Church History

When the church came into existence there were in Mt. Vernon three, perhaps four other church organizations. The Presbyterians were first in the field and began their religious life with the beginning of the community. Their first pastor, Rev. James Scott, began preaching to them occasionally in 1806. In that year or the next their first house of worship, probably the first in the county, was built of logs, with floor of bare earth and sawed logs laid on it for seats. The church was organized in 1808 and Mr. Scott remained its pastor till 1840. The first Methodist Episcopal minister, Rev. Enoch Ellis, came in 1812 and the first Methodist house of worship was erected in 1831 where the High School Building now stands. Bishop Chase visited Mt. Vernon June 21, 1825, and preached, and on June 10, 1829, the Protestant Episcopal church was established. The Methodist Protestant church is supposed to have been organized in 1832. At the first Court of Common Pleas held in the county in May, 1808, William Thrift, a Baptist minister, was authorized to solemnize marriages, but the Baptist church was not organized till six months after the Congregational.
This church was born in a period which has well been called “a stormy epoch.” The religious life of the nation was agitated by storm after storm in the quarter of a century beginning with 1825. In 1826 the country was stirred through and through by the disappearance of William Morgan after his exposure of Free Masonry. Beginning the same year the Disciples swept over large tracts of Ohio and the Mormons followed, leaving devastation in their track. Especially did the Baptists suffer from these onslaughts in Ohio. It was in the same year too that the opposition to intemperance began to trouble the peaceful waters of the life of many a church. It was in 1827 that the young Fairchilds in Brownhelm first heard of a temperance pledge. Subscriptions in whisky for church building and installation services soon ceased and even the cider barrel disappeared from some church homes.
This was an area of church discipline and Come-outerism. Lines were closely drawn. The way to preserve Christian integrity seemed to be to separate. There was contamination in the touch of those who believed or behaved differently. One church had members on trial for no less that fifteen offenses ranging from whispering and writing notes in church to fighting a duel. Seceding was the natural complement of excommunication. Congregationalism was so closely allied to Presbyterianism by “The Plan of the Union” that our churches felt in bondage and the Come-outers formed both Free Congregational churches and Free Presbyterian churches. In southern Ohio, Congregational churches were and have been so scarce that even in my day the question has been asked down the Ohio river if there was any way to form a Congregational church except by secession from a Presbyterian. While some of these separations grew from church quarrels by far the larger part of them was due to differences of opinion concerning slavery. In many Presbyterian folds under the plan of union were groups of Congregationalists whose innate sense and principles of liberty could not be suppressed. They could not be passive. Their century and a half of training in the doctrine of the rights of every individual blazed forth in aggressive action and the chief feature of the history of Come-outerism as it concerns us is that we have quite a number of Congregational churches in Ohio which originally were Free Presbyterian, having separated from the mother church on account of their desire to move more rapidly and aggressively against slavery than the Presbyterians were willing to move. The exodus of students from Lane Seminary, the Presbyterian Theological school at Cincinnati, because discussion of slavery was forbidden there, gave the church its first two pastors. The anti-slavery storm was the most prolonged and profound and prevalent of the stormy time. Its mutterings had grown to reverberations by the time this church was founded and before the storm subsided it had affected the country with the force of an earthquake.
Of the immediate period of the organization of this church Dr. Strieby said at the celebration of its fiftieth anniversary:
“You of this day cannot understand the local history of the past without a wider survey. This church was formed in the year that introduced what has justly been styled the “Martyr age of America’ when freedom of speech in regard to slavery, was met by social, political and ecclesiastical ostracism, by the destruction of property, by personal violence, and by death itself – then began that era of riots, mobs and persecutions that had its culmination in the storming of Fort Sumter and the civil war and its end in the overthrow of slavery.
Let me sketch some of these riots: On July 4th, 1834, a meeting in Chatham street chapel, in New York City, was broken up by a mob. On July 9th the house of Lewis Tappan was ransacked and furniture burned in the street, and the churches of Dr. Cox and Rev. Mr. Ludlow stoned, and the houses of some colored people destroyed. August 13th, a riot occurred in Philadelphia, lasting three nights. The houses of blacks were destroyed and themselves assaulted and one killed. October 12, 1835, a female anti-slavery meeting in Boston was mobbed, and Wm. L. Garrison was dragged through the streets with a rope around his neck. On the same day a mob dispersed an anti-slavery meeting in Utica, New York, some of the people finding refuge in Peterboro, the home of Gerrit Smith. On November 17, 1838, Rev. D. P. Lovejoy, after suffering shameful and repeated persecutions, was shot dead in Alton, Illinois. On May 17, 1838, Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia was burned by a mob, because it had been used for holding an anti- slavery meeting.
