Title
Recognizing and honoring Old Pine Street Church on the Occasion of its 250th Anniversary.
Body
WHEREAS, The founding of Old Pine Street Church predates the Revolution. Philadelphia was the fastest-growing city in the English-speaking world in the 1760s, and the Presbyterian church had to rapidly expand in order to ease growing pains. With the First Presbyterian Church near Market Street and the Second Presbyterian Church slightly further north, parishioners who lived further south expressed the need for a Third Presbyterian Church. Thus, Thomas and Richard Penn freely gave a lot on the edge of the City-at Fourth and Pine Streets-for the erection of a new church and the establishment of a burial ground; and
WHEREAS, The burial ground was laid out, and burials began along the Pine Street side of the lot in 1766. Shortly thereafter, architect Robert Smith was hired to design the church building. The first service at Old Pine Street Church, then the Third Presbyterian Church, was on June 3, 1768, or the first Sabbath day of the month; and
WHEREAS, One of the church's first pastors, George Duffield, served as the chaplain to the First Continental Congress in 1774, and he and many of his parishioners joined George Washington and his troops at Valley Forge in the winter of 1776-1777. With parishioners such as John Adams, the church soon developed a reputation as the "Church of the Patriots." While Duffield was in Valley Forge, the British troops occupying Philadelphia used the church as a hospital and then a horse stable; and
WHEREAS, Old Pine Street Church was a shaping influence and leader of the newly independent United States. Many members of the church's pastorate took on significant leadership roles in the Presbyterian General Assembly. Others made contributions to the betterment of Philadelphia and the nation. Pastor Ezra Stiles Ely provided the land for Jefferson Medical College, and Pastor Thomas Brainerd was a strong anti-slavery crusade...
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