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News, events, updates, and tidbits from the Presbyterian Historical Society. Use tags to read related articles or sort by author for similar posts written by PHS staff members and volunteers.

November 17, 2020

Editor’s note: In the Poethig family papers at PHS researchers can find two intertwined stories about the history of the Plymouth Colony: (1) a study of Plymouth’s founding 400 years ago written by Eunice Blanchard Poethig and (2) the story of the Poethigs’ connection to that history, written by Richard and Eunice Poethig.

The excerpts below explain the precarious history of “Plimoth.” They also remind us of...

August 21, 2020

On August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment, providing the three-fourths majority necessary to finally make women’s suffrage a reality after a seven-decade-long effort that began at the July 1848 Seneca Falls, New York women’s rights convention. In the days following Tennessee’s ratification, opponents of suffrage tried to rescind its...

May 8, 2020
The William Tennent House. Photo by Dan Yowell of MeganDan Photography

--by Wendy Wirsch

In 1735, the Reverend William Tennent purchased a hundred-acre plantation in Warminster, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Near his home, he built a log cabin structure for the training of Presbyterian ministers. This school, known as the Log College, became the first college in Pennsylvania. In this rustic building, Tennent educated young men for the ministry. Shortly after his death on May 6, 1746, the doors of this rural school closed.

I’m sure...

January 27, 2020
John Bingham, ca. 1860-1865, by Mathew Brady. Photo negatives courtesy of the National Archives

--by Sam Kidder

In a New York Times opinion piece in 2013, constitutional law scholar Gerrard Magliocca wrote, “More than any man except Abraham Lincoln, John Bingham (1815-1900) was responsible for what the Civil War meant for America’s future.”[1]

While a Congressman Bingham...

July 9, 2019

The following are autographed photographs from 1980 of then-sitting Senators to the Reverend Edward L.R. Elson on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination. The Reverend Dr. Edward L. R. Elson (1906-1993), pastor of National Presbyterian Church (1947-1973) and Chaplain of the Senate (1969-1981), played a particularly active role in advocating for a Presbyterian program in Washington, DC. He also baptized President...

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