The Birth of a Congregation

Political tensions ran high in across the United States in 1860. For some time the questions of slavery and states’ rights had divided the nation and the presidential election that year promised to bring both issues to a head. In May the Republican Party nominated Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, a known opponent of slavery, as their candidate. By mid-summer southerners who felt threatened by Lincoln were already meeting in convention nominating their own candidates for president and whispering threats of secession if the election did not go their way.

Monongahela, although predominantly a pro-union and anti-slavery community, was not immune from the tension. The city’s industry and commerce had, by 1860, attracted immigrants from nearby Virginia (what is today West Virginia), many of whom had grown up in Protestant Episcopal Churches. No such church however existed in Monongahela at the time, so these southern transplants were obliged to worship with the Presbyterians.

At some point around 1860 an Anglican church school was started for children in the home of Mrs. Eliza J. Stuart which stood across the alley from where the church is today. The Rev. John Norman writes of Mrs. Stuart’s school “the good seed thus sown by this devoted disciple soon sprang into promise of better things; for a desire to know more about the Church, was thus awakened.” While the children began to show interest in the tradition and worship of the Anglican church, the parents soon found themselves increasingly uncomfortable in the Presbyterian church. The Rev. John Kerr, pastor of the Presbyterians at the time, was an unabashed union man and abolitionist, and was not afraid to make that known from the pulpit. In the words of Canon Davies, Rev. Kerr “allowed his Union allegiance to carry him beyond the bounds which the Episcopalians, many of them Southern by birth and sympathy, thought Christian. The Episcopalians decided that they must have their own church in the community.”

So the nearest Episcopal Church, Trinity- Washington, was contacted and it was arranged that the Rev. Dr. R. H. Lee would travel to Monongahela to conduct two services for the Feast of St. James. The services were both well attended by the citizens and clergy of Monongahela.

The Rev. Dr. Richard Henry Lee (seen here), who conducted the first services here on July 24^th, and 25^th, 1860 was born in Chantilly, Virginia on June 25, 1794. His grandfather was Richard Henry Lee, the member of the Second Continental Congress who, on June 7, 1776, first proposed that the colonies should be independent of Great Britain and later signed the Declaration of Independence.

Lee began his career as a lawyer in Virginia, but soon gave that up to pursue a life in academia. In 1833 he took the position of “Professor of Belles Lettres” at Washington College (now Washington and Jefferson College) in Washington, Pennsylvania. For twenty years he was a beloved professor at the college and had a profound influence in the life of many students. During this time Lee was also instrumental in the organization of Trinity Church in Washington. Upon retiring in 1854, Dr. Lee became lay reader at Trinity Church (an elected position in those days) and was in October, 1858 ordained priest by the Rt. Rev. Samuel Bowman and made rector of Trinity Church a position which he continued in until his death on January 4, 1865.

It was said of the Rev. Dr. Lee: “He was a Christian without guile, broad and catholic in his views and feelings. His sermons were earnest and effective, and his style and diction were perfect pieces of art – such as would naturally flow from a mind thoroughly conversant with polite literature in all its branches.”

Only one other visit of Rev. Lee to the Anglicans in Monongahela is documented, for a service on December 18, 1861. For the first two years of the existence of this congregation only the school of Mrs. Stuart met with regularity. The Rev. Edwin M. van Deusen , of St. Peter’s – Pittsburgh, also conducted services here from time to time up until 1862, when the Monongahela City Episcopal Mission was organized and an official missionary assigned.

Monongahela City, 1860

What was Monongahela like when the first Anglican services were held here in 1860?

The city was founded as Parkinson's Ferry in 1769 and was originally situated primarily around the mouth of Pigeon Creek. By 1860, however, the town had been incorporated, changed its name to Monongahela City, and was spreading northward along the river.

