616 Chronicles of the Cape Fear River

“Rev. Artemus Boies was ordained and installed pastor of
the Wilmington church May 12, 1819, at an adjourned meeting
of presbytery in Wilmington. The church is reported vacant
until this time.”

For many years prior to that, Presbyterian ministers had
visited Wilmington, where there had been more or less of a con-
tingent of that denomination among the Scottish residents and
others who had been reared in that faith. The first sermon
preached in Wilmington by a regular Presbyterian minister was
by Rev. Hugh McAden on February 15, 1756. He was fol-
lowed by other missionaries who came from the North and from
Scotland to work among the Presbyterian settlers in the Cape
Fear section. Rev. George Whitefield, the Calvinistic-Methodist
preacher and great evangelist of the eighteenth century, visited
Wilmington and preached on December 29, 1739. He also
preached in the town on March 29, 1765, and perhaps at other
times.

The church built in 1818 was on Front Street between Dock
and Orange. The cornerstone was laid with Masonic cere-
monies. Its existence was of short duration, for it was de
stroyed by fire on November 3, 1819. Meantime, Rev. Artemus
Boies had been installed the first regular pastor of the church
on May 12, 1819.

A new building was erected, but it also suffered destruction
by fire on April 13, 1859, when another site was chosen for the
erection of a church for the congregation. This was on Third
and Orange Streets. There was no insurance on the old church,
and a subscription towards the new building was started on the
spot at the time of the fire. On the evening of the same day a
meeting was held in the office of James H. Dickson, M.D., and a
committee was appointed to secure further subscriptions. At a
later meeting, the sum of $14,000 was reported as having been
raised. The new building was subsequently erected at a cost
approximating $20,000, in addition to the cost of the lot, and
was dedicated on April 28, 1861. It still stands, and is used
by a congregation which has become noted throughout the South
for its missionary and evangelistic influences. ‘The present
membership of the church (1915) numbers eight hundred and
forty-nine; and, besides its large benefactions to other religious
objects, it maintains a considerable foreign mission enterprise
at Kiangyin, China, and numerous missions and chapels in its
immediate section of North Carolina.

Peace Restored 617

The ministers who have served the church are: Revs. Arte-
mus Boies, Leonard E. Lathrop, Noel Robertson, Thomas P.
Hunt, James A. McNeill, W. W. Eells, Thomas R. Owen, J. O.
Stedman, M. B. Grier, D.D., Horace L. Singleton, D.D., A. F.
Dickson, D.D., J oseph R. Wilson, D.D., LL.D., Peyton H.
Hoge, D.D., and John M. Wells, Ph.D., D.D. President Wood-

_ Wilson was a youth when his father, the late Dr. Joseph R.
W ilson, served the church as its pastor.

As illustrating the missionary and enterprising spirit of the
church, it might be stated that on November 6, 1858, fourteen
Persons were dismissed to form the Second Presbyterian Church,
Which later became St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church; also,
that on March 1, 1859, a plan was formed to build a mission
schoolhouse in the southern part of the city, which later devel-
Oped into Immanuel Presbyterian Church. This was before
the burning of the old church on Front Street. A lot for the
use of the mission was donated by John A. Taylor.

Seven ministers have gone out from the First Presbyterian
Church : Revs. Thomas R. Owen, Sidney G. Law, George W.
McMillan, William H. Groves, Alexander Sprunt, William E.
Hill, and Andrew J. Howell. It has also furnished the follow-
ing foreign missionaries, who are at this time laboring in China:
George ©, Worth, M.D., and his wife, Mrs. Emma Chadbourn
—— of Kiangyin, and Miss Jessie D. Hall, of Tsing-Kiang-

-U, who is supported entirely by the Jane Dalziel Sprunt Mis-
Slonary Society, composed of her immediate family and rela-
tives. The foreign mission force entirely supported by the
a numbers thirteen, all of them in China, besides twenty-

ve native helpers. In addition, there are several home mission-
aries and mission school teachers connected with the church.
= The large addition to the church building, containing the
“niversary Hall and the Chadbourn Memorial Hall, was com-
pleted in 1894 and bears an important part in the activities of
the congregation.
As a matter of general historic interest, which affected the

life of the Presbyterian Churches of the city, as well as those

of other denominations, mention should be made of the great
revival of 1858, and the special services conducted by noted
evangelists since as follows: Rey. R. G. Pearson, beginning
March 18, 1888; Rev. D. L. Moody, beginning March 18, 1893;
Rev. R. A. Torrey, D.D., beginning March 6, 1910; and Rev.

J. Wilbur Chapman, D.D., and Mr. Charles M. Alexander, be-