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THIRtI PRESBYTERIAN
FOUNDED IN 1 6

FOURTH AND PINE STREETS, PHILADELPHIA

REV. CLARENCE SHANNON LONG MINISTER

LD PINE STREET CHURCH was formed in 1768 by some members ,olthe First Church, and others in this neighborhood, who were worshipping on this spot in the small "Hill Meeting House," the site having been granted to the congregation on October 19th, 1764, by Letters Patent, signed by the "Honorables Thomas and Richard Penn, esquires, proprietaries and governors of the Province of Pennsylvania." Here, previously, George Whitefield, refused the use of the churches, preached from a stage erected by his friends. The present building as it appears in one of the illustrations was erected in 1768. In various alterations, the roof and the church floor have been raised, and the entrance porch and columns added. It is the only Presbyterian edifice in Philadelphia preserved from the colonial period. The other colonial churches are: Old Swedes, Christ, and St. Peter's, Episcopal; St. Joseph's, St. Mary's, and Trinity Catholic; and St. George's Methodist. The first pastor was Rev. George Duffield, D.D., Chaplain of the Continental Congress, Chaplain of all the Pennsylvania Militia in the Revolution, so feared by the British that a price was set upon his head. He is buried beneath the church, under the tombstone in the floor of the lower room. Two signers of the Declaration of Independence were attendantsJohn Adams and Dr. Benjamin Rush. Its most famous member was John Adams, Vice-President to George Washington, Second President of the United States, a faithful communicant, who wrote frequently in his diary of "Duffield's Meeting." William Hurrie, bell-ringer of the State House, who probably rang the Liberty Bell on the first Independence Day is buried in the churchyard. During the Revolution, the British burned the pews for fuel, using the building for a hospital. One hundred Hessians are buried in the churchyard. Sixty-seven men went from this church into the Revolutionary army, thirty-five of whom were commissioned officers. Among them was Dr. William Shippen, Jr., first Professor of Medicine in America, Director-General of All Hospitals in the Revolution.

The best known was General John Steele, personal aide-de-camp to Washington in New Jersey, having charge of Madame Washington at Morristown, field officer at Yorktown on the day of the surrender of Cornwallis. In the War of 1812, with Lieut. William Smiley, later an Elder in the church, he formed a company of old men for the defence of Philadelphia. He is buried in the churchyard. The churchyard also contains the body of the Revolutionary soldier, Col. William Linnard, who in the War of 1812 was Quartermaster-General of the United States Army; and of Mrs. Mary Nelson, playmate of King George IV, who had charge of the Philadelphia powder magazine in the War of 1812. One hundred and thirty men from this church went to the Civil War, eighteen of whom gave up their lives. A tablet to their memory has been erected in the upper vestibule. During more than one hundred and fifty years there were but ten pastors, six of whom were Moderators of the General Assembly. The ground for Jefferson Medical College was given by the fifth, Dr. Ezra Stiles Ely. Dr. Duffield is buried under the church. The bodies of Dr. John Blair Smith, Dr. Thomas Brainerd and Dr. Hughes 0. Gibbons lie in the churchyard. The Sunday School, begun in 1814, is the oldest Church School in Philadelphia. This is the mother church of the Sixth Church (now merged, with the Seventh, in the Tabernacle Church) and of Greenwich Street Church. The Calvary and the Green Hill Churches owe their origin largely to the labors of one of the pastors of this church, Dr. Thomas Brainerd. At least nine of its sons have been ordained to the Christian ministry. In this vicinity more than thirty Protestant places of worship have been closed within recent years, because the neighborhood is now occupied chiefly by Russian Jews and Slavic people. But this endowed church will not move. "Old Pine Street" has affiliated with itself the Greenwich Street Church, below Third Street, the Minister of the Pine Street Church preaching in and directing the work of both churches.

PASTORS

1771 1792 1800 1806 1814

GEORGE DUFFELD JOHN BlAIR SMITH PHILIP MILLEDOLER ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER EZRA STILES ELY

1837 THOMAS BRAINERD 1867 RICHARD HOWE ALLEN 1881 HUGHES OLIPHANT GIBBONS 1911 ENOS RAY SIMONS 1915 VICTOR HERBERT LUKENS

OLD PINE STREET CHURCH BEFORE IT WAS ALTERED IN 1837