Cambria County Pioneers, 1910, by James L. Swank, Cambria County, PA - Rev. Shadrach Howell Terry
Copyright 2004. All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cambria/
________________________________________________
CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS
HON. CYRUS L. PERSHING
A Collection of Brief Biographical and other Sketches
Relating to the Early History of Cambria County, Pennsylvania.
by JAMES M. SWANK
PHILADELPHIA: No. 261 SOUTH FOURTH STREET, 1910.
REV. SHADRACH HOWELL TERRY. 29
REV. SHADRACH HOWELL TERRY.
FIRST PASTOR OF THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF JOHNSTOWN.
WRITTEN IN 1898.*
I HAVE been requested to prepare a sketch of the life of Rev. S. H. Terry, the
first pastor of the First Presbyterian church of Johnstown. Unaided I could not
comply with this request, but with the assistance of Hon. Cyrus L. Pershing,
Rev. Dr. B. L. Agnew, and others I present the following summary of all the
facts that are accessible concerning the life of this early Johnstown preacher
of the Gospel, whose remains now rest in Grand View cemetery, which overlooks
the scene of his last and most successful labors. It is a beautiful spot for a
city of the dead.
"Around this lovely valley rise
The purple hills of Paradise."
The full name of Mr. Terry was Shadrach Howell Terry. He always wrote it S. H.
Terry in a cramped, nervous hand. Mr. Terry was born on Long Island in 1795. He
graduated at Yale College in 1819, under that prince of educators in his time,
Jeremiah Day. His theological training was received at Princeton. This
information I have received from Judge Pershing, who also advises me that Mr.
Terry's father was for a time a member of the New York Legislature. Judge
Pershing also says that Mr. Terry showed to him more than once a volume which
had been presented to him by Dr. Day, the president of Yale College, for
excelling in oratory. It will be seen that Mr. Terry's educational advantages
were excellent and fully in keeping with the traditions of the Presbyterian
Church. He probably entered the Presbyterian ministry soon after 1820, and
_____
* This sketch, which I prepared by request, was read by the pastor, Rev. C. C.
Hays, D.D., to a large congregation gathered in the First Presbyterian church of
Johnstown on Sunday evening, March 6, 1898. I have added some information about
other early Johnstown churches.
30 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS.
as his wife was a native of Delaware he probably preached for a time in that
State before coming to Pennsylvania. It is not known at what time he came to
Pennsylvania, but it is certain that he was in 1830 the pastor of the
Presbyterian congregations of Somerset and Jenner, in Somerset county, within
the bounds of the Presbytery of Redstone. Mrs. Mary A. Parks, of the fifth ward
of Johnstown, remembers very well when Mr. Terry resided and preached in
Somerset. He did not reside at Somerset longer than a year or two, removing from
there to Jenner, now Jennerstown, which was then a place of more promise than it
is now, and at which place he continued to reside until his removal to
Johnstown, in the meantime serving the congregations of both Jenner and
Somerset.
We must now go back a few years. About 1820 the Protestant citizens of
Johnstown, which then embraced a population of only a few hundred persons,
united in building a one-story frame house on a lot of ground near the foot of
Market street, which was donated for school purposes by Joseph Johns in 1800,
and which lot has come to be known as the Union school lot and the building and
its successors as the Union school-house. In this building the children of the
first settlers of Johnstown were taught in subscription schools the rudiments of
an English education, the common-school system not then having been established
in Pennsylvania, and in this building were also held religious services, the few
Protestants of the town using it alternately or together. This arrangement did
not always give satisfaction, and as early as 1829, as I learn from Mr. Wesley
J. Rose, the Methodists fitted up a warehouse that had been used for the storage
of iron, and which stood where the United Brethren church now stands on Vine
street, and worshiped in it until 1838, when they occupied their new church on
the site of the present Methodist church at the corner of Franklin and Locust
streets. The warehouse and the lot of ground on which it stood were donated by
Peter Levergood, himself a Lutheran.
