The Presbyterian Meetinghouse
[In 1928 the church was restored as a shrine and the cemetery put in
order by a group of persons, many of whom were descendants of the
original society members. In 1940 the Alexandria Association replaced
the missing pulpit with one, which while not a replica, conveys the
spirit if not the pattern of that destroyed. Ecclesiastical settlement
has vested the property in the name of the Second Presbyterian Church of
Alexandria.
Before this book goes to press the Old Presbyterian Meetinghouse will
have opened its doors again for regular services.]
One does not associate religious intolerance with America; nevertheless,
the Act of Toleration which permitted religious freedom of worship was
not signed until 1760. French Presbyterians were seeking refuge in the
New World as early as 1562. The Church of England was the official form
of worship in Virginia from 1607 until after the Revolution. Prior to
1760 worship not of the Established Church was done secretly and behind
closed doors, generally in the fastness of a citizen's private home or
place of business, though from time to time one finds permission given
to preach. For example, in 1699, Francis Makemie was granted permission
from the colonial authorities to preach Presbyterianism at Pocomoke and
Onancock on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Francis Doughton preached in
Virginia as early as 1650-59, and is considered the father of British
Presbyterianism in the middle colonies, having begun his work as early
as 1643.
Here in the little town of Alexandria, the population was largely
composed of Scottish agents, shipping merchants, and sea captains,
sincere followers of Dr. John Knox. Outwardly they conformed to the
Episcopal Church, punctually attending services, by compulsion or
otherwise. At the same time they adhered to the Scottish faith they had
brought with them, meeting where and when it was expedient, until the
day came when unmolested they were free to emerge from secret places and
publicly worship as they pleased. That they practiced the liberty of
conscience, which they won the hard way, is proclaimed in an
announcement carried in _The Columbian Mirror and Alexandria Gazette_ of
November 28, 1793: "At 12 o'clock on Friday the 30th instant a charity
Sermon will be preached in the Presbyterian Church, by the Rev. James
Muir, for the benefit of the Poor without respect to country or sect."
Major John Carlyle, after completing Christ Church in 1772 for his
Church of England friends, undertook the direction of the Presbyterian
meetinghouse, so-called, doubtless, to distinguish it from the Church of
England. According to a report written in 1794 by the pastor, Dr. James
Muir, "No church was yet built ... to accomodate them in worship
[_i.e._, in 1772]. It was determined to build one; Mr. Richard Arrell
and his wife, Eleanor, presented the Society with a lot of ground ...
the members of the Society came forward with generous subscriptions and
loans; some assistance was afforded by their brethren of other
denominations; they were thus enabled to erect and cover in a brick
building sixty feet long and fifty feet broad."[127] This was partially
completed by 1774. Not until after the Revolution was the church
plastered and finished off.
The first minister of the congregation, the Rev. William Thom, was
ordained in Pennsylvania in 1772 and called to Alexandria. But in one
year the "Little Minister" was dead of a pestilential fever. Further
steps to improve the House and organize the Society were interrupted,
according to Dr. Muir's report, by the war which commenced between Great
Britain and the colonies.
In 1780 the Rev. Isaac Stockton Keith was invited to remain with the
Society during the winter. He remained nine years. The "Contract for the
erection of the manse was let in July, 1787, to Mr. Robert
Brockett."[128] In March 1789, Dr. Muir was called to the pastorate and
remained until his death, serving for thirty-one years. Dr. Muir was a
trustee of the Alexandria academy. As president of the board of
trustees, he rendered to Washington satisfactory accounting on how his
donations were being applied and what good was being accomplished, after
a rather sharp letter of inquiry. As chaplain of the Masonic lodge, he
assisted Dr. Dick with the Masonic ceremonies at the funeral of George
Washington on December 18, 1799. Ten days later the _Gazette_ carried
the following notice: "The walking being bad to the Episcopal Church the
funeral service for George Washington will be preached at the
Presbyterian Meeting House tomorrow at 11 o'clock." This was a memorial
service, one of a countless number held throughout the length and
breadth of the land. The Rev. James Muir's "Funeral Sermon on the Death
of George Washington" was widely circulated in its day by means of a
printed broadside.
When Dr. Muir died on August 8, 1820, he was held in such great
affection and respect that it was decided to bury him under the pulpit
and to erect a suitable monument to his memory. The committee appointed
for this purpose was working at least five years and submitted reports
again and again on the cost of altering the pulpit for the memorial. The
last mention of the subject in the Committee Book reads: "Mr. Mark
reports that the bannisters of the Cupola have been taken away as
ordered at last meeting ... Rev'd E. Harrison, Mr. Jno. Adam & Mr. Jos.
B. Ladd are appointed a Committee to make all necessary arrangements for
procuring and erecting a suitable monument to the memory of the late Dr.