A bustling river town, Monongahela City had a population of 999 according to the Census of 1860. At the time there were in town five dry goods stores, six grocery stores, two clothing stores, two shoe stores, two drug stores, two millinery shops and five or six other commercial establishments. There was a bank, Alexander & Co., and two newspapers. Industry in town included two paper mills, a planing mill, a boat building yard, a foundry, a flour mill and a coal car factory. The public school had six teachers and served three hundred fifty students.

When Anglicans first gathered here there were already five other Christian bodies worshiping in town. Two Presbyterian groups, along with the Methodist and African Methodist Episcopal churches were already well established. The Baptist Church first met in February of 1860. Four of those churches still exist.

In 1860, the shoe store pictured here, stood at about where St. Paul's church stands today.

The Decline of Old West

In the early 19th century Christ Church – Brownsville rose to prominence in the area and Immanuel Church began to wane. In 1796 "Old West" was serving about 200 people. By 1820, though, the building was rarely being used. In 1825, when Bishop William White made his first and only visit to the Western half of the Diocese of Pennsylvania he consecrated Christ Church in Brownsville, but did not find it necessary to visit Old West at all.

For nearly forty years Immanuel Church struggled for existence. It was served occasionally by Rectors from Brownsville, but never had its own full-time clergy. In 1828 it did have its first Episcopal visitation by The Rt. Rev. Henry Onderdonk. In the 1830's Old West, now being called St. Peter's and sometimes St. Paul's, seems to have experienced moderate growth under the direction of the Rev. Lyman Freeman of Christ Church. Bishop Onderdonk visited several more times, and services were being held every two weeks. By 1839, however, Rev. Freeman was personally paying for the upkeep of the building and most of the communicants had fallen away.

In 1862 a permanent missionary, the Rev. William Pray TenBroeck, was assigned to serve in Monongahela and Old West was also placed under his charge. Rev. TenBroeck made an effort to hold services there but soon reported that attendance was so sparse that it did not warrant the travel from Monongahela. For the next ten years clergy from St. Paul's would periodically attempt to revive Old West with little success. By 1872 there were only two families worshiping there, the Wests (after whom the church was called “old West”) and the Crows. Members of both families became important leaders at St. Paul’s. The Rev. John Norman claims to have been preaching at Old West into the 1880's, but eventually whatever congregation was there was simply absorbed into St. Paul's Monongahela.

Some efforts were made to preserve the site in the early twentieth century, by Norman and others, but eventually the church building collapsed and the site fell into disrepair. In 1957 The Rev. Canon Joseph Wittkofski, rector of St. Mary's Charleroi, revived interest in Old West. Since then the site, including much of the original cemetery, an altar and outdoor worship space, a bell tower, and a period log structure, have been very nicely maintained by St. Mary's.

Old West sits just off of Route 481 near the village of Lover, about eight miles from Monongahela.

Click here for directions from St. Paul's to "Old West".

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.

Our "Old West" Legacy

This year marks the 150^th anniversary of our congregation here in Monongahela. To help us celebrate our legacy we will be learning more about the exciting history of God’s people at St. Paul’s. It is fitting that we began to mark the occasion as we celebrated the baptism of a new member of Christ’s family in our city. The baptismal font which we still use today has been used for most of the 1,527 baptisms which have been held at St. Paul’s since the first recorded one on July 10, 1867. However, the font itself is much older than our congregation and connects us to the first Anglican Christians to worship in Washington County.

Our baptismal font, once housed in a large wooden case, was painstakingly transported over the wild Allegheny Mountains and was used for many years at Immanuel Church, also called “Old West.” This church was founded in about 1789 at the halfway point between the only two towns in the valley at the time, Parkinson’s Ferry (Monongahela) and Brownsville. By 1860, when the first Episcopal service was held in Monongahela, “Old West” was a dwindling parish. In the 1870’s the congregations of St. Paul’s and Immanuel Church were combined into one parish. We will learn a little more about our mother church,“Old West.” It is a story which involves settlers, circuit riders, angry mobs and tar and feathers, and it is part of our story here at St. Paul’s.