Ebenezer, Hartstown, and Sugar Grove were in the very northwest corner of Pennsylvania, nearly on Lake Erie. I can only imagine that Rev. Borrows had met Rev. Calderhead during his ministry in Ohio. The Centennial History of the ARP Church has more clues in its discussion of congregations: Patterson’s Mill, Washington County, PA. (Washington County, PA is just southwest of Pittsburgh, and


where Rev. Borrows was from). There were some in this section who were opposed to the policy of the (Fed- eral) government in the prosecution of the (Civil) war. Feeling grieved by their treatment, they applied to Rev. W. M. McElwee, pastor of Ebenezer A. R. Church, Rockbridge County VA. He visited and organized this congregation a short time after the close of the Civil War. Mr. Wm. J. Patterson was a prominent elder and a delegate to Synod of the South in 1868.


There are two W. M. McElwee’s in ARP history, both serving in the South and in Pennsylvania. William Meek McElwee was from South Carolina and was born in 1826. He pastored at Ebenezer, VA from 1850 to 1868. During the Civil War Virginia was particularly hard hit by troubles. This led him to visit the ARP churches of  Rev. James Myers was pastor at Patterson’s Mill and while he was at Patterson’s Mill he was also pastor of two churches in West Virginia, on the Ohio River. One was Point Pleasant, and the other was called Roach’s. Probably it had a longer name, now lost. The ARP congregations in Belmont County, Ohio, were McMahon’s Creek and Uniontown. Uniontown had


been organized in 1805 by the ARP Synod of the West, while McMahon’s Creek was an old Associate church  of the ARP Synod the South. Rev. Moffatt was from Greenville County, SC. He was an Erskine graduate, and he also attended Allegheny Seminary. He was a pastor in Arkansas during the Civil War. He endured many hard- ships in those days, having the area where he lived overrun by both armies, with ‘both armies seizing horses, mules, and provisions. More than once, his house was ransacked, and his life was in danger from bushwhack- ers from both sides. In 1868, he went to Ohio. After the Ohio presbytery left the ARP Church, he returned to his old call in Arkansas and died there.


Another minister active in the North was Thomas Turner, the traveling companion of John Wilson. He was born in 1808 in Anderson County, SC, and graduated from Miami of Ohio and the Allegheny Seminary. He also married a woman from Ohio, and after spending some years in Hopewell ARP in GA moved to Illinois before the Civil War, returned to the South for the war, and then returned to Illinois again after the war.         of the Northeast Presbytery in Bowling Green, Ohio, but that is another story. The history of this presbytery appears to be closely tied to the Civil War. Many Northerners did not support the war. Southerners, faced with devastation, were willing to serve in the North till the cool- ing of feeling allowed the Ohio Presby- tery to rejoin the United Presbyterians.


Rev. William Holiman is a retired Chaplain in Mississippi Valley Presbytery.


March/April 2025 9


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32