Chartiers Hill UP Church marking 250th milestone
Chartiers Hill United Presbyterian Church is planning a weekend celebration to mark its 250th anniversary.
The church at 2230 Washington Road in Canonsburg is steeped in history. Joe Wilson, father of former President Woodrow Wilson, was once the church’s pastor, though he eventually denied holding the position. And the first burial west of the Alleghenies was in the church’s cemetery.
“The church has been a pillar for generations of families,” said Pastor Peggy Shannon. “We’re not just honoring our past – we’re inviting the whole community to be part of our future.”
This weekend’s celebration will include a historical cemetery tour; displays and artifacts from the church’s history; people dressed in colonial period costumes; live history presentations, and refreshments. Events and activities are scheduled from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and noon to 3 p.m. Sunday.
Church member Fred Puchary, a French-Indian War reenactor from Canonsburg, will be giving historical presentations. Cemetery tours will be guided by parishioner Beth Spilak of Canonsburg. The cemetery is believed to contain the oldest dated grave marker in Washington County – from 1783 – marking the burial spot of Mary Ann Kelly, a Native American. There also are 25 Revolutionary War veterans buried there.
“We picked out about 12 of the gravestones for the tour,” Spilak said, including the church’s founder, the Rev. Dr. John McMillan. “There’s some really interesting things about it. His wife is buried right next to him. His two sons-in-law died on the same day and their gravestones together are to the left of (McMillan) and his wife.”
McMillan was referred to as “The Apostle of Presbyterianism in the West,” as he preached west of the Alleghenies on the Fourth Sabbath in August 1775, not far from the site of the current building. McMillan founded the church on strong Christian beliefs of the Church of their Fathers in Philadelphia.
“His father was a pastor (in Philadelphia),” said Ann Neill, a member of the church since 1964. “Word has it that he didn’t want to compete with his dad, so his dad sent him over the Alleghenies. He did his first preaching at McDowell Farms.”
McMillan, who also was one of the founders of Washington & Jefferson College, accepted the ministry as pastor of Chartiers Hill Church in April 1776, serving in that role for 54 years. He was the first Presbyterian minister west of the Alleghenies.
The church has had a number of pastors through the years, including the Rev. Joe Wilson, father of Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president of the United States. Church records show Joe Wilson served as pastor from 1849-51, but he vehemently denied it.
“He denied it to the day he died,” Neill said. “He moved to Virginia and that’s where he told everybody he was from.”
Shannon has served as pastor since 2018.
“It’s very humbling to be in this particular church,” she said. “I love history. Never did I expect that I would be celebrating the 250th anniversary here. This is a close-knit congregation. It’s a tight-knit familial type of place and they love this building dearly. They have spent a lot of money and time here caring for the building, but they also care for each other very well. This is a lovely warm group of folks who love Jesus and love each other.”
An example of that caring spirit of the congregation of nearly 200 is evidenced by a recent collection of $3,325 of gift cards from Home Depot and Lowe’s for flood victims in Wheeling, W.Va.
“We try every month to have a mission project,” Shannon said. “We’re getting older so we’re not involved in a lot of hands-on things, but they’re very generous.”
The Chartiers Hill Church building was erected in 1778. It was made of logs, was unheated and had no organ. The log church was replaced with a stone structure around 1800.
The current brick building was constructed in 1841 at a cost of $2,500. The bricks were made by hand on the property. The manse was built in 1908 with a horse shed and stable across from the church. When the bell tower was built, it was proposed by the pastor at the time, the Rev. Murray C. Reiter, that the window glass be of yellow etched pane to eliminate the temptation to look out the windows during worship.
“He didn’t want anybody distracted by the wagons and activity on (Route) 19, so he made all the windows yellow so you couldn’t see through them,” Neill said.
In October 2002, while upgrading the roof and basement to address plumbing issues, the rear wall of the sanctuary fell, causing the narthex and bell tower to fall.
On March 7, 2004, the newly constructed narthex and bell tower were rededicated. At the time, the Rev. Donald (Don) Austin said, “People tell me, unless you grew up around here and knew what the church used to look like, you’d never guess it wasn’t always like this.”
Services are held at 10 a.m. on Sundays in the summer. From Labor Day until Memorial Day, the service starts at 11.
“To me, this is where people catch up on Sunday,” Neill said. “From the early days, when this was just farmers, this was their meeting day. That has stayed with us all of these years. It’s just a feeling of commitment and companionship that I think is lacking in today’s world.”