History

Sunday, November 29, 1987 has been set aside to commemorate the one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of the reorganization of our church. It is only fitting, therefore, that we establish where we have been so that we can better chart where we are going.The committee in charge of compiling the history of the Philipsburg Presbyterian church was fortunate in having a number of sources for gathering material. In 1936, Mr. J. M. Straw had presented a brief history of our church for presentation to the Presbytery as a permanent record for the Committee of History and Records of that body. Again in 1953, the Westminster Fellowship under the leadership of Glenn Shankle added to and updated a history of the church. Miss Juanita Hoyt, in preparation of the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the present church sanctuary, reprinted a history from 1909 to 1959. The work of these people has been of immeasurable value to the committee on church history.

Mr. Don Swires has been very helpful by answering questions that we raised about the early church as he remembers it. Even of greater help has been the church bulletins and newspaper articles he had gathered. He lent us copies of the Daily Journal, April 2, 1938; June 2, 1926; October 5, 1952; and January 29, 1953. Our appreciation is extended to Mr. Swires.Much of our information came from the Session Meeting Minutes of the early years. It was with regret that many of the early years are lost to us because of the loss of some of the books in a fire. Fortunately, those were years when persons compiling earlier history accounts were able to interview members of the congregation who were active in church affairs at that time. Perhaps these records that we have available can be preserved so that sometime in the future, when it becomes necessary to update our church history, all of the information will be available to them. We truly hope that this is the case. Copies of all of this material will be put away for safekeeping.