Muir."[129]
An old table gravestone with its inscribed eulogy formerly marked the
spot where Dr. Muir was buried under the pulpit. It was removed to the
burying ground to the lot beside the tombs of his wife and children
after the restoration of the church building following the fire of 1835.
A mural tablet under the gallery on the north wall now bears eloquent
testimony to his beloved memory.
Dr. Muir's widow was allowed to continue on in the manse where she
conducted a school for several years. Near the end of her life she moved
from the manse with expressions of gratitude, and her daughters took up
and continued the school for some years after her death. These ladies
might have stepped out of the pages of Barrie's _Quality Street_ so
gentle and so inadequately equipped were they to battle with cold
dollars and cents and naughty children. Eleven years after the good
doctor's death, this announcement in the _Gazette_ shows Dr. Harrison
and Mr. Hallowell giving a helping hand:
Female Board School (The Misses Muir)
Tendering to the public their grateful acknowledgements for the
liberal patronage hitherto received, take this method of giving
notice that their school will re-commence, on Monday next the 5th of
September. The course of instruction will be as heretofore, and very
similar to that of all other respectable Female Seminaries in the
District.
The higher classes besides being examined twice a week by the Rev.
Mr. Harrison, will have also the privileges of attending the lectures
of Mr. Hallowell on Astronomy and Chemistry. And in addition to all
the ordinary branches of a solid education, they are prepared to
teach and do teach, the more ornamental ones of Music, Drawing,
Painting, and French.
Terms of boarding and tuition, as usual, moderate.[130]
On a hot Sunday afternoon in July 1835, during an electrical storm, the
meetinghouse was struck by lightning. On that day the pastor, Dr.
Harrison, had been invited to Georgetown to preach, and the usual Sunday
afternoon services were postponed. Imagine his horror upon returning to
discover the "severe and Awful calamity which had befallen the church
and congregation." In the session book of the meetinghouse, we find this
vivid description:
It has pleased God in his inscrutably mysterious yet wise and
adorable providence to permit that on this day consecrated to holy
rest, and to public services of devout worship in his earthly
sanctuary, their venerable Church Edifice--for so many years, the
place of hallowed devotion for their fathers and themselves, should
be totally consumed by the lightening of Heaven.
This melancholly event took place about a quarter before three
o'clock in the afternoon--a few minutes previously to the time
ordinarily set apart for the ringing of the bell for the exercises of
Public Worship. It was just at the close of a refreshing shower of
rain, attended as is usual at this season of the year, with peals of
thunder and flashes of vivid lightening. The Electric fluid seems to
have been attracted by the spire of the Steeple, which--running up
from the centre of a four-sided roof rising in the form of a
pyramid--was rapidly conducted by means of a large quantity of iron
used for the security of the timbers, to the shingles and other
combustible materials of three of the corners of the building, almost
directly under the eave. There entirely inaccesible for some minutes
to any efforts which could be made use of for the purpose of
quenching it, and continually fed by the qualities of the matter with
which its work of desolation, with a rapidity which was truly awful
and appalling. In a space of time too brief almost to be deemed
credible by such as were not witnesses of the sublime and fearful
spectacle, the entire roof exhibited to the immense multitude
gathered around to mingle their sympathies and tender their
assistance, nothing but one mighty map of living fire--curling in
rapid and terrific volumes around the still suspended tho tottering
steeple; and smiling at every effort towards extinction, save that of
Him--that Dread and Aweful Being, by whom the flame had been
enkindled. A period of two hours had not elapsed from the
commencement of the conflagration, before the whole edifice except
the walls, was involved in one shapeless mass of smoking ruin,
presenting a scene, as desolating and repulsive to the common
citizen, as it was tearful and heart-rending to the church and
congregation. Our holy and beautiful house where our fathers praised
the Lord--to use the language of the Prophet,--was thus burned up
with fire; and all our pleasant things laid waste.
With the exception of the lamps, a venerable clock in front of the
Gallery opposite, the pulpit, the books and cushions, a part of the
windows, the Stoves, a large proportion of the pipes of a Splendid
Organ which was split open with an axe for that purpose, and some of
the plank broken from the pews--all was destroyed; and but for the
real and practical sympathy of many of our esteemed citizens in
braving dangers of no common magnitude, a like destruction had been
the fate of these also.
The house had been standing for more than 63 years--the steeple and
galleries had been built somewhat later--and except the Episcopal
church on Washington Street, generally known by the name of "Christ's
Church"--was the oldest of all the ten places of religious worship in
town. For many years its bell was the only Church-going signal within
the limits of the corporation; and owing to this circumstance,
connected with its peculiarly clear and inviting tones, the
destruction of it--which was caused by its fall from so lofty an
eminence--seemed the occasion of regrets to the public at large, more
immediately expressed than for the edifice itself. To the
congregation, no loss besides the house, was more deeply deplored
than that of the large and richly toned Organ. Not only because of
its superior worth as an Instrument of Music, the difficulty of
replacing it by another, and the sacred uses to which it was applied,
but equally because it had been presented by a few venerated and much
esteemed individuals, most of whom are now sleeping in the dust.