In his "History of the Churches in Blairsville Presbytery" Rev. Dr. Alexander
Donaldson says that "Johnstown, where an independent church had a brief
previous existence,
REV. SHADRACH HOWELL TERRY. 31
was first supplied with Presbyterian preaching on October 31, 1830, by Rev.
Shadrach Howell Terry, of Redstone Presbytery." This sermon was preached in the
Union schoolhouse.* The Presbytery of Blairsville was formed in 1830 from the
Presbytery of Redstone and held its first meeting on November 16 of that year.
It will be remembered that it was in this year that Mr. Terry was engaged as
pastor at Somerset. When Dr. Donaldson referred to "an independent church" at
Johnstown he had in mind, as I learn from Dr. Agnew, the Congregational, or
Independent, church which had been organized by Rev. George Roberts, of
Ebensburg, with five members, all women. This was the first organized church in
Johnstown. It existed until 1825, when the pastor, Mr. Timothy C. Davies, was
dismissed and soon afterwards the organization disbanded. Mrs. Jane McKee was a
member of this church and was also one of the fifteen original members of the
Presbyterian church of Johnstown which was subsequently organized. Until 1836
Mr. Davies was a clerk in the office of John Matthews, the first collector of
tolls on the Pennsylvania Canal at Johnstown. He subsequently taught school at
Johnstown and established a brewery on Main street, below Market street. About
1840 he moved away from Johnstown. Dr. Donaldson says that, by consent of the
Presbyteries of Redstone and Blairsville, Mr. Terry began on August 1, 1832, to
supply the church at Johnstown one-fourth of his time, and that, "on December
14, 1832, Rev. Samuel Swan organized a Presbyterian church at Johnstown,
consisting of fifteen members, with Shepley Priestley, James Brown, and William
Graham as elders." Judge Pershing says that Mr. Terry preached in the Union
school-house, and that his father, who was a great admirer of Mr. Terry, often
took him when a small boy to the school-house to hear Mr. Terry preach. Dr.
Agnew says that Mr. Terry's compensation for
_____
* In Joseph Johns' charter of the town of Conemaugh, now Johnstown, dated at
Somerset, November 3, 1800, he made the following provision: " The said Joseph
Johns hereby gives and grants to the said future inhabitants two certain lots of
ground situate on Market street and Chestnut street, in the said town, marked in
the general plan thereof No. 133 and No. 134, for the purpose of erecting
school-houses and houses of public worship, free and clear of all incumbrances
whatsoever."
32 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS.
one-fourth of his time at Johnstown was $100 a year. He was at this time a
resident of Jenner, twenty miles away, and served the congregation at Somerset
as well as the congregations at Jenner and Johnstown. Irrespective of the small
salary paid that was a hard life to lead, especially when the roads and the
weather were bad. Dr. Donaldson's account of Mr. Terry's further connection with
the church at Johnstown is substantially as follows:
"In 1835 Mr. Terry became a member of Blairsville Presbytery, and having
accepted a call for half time as pastor of the Johnstown church he was installed
on November 13, 1835. Rev. D. Lewis preached, Rev. T. Davis charged the pastor,
and Rev. Samuel Swan the people. The other half of his time was given to Armagh.
During the summer of 1835 a commodious brick house of worship was erected at
Johnstown and was dedicated on Christmas day, the beginning of a communion
season. Mr. Terry's health failing he gradually diminished his labors at Armagh
until October 6, 1840, when Johnstown secured all his time. This church being
noticed to be in the territory of Huntingdon Presbytery and Synod of
Philadelphia the Presbytery of Blairsville requested the General Assembly of
1839 to change the line of synods so as to place Cambria county in the Synod of
Pittsburgh and the Presbytery of Blairsville, which was done.
