A History of the Presbytery of the Western

The Presbytery of the Western Reserve is a governing body of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), organized January 20, 1973 by the authority of the Synod of the Covenant and the General Assembly, and governed by the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

The establishment of Presbyterian and Congregational churches on the Connecticut Western Reserve was begun by the Connecticut Mission Society in 1800 and continued under the Plan of Union adopted in 1801 by the General Assembly and the General Association of Connecticut. "Presby-gational" churches flourished in Ohio and western New York State. The first traveling missionaries on the Reserve were William Wick, Presbyterian, and Joseph Badger, Congregationalist.

The presbyteries having jurisdiction in the area of the present presbytery included Hartford (1808); Grand River (1814) which was organized at Euclid, [First, East Cleveland (1807)], with seven ministers and eight churches; Portage (1818); Huron (1823); and, Cleveland (1830). The Synod of the Western Reserve was established in 1825 with the Presbyteries of Grand River, Portage, and Huron. The controversies over matters of faith and practice, which in 1838 resulted in the division of the General Assembly into Old School and New School branches, developed over a number of years. In 1837 the Assembly abrogated the Plan of the Union of 1801, and "exscinded" the Synods of Utica, Geneva, Genesee, and the Western Reserve for disobedience, forcing a general reorganization.

Northeastern Ohio was predominantly New School territory, but the separation of the Congregational/UCC churches (e.g., Austinburg, Dover, Brecksville, Brooklyn/Archwood) from the Presbyterian churches (e.g. Ashtabula First, Cleveland/Old Stone, Euclid/East Cleveland, Newburgh/Miles Park) was never overcome.

The United Presbyterian Church in North America congregations representing Presbyterians of the Covenanter and Seceder traditions arrived only slightly later on the Western Reserve. The Associate Reformed Church in Northfield was organized in 1833. The First Associate Church in Cleveland, now Heights United Presbyterian Church, was organized in 1843.

The merger in 1958 of the Presbytery of Cleveland of the United Presbyterian Church of North America and Presbytery of Cleveland of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, resulted in the Presbytery of Cleveland of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. which included the Akron area and not Ashtabula County. In 1973, boundaries were realigned and the name Presbytery of the Western Reserve adopted.

The early minutes show that, in addition to the traveling missionaries, the settled ministers were expected to preach in new settlements. The Presbyteries of Portage and Grand River joined in establishing Western Reserve College at Hudson in 1826 "for providing an able, learned, and pious ministry for the infant churches." Shaw Academy in East Cleveland was established in 1838 by a bequest of a member of the Euclid-First Presbyterian Church.

The opening of the Ohio Canal in 1830 brought rapid population growth, commercial development, and new needs. The Rev. Samuel C. Aiken and members of the First Presbyterian Church were among the organizers in 1830 of the Western Seamen's Friend Society, a mission and lodge for destitute sailors. This was the first Cleveland society to receive charitable donations. It was reorganized in 1867 as the Cleveland Bethel Union, a forerunner of Associated Cleveland Charities, 1884.

About 1833 the First Church tried to organize a Sunday School but found the children unable to read. As a result, a Free School was started. When the Bethel Church was opened on Eagle Street in 1835 as an offshoot of First Church, the Free School was housed there. It was adopted as the first school when the public school system was established.

The presbytery commitment to social justice was expressed in 1834 in a resolution on slavery which said in one section:

Resolved that this presbytery consider it the duty of every Christian immediately to use all means warranted by the word of God for the utter extermination of Slavery and for repeal of all such unjust and oppressive laws." In the years before the Civil War, the pastor and elders of First Church in Ashtabula were active in the Underground Railroad. In 1937, the presbytery voted its support of the Wagner Van Nuys Anti-Lynching Bill in the U.S. Congress.

A Women's Foreign Missionary Society was formed in the First Church of Cleveland as early as 1833. It was succeeded by the Women's Presbyterian Foreign Missionary Society in 1873. The women's Presbyterian Home Missionary Society was organized in 1881.

A number of churches were established by a single church starting a Sunday School in a new neighborhood. First (Old Stone), Second, and North Churches each did this more than once. In 1876 Second received an endowment for this purpose in the will of Thomas Sterling Beckwith. Between 1899 and 1918 the First Church in Ashtabula, with the financial help of Elder Samuel R. Harris, started three churches.

The beginning of church extension by consultation and cooperative funding among the congregations was the formation in November 1869 of the Presbyterian Union by the pastors and elders of seven churches. By the following June the Union had two missionaries working on four projects out of which developed Case Avenue (1870), Woodland Avenue (1872), and Bethany (1889) Churches. A newsletter in 1913 reports that by that year the Union had aided in the construction of 17 of the 37 buildings built since 1869. A comprehensive report for 1915-1933 names 23 more.