The Circuit Rider and the Rebels

While mistakes by historians in the late nineteenth century, including our own Rev. John Norman, led to much confusion about the origin and significance of Old West Church, the true story of Immanuel Church is no less exciting.

Founded in 1789, Old West was the first Episcopal Church in Washington County and the first church founded by the new Protestant Episcopal Church in America west of the Allegheny Mountains. (All older churches had been originally part of the Church of England). The first priest to serve here was the Rev. Robert Ayres, who initially preached in the area as a Methodist Circuit Rider. On June 7, 1789 Ayers was ordained an Episcopal priest in Philadelphia by Bishop William White (his ordination certificate is seen here), and within the month was serving families in the Brownsville area.

With Ayres' help his small congregation, which initially met in various homes, purchased land from Edward West in 1794 and a church was constructed. In his journals Ayres refers to Old West as "Immanuel Church." The worshipers at Immanuel Church soon found themselves in the middle of a conflict with the new American government. The “Whiskey Rebellion” raged in the Monongahela Valley. Most people were in favor of the revolt as the government’s new Whiskey tax was a great burden to the local economy. While law and order disintegrated in the valley, the Rev. Ayres advocated loyalty to the national government. For several months Ayres was harassed by Whiskey Rebels. On one Sunday, as he was preaching at Old West, an armed mob stormed into the church and dragged the pastor out of the pulpit and into the adjacent field. Just as they were about to shoot Ayres they suddenly released him and he returned to the church and finished his sermon. Many attributed this strange change of heart to the work of the Holy Spirit.

Rev. Ayres served Old West off and on between 1789 and 1808, visiting on average about once a month in the early years. During this time the church flourished. In 1796 he reports at least thirty-four families associated with Immanuel Church, totaling about 200 persons, including several slaves.

Many of Ayres original journals and correspondence have been preserved and can by found in the library of the Western Pennsylvania Historical Society at the Heinz History Center. They provide unique insight into frontier religious life in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.