Lou’s View

By Lou Bernard

I haven’t been to church in a while. By which I mean, since I was sixteen. I’m just not much of a church guy, but I’ll be happy to write about it—The churches shape Clinton County’s history as much as anything else.

When it comes to local history, probably the most impact comes from Great Island Presbyterian Church. It’s the oldest congregation in Lock Haven, and the history connects with the oldest religious structure. Currently, by which I mean since the Civil War, the church stands on West Water Street in Lock Haven. As the name suggests, it’s nowhere near Great Island, but there’s an explanation for that.

Back in the colonial days, Reverend Philip Vickers Fithian preached to the local settlers. Not having much of a place for this—Most of the local buildings were log forts, and pretty small—He preached on the riverbank, across from Great Island. Fithian was a traveling preacher from New England who had some very un-religious feelings for young Jenny Reed, the daughter of William Reed, who built Fort Reed. In one passage from his journal, he describes Jenny Reed and a friend overturning their canoe and splashing in the river, and he gives so much elaborate detail that you can almost imagine this scene in a sparkling slow-motion sort of way.

The next preacher was a Reverend Kinkaid, and he was indirectly paid in grain. The local people would all donate a set amount of grain each February, and Robert Fleming and David Hanna would sell the grain and use the money to pay Kinkaid, an interesting system.

In 1792, the congregation got a little tired of meeting outdoors and presumably getting rained and snowed on, and built a church. They had land donated by Betsy McCormick at the top of present-day Bellefonte Avenue, and they established a church and a cemetery up there. Neither one still exists; the cemetery was moved in 1918.

The church was replaced in 1850 by a new structure, currently 352 East Water Street. This one lasted about fifteen years before the Presbyterians outgrew it, so they sold it to the German Lutherans. The building still stands; I’ll always think of it as Jaycee Hall. It’s the oldest religious structure in Lock Haven, though it’s no longer used as a church.

During the Civil War, the congregation outgrew the building. So under the direction of Reverend Joseph Nesbitt, they rented a hall on Main Street to use while they built a new place. This is the current building at 12 West Water Street, which has been in use since they moved in about 1867. This is where it gets especially interesting.

I’ve heard rumors that Great Island Presbyterian Church was on the Underground Railroad, and this may actually have happened. I can’t prove it, but I can make a good circumstantial case for it.

I’ve seen the journal of Reverend Joseph Nesbitt, and it contains hints that he may have been sheltering slaves.

Some of the passages are written in a code that’s never been deciphered, and the readable ones often show Nesbitt agonizing over doing the right thing no matter what the law says. Now, it took twenty months for the new church to be built, during which time the people were meeting in the local hall. This left Nesbitt holding the keys to a completely empty church building, and if there’s a better place to hide escaped slaves, I can’t imagine where.

We have a street named after Nesbitt today—-It’s right beside the current Great Island Presbyterian. And it sounds like the guy deserved it. Great Island Presbyterian has a long and interesting history—Even if I’m not attending.