Sketches of Western Pennsylvania [pp. 280-306]

Sketches of Western Pennsylvania.
ART. IV.- Old Redstone; or, Historical Sketches of Western
Presbyterianism, its early Ministers, its perilous times,
and its first records. By JOSEPH SMITH, D. D. Philadel phia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co. 1854.
2. The History of Jefferson College; including an account
of the early "Log Cabin" Schools, and the Canonsburg
Academy. By the same author.
THE first of these books is a very important contribution to
the history of the Presbyterian Church in the United States.
The author deserves the thanks of the community and especially of Presbyterians, for the labour and care with which he
has rescued from oblivion important facts respecting the individuals through whose labors churches were established West of
the Alleghenies.
Few if any now survive whose memory reaches to the period
when the Gospel banner was first unfurled west of the mountains: yet there are those living who were personally acquainted with the men who permanently located themselves and
their families west of the mountains, and collected congregations and organized churches on the borders of civilization.
They can testify to the accuracy with which the characters of
those heroic men who carried the gospel over the mountains,
are delineated in the work before us. This testimony, together
with the records of the first Presbytery formed in Western
Pennsylvania, leaves very little to be supplied by uncertain
tradition. And when it was necessary to use tradition, only a
single step was to be taken: the actors reported to their sons
what the historian communicates to us.
The author gives to his work the quaint name of "Old Redstone;" because Redstone was the name of the first Presbytery
formed west of the mountains. A stream of water which empties into the Monongahela near Brownsville is called Redstone;
because the stone or clay on its banks is of a reddish color.
This stream is the first which travellers meet in descending
from the last mountain (Laurel Hill) near Union Town. As
this was the road usually travelled in early times, when any
one was going to cross the mountains, he was said to be going
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