"On the night of Wednesday, May 26, 1841, Mr. Terry was attacked with bilious
pleurisy, which terminated his life and labors on June 3d, in the 46th year of
his age. Rev. Samuel Swan, being there to assist at a communion, preached a
funeral sermon from Rev. 14: 13. The salary was continued for six months and a
sandstone monument erected over his remains by the congregation. It is now much
defaced by time. The communion on that occasion wag administered by Mr. Swan,
and for him a call was moderated by Rev. David Kirkpatrick on August 16th,
accepted on October 5th, and his installation as pastor occurred on November 9th
of the same year."
In what I have quoted from Dr. Donaldson I have made some corrections upon the
superior authority of Dr. Agnew. Mr. Terry was buried in the Union graveyard,
adjoining
REV. SHADRACH HOWELL TERRY. 33
the ground donated by Mr. Johns on which the Union school-house was built. The
ground for the graveyard had also been donated by Mr. Johns.
After coming to Johnstown Mr. Swan also served the congregation at Armagh,
beginning in 1845, as Mr. Terry had previously done. The trips to Armagh were
usually made on horseback by both pastors on the towpath of the Pennsylvania
Canal. Like Jenner the present hamlet of Armagh was at one time a place of some
promise. Mr. Swan had previously, beginning in 1824, been the pastor of several
congregations in Ligonier valley. From 1841 to 1845 Mr. Swan's salary at
Johnstown was $500 a year.
In December, 1869, Rev. William A. Fleming, then the pastor of the
Presbyterian church of Johnstown, wrote to Rev. Dr. B. L. Agnew, at
Philadelphia, for such information as he possessed concerning Mr. Terry and
received a letter from the doctor, under date of December 20, 1869, which now
lies before me and from which I glean the following additional facts. The
congregational meeting at which Mr. Terry was called to give half his time to
the church at Johnstown was held in the warehouse of Dr. Agnew's father, Mr.
Smith Agnew, on May 4, 1835, and about the same time Mr. Terry received a call
from the Armagh congregation for the other half. The Johnstown call was
moderated by the Rev. Samuel McFarren and the Armagh call was moderated by the
Rev. Samuel Swan. The Johnstown congregation agreed to pay Mr. Terry a salary of
$250 a year and the Armagh congregation agreed to pay $150, making $400 in all.
Dr. Agnew says that the Presbytery of Redstone promptly dissolved the pastoral
relation existing between Mr. Terry and the congregations of Somerset and Jenner
and dismissed him to the Presbytery of Blairsville. When Mr. Terry in 1840 gave
his whole time to the Johnstown congregation his salary was fixed at $400 a
year. Dr. Agnew also says that Mr. Terry's ministry at Johnstown from the time
of his first call in 1832 to his death in 1841 was remarkably successful, 131
additions to the communion of the church having been added in that period. From
1830, when Mr. Terry preached his first sermon in Johnstown, until his death in
1841 was almost eleven years.
34 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS.
From 1835 to 1898 the First Presbyterian church of Johnstown has had eight
regular pastors, whose names I mention in the order of their service: Rev. S. H.
Terry, Rev. Samuel Swan, Rev. Ross Stevenson, Rev. Dr. Benjamin L. Agnew, Rev.
William A. Fleming, Rev. D. M. Miller, Rev. D. J. Beale, and Rev. C. C. Hays.
It has already been stated that, in the summer of 1835, in which year Mr.
Terry agreed to give half his time to the Johnstown church and the other half to
the church at Armagh, "a commodious brick house of worship" was erected at
Johnstown. This church building stood exactly on the site of the present First
Presbyterian church of Johnstown. That the Johnstown congregation was at this
time sufficiently strong in numbers to erect a substantial house of worship was
due largely to the successful ministrations of Mr. Terry during the period from
1832 to 1835, in which he preached one-fourth of his time at Johnstown. Dr.
