Return to Private Schools Index

Return to Milestones Vol. 6, No. 1

Traveling along Route 18, and not far from the Lincoln Highway on the south side of Beaver County, if you take a road to the right and follow it for a quarter of a mile, you will come to a farmhouse near which, on a little elevation, and under a low-branching tree, is a stone with this interesting and important inscription:

"Site of the Service Theological Seminary of the Associate Presbyterian Church, the second Divinity School in America. In a log building erected here, the first session was held during the winter of 1794-95, the Rev. John Anderson, D.D., being the sole instructor. In 1821 the Seminary was transferred to Canonsburg, Pa. Thence, in 1865, it was removed to Xenia, 0. By the union of 1858 it became one of the theological seminaries of the United Presbyterian Church of North America."

Most of the early colleges of America were, in a sense, theological seminaries, for, as in the case of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, they were established for the purpose of supplying a learned ministry for the church. But the first separate theological seminary was that of the Dutch Reformed Church at New Brunswick, N. J. founded in 1784. The second oldest was that of St. Sulpice and St. Mary's Roman Catholic, at Baltimore, in 1791; and the third oldest, therefore, Eudolphia Hall, established in 1794.

The famous faculty of this wilderness school of the prophets was the Rev. Dr. John Anderson, trained in the Scottish Universities, who came to the United States in 1783, and was ordained in the ministry of the Associate Church in 1788. In 1792 Dr. Anderson became pastor of the Service Creek Associated Church on the south side of Beaver County.

When the Associate Church established a theological seminary, Dr. Anderson was elected to the post of professor of divinity, and located the seminary not far from the Service Church, where the memorial stone now marks the site.

Members of the Associate Church (Presbyterian) in Scotland donated 800 books of divinity for the use of the school. The classes met first in Dr. Anderson's house, but in 1805 a two-story log building was erected. This became the home of the theological seminary, and there the "sons of the prophets" were gathered together to receive instruction in Hebrew and Greek Exegesis and in Didactic and Polemic Theology.

From this rude seminary there flowed forth for many years a stream of theological learning and Christian culture which made the western wilderness blossom like the Rose of Sharon.

Dr. Anderson had the habit of reading his theological volumes when riding his horse through the country. It is related that on one occasion he was belated and lost his way. Coming at length to a house where he saw a light in the window, the absent-minded professor knocked on the door. When the door was opened by a woman, he explained to her his plight and asked if he might come in and spend the night. "Yes," said the woman, "come right in; I shall be glad to have you spend the night." It was his own wife.

Hard by the site of the ancient seminary, and a little farther along the Service Creek, and high up on a hilltop, is the old Service Creek Church, where Dr. Anderson preached. Around the church waiting for the morning of the Resurrection, sleep the rude forefathers, men of simple ways, but great faith, and who made straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.

In the valley below the church, the Service Creek still winds its way over the rocks, under the laurel, and through the meadows. From NOT FAR FROM PITTSBURGH, by Clarence Edward McCartney