All this while other scenes and influences marked these days; the year 1834 being the brightest period in a wonderful era of religious revivals, to which the growth of the American churches is due in a large measure. From 1824 to 1834 witnessed the labors of many eminent men as revivalists, none more useful than a young infidel lawyer living in the northern part of the state of New York, named C. G. Finney, whose remarkable conversation was followed by earnest labors, and earnest pleadings that let many souls to Christ. He came to Oberlin College as a member of the faculty in the year 1835, but still continued his work as an evangelist. Oberlin College has had much to do with the history of this church, most of its pastors receiving their education at Oberlin, and the members of this church furnishing many pupils to the school.”
The founders of this church must be described in order fully to understand its history. Most of the members were Presbyterians from Western Pennsylvania, two families constituting a majority of members of the church in the early days, including by intermarriage the McGibeny’s, Scotts, Newells, Marquises, Murphys’, Lewis’s, Trimbles, Days and Conklings. This company of people were restless not only because the church with which they associated would take no aggressive measures against intemperance and slavery but also because of the doctrine of foreordination and the lack under it of evangelistic effort.
The leader of the movement was Judge McGibeny, although the Newell family was most numerous. The Judge’s wife was a Newell as was also the wife of Allen Scott, the wife of Edward Marquis and the wife of James Adams. These four sisters and one brother with their families made a majority of the early company. The most of them with some of the Murphys and perhaps others, before the church was organized went to the barn of a man by the name of Bird on the Columbus road nearly opposite or just beyond where the County Infirmary now stands and partook of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Elias Murphy remembers distinctly that he and his chum, Hugh Scott, the son of Allen Scott, were there. This was probably in June. Events cam rapidly. The church was organized July 26, 1834, with 30 charter members and 14 more were received in August. In four months, they secured a pastor, Rev. B. W. Higbee, one of the students in the exodus from Lane Seminary to Oberlin. He was of medium stature, strong physique, energetic in body and mind. At that period the roads were almost impassable in the spring, but nothing checked his activity. Wherever in the country within reach could be found one of the new faith there Mr. Higbee would go, afoot or on horseback along the road or across lots and preach or hold prayer meetings with whatever congregation he could gather. His wife was ill when he came but she would let no one of the family where they were entertained stay at home from the preaching service on the evening of their arrival. She died a few days afterward and James Martin says the spirit of that funeral expressed in the prayer was “The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord,” and there was hardly a dry eye in the house.
The first communion service, after the arrival of the pastor, was held in the Methodist Episcopal house of worship on the lot where the High School building now stands. At that meeting in January, 1835, eleven
members were received. Ten more followed in February and others in April, August, November and December. Judge McGibeny, foremost in every good work, bought a lot and gave it to the church and the work of gathering material for a house of worship was begun and work was pushed fast enough so that it was occupied in 1835. Most of the members were farmers and the subscriptions were largely in timber, stone and work. Even some of the farmer girls helped load logs to be made into lumber. James Martin and Edward Marquis were among those who hauled the lumber. The basement was finished so that the meetings could be held in it some time before the upper room was finished. Here the first great revival meeting of the church was held. The dissenters, who formed the nucleus of this new band, had deplored the lack of special efforts in the old church, and they began this kind of work and kept it up as long as they were ruling spirits in the church, to the steady growth and great good of the church.
Dr. Henry Conkling went on horseback to Oberlin in December, 1835, leading another horse to secure help in conducting evangelistic meetings. He came back with President Mahan on the other horse and the meetings which followed resulted in about 60 hopeful conversions, 49 united with the church in January, 1836, and 15 more before the following winter. In these days and for some years the members were wont to gather early Sunday morning and hold a prayer meeting before the minister arrived. Judge McGibeny was among the earliest comers and frequently led this introductory service.
