settle 
 Jas. Hale 
 Miss Lucinda Haney 
 
 1855 
 Emily (colored) 
 Dr. W. Douglass Gay 
 Mrs. Kate Gay 
 Mrs. Anne Wheeler 
 Miss Jennie Worley 
 Miss Jennie Walker 
 Rebecca W. Gay 
 C. T. Cox 
 Hugh Hedger 
 Flem Hedger 
 Wm. Dunn 
 James B. Milton 
 Harvey Doggins 
 Wm. T. Smith 
 Eben Taylor 
 James A. Wason 
 John Scearce 
 Esther (colored) 
 Bushrod Castleman 
 Ebin Milton 
 Isabella Alexander 
 
 1856 
 Mrs. Theodosia Hall 
 Miss Maria Sackett 
 Mrs. Mary Jane Spencer 
 
 1857 
 Robt. Hedger 
 Wm. T. Wason 
 
 1858 
 Sarah Bettie Gay 
 Mrs. Mary Bosworth 
 Wm. Martin 
 Andy (colored) 
 Miss Ann D. Martin 
 
 1860 
 Mrs. Caroline Douglas 
 Mary Louisa Castleman 
 
 1861 
 Miss Mary Ellen Hedger 
 Miss Anna M. Wason 
 Mrs. N. M. Douglas 
 Mrs. E. Coiifman 
 
 1863 
 
 Miss Mary Caroline Allen 
 Mrs. Nannie James 
 
 1864 
 Geo. B. Waltz 
 
 Mrs. Mary Waltz 
 
 1865 
 Berry Stevenson 
 Chas. Hedger 
 
 1866 
 Mrs. Kate Garrett 
 Walter F. Bohon 
 Miss Jessie Neet 
 Samuel Holloway 
 Wm. A. Hall 
 Miss Florence Bohon 
 Miss Belle Hall 
 Miss Bettie Hall 
 Rebecca W. Wason 
 Miss Bettie Allen 
 Wm. Wright 
 James Stevenson, Jr. 
 J. Smith Taylor 
 Hugh Allen 
 
 Will Henry Easing (colored) 
 Miss Sallie E. Stevenson 
 James E. Neet 
 James Garrett 
 Mrs. Lucinda Cassell 
 Col. Oliver Anderson 
 Mrs. Louisa Anderson 
 Mrs. Kate Akers 
 
 1867 
 
 J. R. Stockdell 
 Nancy Stockdell 
 
 1868 
 John Evans 
 A. Spencer 
 
 1869 
 Jane Spencer 
 Mrs. Sallie Falconer 
 Jane McEachin 
 P. G. Powell 
 Mrs. Henrietta Powell 
 65
 
 1870 
 J. W. Mcllvain 
 Mrs. Mary Mcllvain 
 
 1871 
 George L. Douglas 
 VVm. A. Cox 
 Mary Rebecca Wright 
 Maggie Gay 
 James L. Gay 
 Theo. H. Wallace 
 Mrs. Sallie McEachin 
 
 1872 
 Kate C. Wason 
 Lon E. Rennick 
 Henry Mehring 
 Maggie Cheney 
 Carrie D. Wason 
 Charles Hieber 
 Miss Annie Spencer 
 John Lafon 
 Watson Gay 
 
 1873 
 Dr. William Brother 
 Mrs. C. E. Brother 
 Miss Marj' Cox 
 
 1874 
 Miss Mary McEachin 
 Miss Bettie Powell 
 William Gay 
 Thos. Shelby 
 Charles Wallace 
 J. A. Falconer 
 Mrs. Jane Hollowav 
 Ella Wallace 
 Derrill Hart 
 Lou Hart 
 
 1875 
 R. S. Hart 
 Mrs. Eliza Stanhope 
 Miss Lula Stanhope 
 Miss Mollie Settle 
 Miss Mattie A. Settle 
 J. Wilmore Garrett 
 
 1876 
 Miss Lucy A. Armistead 
 Maggie Burner 
 Nancy Arnsi)arger 
 Mi<;s S. I', .'\rnsparger 
 John Arnsparger 
 Mary T. Dillard 
 Mary Hieber 
 Charles A. Stevenson 
 John T. Wason 
 Sue Ann Giltner 
 Robt. H. Wason, Jr. 
 Mrs. C. A. Stevenson 
 
