Just as two rivers (Allegheny and Monongahela) come together at Pittsburgh to form the Ohio, so two churches came together in Pittsburgh, to form the Brighton-McClure Presbyterian Church.
But unlike the Allegheny and the Monongahela rivers, whose waters begin at widely separated places far to the north and the south, those two churches trace their beginning to the same point of origin.
In the year 1861, when the guns of the Civil War were beginning to rumble, twenty people began meeting in a Sunday school conducted by Mr. James McKean and Mrs. James Shipman in a small frame schoolhouse on Ferry Lane (Westhall Street), on the site of the former Woods Run School. These two leaders were members of the Manchester Presbyterian Church.
Throughout the Civil War, the Sunday school continued and grew. Prayer meetings were held in the various homes. When the war was over, the matter of a church building was discussed, and subscriptions were taken to build a small frame structure on Beaver Road, now McClure Avenue, on property owned by Mr. & Mrs. James McKain. The building adjoined the home of Robert Lecky, after whom the present Lecky Avenue is named. Dedicated on October 13, 1867, it was known as The Valley Church of McClure Township. (At that time, the area was not part of either Pittsburgh or the City of Allegheny.) The church was formally organized and taken into the Presbytery of Pittsburgh on December 15, 1867.
The Sunday morning services were conducted by a student from The Western Theological Seminary, Mr. John H. Sharpe, who, after his graduation, was called as the church’s first pastor in 1868. During his pastorate, on March 21, 1868, a group of members petitioned the Court for a Charter of Incorporation, which was granter on February 6, 1869. That same year, Rev. Sharpe left to accept a call to another pastorate. His subsequent ministerial career was very distinguished, and he eventually became editor of one of the denomination’s leading periodicals.
In 1870, the Rev. John Kerr was called as pastor, and remained through 1874.
Dr. Whiting C. Burchard, who began his 15-year pastorate in 1874, led the church through two significant events. The first was the changing of the name of the congregation to The McClure Avenue Presbyterian Church, which took place on December 18, 1883. By that time, the area in which the church was located was part of the City of Allegheny, which would later be merged into Pittsburgh.
The second was the planning and construction of a new brick and stone building, at a cost of $40,000, which would serve as the church’s home for the next 107 years. This building, which was dedicated on January 20th, 1889, is shown in the picture above. Dr. Burchard lived to preach only two sermons in the new sanctuary. He died May 24, 1889.
On Easter Sunday in the year 1890, the Rev. Samuel J. Glass, D.D., began his 38-year pastorate the longest continuous tenure of any minister, spanning our country’s involvement in the Spanish-American War and the World War I. Dr. Glass is especially remembered for the beautiful spirit of Christian love, harmony, and dedication to the service of Christ, which he helped the congregation to develop. Under his leadership, the church grew to be one of the largest and most influential in Pittsburgh Presbytery. It sponsored the founding of another church, about a mile to the north, where and area that had been farms and pastures was now experiencing considerable population growth, as familes moved out into newly-built homes.
In 1882, a small group of Christians gathered in the home of Mr. And Mrs. William Cooper on Brighton Road (then called New Brighton Road,) to start a Sunday school in their neighborhood on the outskirts of Allegheny City. For almost ten years, Sunday morning bible classes and Friday evening prayer meetings were held in the homes of residents.
In 1892, the McClure Avenue Presbyterian Church appointed a committee of three men to sponsor this Sunday school as a mission project. The committee chairman, Mr. S. P. Harbison, bought and donated a lot at the corner of Brighton Road and Benton Avenue. Carpenters went to work, constructing a two-room chapel and Sunday school building, which was dedicated on January 1st, 1893. Two seminary students took turns with Rev. Glass in leading Sunday evening services in this building.
As more and more people became part of this growing community of faith, a new minister, the Rev. George Smith, was appointed in October 1895 to lead regular Sunday morning worship services. Under his leadership, the congregation grew, and in January 1898, it was officially chartered by Pittsburgh Presbytery as the Brighton Road Presbyterian Church, with Rev. Smith as the pastor. Because of ill health, Rev. Smith resigned in 1899, and the Rev. J. A. Stevenson of Utica, Ohio was called to succeed him. After almost four years, Rev. Stevenson left in July, 1903 to become the President of Mary Holmes Seminary in West Point, Mississippi.
In September 1903, the Brighton Road Church called the Rev. Robert H. Allen as pastor. As the membership grew under his leadership, additional land was purchased, and a new stone building was begun in 1911 and dedicated on September 29, 1912. It cost $30,000 and was debt-free at the time of dedication.
Throughout the first three decades of the 20th century, including the absorption of the City of Allegheny into the City of Pittsburgh in 1907, the trauma of World War I in the teens, and the prosperity of the Roaring Twenties, both the McClure Avenue Church and its new daughter, the Brighton Road Church, continued to thrive and grow. Each was served by a minister whose pastorate would become the longest in that congregation’s history: 38 years for Rev. Glass, who retired in 1928 and continued as Pastor Emeritus until his death in 1942, and 29 years for Rev. Allen, who died while at work in the Church in June, 1932.
Led by their pastors, other staff members, many capable Elders, Decons, Trustees, and other lay volunteers in the ministries of Music, Christian Education, Outreach, Service and Evangelism, both churches carried on effective ministries in their local neighborhoods as well as the larger Pittsburgh Community. Both were staunch supporters of the mission of the Universal Church across America and around the world. This was a time of growing population in the Woods Run and Brighton Heights neighborhoods. Both the McClure Avenue Church and the Brighton Road Church reached out to welcome the influx of new residents, many of whom were newcomers to Western Pennsylvania as the shops, mills, factories and warehouses of the booming economy of Pittsburgh (at that time, the steel capital of the world,) attracted thousands of job-seekers. The boom, however, did not last. And as times, changed, the challenge of ministry changed with them.
