xt79cn6xws0h https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt79cn6xws0h/data/mets.xml Shewmaker, William Orpheus, 1869- 1909  books b92-117-28228799 English [s.n.], : Pisgah, Kentucky : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Mt. Pisgah Church (Woodford County, Ky.) Pisgah book, 1784-1909  : a memorial, a lesson, an inspiration / William Orpheus Shewmaker. text Pisgah book, 1784-1909  : a memorial, a lesson, an inspiration / William Orpheus Shewmaker. 1909 2002 true xt79cn6xws0h section xt79cn6xws0h 











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             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.

 
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"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. 0. SHEWMAKER
               Pastor of Pisgah Church
          at Pisgah, Woodford County, Kentucky



1909

 








                        jforumorb

           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 Rice'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. R. 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 this book is made.

 
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THE GATES OF PISGAH.



.......        ,
,19,,        -
gN '
IWW


 







                 13ioab, the Puta

   Ig7g   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 Run,
a few hundred yards from the station on the Louisville Southern
railroad, a mile from the Lexington and Versailles turnpike and
                               5

 



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.



6



 






               Tbe story of Ni9gab

       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 revolutionary 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 Kentucky. 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 they 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 unwritten
                              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 history 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 swiftest 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 church 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 whir of the wings of the
Wrights.


         CHANGES IN THE RELIGIOUS WORLD
   Nor have there been wanting in this period great and many
changes in the sphere 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 that 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 Rev. Jas. Blythe, who served sometimes as pastor, and
sometimes as stated supply, but continuously, for forty years, and
that of Rev. Rutherford Douglas, whose pastorate extended un-
broken for more than thirty.


                  abe storr of the Church
   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 that 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 Rev. David Rice, known to Presbyterian history in
                               9

 



Kentucky as "Father" Rice. His loneliness as pastor and evan-
gelist was soon relieved by the arrival in Kentucky of the Rev.
Adam Rankin, 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 church
under the name of Mt. 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 to
Pisgah that the writer has been able to find, or to trace. It will
be observed 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. Rice 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 Mdll-
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 school 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 who ever had the care of it. At any rate, in the
autumn of 1784, at the latest, the Rev. Adam Rankin 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; but 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 mind 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.
There were present, besides the representatives of the congrega-
tions, three ministers, Rev. David Rice, Rev. Adam Rankin, and
Rev. Jas. Mitchell. But after the conference, Mr. Mitchell went
back to Virginia and succeeded Mr. Rice at the Peaks of Otter.
This conference had representatives from Cane Run, 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 doubtless 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 Rice, the pious, energetic, practical, forceful, and farsighted;
and Adam Rankin, the able, restless, fanatical, destined to con-
stantly tear down what he had built 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 River; Robert Caldwell and Samuel McDowell, from Con-
cord (Danville); Jno. Templin and Caleb Wallace, from Cane
                              11

 



Run; Jas. McCoun and Geo. Buchannan, from New Providence;
Geo. Pomeroy and Jno. Veech, from Hopewell; Jas. Beard and
Jas. Allen, from Salem; Jas. Davies and Jno. Snoddy, from Whit-
ley's Station and Crab Orchard, and our own representatives from
Pisgah. 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 Jas. Crawford and Terah Templin.
We 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. Rice 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 forth 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 Run Conference. They had made the journey on horseback,
with their saddle bags and haversacks. It is not a very swift, 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 year 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 court 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
congregation of Bethel church, and those under the care of Mr.

 





Rankin. 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
Wm. 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 and 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,
Rev. Adam Rankin, 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 miay 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 appoinle-l 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 McIlvain. 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 Rev. Adam Rankin. 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. Now, 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
thev "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
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 the sermon with which, in 1832, Dr. Blythe bade farewell to the
Pisgah people. Mr. Rankin was still pastor. Blythe 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, 1792, when Adam
Rankin, now returned from Enrope where he had been for some
two years, 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 the
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 1792.
    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. Rankin'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 McIlvain. 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 lap of Rev. R.
                               15

 





Marshall, Rev. Jas. Blythe, and Rev. 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 Synod of Virginia parts with these 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 the 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, however, 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