 Miss Kate Hall 
 James Gay 
 Miss Stella Knobe 
 Eliza Watkins 
 Elijah Watkins 
 I\lrs. Bettie Gay 
 W. A. Slay maker 
 Mrs. H. C. Slaymaker 
 Hunter Brother 
 Jake Sandusky 
 CaroHne Sandusky 
 
 1877 
 Richard Kirby Stanhope 
 G. A. Spencer 
 Mrs. Jane Spencer 
 Miss Annie Spencer 
 
 1878 
 
 Mrs. Betty Sandusky 
 Laura Bohon 
 Kitty Sandusky 
 
 1879 
 AUine Brother 
 Lewis N. Van Meter 
 Mary E. Worley 
 
 1880 
 James Cox 
 Mary Lee Gay 
 Michael Powell 
 Robert James 
 Joseph Garrett 
 Rutherford E. Douglas 
 Charles Powell 
 A. E. Spencer 
 Anna AI. Worley 
 Mrs. Sallie Gay 
 
 1881 
 Mrs. Susie L. Sandusky 
 
 1882 
 Miss Matilda Cox 
 Miss Carrie Rutherford Gay 
 
 1883 
 H. W. Worley 
 Miss Bessie Falconer 
 Miss Bessie Sandusky 
 Miss Kate Falconer 
 Francis Douglas 
 J. E. Boatwright 
 
 1884 
 Miss Mary L. Gay 
 Miss Julia Sandusky 
 Miss Drusilla Douglas 
 Miss Laura Arnsparger 
 Mrs. Ruth E. Hieber 
 66
 
 Mrs. Hattie Littrell 
 
 Horace Gay 
 
 Mrs. Mary Hieber 
 
 Charles Hieber 
 
 Kir by Grimes 
 
 Aliss MoUie Dole 
 
 Richard Hieber 
 
 B. R. Marshall 
 
 Caesar Mcllvaiu (colored) 
 
 John Reese 
 
 1885 
 Miss Eugenia Stout 
 
 1886 
 Mr. Wm. Laurie 
 Mrs. Wm. Laurie 
 Mrs. S. McCrohan 
 
 1888 
 Mrs. Virginia Gay 
 
 1890 
 Mrs. Hannah A. Cox 
 Miss Dora Hieber 
 John Falconer 
 James Smith 
 Majean Burner 
 Hattie Smith 
 Paul Brother 
 Zachariah Wardle 
 Mary F. Wardle 
 
 1891 
 Miss Anne Stoakley 
 William Hicks 
 Mrs. Hattie Newman 
 H. Q. Newman 
 
 1892 
 Lillian AlcPhail Ervin 
 Peter G. Powell, Jr. 
 Mary Ervin 
 
 1893 
 Mrs. Mary Smith 
 Mrs. Emma A. Powell 
 Mrs. Alma Brooks Wason 
 J. Tyler Nash 
 Thomas L. Nash 
 George P. Nash 
 ]\Irs. Mantha Littrell 
 Miss Bertie Carrel 
 Mary Kate Hieber 
 John Hieber 
 S. M. Stedman 
 Miss Eliza Redding 
 John W. Ervin 
 Charlton Morton 
 Benjamin R. Hart 
 Mr. Martin 
 
 Mrs. Lucy Jones Marks 
 
 1894 
 Mrs. Susan Smithers 
 Miss Catherine Shaw 
 Mr. A. M. Brock 
 Miss Alice Brock 
 Miss Elizabeth Carpenter 
 Mr. Hughes 
 Miss Katherine Gay 
 Mrs. Sarah M. Powell 
 Mr. Henry Smithers 
 James Smithers 
 Mrs. Ella Smithers 
 Mrs. Elizabeth Parker 
 
 1896 
 Mr. Claude Kendall 
 Mrs. Laura A. Kendall 
 Roger H. Smith 
 Morgan Smedley 
 
 1897 
 
 Mrs. Mary E. W. Groves 
 John E. Groves 
 Mrs. Bettie H. Groves 
 Mrs. Fanny Van Pelt Groves 
 Mrs. Katherine Clarke Garrett 
 Mrs. Mary Talbott Wason 
 Oliver Higgins Farra 
 Miss Mollie E. Daugherty 
 Mrs. Mary Caroline Parker 
 George L. Douglas 
 Andrew Bowman 
 Catherine Reed Bowman 
 Margaret Wason Garrett 
 Robert Garrett 
 Margaret Rebecca Hart 
 Robert S. Hart. Jr. 
 Mrs. Mary H. Powell 
 Richard Hieber, Jr. 
 Martha Virginia Hieber 
 Catherine Coleman Smedley 
 Addie Lee Parker 
 Amelia Marion Groves 
 Mrs. Mary A. J. Powell 
 