In March, 1836, while Rev. W. T. Allen, a son of an Alabama slave-holder was lecturing in the basement of the church, the first mob in Mt. Vernon attacked it and the meeting was broken up, but while the crowd was being collected, by the strains of martial music under a banner bearing the inscription “No Discussion,” Allen escaped. While the eggs and clubs were flying and the mob was trying to put a rope around his neck with which to drag him out and hang him, the women crowded around and kept the mob off, acting as a bodyguard until he got into the street. Here he was able to elude the mob, but they pursued him to the residence of David Drake north of town. He passed through the house and shielded by it disappeared in the woods. Mr. Drake invited the pursuing crowd in, bade them search the house and at last showed them the way to the cellar where some of the leaders plunged into the darkness and into two feet of water with which the cellar was flooded. Then they gave up the search and were treated to a lunch of bread and butter in the door yard and returned to town in good humor.
The second attack by a mob occurred in January, 1837. Prof. Wm. Cochran of Oberlin, while addressing an anti-slavery meeting in the church was interrupted by what was known as the Mt. Vernon Meat Axe Club, who by hurling stones and missiles of various sorts, smashed windows, put out lights and succeeded in breaking up the meeting. Prof. Cochran escaped, but the ugly crowd of marauders were so incensed at their failure to capture him that they hastened to the home of Dr. Baxter in Miller township where he had an appointment, assailed the house and shamefully maltreated Dr. Baxter. The next night Prof. Cochran had an appointment at the house of David Bixby in Pike township. Here the raiders again made an attack, broke in the doors, struck Mr. Bixby to the floor twice and so frightened and clubbed his wife that her life for a time was despaired of.
These mobs were so noisy that they were sometimes heard at the home of Edward Marquis three miles from town, and so brutal and reckless that bands of young men, acting as body guard conducted the pastor to his home many a night after service, and so regardless of property rights that Charles Cooper and others stood guard to defend the church from their attacks and sometimes drove them off in a rough- and-tumble skirmish.
Pres. Mahan held a second meeting in the church in December, 1837, from which it was greatly strengthened. Pres. Finney and wife were here for a few days, not far from this time, and also Prof. Henry Cowles. Pres. Jas. H. Fairchild preached at the dedication of this edifice in 1868. In later days Prof. Currier has been the patron saint of the church, and of the church’s thirteen pastors, no less than ten have received all or part of their training at Oberlin.
After four years of militant service Mr. Higbee was succeeded by Rev. Edward Weed whom he had recommended. Mr. Weed, another of the students of the Lane Seminary exodus, was a man of delicate, pleasant appearance, sociable, friendly and affable, and had a strong hold on the community. At the fiftieth anniversary, Dr. Strieby said of him, “His pastorate might well be termed the peaceful era of the church. He was of medium size, finely formed and a most lovable man in manner and disposition.” In the autumn of his first-year’s service he held a series of special meetings, lasting four weeks, in which he was assisted by Rev. John T. Avery. 57 members were added to this church and many to other churches. While Mr. Weed was pastor, the Cooper family was added to the church and on his retirement in 1842, the church numbered 250 members.
The next pastorate was that of Rev. M. E. Strieby, who like Mr. Weed, was recommended by his predecessor. He told his own story of his work at the fiftieth anniversary, in the following words:
“My pastorate began in 1842 and continued until 1853, and in June of my first year, during a session of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, I had my first experience with a Mt. Vernon mob. The meeting was held in the old church, many influential citizens of the town being present. During the progress of Leicester King’s remarks a crowd gathered without and began pelting the building with stones and eggs. Mr. King who was speaking, after vainly endeavoring to be heard, at last retired with the remark that this kind of a reception did not suit him, and nay one else was welcome to the platform. He was followed by Rev. Edward Smith, who pointed to the double doors which stood open, exclaiming, ‘Shut those doors, don’t give the mob that advantage,’ and then proceeded in spite of the shower of eggs, with the remark ‘Every egg will make an Abolitionist.’ The meeting finished its business and adjourned regularly.
During the year 1843 a revival occurred, adding nearly thirty members to the church. Then followed six years of stagnation, and but for the faithful few who encouraged the pastor by their assistance and prayers, the church would have become a veritable valley of dry bones. In January, 1849, union meetings were inaugurated by the different churches of the city, but no result being apparent, the pastors of other churches became discouraged and withdrew. It was determined by the pastor and a few members of this church to continue them. Sixty-three meetings were held, and by God’s help ninety souls were added to the church at one communion and many influential converts went to other churches. In connection with the meetings young men held prayer meetings at their stores and offices, one of those active in the work being the now distinguished statesman and Christian gentleman, Hon. Wm. Windom.”