History of the Benton Presbyterian Church

 

Presbyterian services were held in St. Gabriel's Church, Sugarloaf township, as early as 1812. In 1859 a number of persons from Coles Mills petitioned the Presbytery of Northumberland for a church organization, in response to which John Doty, D. J. Waller and John Thomas were appointed to a committee to inquire into the matter. They met in the log Christian church in Benton borough on August 12, 1859, and organized a congregation consisting of Earl Boston, Frederick Laubach, James Wilson, Simon W. Tubbs, Freas Conner, and others. Services were held in the Hamline church until 1874, when the building at Raven Creek was dedicated.

In the early part of 1902 three services were held by the Presbyterians of Benton in the Christian Church building, until the group organized and built a home of their own. The Presbytery of Northumberland was appealed to and appointed Rev. G. H. Hemingway, Bloomsburg, Rev. Joseph Hunter, Berwick, and Elder John E. Sterling to assist in the organization. They met on April 28, 1902, and elected Dr. I. E. Patterson, Dr. I. L. Edwards and D. W. Kramer as ruling elders. Soon after this the following trustees were elected: John G. McHenry, Dr. J. B. Laubach, I. K. K. Laubach, Norman Hess, S. B. Karns, Dr. I. L. Edwards, Dr. I. E. Patterson.

The pastors of the church until 1913 were Revs. F. V. Frisbie, W. Hays Topping and Robert P. Howie. The first church was erected in 1903 at a cost of $23,000, and was considered a pretentious structure for so small a town.


Picture, dated July 4 or 5, 1910, courtest of Bob and Ann Edwards
 
On April 28, 1902, a committee of Presbytery organized a 45-member congregation. Mrs. Rohr McHenry donated a plot of ground beside the present Market Street adjacent to Fishingcreek and in 1902 the building was started and occupied in 1903.This church was made of wood, with brick veneer and brick and stone buttresses.
Two and half-hours after the Benton Fire of July 4, 1910, started it destroyed the equivalent of four blocks, an area of about five acres. The Presbyterian Church on the northeast corner of Market and First Street (now Park Street) escaped destruction. The burning pile in the lower left corner is one of several ice houses that burned in the fire.
Eleven years after the church was built and three years after it survived the July 4, 1910 Benton fire, on May 16, 1913, fire gutted the building. In 1914, a $5,000 task of renovation began, and services resumed in the present church on March 16, 1915.

The new structure was similar to the old one in many respects.

The list of the first members of this church is as follows: I. E. Patterson, M. D., and wife, I. L. Edwards, M.D., and wife, Mrs. Agnes Alexander, Miss Mabel Alexander, J. S. Baker, Miss Effie Edwards, Peter U. Parley and wife, Norman W. Hess, Mrs. Leiia S. Hess, S. B. Karns and wife, Daniel W. Kramer and wife, Mrs. Russell Karns, Mrs. William Kline, H. A. Kemp and wife, Mrs. Rebecca Mather, Mrs. Mary Morey, J. B. McHenry and wife, J. G. McHenry and wife, Dr. J. B. Laubach and wife, Miss Estelle Laubach, Mrs. Agnes McHenry, Mrs. James Smith, Fred Wood and wife, George D. Yost and wife, Mrs. J. S. Baker, Myron P. Edwards and wife.