Presbyterian Heritage Center at Montreat

This Day In History
June 28 -July 4
(changes weekly; click on title above or on the month navigation link for previous entries on Presbyterian history)

The Female Domestic Missionary Society of Charleston, South Carolina, was organized on June 28, 1818. This Presbyterian Society was actively employed in city missions. Its first worker was Alfred Wright, who was ordained on Dec. 17, 1819. Rev. Wright would later serve as a missionary to the Choctaws in Mississippi and Oklahoma.

On June 29, 1936, Congress approved a bill creating the Whitman National Monument — to honor the Presbyterian mission of Dr. Marcus and Narcissa Whitman to the Cayuse Indians in 1836 in what became the Oregon territory. The Whitmans were killed by the Native Americans in 1847 after an outbreak of measles was blamed on the missionaries. (Photo courtesy of National Parks Service)

On June 30, 1960, the Congo became an independent nation. The American Presbyterian Congo Mission (APCM) had prepared by appointment of a Church-Mission Committee composed of 25 Congolese Church leaders and ten missionaries, to work out the division of responsibilities to be carried by the Church (the Eglise Presbyterienne du Kasai), those to be handled by the Mission and those to be handled jointly by both bodies.
At this time, the APCM had 161 missionaries, the largest staff that it would ever have, with eleven stations scattered across the Kasai region providing the centers for evangelistic, educational and medical work. Within the situation of political instability that followed independence, the Church suffered serious disruption of its life and work. As one observer wrote: “Christians have been and are being subjected for the first time to large-scale persecution and testing, arising out of the necessity to make a choice between tribal loyalties and the atrocities often associated with them, and loyalty to Jesus Christ.” (Photo below: signing of Congo independence, Library of Congress.)

On July 2, 1926, Presbyterian minister Samuel Fisher Tenney died. The father of the founder — Samuel Mills Tenney — of the Historical Foundation of the Presbyterian and Reformed Churches, S. F. Tenney was a champion for Native American, black and women rights, as well as the respected pastor of the Crockett (Texas) Presbyterian Church for 55 years. He founded schools for blacks and indians in Texas, as well as in 1891 led the effort at the General Assembly, which was defeated, to allow women a greater role in the church, but set the agenda for future expansion of women in the church.

Presbyterian Heritage Center
Flip Through Online Research and Reference Books
(allow popups on your browser;
click on image above or on three links below)
The Ministerial Directory (1898)
1833 African Repository & Colonial Journal
Records of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, 1706 - 1788

We will be adding features to enhance online research, as well as offering new databases on Presbyterian ministers and missionaries. In addition, the Presbyterian Heritage Center is pilot testing materials to teach Presbyterian history to confirmation classes and youth groups. We will be adding online virtual exhibits including new audio and film segments. Plus, a new journal/newsletter is available from PHC. If you would like to receive a complimentary copy of this new publication, email us and provide your postal mailing address or state your preference to receive it via email.

New Acquisition
The Presbyterian Heritage Center now has a 1744 first-person account by both Reverends Gilbert and William Tennant about the first Great Revival of religion in America (especially in the New Jersey and Pennsylvania region). Published in a rare American magazine, the account was written in the midst of the Great Revival, which ran from 1740 - 1745.

Exhibits
There are many exhibits open at the PHC, including a new limited-run exhibit on Presbyterians & Civil Rights. We offer interactive computer kiosks, an innovative museum and research facility (onsite and online) presenting Presbyterian history and Reformed heritage, the church’s tradition of worldwide mission.

A special exhibit on "Presbyterians & Civil Rights" is open. This exhibit looks at the historical involvement of blacks, Native Americans and other ethnic groups in the Presbyterian church. Come learn about Presbyterian involvement in Civil Rights and the appearance of Martin Luther King, Jr., in Montreat at Anderson Auditorium in August 1965 (click to hear an audio segment from King's speech), as well as Congressman John Lewis' 2009 appearance at the Montreat Conference Center's Collegiate Conference in January. This exhibit closes July 28, 2009.

For the 2009 Exhibit on No Turning Back: The American Presbyterian Missions to Africa, the PHC commissioned a model of the first S. N. Lapsley steamboat (1900 - 1903) used by the Presbyterian missionaries in the Congo. It was built by David Melvin (left) and Andy Andrews, with Bob Shaw constructing the display table. The PHC has the commemorative plaque from Second Presbyterian Church of Alexandria, Virginia, honoring the missionary Rev. Henry Slaymaker and 22 Africans (20 by name) who died in the 1903 wreck of the Lapsley. An original 1893 stock certificate for donations to the Lapsley missionary boat, as well as a 1903 children's pennies box for building the second Lapsley are on display.

For our 2009 Exhibit of Calvin & Presbyterians, which will open July 4th weekend, we are lining up lectures and online interviews by Calvin experts throughout the year. The PHC will conduct a workshop during the Calvin Jubilee conference in Montreat — plus a community-wide birthday celebration dessert party on Thursday evening, July 9th, at 8:30 pm at the Heritage Center. We have a long list of special Reformation materials (1500s and 1600s for books and newspapers) for viewing during the exhibit, including 1200 Reformation related books on our online research computers of works published between 1500 and 1700 A.D.

Research
Our research library offers onsite and online access to original rare books and documents. Anyone having documents, photos and artifacts are encouraged to contact us.

Latest News/Future Events
Calvin & Presbyterians exhibit opens July 4th. On July 9th at 8:30 pm, there will be a birthday celebration of the 500th aniversary of John Calvin's birth. All are invited to the dessert function at the Presbyterian heritage Center.

An exhibit — Hallelujah! — on Handel's Messiah is open honoring the 250th anniversary of the composer's death in 1759. Featured items in the exhibit are the first, second and third editions of the printed full score of the Messiah.

No Turning Back: The American Presbyterian Missions to Africa exhibit is opened This major exhibit explores the religious missions and missionaries to the continent, including Cameroon (PCUSA), Congo (PCUS) and Sudan (UPC), including cultural artifacts from our William H. Sheppard collection and from other renowned collections. Additional Congo missionary photos, documents and artifacts are being added in July. There will be an expanded Cameroon missionary sectionn added in October, with additional Sudan mission exhibits added in January. Come see!

Celebrating National Preservation Month, the Presbyterian Heritage Center also will opened another new Montreat history exhibit on May 23rd — Private Land in a Public Place: Montreat 1897 - 1929.

Some Current Exhibits
Montreat's Railroad exhibit displays rare photos from the Dickey and Campbell Railroad, later the Perley & Crockett (and still later the Mt. Mitchell Railroad) which ran from Black Mountain through Montreat to Mt. Mitchell. The exhibit runs through October 31st. Below are some of the first tourist box cars that carried visitors to Mt. Mitchell.

A small exhibit on Presbyterians & Presidents is open looking at the religious heritage and Presbyterian connections of many who served in the nation's highest office. The exhibit will run through August 15th. Shown is the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., in the 1860s where President Abraham Lincoln worshipped.

Women in the Presbyterian Church Around the World exhibit is still running until mid-August.

PHC also has some Heritage History interviews online and more available onsite (click on picture of Andy Andrews for a sample). We will be adding more Heritage History interviews online.

Location/Map:
Click for map of Montreat and the Presbyterian Heritage Center.

Emails:
General information & questions

Potential collection items

© 2009. Presbyterian Heritage Center at Montreat.
PO Box 207, Montreat, NC 28757 | 318 Georgia Terrace, Montreat, NC | 828.669.6556
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The Presbyterian Heritage Center is housed in a building which once was the home of the Historical Foundation of the Presbyterian and Ref - Department of History.