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http://www.archive.org/stream/johnmcmillanthea017606mbp/johnmcmillanthea017606mbp_djvu.txt
“JOHN McMILLAN The Apostle of Presbyterianism in the West (1952)
1753-1833
By Dwight Raymond Guthrie
University of Pittsburgh Press
Copyright 1952
The book written by DWIGHT R. GUTHRIE, December, 1951 is an excellent book.
Pg. 118
On April 17, 1787, SAMUEL BARR was received into Redstone Presbytery from the Presbytery of New Castle (pg. 119)...SAMUEL BARR, when he was 33, came from County Londonderry, Ireland into the Presbyterian of New Castle in Delaware. He was born, his daughter JANE writes, February 4, 1751, near the town of Londonderry. He was the oldest son. His father, who died young, was a “a respectable farmer,” and his mother was “of Scotch parentage...From 1775 to 1783 he studied arts and theology at the University of Glasgow, from which he was graduated and from which, in April, 1780 he had been certified to preach. Then he went back to County Derry, where in 1784 the Presbytery of Londonderry certified him. That was in May. We know he was in America by the middle of the year, for records show that when he presented his credentials to the Presbytery of New Castle in October he had been preaching for some months. The Presbytery certified him in June 1785 to travel to various churches in the Southern states. Almost as soon as he was ordained he started West. In June he stopped at New London, twenty miles from New Castle, where he presented a letter of introduction from a friend in Ireland to JAMES McDOWEL, whose daughter MARY he married the next year...
Pg. 120
His daughter conjectures that his going to Pittsburgh and later staying there as minister came about in this way:
Mr. MacDOWEL, my grandfather...extensively engaged in the manufacture of flour...and had a train of wagons...employed in carrying it to Fort Pitt, then the very far West...Hotels were scarce...and all genteel travelers...coming east.. were all entertained at his hospitable mansion...
He was first Presbyterian minister to preach in Pittsburgh in nine years. BARR was “entertained at dinner at the home of ROBERT GALBRAITH, HUGH HENRY BRACKENBRIDGE being among the guests.”...He got a Call from New London. On Oct. 29, 1785, he declined the Call from New London, and accepted the one from Pittsburgh and Pitt Township, and was married to MARY McDOWEL...On December 20 BARR asked Redstone to approve him as minister for Pittsburgh...(pg. 121) On the land two and half lots on Sixth Street and Virgin Alley the First Presbyterian Church stood, the log church begun in BARR‘S first year in Pittsburgh, he dedicated in 1787, probably in May ...BARR at a meeting of the Presbytery said that he wished to resign (April 23, 1789...(pg. 122) Later he was dismissed to the Presbytery of New Castle, where his new charge was. BARR, his wife, and their two boys went to this pastorate at New Castle, Delaware, “within twenty miles of my mother’s home,” writes his daughter. The church was one of the three oldest in America, probably founded before 1700, well established and well supported. He did not come to Pittsburgh again but he was at Pitt Township in 1795. His daughter regrets “exceedingly that in the frequent removals of my father’s family after his death most of his valuable papers were scattered and lost.” BARR lived at New Castle until his death, May 3, 1818. He and his wife, who died four years before him, are buried in the cemetery of the old church, and around them are the graves of many of their twelve children....The first church building came in 1786; the Academy in 1787, the Pittsburgh Gazette in 1786, and the public market a year or so later...
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