First Presbyterian Church

Organized 1 July 1831 — the oldest continuing congregation

The founding: Fort Wayne had no organized religion for its first decade as a town. In December 1828 the postmaster Allen Hamilton, "feeling an anxiety to enjoy church privileges," helped secure the missionary visits of the Rev. Charles E. Furman (1829), and the Presbyterian board then sent the Rev. James Chute from Columbus, Ohio. On 1 July 1831, under a rude shelter of boards near today's Columbia and Harrison streets, Chute organized the First Presbyterian Church of Fort Wayne. The charter members included Smallwood Noel and John McIntosh, chosen as elders, and Mrs. Ann Turner and Mrs. Rebekah Hackley, daughters of William Wells and granddaughters of Little Turtle, baptized years before under Isaac McCoy. The sources do not agree on the number of founders: the congregation's own history and Griswold give twelve members, the 1880 county history eleven, and Edson's history of Indiana Presbyterianism seven. Forty-four citizens subscribed to guarantee the pastor a salary of 258 dollars a year.

The course: Chute died on 28 December 1835; the Lutheran pastor Jesse Hoover carried on for all the Protestants until the second Presbyterian minister, Alexander T. Rankin, arrived in 1837 and set about building the town's first regular church structure — a white frame church on Berry Street between Lafayette and Barr, raised in 1837. In that little frame church both the Synod of Northern Indiana and the Presbytery of Fort Wayne were later organized. In 1844 ex-Governor Samuel Bigger helped choose a new site. The congregation has occupied five permanent quarters; its fifth and present church, at 300 West Wayne Street, was completed in stages between 1954 and 1967 and dedicated during the 125th-anniversary week of 22–29 April 1956. Membership rose from about 1,100 in 1950 to some 3,600 in 1970. First Presbyterian is, in the words of its own history, "the oldest, continuing congregation in Fort Wayne."

Sources:

1. First Presbyterian Church of Fort Wayne, "Our Roots" (firstpresfortwayne.org) — founded 1831, oldest continuing congregation, five quarters, the 1954–1967 building.
2. Allen County–Fort Wayne Historical Society, First Presbyterian Church in Fort Wayne (1959) — the 1 July 1831 minute book, the charter members, the 1956 dedication week.
3. History of Allen County, Indiana (1880) — Hamilton's 1828 appeal, Chute, eleven members, the pastors to 1880.
4. Hanford A. Edson, Contributions to the Early History of the Presbyterian Church in Indiana (1898) — seven members; Chute's biography.
5. B. J. Griswold, The Pictorial History of Fort Wayne, Indiana (1917), ch. XXIV — Furman 1829, the shelter of boards, twelve members, the 258-dollar subscription.
6. Michael Hawfield, "Church's programs ever-expanding," News-Sentinel Cityscapes, 15 November 1993.