Agnew says that the lot of ground on which the church edifice was built was sold
to the congregation by John Barnes, who was a wagon-maker, a native of England,
for $200. One-half of this sum was paid on August 14, 1834, and the other half
was paid in September, 1842, when the deed was executed. This lot is now one of
the most valuable lots in Johnstown. Mr. Rose says that the Fuller brothers were
the stone masons of the new church, that Joseph Haynes was the brickmaker and
bricklayer, and that Emanuel Shaffer was the carpenter.
During the pastorate of Dr. Agnew the church edifice of 1835 was torn down
and the present edifice was erected. The last sermon in the old church was
preached by Dr. Agnew 0n Sunday, August 23, 1863. During the erection of the
present building the congregation worshiped in the town hall for a time and then
in the Methodist Protestant church on Franklin street. The basement of the new
church was opened for service on Sunday, September 3, 1865, and the whole
building was dedicated in April, 1866. Quoting from Dr. Donaldson I have already
mentioned that the first ruling elders of the Presbyterian church of Johnstown,
elected in 1832, were Shepley Priestley, James Brown, and William Graham. Dr.
Donaldson adds that on
REV. SHADRACH HOWELL TERRY. 35
July 26, 1835, Smith Agnew, Samuel Douglass, (tanner,) and Samuel Kennedy were
ordained as elders, probably to succeed Messrs. Priestley, Brown, and Graham,
and that on April 26, 1839, Henry Kratzer and Moses Canan were also ordained as
elders, probably to succeed Messrs. Agnew and Douglass, who had left Johnstown.
Dr. Agnew furnishes me with the following list of the original members of the
Presbyterian church of Johnstown in 1832, when the church was organized, Mr.
Terry giving to it one-fourth of his time, as has already been stated: Mr. and
Mrs. Shepley Priestley, William Graham and his wife, Mrs. Esther Graham, Mr. and
Mrs. Samuel Douglass, Mrs. Jane McKee, Mrs. Ann Linton, Mrs. Caroline White, Mr.
John McClane and his wife, Mrs. Julia McClane, Mrs. Nancy Hayes, Mrs. Elizabeth
Eckels, Mrs. Jane Kooken, and Mr. James Brown. Many persons then attended the
services of the church and contributed to its support who were not members of
its communion. As late as 1869 three of the original members of 1832 were still
living. All are now dead. Our honored fellow-citizen, John White, now in his
91st year, was one of Mr. Terry's earliest communicants. Mr. White has seen
General Arthur St. Clair, a soldier of the Revolution. This was in 1818.
In the spring of 1834 Smith Agnew came to Johnstown with his family from
Warren, Armstrong county, now Apollo, where Dr. Agnew was born in 1833, and
built a warehouse on the south side of the canal basin in the same year. In 1837
Mr. Agnew removed from Johnstown to New Alexandria, Westmoreland county, and a
few years afterwards he again changed his residence to Greensburg. It has
already been stated that the congregational meeting at which a call was extended
to Mr. Terry for one-half his time was held in Mr. Agnew's warehouse in 1835.
Dr. Agnew says that a Union Sunday-school had been organized at an early day
in the Union school-house, under the auspices of the Congregationalists, or
Independents, already mentioned, but in 1834 the Lutherans and Methodists
withdrew from this school. On January 18, 1835, while still worshiping in the
Union school-house, a Presbyterian Sunday-school was organized in the same
building and
36 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS.
Smith Agnew was elected its first superintendent. He continued to act as its
superintendent until his removal from Johnstown two years later.
Dr. Agnew furnishes me with the following list of the teachers in the
Presbyterian Sunday-school at its organization in January, 1835: Samuel Kennedy,
Henry Kratzer, Evan Roberts, Charles B. Ellis, Emanuel Shaffer, John Barnes,
David R. Lamb, Sarah Priestley, Margaret McKee, Elizabeth McKee, Elizabeth
Priestley, Elizabeth Graham, Elizabeth McCreary, Elizabeth Barnes, Pamilla
Livermore, and Martha Moore.
