A column leading to the sanctuary of First United Presbyterian Church in Fayetteville bears three cornerstones. Two -- dated to 1830 and 1904 -- were saved from the early Presbyterian churches that joined together to form today's church. The third marks 1968 as that founding date.
Those cornerstones witnessed 186 years of church history. The church celebrates and records its history with the recent release of a hardbound book: Light on the Hill: The Journey to Presbyterian Hill, 1830-2016.
A Light on the Hill
What: Book covering 186 years of history
Who: First United Presbyterian Church, Fayetteville
Cost: $37.50, or $41.50 for mailing
Information: 442-4411, fupcfay.org/shop
Church mission
You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lamp stand, and it gives light to all the house. In the same way, let your light so shine before others, that they may see your good works, and give glory to your Father in heaven.
— Matthew 6:14-16
Historic pieces remain
The history book committee boasted of features in the current church building that came from the older churches.
• The abstract of the property deed for 695 Calvin Street reveals that, on Sept. 20, 1837, President Martin Van Buren signed the original land grant to Eli and Edy Littleton. Ownership of the property changed every few years until Jan. 31, 1961, when it became property of the church.
Two prior owners were David Walker and Jonas Tebbetts. Walker served three terms as an Arkansas Supreme Court judge and was chairman of the Arkansas Secession Commission in 1861. Tebbetts was an early financier, lawyer and patron of the schools. The Tebbetts home on East Dickson Street served as headquarters for the Federal troops occupying Fayetteville during the Civil War. The house is presently known as the Headquarters House and features a museum operated by the Washington Coujnty Historical Society.
• The round, stained-glass window portraying a rose in the east wall of the current fellowship hall is known as the “Davies window” from First Presbyterian Church. The Rev. Samuel Wilson Davies served the church for 28 years. In 1899, the Session honored him with the commission of the window, which was placed above the choir loft and then removed to the current church.
Other stained-glass windows from Central Presbyterian Church were restored and now stand on display in the hallway outside of fellowship hall.
• First United Presbyterian’s historic bell was cast in 1885 in Philadelphia for the Cumberland Presbyterian Church on North Block Street. It was moved to Central Presbyterian Church building on Dickson Street in 1906, then to Presbyterian Hill in 1961.
“The old bell from the Cumberland-Central’s belfry was placed in the woods south of the new campus where it remained for several years,” the book reads.
Currently, the bell is featured east of the sanctuary. “The bell was first rung in its new location on an October Sunday by 10-year-old Trey Rutledge, calling worshipers to Presbyterian Hill,” the book reads. In church tradition, youth of the church are still responsible for ringing the bell each Sunday.
• When the sanctuary was designed in 1971, much of the architectural style was “Less is more.” The music and worship committee offered the following ideas for design to the architect.
“We feel the arrangement of the chancel area should symbolize the belief that the Word (both read and preached) is central to our faith, and that as [John Calvin, an important Protestant theologian during the Reformation] believed, the Sacraments (Communion and Baptism) are equally important. This suggests placing the pulpit, baptismal font and communion table in such a way that they are equally in evidence.”
Consistent with Calivn’s teachings, the architect designed the sanctuary as the picture of simplicity. “Nowhere within is found a window, a permanent wallhanging or bright colors. All attention is directed to the chancel, to the three stations of worship to the massive empty cross suspended on chains above the chapel. .. The design attempts to communicate the nature of God’s presence to his people.”
“Many said it was so stark and so barren without windows. The cross is all there is,” said Martha Brewer. “But that cross doesn’t need the other things you think you do. The interior cross is just as compelling [as the cross on the roof] when you first walk through the door.”
The church sits atop Fayetteville's East Mountain, with the cross on the roof of the sanctuary familiar to residents because it's visible from many locations in Fayetteville. That mountain has come to be known as "Presbyterian Hill," and the congregation's mission is to be that "Light on the Hill."
PIONEER DAYS
The town of Washington Courthouse was founded in 1828 as the county seat of Washington County. The city's name changed to Fayetteville the next year. And the next year, in 1830, the Fayetteville Cumberland Presbyterian Church was organized, the history book records.
"As American pioneers and European immigrants began moving west across the frontier to satisfy the thirst for free land and economic opportunity, the Cumberland Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church (USA) was formed in 1802 to serve settlers whose Christian heritage was Presbyterian and to make Presbyterian understandings of the Christian faith available to the many unchurched who were relocated over the Appalachian ridges," reads the book.
A Cumberland Presbyterian Church was established at Cane Hill around 1827. From that church, the Rev. Andrew Buchanan and the Rev. William T. Larremore -- an early settler and businessman in Fayetteville -- established a church in Fayetteville. It was "the first Christian congregation in Fayetteville," the book states.
"In a blacksmith shop at 16 East Center Street, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church of Fayetteville was organized in 1830, the town's first church of any denomination," the book reads. "The shop was owned by John Lewis."
