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Catholic Presbyterian Church
—CHESTER
COUNTY
In 1751, or 1752, we
find an immigration from Pennsylvania to Chester County, some
of the settlers having formerly belonged to the Church of England. Here were people of
mixed denominations in one community, who organized a church
in May, 1759, in the hope that the different denominations would
unite. The four men most prominent in its organization were:
Alexander McKeown, John Lee, Thomas Garrett, and Hugh
McDonald.
After 1771 the congregation being without a
minister, the Reverend William Martin, a Covenanter preacher
who had come from Ireland a
few years before, was invited to occupy the pulpit.
He
served this church twice, once in the early seventeen
seventies and again at the
close of the Revolutionary War.
This congregation
furnished many soldiers to the American Revolution.
The
present building, which is the fourth, is of red brick. Begun
in 1839, it was dedicated by the Reverend McNeil Turner on
July 3, 1842. It has a large
and interesting graveyard surrounded by a beautiful old stone
wall.
BY
HAZEL CROWSON SELLERS
South Carolina Churches
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