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Fredonia |
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Fredonia
Presbyterian Church |
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Fredonia
Presbyterian Church - formerly United Presbyterian Church
In 1873 (three years before the borough was
incorporated) Erie Presbytery commissioned the Fredonia charge; however,
the seeds of their convictions had been sown as early as 1799 and 1880 by
Rev. Samuel Tait who established the Fairfield and Coolspring
congregations and helped to build their first tiny round log meeting
houses.
In those early days, when yet not a single road
crossed the virgin timber-clas county, Sunday School was not included in
worship or learning program of the church. The Sabbath was considered to
be too sacred to be desecrated by any gathering which bore resemblance to
a school.
(It was Samuel
Webster, who taught a back-woods one
roomer near the Upper Salem Presbyterian Meeting
House in Delaware Township, who moved to organize the first Sunday School
in Mercer County after he heard Rev. Tait preach there.)
We have, however, no record that Fredonia
Presbyterians held Sabbath School classes during the two years they met in
the former “select school” on Main Street (the present [1976] Mike J. Shardy,
Jr. home) or the then very new Methodist Church in the village, the Union
Church, Delaware Grove or the ‘original School’ in Delaware Township.
In 1875 they erected their present house of worship
at the cost of $3,000. Improvements of many kinds, remodeling, repair and
additions, have been made from time to time, through generous contributions of time, talent and
tithe. One of the most recent was a memorial gift to the ‘Glory of
God’ for Paul D. McKnight, who lost his life in Vietnam. (The sacred
chimes from the carillon may be heard across the valleys and hills both at
noon and eventide).
Rev. Richard A. Madsen has served the Fredonia and
Coolspring congregations since 1970.
continued
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Fredonia
Presbyterian Church, 1976
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The
Early Days of the Fredonia Presbyterian Church
The
Presbyterian Church was organized in 1875 by Rev.
James McLean, and a house of worship, a frame structure, about
40x50, erected at a cost of $3,000. The congregation is mainly a
colony from the Cool Spring Presbyterian Church, and embraced in its
list of original members James Walker and
wife and children, A. D. Walker and Miss Callie
Walker, Thomas McCleary and wife, Dr. C.
Byles and wife, Misses Jennie, Lizzie and
Julia Byles, William Moore and wife, James
Byers and wife, Elias Orr and wife, Robert,
Samuel and John Orr, and Misses Sade, Mary
and Maggie Orr, Samuel White and
wife, Samuel Baker and wife and Charles
Baker and wife. The following is the list of pastors:
Revs. James McLean, Thomas Hickling, J. M. Stitt,
A. B. Lowes, S. L. Boston and J. E. Irvine,
the present incumbent [1888].
from
The History
of Mercer County, 1888, page 514
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How the Fredonia
Presbyterian Church looked in the late 1800s |
Rev.
James McLean preached the first sermon in the Presbyterian Church in
Fredonia in 1875.
History
of Mercer County, 1877, page 94
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Churches
in the Fredonia - Delaware Township area |
Map
and Driving Directions to the Fredonia United Presbyterian Church |
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