Lewis, his wife and her parents, Catherine and James T. Coulter, signed the original congregational covenant. Other charter members included Mr. and Mrs. George McGarrah and their sons, the first family to settle in Fayetteville. The congregation met in homes, at the courthouse, the Masonic Hall on South Block Avenue, the Methodists' 1840s building and "in the open when weather permitted."
The building the church erected at 9 Block Ave. and its historic records were burned by the Confederates during the Civil War, but the church was reestablished after the war. "Locally, the long road to recovery from the ravages of the Civil War began in 1867 with the reorganization of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church," according to Light on the Hill.
In 1906, the Cumberland Presbyterians across the country and the Fayetteville congregation chose to merge with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and Fayetteville Cumberland Presbyterian Church became Central Presbyterian Church,
"Records show that Central was chosen as the new name so that the church could keep the initials CPC," reads the history book.
In 1861, Presbyterians in the southern states split from the denomination because of disagreements over slavery, politics and theology precipitated by the Civil War. The Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States -- later the Presbyterian Church in the United States, PC(US) -- was referred to as the "Southern Presbyterians," while those who stayed with the church were the "Northern Presbyterians." The two groups did not reunite until 1983.
At the same time, the Northern Presbyterian Church of the United States of America, or PC(USA), began to establish new congregations throughout the South and the frontier area.
First Presbyterian Church of Fayetteville was founded in 1873 by a committee appointed by the Arkansas Presbytery of the PC(USA). John Burnett and Pryor Lea were elected as the first ruling elders.
Members of Central Presbyterian and First Presbyterian first considered a merger in 1908, but an agreement wasn't reached until 1953. The Rev. William "Bill" Knox was installed as pastor of First Presbyterian Church (Federated). "... The federated congregation [belonging to both Presbyterian denominations] numbered 700, with 580 active members," the history book records.
"Federation was not to last, however, for the synods, as representatives of the PC(USA) and the PCUS, reached an agreement to avoid duplication of churches, mission agencies and boards. "... All Southern Presbyterian Churches in the northern part of the state are invited and urged to affiliate with the Northern church," notes Light on a Hill.
First Presbyterian Church in Fayetteville voted to comply on Oct. 14, 1956, and joined the PC(USA) exclusively. Two years later, the PC(USA) and the United Presbyterian denomination merged and urged members to use the word "United" in their titles.
"It had taken the two local churches 50 years, from the first union 'talks' to become organically united with the now-familiar title, 'First United Presbyterian Church,'" the history book says.
"With the various streams of the Fayetteville Presbyterian community united, a new era began," the book continues. "From the time of the 1953 federation, the newly connected congregation understood that new facilities with room for expansion would be required. A long-range planning committee was appointed in 1957 to develop plans for a new site and construction of a place of worship. Committee members were Maupin Cummings, Buster Gamble, J.E. McClelland, William "Bill" Orton, Wray Wilkes and Kathryn Woodruff."
Session records show approval to sell the two original church buildings, and the congregation approved purchase of a 10-acre tract north of Mission Boulevard and west of Old Wire Road for $12,000 to build a fellowship hall, offices and an education building. The church also approved spending $3,000 to build a road to the church.
The building plans were unanimously approved, but the vote on the site was split, "with the minority feeling that the location would be akin to 'moving to the country,'" the history book reads.
The son of committee member Kathryn Woodruff shared her story of wearing blue jeans and boots and climbing over barbed wire fences to reach the top of what would become "Presbyterian Hill."
The congregation first worshiped on the hill in July 1961. The sanctuary was dedicated June 14, 1970.
In 2003, a 14,930-square-foot expansion of the campus included two new buildings, covered walkways, lighted parking lots, accessible restrooms, an amphitheater, an elevator, an outdoor gathering space, a library with permanent shelving, an updated kitchen and professional landscaping, bringing the church to its present size.
"The sanctuary was the only part of the campus untouched," the history book notes.
IN THE RECORDS
Martha Brewer, Nancy Waite, Betty Rutledge and Kay Pickett, who among them record nearly 200 years of membership at First United Presbyterian Church, worked together to research, write and publish Light on the Hill. The same group previously worked together to publish two cookbooks for the church.
"That first book had many historical tidbits and piqued our curiosity," Brewer said.
Brewer graduated from the University of Arkansas with a degree in history. "We had no history on this church, but I knew it was the oldest in town," she explained. Some of her assignments included one history paper with no topic designated. "For fun" she would take various years of the church and research the history. She later put these together for her master's thesis.
"That is the basis of what we worked on," she said. "It took us five years ... we think."
"It was so great. Everybody wrote something, and then chapters were put together, and we rewrote it," Waite said.
The Rev. Lee Power, a former associate pastor, help address a troubled time in the church's recent history by focusing on the positive. Even the current pastor, the Rev. Phil Butin, made a contribution, writing the introduction as well chapters about Presbyterian history and the current church.
