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"Unitarian Church of Meadville"

Robert L. Crispin and Carl F. Heeschen May, 1988

The Unitarian Church of Meadville was established in 1825 and was formally organized in 1829 as the Independent Congregational Church. A subscription list of thirty-two names attached to a statement of Fundamental Principles included representatives of the Huidekoper, Cullum and Shippen families. These three families had important roles in the church's early history: Harm Jan Huidekoper established the church; Margaret Shippen and Harm Jan Huidekoper provided the congregation with land; and George V. Cullum designed the building which is now its home. Plaques which commemorate their dedication are located in the church sanctuary and are reproduced in this text.

THE HUIDEKOPER FAMILY

Harm Jan Huidekoper, born in Holland in 1776, came to the United States at the age of twenty, and in 1797 became a clerk for an agent of the Holland Land Company in Oberbarneveld (now Barneveld), a small village near Utica, New York. The Holland Land Company was an association of Dutch bankers and merchants formed for the purpose of acquiring large tracts of land in New York state and in western Pennsylvania. Huidekoper later moved to Philadelphia and became a general agent of the company. In 1804 he was appointed supervising agent for western Pennsylvania and came to Meadville at the end of that year, remaining here until his death in 1854. Huidekoper married Rebecca Colhoon of Carlisle, Pa., in 1806 and soon thereafter built his home, "Pomona," on Water Street, at the site of the present Holland Towers. The couple had seven children; two of them died in infancy, but the other five survived to make significant contributions to the life of the church and community.

Harm Jan Huidekoper had been raised in the Calvinistic theology of the Dutch Reformed Church. After his arrival in Meadville, he attended and generously supported the Presbyterian Church. He was an avid student of the Bible, but also a man of "catholicity of mind," intellectually curious, and widely read. By the 1820s he had rejected the "inflexible Calvinistic upbringing of his youth, and even aspects of the Presbyterian creed. When he heard a sermon delivered at the dedication of the new Unitarian Society in Pittsburgh, he embarked upon a thorough investigation of Unitarianism, whose reasoned and liberal approach to the Bible impressed him. Being concerned with the education of his children, he brought to Meadville young men of the Unitarian faith to tutor his children and to conduct worship services on Sunday. The first of these was John Mudge Merrick, then still a student at Bowdoin College. In 1825 Merrick became the first minister of the new church. The intellectual and cultural life of the town was considerably brightened by Merrick and his young successors, most of them from Harvard College or the Harvard Divinity School.

Alfred, the eldest of the Huidekoper children, was born at Pomona in 1810, and married Catherine, daughter of Arthur and Harriet Cullum, .in 1834. He studied Latin as a boy with Timothy Alden, founder of Allegheny College. He then read law in a local lawyer's office and was admitted to the practice of law. After his father's death in 1854 he retired from practice to devote himself to administering the family estates. He was always active in the affairs of church and community, serving often as a trustee of the church. He was a trustee of the Theological School from its beginnings in 1844 until his death in 1892, and also served as its secretary. Alfred gave the land for City Hospital on Liberty Street and endowed a room in the former Spencer Hospital on Grove Street, both now parts of the Meadville Medical Center.

Edgar was born in 1812, the second son of Harm Jan and his father's closest associate in business matters. He was an active member of the Unitarian Church, and Treasurer of the Theological School from 1847 until 1861. In 1838 he married Frances Shippen, daughter of Henry and Elizabeth Vallis Evans Shippen. But of Edgar's gracious "Hill Home," on Chestnut St. where the David Mead Inn now stands, only the surrounding iron fence remains.

The Huidekoper family's link to our times was "Mrs. Kidder," Edgar's daughter Elizabeth Huidekoper Kidder. She was born and married at Hill Home, and died there in 1951, shortly after her hundredth birthday. For the generous support of church and community causes throughout her long life, she was awarded an honorary degree by Allegheny College a short time before her-death.