 1898 
 Miss Margaret M. Littrell 
 Miss Lulie Littrell 
 Miss Mattie Mary Littrell 
 
 Rosa Kaenzig 
 
 1900 
 
 1901 
 Charles T. Cox 
 Mary W. Hart 
 Ella L. Carpenter 
 Wm. Smith 
 67
 
 1902 
 B. F. Wise 
 A. H. McCray 
 Sallie James Hanna . 
 John Gay Hannah 
 Maria Louise Hanna 
 Maud D. Cox 
 Ida W. Cox 
 J. Wilmore Garrett, Jr. 
 Bessie Harris 
 Newton Gay 
 Mr. Tom Littrell 
 Mrs. Julia Spurgeon 
 John A. Jackson 
 Derrill Hart 
 
 1903 
 Harvey W. Smedley 
 
 1905 
 Mary Louise Garrett 
 
 James Douglas Garrett 
 Harrison Littrell 
 Annie Hieber 
 Mrs. Viola Lyons 
 
 1907 
 George W. Smedley 
 Jesse H. Burrier 
 
 1908 
 Robert McDonald Garrett 
 James Robert Cox 
 Lewis Gay Nash 
 Mrs. Nancy Parker 
 Mr. Clinton Parker 
 Electra Woodhall 
 J. Tyler Xash, Jr. 
 Cora Littrell 
 Odell Littrell. 
 
 "For all the saints who from their labors rest, 
 Who Thee b}'^ faith before the world confessed, 
 Thy name, Jesus, be forever blest. 
 Alleluia !" 
 
 68
 
 THE PASTURE AT THE PARSONAGE. 
 "Far from the madding crowd's ignol^le strife;
 
 etc 0itn Wi)Q ?|atje i-erbeb ^iggaij 
 
 THE MINISTERS 
 
 The dates given cover the entire period of connection with the 
 church, in each case. 
 
 1784 — 1793 Adam Eankin; deposed. 
 
 1791—1832 Jas. Blythe, D. D.; resigned. 
 
 1832 — 1833 Joseph Cunningham; died in office. 
 
 1834 — 1847 Jacob F. Price; died in office. 
 
 1848—1852 S. M. Bayless; resigned. 
 
 1852—1853 W. C. McPheeters; stated supply, only. 
 
 1853—1857 Eobert W. Allen; resigned. 
 
 1857—1890 Eutherford Douglas, D. D. ; died in office. 
 
 1890 — 1897 Erasmus E. Ervin; resigned. 
 
 1897 — 1903 Coleman 0. Groves; resigned. 
 
 1903 — W. Orpheus Shewmaker; present pastor. 
 
 Euling Elders known to have served: 
 
 Wm. Scott, Francis Allen, Alexander Dunlap, Isaac Stevenson, 
 James Wardlow, Hugh Ferguson, Nathaniel Ferguson (the two 
 seem to have probably been the same man), James Martin, Jolm 
 Allen, John Stevenson, Sr., J. S. Berryman, William Allen, John 
 Neet, John Martin, Dr. Louis Marshall, Dr. Eob't. H. Wason, Chas. 
 T. Cox, Almon Spencer, Dr. Eob't S. Hart, J. Wilmore Garrett and 
 Wm. Allen Cox. The three last are still serving. The rest have all 
 passed to the General Assembly on high. 
 
 Deacons known to have served : 
 
 Eobert Allen, J. A. Elliott, Wm. Burrier, Jno. Valentine, James 
 E. Gay, Chas. T. Cox, Elijah Watkins, Eobert Garrett, Joseph W. 
 Garrett, Chas. Mc. Powell, Peter G. Powell, Eob't H. Wason, J. 
 Horace Gay and Jas. T. Cox. 
 
 The last four constitute the present Board. Mr. Chas. M. 
 Powell has removed from this community, and from this church. 
 The others have been called up higher. 
 
 69
 
 The Eev. John Brown — and Pisgah. 
 