Mr. Terry removed his family from Jenner to Johnstown late in 1835. It
consisted of himself, his wife, and two children - a son, John Henry, and a
daughter, Mary Elizabeth. Mrs. Terry's maiden name was Elizabeth Ponder and her
home was at Milton, Delaware. She was of Quaker birth and education and she
appears to have never entirely surrendered her Quaker convictions. Her family
was once prominent in Delaware. Judge Pershing, from whom I obtain these facts,
says that one of her relatives named James Ponder was once Governor of Delaware.
Judge Pershing's recollection is that Mr. Terry lived in 1836 in a little
house on the east side of Jackson street, just north of Main street. In 1837 or
1838 he moved to the McClure house, on Canal street, now Washington street,
above the McConaughy tanyard and on the south side of the street. In 1839 he
occupied the Lutheran parsonage, on the right bank of the Stony creek. In 1840
he lived in Thomas Quinn's brick house, on the east side of Franklin street, on
the corner of the alley nearest to Canal street. In 1841 he moved to the brick
house on the south side of Main street, on the corner of the alley above
Dibert's store. Here he died. This house was the first brick house built in
Johnstown, if we except a small brick house built by Joseph Haynes at his
brickyard on the south side of the Stony creek. The house on Main street, which
is still standing, was built in 1828 by Adam Bausman with brick made and laid by
Joseph Haynes.
While living in the McClure house in the winter of 1838 Mr. Terry taught a
subscription school for one term
REV. SHADRACH HOWELL TERRY. 37
of probably three months in a small building which stood on the bank of the
canal almost opposite his residence. This building was afterwards purchased by
James Purse, who built an addition to it and lived in it until he died. Among
Mr. Terry's pupils Judge Pershing remembers the following: Catherine Swegler,
Elizabeth Purse, Catherine Jane Roberts, Sarah J. Royer, Mary L. Royer, Matilda
Sheridan, Charlotte L. Canan, S. Dean Canan, A. Frank Royer, R. H. Patterson,
Charles Davis, Ann Davis, Cyrus L. Pershing, and John Henry Terry. By permission
of Collector Potts Mr. Terry occupied the office of the collector one winter,
probably the winter of 1839, as a recitation room for a small class of boys who
studied Latin and mathematics, perhaps also a little Greek, under his direction.
This class was composed of R. H. Patterson, afterwards Dr. Patterson, of
Stoyestown, Somerset county, who boarded with Mr. Terry; Richard Peters, of
Blairsville; and Cyrus L. Pershing, Israel C. Pershing, Campbell Sheridan,
Charles M. Priestley, and John Henry Terry, of Johnstown. Cyrus L. Pershing, and
possibly others, recited Latin to Mr. Terry privately to the day of his last
illness. It may be mentioned also that Cyrus L. Pershing and Campbell Sheridan
recited Greek to Rev. Mr. Swan in 1842 to prepare themselves to enter the
freshman class of Jefferson College.
Judge Pershing tells me that he and Campbell Sheridan, now Dr. Sheridan, sat
up with Mr. Terry the last night he lived.* They left him about daylight,
Sheridan to go to the office of James Potts, the collector of tolls on the
Pennsylvania Canal, where he was a clerk, and Pershing to go to the office of
Thomas Lever, at the canal weighlock, where he also was a clerk. About 9 o'clock
both of these
_____
*Judge Pershing kept a diary in 1841, and from this diary the Judge sends me the
following extracts: "May 26, 1841-Wednesday. - I recited my last lesson to Mr.
Terry in the weighlock office, from Virgil. . . . Mr. Terry spent the day at Mr.
Coshun's, and after his return home in the evening was attacked suddenly with
bilious pleurisy. . . . June 2. - Campbell Sheridan and I remained all night
with Mr. Terry. He was 'flighty' the greater part of the night, and evidently
sinking very fast. . . . June 3-Thursday.-Mr. Terry died this morning a little
after 9 o'clock. He was buried June 4. His funeral sermon was preached by Rev.
Samuel Swan."
38 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS.
young men, who afterwards became ruling elders in the church founded by Mr.