The team read many, many years of church records -- some of them hand-written: minutes of the Session (the governing body made up of church members) meetings, planning committee meetings, building committee meetings ...
"Presbyterians keep good records," Rutledge said.
"The Presbyterian Women especially," Waite added. "And their [records] weren't so cut and dried. They added a little."
The church boasts an archive closet in the library where these historic documents are stored, said Rutledge, the church librarian.
Waite found the "loud, old stories in the Session minutes so precious," she said. The early Session members addressed members' drinking and adultery and even possible murder that involved people at both Central and First churches.
"(Members) were called out for dancing, drinking, even not coming to church for a length of time. The Session was the trial and jury," Waite said.
Through the process, Pickett, who doesn't hold the long Presbyterian tradition of the others, "became a Presbyterian," she said. "Now, it all makes sense."
Brewer enjoyed working on the passages about how Fayetteville has grown since 1830. "The railroad came to town, the telephone."
Old Wire Road, which runs just to the church's east, was the path of the telegraph wires into town. "It was also part of the Butterfield stagecoach route and possibly the Trail of Tears," Waite added.
During the process, the women lost fellow church members and friends Sarah Harris and Lee Power, both of whom were working on the book. "They gave us so much time," Brewer said. "I had trouble getting back into the book after they died. But it meant so much to them. We finished it as a tribute to them."
"It was clearly a labor of love for the book committee to undertake such a project," said Susan Young, outreach director at the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History in Springdale, who also served as editor of the book. "Writing and publishing a book is grueling. A well-researched history such as this one can -- and did -- take years of work and requires the patience of Job. And while there's strength in numbers, writing a book by committee comes with challenges. Yet this book committee persevered because they recognized the importance of documenting the story of their faith community.
"A church's history is about more than a building or an illustrious preacher or a head count on Sunday morning. A church's history is the story of its people, and the work they do to help each other and to help the community at large."
COMMUNITY INFLUENCE
The women spoke of how the church and its members have impacted the the Fayetteville community.
One of the earliest projects was White Chapel Mission on South College Avenue, as recorded in the history book from a scrapbook from the church archives.
"One afternoon, in the spring of 1896, Mrs. Davies, (Sallie, wife of the Rev. Samuel Davies), hearing of an elderly lady and her afflicted daughter living in a little house east of the courthouse, took some good literature and visited them," the book reads. "She spent an hour reading to the family from God's Word. So great was their appreciation that she returned the following weekend. Great was her surprise when she found the little house crowded with neighbors. This revealed an opening for religious instruction, and the regular Sunday visits assumed the character of a Mission Sabbath School."
When First Presbyterian planned its new brick building, the small frame building was moved to South School Avenue to serve the mission.
Sallie Davies also headed up the efforts of women from six Fayetteville churches to provide comfortable lodging for the students spending time in the infirmary at the University of Arkansas. The group employed a nurse and house cleaner for the two dormitory rooms set aside as the infirmary from 1889 to 1906. Then, the Presbyterian churches in Fayetteville began working together to provide religious experiences for students in the early 1900s. The current United Campus Ministries building was opened by both churches in 1951.
The history book records that Fayetteville Presbyterians supported local scout troops; sold concessions at University of Arkansas football games; provided meeting space for Alcoholics Anonymous, other support groups and even a school teaching Chinese; built homes for Habitat for Humanity; sent teams to rebuild the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina; and much, much more.
First United Presbyterian Church was one of five founding churches of Butterfield Trail Village, and the first two residents in 1986 were church members. The church has continued its activity with Cooperative Emergency Outreach since its inception in 1990.
The Elizabeth Richardson Center, serving children and adults with developmental disabilities, met for 10 years on the church campus, founded by Richardson, who was a member. Member Carol Hart, who worked with Richardson, founded LifeStyles, an independent living alternative to group homes and institutions for adults with disabilities. The Creative School, a private kindergarten, was established at the church in 1965 when the public schools did not provide classes. Board members, directors, teachers and students were from First United Presbyterian. When the Creative School outgrew the church building in 1998, First United Presbyterian started First School, which enrolled more than 150 preschool and kindergarten students in 2016.
"This church is so tied to the city," Waite said.
Many Fayetteville public schools were named for former church members, Brewer said, listing F.S. Root, Harry Vandergriff, T.L. Bates and M.O. Ramay, as were Gatewood Hall, Gray Hall, Hill Hall, Hotz Hall, Humphreys residence hall and Pomfret residence hall on the University of Arkansas campus.
"That Presbyterians are educators is certainly true," Waite said, noting that many members have served as UA professors, associate professors and instructors through the years.
Brewer also mentioned Louise Bell, principal of Fayetteville High School when it was the first in the state to integrate in 1954.
The stories of these organizations and of members and pastors important to the church are shared in color-shaded breakout boxes in the book. "These are the most interesting parts," Waite said.
NAN Religion on 03/25/2017