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ate Church in Edinburgh, stating the destitute situation of Kentucky with respect to the enjoyment of gospel. ordinances, and praying Synod to send them ministerial aid. As an answer to the petition, Messrs. Robert Armstrong, and Andrew Fulton, licentiates, were dained to the office of the holy ministry in Scotland, and were directed to proceed to Kentucky, and there constitute themselves into a Presbytery, and take under their pastoral inspection what churches they could organize in that distant and supposed heathen land.

These brethren arrived in Kentucky in March 1798, and found a considerable portion of the adherents of Mr. Rankin ready to renounce all connexion with him, and put themselves under the government of the Associate Church.

Mr. Armstrong settled in Scott county, and had three respectable congregations, viz: two in Scott and one in Fayette. In 1802 or 3, a plan was formed, that these congregations should move in a body into the state of Ohio, where they might, free from the evils of slavery, and in a more compact situation, enjoy the ordinances of the gospel to greater advantage than they had been able to do in Kentucky. This plan was in the course of a year or 18 months happily executed, by their obtaining a settlement in the county of Green, state of Ohio, on the head waters of the Little Miami.

Mr. Fulton settled in Henry county, and had three small congregations in Henry, Shelby, and Jefferson. He also, with a considerable portion of his people in 1810 or 12, crossed the Ohio, and settled in the state of Indiana.

Both these servants of the Redeemer are now called home. They were learned and pious men, and lived and died at their work. Their labour was not lost. The congregations which they collected, and organized, and watched over, remain, and are again furnished with other pastors.

No. 5.

FIRST SETTLEMENT ON SALT RIVER-ORIGIN AND PRESENT STATE OF NEW-PROVIDENCE AND HARRODSBURGH CHURCHES. -(Facts furnished by Rev. THOMAS CLELAND.)

On the 10th of May, 1773, Joseph M'Afee, George M'Afee, Robert M'Afee, James M'Coun, and James and Samuel Adams, left their place of residence, Bottetout county, the then colony of Virginia, to explore the western country, now called Kentucky. They fell in company with Thomas Bullit and Hancock Taylor, two surveyors, who were about to descend the Ohio, to survey the proclamation warrant of 1763. The M'Afee company, with the aforesaid Taylor, made the first survey ever made on the Kentucky river, and which is the tract on which Frankfort now stands. It was made 16th July, 1773, and on Wednesday 28th of the same month, they made the survey for James M'Afee, on

which he afterwards resided till his death. And of this tract the church of New-Providence now stands.

The M'Afee company returning to their native home, a variety of circumstances; but principally British and Indian hostilities, prevented them from moving with their families as soon as they had contemplated. At last, however, on the 17th of August, 1779, they, with several other families and individuals, left the settlement in Virginia, and arrived on the 1st of October following on Salt river, where they formed a station known' ong after, and even to this day, as M'Afee's Station. At this place and on their adjoining farms they resided alternately for years, as they were obliged or permitted by the movements of the Indians with whom they had frequent conflicts with occasional loss of lives and property. But divine providence interposed in their behalf, so that they finally triumphed. .

The neighbourhood became strengthened by the ac cession of others to the original company. Haying enjoyed a religious education, and the most of the heads of families having been actual members of the churches from which they had emigrated, a desire to enjoy the ordinances of the gospel was pretty prevalent among them. But no minister of the gospel had yet visited them:

It was in the month of Oct. 1783, that Mr. Rice arrived with his family at Mrs. M'Brides, on the waters of Dick's river, a few miles south east of Harrodsburgh. Ile afterwards purchased land and settled on Harrod's run, nearer Danville, at the place now occupied by Edward Worthington, Esq. Winter soon setting in, he

was unable to visit the country any considerable distance, but preached in private houses around his own dwelling and in Danville. During the following summer a house of worship was built for him in Danville, the first in the state-and a church organized, as has been already stated in his Memoirs.

On the 4th of June (the birth-day of George III.) Mr. Rice preached the first sermon which was ever preached on Salt river. It was a funeral discourse, occasioned by the death of the wife of James M'Coun, sen. It was delivered on the bank of the river, near his house, where she was buried. He returned to the fort next day, and, as his custom was, catechised as ma. ny as had turned their attention to religious matters. The next day being Sabbath, June 6th, he preached his second sermon in that region in a large double hewed log house at the Station.

Early in the spring of 1785, twelve men* met, by ap pointment, on a branch of Salt river, near the place where the present New-Providence church now stands, to agree on a place to erect a house for the double purpose of a school house and a place of worship. Two places were offered, with two acres of ground annexed to each. One by James M'Afee, and the other, a mile farther down the river, close by an elegant spring, by James M'Coun. After free consultation and debate, the former was accepted, 7 to 5, and soon after their

* Eleven of these were James, George, Samuel and Rob ert M'Afee, John and William Armstrong, James M'Loun, sen, and James M'Coun, jun. Joseph Lyon, J. Buchan nan, and John M'Gee.

corn was planted, they erected a log cabin, 20 by 18, on the spot selected.

Here Mr. Rice preached once a month for several years, and in these days it was a uniform practice for all the male inhabitants to carry their guns with them to meeting, to guard themselves and the congregation from the Indians while they listened to this man of God preaching to them the word of life. It was to preserve the remembrance of many signal favours and providen. tial deliverances from the hand of a savage foe, that the church when it was organized assumed the name of New-Providence.

The congregation having increased, a new house was found necessary. This was accomplished in 1790. It was built of hewed logs, of two lengths, united at the middle by gutter posts, and in 1803, it was found necessary to enlarge it still farther by taking out one of the sides. The present building is of brick, 60 by 45, substantially built, and handsomely and commodiously finished.

The first regular pastor of New-Providence church was a Mr. Mahon, from Virginia. His conduct and character turning out to be not according to the gospel of Christ, his connection with them was dissolved by Presbytery, Oct. 5th, 1798. Previous, however, to this event, the congregation had also suffered severely by the unhappy controversy about Psalmody already referred to in our Sketch of the Associate Reformed Church. Nearly the one half of the congregation on the occasion declared for Mr. Rankin.

In 1784, a house of worship was erected, and a church organized at Cane Run, on the land of captain

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