Pequea Presbyterian Church to mark 300th anniversary with community celebration (2024)

Through war, natural disasters and America’s founding, the faithful at Pequea Presbyterian Church have continually held services by the bank of White Horse Run in Salisbury Township for over 300 years.

The church has seen generations of baptisms, weddings and funerals, and on Saturday, members of the congregation will honor the church’s longevity with an anniversary celebration open to the public.

The congregation will offer tours of the grounds including the church’s historic cemetery and prayer garden. Barbecue and coffee trucks will be on site and local band Summit Hill Bluegrass will perform.

Attendees will be able to see items from the church’s history on display, and there will be games and activities for families with children.

“This is a celebration of the church and its history,” said the church’s lay pastor, the Rev. Alfred Wanner. “But it’s also an opportunity to reach out and welcome people to our community.”

Rich history

Pequea Presbyterian was formed in 1724 as a daughter church of Upper Octorara Presbyterian in Parkesburg. The church received its name from nearby Pequea Creek and predates the formation of Pequea Township by over 100 years.

Much of the church’s early congregation was made of Scots-Irish immigrants who came to the area fleeing religious persecution in Britain.

The church’s first pastor, Adam Boyd, came from Ireland and served a large ministry from Donegal to Coatesville. Boyd was a “circuit rider” who traveled from town to town and came to serve at Pequea every sixth Sunday, according to “The History of Pequea Presbyterian Church, 1876” by W.C. Alexander. (Additional historical background came from two booklets created by the church, written in 1954 and 1974.)

By the 1730s a modest log cabin was built to serve as the first church building. Soon after, the church’s cemetery was created.

In 1740, the Pequea church was visited by revivalist preacher George Whitefield, who attracted a crowd so large he was forced to stand in the fork of a walnut tree in order to be heard. Whitefield’s traveling revivals and his calls for the church to reform created a division in the Presbyterian church. The Pequea congregation became divided with some leaving to form a nearby “Seceders’ Church.” The two sides would not reconcile until 1830. The “Whitefield tree” would stand until 1954 when it was cut down after being damaged in a storm.

The congregation took an active role in the American Revolution with several members serving in local militia. The pastor at the time, Robert Smith, was present at the Battle of Long Island and took provisions to George Washington’s army when it was camped at Valley Forge.

After Philadelphia was captured by British forces in 1777, John Witherspoon, a New Jersey representative to the Continental Congress and signer of the Declaration of Independence, fled to the church, where he stayed with Smith for over a year. Smith would go on to form a Latin school at Pequea Presbyterian and his sons became early leaders at Princeton University and Hampton-Sidney College.

Over the centuries, the church would grow and dramatically change. The church’s log cabin structure was replaced with a stone one. Many of the Presbyterian Scots-Irish families moved out of the region, and a new wave of German Mennonites immigrated into the area.

The Rev. Beth Engel, a retired pastor at Pequea, became interested in the church’s history during her time there and has been working on a comprehensive history of the church.

“Interestingly enough, some of the more recent times aren’t as well documented,” Engel said. “The last history was written for the 250th anniversary, so it’s time to update it.”

Using the church’s extensive library and the archives at LancasterHistory, Engel hopes to fill in some of the gaps in the historical record.

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A small, but dedicated congregation

Pequea Presbyterian Church has seen its numbers drop to under 100 members in recent years, but Wanner describes the congregation as active and close knit.

“We are family at this church,” said Wanner, “But there’s always room for more.”

Congregation member Jim Kennedy has been managing the church’s cemetery for around 15 years. For Kennedy, the role has given him the opportunity to help preserve history and reconnect people with their family’s past.

“It’s always amazed me, the history just in the cemetery. Every war we have ever fought as a nation, there are veterans out there,” said Kennedy, himself a Vietnam veteran.

Kennedy said people have visited from as far away as Hawaii to find ancestors buried in the cemetery.

“I know a lot of people buried out there, and I know a lot of people that are going to be buried out there, “ said Kennedy. “I’m honored to take care of it.”

Taking care of the church and maintaining the landscape and the historic building has been a priority for the congregation.

“This is family here,” said Doug Lewis, a congregation member, who has taken care of the church grounds since 2016. “That’s the reason I offered to do this. When I first came here I was so accepted — so welcome — that I had no choice but to stay.”

Angelo Porreca, a deacon at Pequea, takes pride in maintaining the church’s prayer garden, using his background as an artist to shape the garden and create a place of peace along the quiet waters of White Horse Run.

“We have welcomed a lot of people who come just to see the prayer garden,” Porreca said. “People see me out there working and they stop just to take a look.”

An ongoing mission

Pequea Presbyterian Church’s work extends beyond Lancaster County, too. The church has sponsored ongoing mission programs in Mozambique and Taiwan. The church helped to fund the construction of a school in Mozambique; both Engel and Wanner have traveled to the area and believe their work is having an significant impact.

Locally, the church has worked alongside Ephrata-based Blessings of Hope to provide backpacks and supplies to students in need and operates a food bank that Wanner estimates to feed 14-20 families at any given time.

“We are a strong mission church, and I like to think that we not only have strong foreign missions, but are making an impact locally,” said Wanner.

Information about the church’s local and international ministries will be available at the May 25 anniversary event.

Wanner lives just down the road from Pequea Presbyterian, and it has remained a constant in his life. After decades of serving in various roles, Wanner became a lay pastor in 2019 when Engel retired and earned a bachelor’s degree in theology this year at the age of 77 so he could continue in the role.

He hopes Saturday’s event can help to sustain the church he loves well into the future.

“We are hoping that this anniversary will help us to bring new people in and help to keep the church alive here,” Wanner said.

Engel recalled that during a recent service, Wanner got up in front of the congregation to lead a personal prayer.

“His prayer was asking the Lord to take care of this place,” Engel said.