 Note — There is a widely current, and somewhat persistent, 
 report (it can scercely be called a tradition) that the Rev, John 
 Brown, familiarly known as "Parson" Brown, was once a pastor 
 of Pisgah. He is usually referred to in this connection as the first 
 pastor. It will be noticed that his name does not appear in the list 
 of pastors given above. And these are the reasons for that omission. 
 It is known certainly that the Eev. Jolm Brown lived at "Sum- 
 ner's Forest," his home, within three miles of Pisgah church, the 
 property to-day still being in possession of his kindred; that he 
 came here in 1797, from Virginia, and that when he died in Prank- 
 fort in 1803 his body was brought to the Pisgah church yard and 
 buried there, being afterwards moved and reinterred in Frankfort. 
 Now it will be remembered that in 1797, when Mr. Brown came, 
 Pisgah church was already thirteen years old. Adam Rankin had 
 been in charge of it from 1784 — 1792. And Dr. Blythe had been 
 serving it as pastor and stated supply together for about six years, 
 and continued, as he tells us in his farewell sermon, "an unbroken 
 connection" with the church until 1832. In the meantime Jolm 
 BrowTi died in 1803. Thus there is no place for his pastorate. 
 
 Besides that, Mr. Brown was a very eminent minister in his day. 
 His sons also were distinguished men. Of them James Brown and 
 Jolm Brown, became the one minister to France, and the other 
 United States Senator ; while Dr. Samuel Bro\vn was a distinguished 
 member of the Medical Faculty of Transylvania University, when 
 its school of medicine was famous. It is then very easy to find out 
 certainly the main facts of his life. When he moved to Kentucky 
 he had already been in the ministry forty-four years, was sixty- 
 nine years of age, and, as Davidson, the historian, says of him, was 
 "in the decline of life." When he resigned his charge in Virginia to 
 come to Kentucky it meant his retirement from the active ministry. 
 
 Besides these facts, his name does not appear as a member of 
 either Transylvania, or West Lexington, Presbytery. And, as is 
 well known, he could not have been a pastor of Pisgah without 
 being a member of the Presbytery to which it belonged. It is 
 altogether probal)le that he occasionally, and perhaps frequently 
 as his strength permitted and circumstances gave opportunity, 
 preached at Pisgah. But however much Pisgah may desire to claim 
 as part of her history a place in the ministry of so eminent a man 
 she is prevented from so doing ])y the facts and the record. 
 
 70
 
 Conclusion 
 
 It is a conviction of the writer and compiler of these pages that 
 our people of Central Kentucky need to be reminded of, and taught 
 their own history. We have been brought up on boasting as to our 
 past. What we need is not to be taught to be proud of it (that 
 will take care of itself) but to know it. We need to find out what 
 it was. Especially is this true in the case of our local church 
 history. No other churches have quite such an advantage in the 
 matter of being able to furnish interesting history as the 
 churches in the country. Their life as institutions is not over- 
 shadowed by, or combatted by other institutions. And there is not 
 an old country church in our region, of whatever denomination, that 
 could not write an interesting, instructive and inspiring history. 
 And these histories should be written for the sake of them who can 
 be thereby taught and inspired. 
 
 Whatever may be in store for the country communities, and 
 the churches in them and of them, Pisgah, though in times past 
 stronger in numbers, and much stronger in material wealth, looks 
 yet forward. For her name is the same as that of the Mount of 
 God from whose peak Moses looked out upon the Land of Promise, 
 which was to hold the great future of his people. And in this she 
 reads an omen — or, rather, sees a token.
 
 !a Hafit OTorb, anb one tfjat la ^erjSonal 
 
 Those who turn the foregoing pages must bear in mind that 
 while this volume is called "The Pisgah Book," and while the 
 sale of it is conducted by the Ladies' Missionary Society of the 
 church, and whatsoever profits may come from the sale are to 
 be used for the benefit of the church, yet the book is not at all an 
 enterprise of the church. It is entirely the author's own. He 
 alone is responsible for the presentation of these pages, which 
 were prepared for publication ^vithout advice or assistance from 
 any one of the members of Pisgah Church. So then, if certain 
 passages are found in the book which seem to sound the praises of 
 Pisgah, let it be remembered that these are not instances of self- 
 praise, for it is not the people who are writing. And, in this 
 connection, the author will say further that whatsoever of esteem 
 for Pisgah's people is herein expressed is but that which has ut- 
 tered itself after his most determined effort at self-restraint. 
 
 THE END 
 
 DOXOLOGY 
 
 "Now unto him that is able to guard you from stumbling, and 
 to set you before the presence of his glory without blemish in 
 exceeding joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ 
 our Loi-d, be glory, majesty, dominion and power, before all time, 
 and now and for evermore. Amen.'' — Jude 24-25. 
 
 72
 
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