Terry and successively superintendents of its Sunday-school, were shocked to
hear of his death. I can myself remember very well how greatly the whole town
was shocked and grieved to learn that Mr. Terry had passed away. I was a pupil
at Robert H. Canan's subscription school at the time, and when Mr. Canan heard
the sad news he promptly dismissed his school out of respect to Mr. Terry's
memory. Mr. Terry died on Thursday morning, June 3. His last words were these:
"I have preached Christ to this people." These dying words would form an
appropriate inscription on the new monument which it is proposed to erect over
Mr. Terry's grave in Grand View cemetery. (This has been done.)
An obituary notice of Mr. Terry was prepared soon after his death by Moses
Canan, one of Mr. Terry's elders, and published in The Presbyterian, of
Philadelphia. I have seen this notice in the files of The Presbyterian. It is
very brief but is valuable as an estimate of Mr. Terry's character as a man and
a minister.
Mr. Terry died intestate, as the lawyers say, that is he did not leave a will,
and it became necessary that the court should appoint an administrator of his
estate, which, it may be easily surmised, was very small. Samuel Kennedy was
appointed administrator. Robert L. Johnston was the auditor appointed by the
court to adjust the account of Mr. Kennedy. Judge Pershing tells me that Mr.
Terry was often in straitened circumstances while he lived in Johnstown. He was
always paid a meagre salary.
Mr. Terry was a small man, about five feet seven inches high, and weighed
about 135 pounds. He was neat in his dress and reserved and dignified in his
general intercourse with men. A small dining table, which was owned by Mr. Terry
at his death, is now a precious possession of the Johnstown congregation.
As has already been mentioned, Mr. Terry's remains were laid to rest in the
Union graveyard and a plain sand-stone monument was erected by the congregation.
The monument, including the base, was scarcely five feet high. Dr. Donaldson
says that the monument was much defaced
REV. SHADRACH HOWELL TERRY. 39
by time in 1874, when his history of the Blairsville Presbytery was published.
The monument, if it ever deserved the name, had, however, been defaced for many
years before 1874, and it continued to be defaced and the grave marked by it to
be neglected for many years after that year. In 1888, the year before the
Johnstown flood, three public-spirited citizens of Johnstown, not all of them
members of the church founded by Mr. Terry or of any church communion, purchased
a lot in Grand View cemetery and removed to it the remains of Mr. Terry and also
the long defaced monument. The removal took place in the fall of 1888. If the
intention of these citizens to remove the remains of Mr. Terry had not been
carried into effect in 1888 the removal could never have been made, as the flood
of the following May would have dashed to pieces the monument and forever have
obliterated all vestige of the grave itself.
Soon after Mr. Terry's death his wife and children removed to Philadelphia,
where a brother of Mrs. Terry was then living. It was a most unfortunate change.
Mrs. Terry was poor and probably often in want the remainder of her days. Mr.
Terry had built up the Presbyterian congregation at Johnstown through many years
of self-denying service and the congregation should have cared for his widow and
fatherless children better than it did.
Judge Pershing says that, of the two children left by Mr. Terry, the son, John
Henry, became a sailor. On a voyage between Philadelphia and Charleston he fell
from the rigging of the vessel and was injured so badly that he died shortly
afterwards in a hospital at Charleston. The other child, Mary Elizabeth, was
married in Philadelphia to an oysterman named Glazer. Dr. Agnew says that Mrs.
Terry died in Philadelphia on November 30, 1867, at the home of her daughter,
and that her son, John Henry, died on August 8, 1868, as the result of the fall
mentioned by Judge Pershing, which Dr. Agnew says occurred during a storm off
Cape Hatteras. Mrs. Glazer, who is described by Judge Pershing as "a pretty,
bright little girl" when she lived in Johnstown, was living in extremely humble
circumstances. in Philadelphia when Dr. Agnew called upon her in 1868 or 1869.
Since then all traces of her have been lost.