As the Great Depression began, new pastors came to both congregations. On April24, 1929, just six months before the stock market crash of October 29th, the Rev. Cameron B. Reed began a six and one half year pastorate at McClure Avenue. He was followed by the Rev. Robert H. Stephens, newly-graduated from seminary, from 1936 to 1942. The tenure of both men was especially marked by an increase in the youth ministry of the church. In Rev. Stephens’ ministry, funds were raised to completely renovate the McClure Avenue Sanctuary.
The Rev. William V. Parsons was called to the Brighton Road pulpit on April 2, 1933, less than one month after President Franklin Roosevelt had ordered all banks in the U.S. temporarily closed. His ministry there lasted 18 years, more than spanning the pastorates of Dr. Reed and Dr. Stephens at McClure. The Great Depression ended, and the nation passed through the trauma of World War II. In 1945, the Trustees of the Brighton Road Church started a Building Fund to erect a new Sanctuary adjoining the old building, a project that would not begin until eleven years later.
In 1943, after Rev. Stephen’s departure, the McClure Avenue Church called Dr. William A. Nicholson as their pastor, initiating a relationship that would span the next forty years, though not continuously. An outstanding preacher and scholar, Dr. Nicholson was also known for his compassionate devotion to the sick, the needy, and those with distressing problems. He left the McClure Avenue Church in 1960 to become a Professor at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, but would return five years later to continue as preacher until 1983, sharing the pastoral leadership with the Rev. J. Charles Paul.
Meanwhile, on February 21, 1952, Dr. George W. Kiehl was installed as the pastor of the Brighton Road Church. Plans for using the Building Fund started in 1945 were re-activated, and in September 1956, ground was broken for the construction of the new sanctuary. It was completed and dedicated two years later in April, 1958. Six years later, in 1964, the old building was remodeled to become a wing of classrooms, offices, and other facilities for church activities, as it is today. In April 1966, Dr. Kiehl left Brighton Road to accept the call of Pittsburgh Presbytery to serve as its Director of Ministerial Relations.
Dr. Ferry Lee Gibbs came to the pulpit of the McClure Avenue Church on January 9, 1961, following the departure of Dr. Nicholson the preceding summer of 1960. Among the achievements of his ministry was the renovation and repair of the church building both inside and outside, with the help of donations recorded in the newly-established “Book of Remembrance.” Dr. Gibbs left in 1965.
In quick succession, both churches secured new pastoral leadership. In 1966, as Dr. Kiehl left Brighton Road, Dr. William Nicholson returned to the pulpit of the McClure Avenue Church while continuing his professorship at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He shared the pastoral ministry of the church with Dr. J. Charles Paul, a very able clergyman with a special gift in the field of personal ministry. In 1967, one year later, the Rev. J. Elliot P. Morrison began a six year pastorate in the Brighton Road pulpit.
It was now 23 years since the end of World War II, and major population shifts had been taking place that changed the face of Pittsburgh’s neighborhoods forever. A large percentage of the young, stable, middle-class families moved out into the suburbs, away from the area surrounding the McClure Avenue building, causing a significant decrease in the local membership base of the congregation, and a corresponding drop in income. Major demographic changes also began to affect the area around the Brighton Road building, leading to a similar gradual decrease in the local membership base and income. Nevertheless, their ministries continued with vigor and dedication, sustained by the strong support of the remaining loyal members.
While Dr. Nicholson and Dr. Paul continued 18 years of service together at the McClure Avenue Church, two more pastors served in the pulpit of Brighton Road: the Rev. Walter J. Kalvesmaki from 1974 to 1976, and the Rev. Leslie R. F. Papp from 1977 to 1983.
In 1983, ministerial change came to both congregations. The Rev. William S. Shirley, who also served in a ministry at Juvenile Count and later the Kane Hospital, came to the pulpit of the McClure Avenue Church, and the Rev. Kavin Rossman, a new seminary graduate, became pastor of the Brighton Road Church. After Rev. Rossman left in 1983 to become the pastor of the Mifflinburg Presbyterian Church in east-central Pennsylvania, the Rev. William H. Venable, a Christian writer with experience in the pastorate and the Army chaplaincy, accepted the invitation of the Brighton Road Session to serves as part-time Stated Supply.
During these years the Holy Spirit had been speaking to members and officers of both churches about the challenge of their two separate ministries, which had emerged from a common source, flowing together again in a consolidation that would enable them to utilize their human and material resources more effectively in an ongoing ministry to their community and the world.
After a series of exploratory contacts that took place over a number of years, the two sessions drew up Articles of Consolidation, which were approved by both congregations at the end of 1995. The ecclesiastical consolidation took place in April 1996. The civil consolidation is still in process, the articles having been filed with the Pennsylvania Department of State and awaiting the final action of that agency.
And so the two rivers, that came from one common source, have flowed together again, forming one vital congregation, its members from both backgrounds now united in a remarkable spirit of Christian love, harmony, and partnership, moving forward enthusiastically to fulfill, with God’s help, the Great Commission of Christ in our local community and across the world. And so for all the events of the past, and challenges of the present and the future, we say,
TO GOD BE THE GLORY: AMEN!
