Who are these Presbyterians?
They could be said to be the followers of the Protestant reformer John Calvin. Believing in the sovereignty of God, an educated clergy and a representative form of church government, these Calvinists became the Pilgrim fathers in the United States, the Dutch Reformed in Holland, Presbyterians in Scotland, the Huguenots in France, and the Evangelical Church in Germany. From these disparate roots Calvinism made its way to America in the 17th century.
In 1663 a group of Presbyterians in the middle Atlantic colonies requested the Presbytery of Laggen in Ireland send them a minister. They sent Francis Makemie who became "the father of American Presbyterianism." He organized the first American Presbytery in 1706 in Philadelphia. Presbyterians were one of the most influential religious groups in the development of the West. The high educational standards required for their ministers produced natural leaders, and their advanced parish schools served as models for the public schools that followed. As the nation moved westward, so did the church.
The Presbyterian Church shares the distinction with the Episcopal Church of supplying more U.S. presidents than any other denomination. Andrew Jackson, Woodrow Wilson, and Dwight D. Eisenhower were a few among those numbers. Abraham Lincoln, who never formally joined, did regularly attend Presbyterian worship in Springfield and at New York Avenue Church in Washington, D.C. Closer to home the Presbyterians founded Illinois College at Jacksonville in 1829. It was the first institution to grant a baccalaureate degree in the new state.
First Presbyterian Church