For several years, there had been an Insurance effected on the
building to the amount of five thousand dollars--two thousand five
hundred on each of the Offices in town. But it so happened in
providence, that one of these Policies, which had expired about four
or five months previous, had never been renewed;--so that with the
exception of twenty-five hundred dollars, the loss to the
congregation was total.
Yet there was one circumstance which ought to be recorded with
emotions of adoring gratitude. The calamity took place at a time when
on ordinary occasions, some individuals would have been in the
house--as it was so near the hour of the afternoon's service,--and
had that been the case now, there is much reason to fear, that it
would have been attended, if not with loss of life, at any rate with
serious injury to not a few. But it had been so ordered by Infinite
Wisdom no doubt, that, for the first Sabbath in more than two years,
the Church was closed during the whole of that day--the Pastor having
been providentially called away to supply the pulpit of a sick
brother in the neighboring city of Georgetown. So that no individual
was in the house, and no serious injury occurred to any individual
during the progress of the fire--and thus, while there is much to
produce sadness and to call for deep humiliation before God, the
Session would feel, that there is still something to awaken emotions
of gratitude and praise; and that however severely the loss may be
felt, yet it has not been unattended with significant expressions of
kindness and regard.
[Illustration: The old Presbyterian Meetinghouse showing the new tower]
Dr. Harrison's lamentations, while justified, were not for complete
demolition. In the minutes of the trustees, the fact is stated that the
roof and cupola burned and fell in, destroying much of the interior
woodwork, but not all. The walls and part of the galleries remained
intact, Dr. Muir's tablet was uninjured, many windows were not broken,
and the organ, at first thought destroyed, was very little injured; it
remains in use to this day, and likewise the old clock. However, the
damage was terrific and there was only a nominal insurance to cover the
loss.
Part of the congregation wished a new building site and it was given
some thought, but the "siller" [silver] was found to be inadequate for
the purpose. The amount in the treasury did cover the cost of
restoration, and on April 5, 1836, it was "Resolved, That the
congregation of the Church be called to meet at the Lecture room on
Friday evening next at 1/2 past 7 o'clock, to decide permanently on the
location of the Church."[131] In November the committee minutes recorded
that "The location of the Church was permanently fixed on the old
site,"[132] and on February 7, 1837, "Mr. Smith, from the committee
appointed to consult on the propriety of lowering the gallery, reported
that it was thought to be inexpedient to do so."[133] The final notation
on the new church read: "It was, on Motion Resolved that our New house
of worship, be solemnly Dedicated to the Worship of Almighty God on the
last Sabbath of July next--it being on that day two years before, that
our former house of worship was consumed by fire...."[134]
It is distressing to think of the eighteenth century interior destroyed
on that hot afternoon of July 1835, but we must be grateful for what the
rebuilders of 1837 preserved as an outstanding example of Georgian
architecture. In 1843 the tower was added: it was in the approximate
location that the pulpit had stood for many years. In 1853 the front
vestibule was constructed.
Dr. Harrison was a delicate man and for a long time his health was far
from good. In 1848 he was so wretched that it was recommended he go
south for his health. The firm of Lambert & McKenzie offered Dr.
Harrison a free passage to and from the Barbados on the barque
_Archibald Gracie_. The minutes of the committee record the motion of
appreciation to the owners.
Mr. Robert Bell of the old printing firm of that name made a gift of
letter paper to Dr. Harrison every Christmas for many years. In his
latter years the Doctor in thanking Mr. Bell always said that he never
expected to see another Christmas. He saw at least three after the first
of these communications, for that many letters exist containing the same
mournful allusion.
In 1862 the Civil War disrupted the Church. Dr. Elias Harrison died in
1863 after forty-three years of ministering to his congregation and with
his death the Church ceased to function and its congregation scattered.
During the Battle of Bull Run, it was used as a hospital for wounded
soldiers, and from time to time it was used by other faiths, including a
Negro Baptist congregation. Neglected, uncared for, the prey of thieves
and vandals, the doors were finally closed.
The cemetery lies between the Church and the manse. Here John Carlyle
sleeps. Cofounder and trustee of Alexandria in 1748; son-in-law to
Colonel William Fairfax; brother-in-law to Lawrence Washington;
commissary of the Virginia forces under Braddock in 1755; collector of
customs on the South Potomac, and major in the Revolution; a Scottish
gentleman, heir to a title, he cast his fate with the colonies. Nearby
lies the tomb of William Hunter, founder of St. Andrew's Society, and
that beloved friend and physician of General Washington, Dr. James
Craik. Ramsay, McKenzie, Muir, Vowell, Harper, Hepburn and Balfour are
among the names found inscribed upon the old stones. Their dust makes of
this soil a part of Old Scotland.
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