THE HOBART PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
A BRIEF HISTORY
By Helen Rich and Ola Cowan
Written in October 1975
Our deepest roots in this country go back to August 1773, when Alexander Leal, John McKenzie and Daniel McGilverie left their homes in Scotland to seek a better life in the New World. They left their families in New York and came to Kortright to see the place they had chosen.
At that time, the country here was an almost unbroken forest of hemlock. Of course there were no churches. These pious Scotchmen refused to bring their families to live without the privilege of religious services so they gathered a few other individuals who had settled here previously and organized a religious society. The service was led by a Mr. Blair, who read, in connection with other religious exercises, the 35th chapter of Isaiah: “the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice even with joy and singing; —They shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellence of our God.”
The next week, these men returned to New York and brought out their families. In 1774, a supply preacher was sent by the Associate Reformed Presbytery of New York and Pennsylvania. There was preaching off and on until the settlement was broken up and the people scattered by the Revolutionary War.
Many of the men entered the army and their families went somewhere else and few ever returned.
Among those who did return were Alexander Leal and Daniel McGilverie. In 1784, new settlers from Washington County arrived, and they again applied for a preacher. At first, services were held in homes but as these were small, need for a church building was felt. They built a log church and roofed it with bark. This was near where the Gilchrist Memorial Church is now.
In 1794, a new church was built and a regular preacher, the Reverend William McAuley came. This man was very important to us for he established a preaching station in South Kortright soon after he settled. He walked every Sunday to preach to the people in this area.
From this beginning came the United Presbyterian Church in South Kortright. The Hobart United Presbyterian Church has close ties with the South Kortright Church, although it didn’t officially start there.
In 1824, a union Sunday School was started by the Reverend Forest from the South Kortright Church. It met in the school house diagonally opposite where the Methodist Church is today.
At one time, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church was the only church in the Hobart area. It was organized in 1794 and the church was consecrated in 1819. A Methodist society or class was organized in Township in 1794 and a church built in 1823. The Hobart Methodist class was organized in 1835.
A group gathered in the Hobart Town Hall on August 23, 1829 to organize a religious society in the Village of Hobart. The moderator for this meeting was the Honorable Martin Keeler, Esquire, and N. Smith, Secretary. Mr. Keeler was of some importance in Delaware County. He had been a sailor, mill-worker and teacher. He entered politics and became county sheriff, judge and a member of the State Assembly. While he was a county judge in 1819, he hanged a man convicted of poisoning his wife -the first hanging in Delaware County. Judge Keeler lived in South Kortright where the Boys’ Training School is now.
This group met again on August 31 and organized “The Presbyterian Society of the Village of Hobart.” The minutes of this meeting were recorded in the County Clerk’s office. Duncan Grant and Edward Meigs were inspectors of election. Martin Keeler, Angus McDonald, Barrach Taylor, John Lamport, Titus Hermon, Patrick Hughes, Novatus Blish, Isaac Wilcox and James Clark were elected trustees. The names of elders, if elected, were not recorded. There was apparently no connection with any Presbytery.
When the church celebrated its One Hundredth Anniversary in 1929, the pastor at that time, the Reverend Joseph Scofield, preached a sermon on the history of the church. He was able to talk with Rodney Hughes, the eleventh of the twelve children of Patrick Hughes who was elected a trustee in 1829. He told the following account of his father:
Patrick Hughes’ father, John, was born in Wales and moved to Ireland where he married an Irish girl. His brother went to England and his son (Patrick Hughes’ cousin) John became an Archbishop in the Roman Catholic Church and built St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.
Patrick Hughes came to Middletown, Connecticut in 1817 when he was about sixteen. He apprenticed himself to a wheelwright for seven years. His wages were ten dollars a year and two suits of clothes. The wheelwright was a Methodist so Patrick went to church with the family and was soon singing in the choir. When he had learned his trade, he was given one hundred dollars and a new suit, and started west to make his fortune.
Many New Englanders were coming through this section at that time and Patrick Hughes soon arrived in Hobart. This was not very far west and he didn’t plan to stay here, but he met Miss Elizabeth Grant. She was a beautiful girl. Good water power was plentiful here so with this double inducement, he decided to settle here and set up his shop. He was married by an Associated Reformed Presbyterian Minister from South Kortright. The wedding probably took place at the Grant home in the Township.
He and his bride began going to the South Kortright Church, making the trip on horseback, later taking their children with them. A special saddle was arranged for the two children, John and Elizabeth, who later became the great-grandmother of Wally Rich, but when the third baby was born, the trip was too hard over bad roads. Mrs. Hughes joined the Episcopal Church in Hobart and the family attended there.
When Patrick died in 1858, at the age of 57, the Episcopal minister was away, so Mr. Sommers of the Hobart Presbyterian Church conducted the service. Thus Patrick Hughes, a Roman Catholic all his life, sang in a Methodist Choir, was married by an Associate Reformed Presbyterian Minister, attended both the Presbyterian and Episcopal Churches, and was buried by a Presbyterian. As the Revered Scofield remarked, “The thing that makes us claim him is that he was interested in the development of a church in this village to the extent of accepting the position of trustee in the Presbyterian Society organized here in 1829.
We have gone into the history of this interesting man to show the indebtedness this church has to other churches and also to illustrate the pioneer element in our early history.”
Not much can be found about this early church. They must have had occasional preachers sent as missionaries from various Presbyteries, but there is no record of a permanent pastor. Probably this church dwindled away, for on May 10, 1852, another organization was formed.
The Reverend A. Phillips acted as moderator and Silas C. Noble as clerk pro-tem, Josiah Meigs (a clock tinker), Alexander Stewart (a stone mason and marble cutter), and Charles B. Clark were elected trustees. This was called the Presbyterian Society in the Village of Hobart.