Frederick, the youngest son, was born in 1817 and died in 1892, the same year as Alfred. He was the scholar of the family; through the influence of the young tutors at Pomona he learned to love art, music, and literature. He entered Harvard in 1834, but was forced to give up his studies because of poor vision. He returned to Pomona and worked on its farm for four years, allowing himself ten minutes a day for studying. From 1839 to 1841 he travelled abroad, and studied theology at Geneva, Leipzig, and Berlin. Upon his return he entered Harvard Divinity School and earned a diploma, but his failing eyesight prevented him from studying Hebrew, required for a divinity degree.

Frederic was ordained as a minister-at-large in Meadville in October, 1843, and was persuaded to assume a professorship at the newly-organized Meadville Theological School. There he taught theology, Greek, Latin and German. From 1857 until retirement in 1877, he was also the sole professor of Church History. Even though his weak eyesight severely limited his activity--eventually he became blind, he published three works on theological subjects. A man of integrity, he resigned his professorship in 1854, refusing to accept an exclusionary policy dictated by the president and conservative members of the faculty which denied admittance of anyone who would not profess "the divine origin of Christianity." He returned in 1857 when the exclusionary clause was rescinded.

Anna, born at Pomona in 1814, was the only one of the Huidekoper children to leave Meadville. She was married at Pomona in 1839 to the Reverend James Freeman Clarke, one of the most distinguished ministers of nineteenth century Unitarianism. Clarke held pulpits in Louisville and in Boston. Yet Anna returned to Meadville while her husband occupied the pulpit here for a year, from September, 1851, to October, 1852, and again for three months in 1853.

Elizabeth Gertrude was the last of the Huidekoper children, born at Pomona in 1819. She was particularly helpful to her father, especially at the time of her mother's final illness and death in 1839. Of her, Harm Jan wrote to Anna: “Never, until the late trying scene revealed her to me in her true character, had I known my daughter. I had only known her as a kind, affectionate daughter; -as the ever cheerful, the ever happy Lizzy. But never had I known her as the firm, strong woman possessing a power of self-control which I have never seen equalled.” Her obituary in the 1908 Meadville Evening Republican notes that “Miss Huidekoper was a moving spirit in every good cause in Meadville.... Probably no resident of the city of Meadville vas so well known throughout the land as she. The hundreds of graduates of the Theological School, living in every part of the world, have carried with them and spread abroad knowledge of her beautiful character exemplified in a most beautiful life.”

THE SHIPPEN FAMILY

A deed, dated August 20, 1835 and signed by Margaret Shippen, conveys “...property, measuring 88 feet on Chestnut Street and 105 feet on Hundred-foot Street,” as Main Street was then called, to five trustees "for the benefit of the church ...." The lot in question was actually the joint gift of Margaret Shippen and Harm Jan Huidekoper. Margaret Shippen had come to Meadville in 1825 with the family of her brother Henry, newly appointed President Judge of the Sixth Judicial District, which included Crawford County. The family's home in Meadville was eventually built on the north- east corner of Chestnut and Liberty streets, today the Red Cross Chapter House. It was there that Henry's daughter Frances married Edgar Huidekoper in 1838.

Margaret Shippen was an avowed Unitarian when she arrived in Meadville, the only Unitarian by conviction among these three families at the time of their respective arrivals. In addition to her gift of land for the church building, she later donated a lot immediately east of the church for a parish house, erected in 1876. She also deeded her own home (the structure now occupied by the Marquette Savings Association) for a parsonage. "Aunt Shippen" to her friends and especially to her young friends, she organized the first Sunday School in the winter of 1831-32. Classes were held in her home or in the Court House.

One of Judge Shippen's children was Rush Rhees Shippen who, as a Unitarian minister, served large congregations in Chicago and in Washington, D.C. He was also in the local pulpit for parts of 1857 and 1858. “His preaching awakened an unusual degree of interest, and was attended by large congregations morning and evening, including many men who had hitherto remained aloof from the church”. Reverend Shippen was a co-signer, with Clara Barton, of the original constitution of the Red Cross.

THE CULLUM FAMILY

Arthur Cullum came to Meadville about 1815. He was won over to the Unitarian cause, and, with his wife and six children, was a loyal supporter of the church and active in community affairs. Arthur's son Horace was a trustee of the church when the plans for construction of a building were formulated. Arthur's daughter Catherine married Harm Jan's son Alfred, and the Cullum and Shippen families were united through the marriage of Clinton Cullum to Mary Shippen in 1846.

Yet if any member of the Cullum family is to be singled out as having lasting significance for Unitarianism in Meadville, it is Arthur's son George Washington Cullum. He attended the United States Military Academy, graduating third in a class of forty-three in 1833. During his absence from Meadville he kept in touch with local affairs through correspondence with the Huidekoper family, especially with his good friend Alfred. A letter from Anna Huidekoper, dated February 5, 1835, in which she asked for advice about plans for a church building, may have been directed to the young army engineer. At any rate, he did submit plans for a building which were accepted and “rigidly adhered to” when construction was begun late in 1835.

Cullum's church, dedicated in 1836, stands proudly today at the southeast corner of Diamond Park. It has acquired the status of a valued historic and artistic monument, honored by the Pennsylvania State Historical Commission with a bronze historical marker displayed alongside, and recognized by the Federal Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS). It has long been cited as an outstanding work of architecture in scholarly studies of early American architecture.

The building is a bold and imposing example of the Greek Revival style, which was widely popular in the early nineteenth century for churches, buildings and homes. The present condition of the church is remarkably true to its original aspect of 1836, as no major alterations have occurred through the years. Although the church was modeled after a specific Unitarian church in Philadelphia (later destroyed by fire), its form ultimately derives from the appearance of a fifth-century B.C. Doric prostyle temple. Even added elements, alien to that style, are remarkably true to its spirit. For example, the huge windows ranged along the sides are related in scale to the sturdy, vertical columns in front.

Adopting universally inclusive language, the congregation which raised this church clearly conceived of it as a temple, as may be seen in the following excerpt from the August 20, 1836, sermon delivered by Henry Colman at the dedication ceremony:

“We enter this day a new temple of religious worship; we bow down for the first time in this humble house of prayer; and henceforth call this place holy unto the Lord. This is a serious and deeply affecting occasion. We indulge no superstitious limitings of divine presence; we hold no local Deity. We adore a Being, to whom the illimitable universe is one great temple, filled and irradiated by his presence… Such are the grounds on which we dedicate this temple to the worship of God; on the principle of his unity and his spirituality.”

THE MEADVILLE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL

The name of Meadville became widely known in liberal religious circles through the existence here of an important religious institution, the Meadville Theological School, founded in 1844 in great part through the efforts of Harm Jan Huidekoper and his sons. Meadville thus was the temporary home of hundreds of young men who became Unitarian ministers and supplied pulpits all across the nation. The school remained here for 82 years, but in 1926 was moved to Chicago as an entity of the Federated Theological Faculty of the University of Chicago, where it preserves the town's memory in its name: the Meadvi1le-Lombard School.

The importance of Meadville as the site of a vigorous early Unitarian community and as the location of an important theological center, is still recognized today in the name of the Unitarian-Universalist denominational division in which we are located: the Ohio-Meadvi1le District.

A fuller account by Robert L. Crispin is available for study in the Church Office.

SOURCES CONSULTED

Christie, Frances A. The Makers of the Meadville Theological School. Boston: The Beacon Press, 1927.

History of Crawford County, Pennsylvania. 2 vol. Chicago: Warner, Beers and Co, 1885. (Reprint)

Lyttle, Charles H. Freedom Moves West: A History of the Unitarian Conference 1852-1952. Boston: The Beacon Press, 1955.

Tiffany, Nina More and Francis Tiffany. Harm Jan Huidekoper. Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1904.

Wilbur, Earl Morse. A Historical Sketch of the Independent Congregational Church, Meadville, Pennsylvania, 1825-1900. Meadville, 1902.

Files of the Huidekoper, Cullum, and Shippen Families in the Crawford County Historical Society.

Unpublished papers by Virginia LeSueur and Jay Luvaas in a Crawford County Historical Society.