Book Description

Excerpt from History of the First Reformed Church, Canton, Ohio The First Reformed Church of Canton and its early pastors helped largely to make Reformed Church history in Ohio. The Church was in the midst of the problems, turmoils and movements of the last century. The author kept constantly before him a fourfold aim: First, to give the story of the humble beginnings and the growth of the First Church; secondly, to show the close relation between the First Church and the development of the Reformed Church in Stark County and beyond, through the congregations which were associated with it as a parish; thirdly, to sketch the religious movements and ecclesiastical battles in which the First Church took a leading part; fourthly, to indicate the conditions and the development of Canton from period to period. The gathering of the material was fraught with great difficulties. The first church record, kept in common by the Reformed and Lutherans before 1829, disappeared long ago. The first record kept by the Reformed Church alone after 1829, contains only a list of the baptisms, and several lists of communicants and confirmations. The second record containing the account of the congregational meetings, dates back only to 1859. This record unfortunately is so brief and incomplete, that it does not even mention the lawsuit of the Lutherans against the Reformed, nor the fact that a new church was being erected. The facts had to be literally dug out from many mines. The chief sources of information were the minutes of the synods, the classes, and various church organizations. All the minutes of the Eastern Synod from 1793-1830; the Ohio Classis from 1820-23; the Ohio Synod from 1824-1881; the Independent Synod of Ohio from 1846-1852; the Columbiana Classis; the North German Classis; the St. John's Classis; and the First Church and all its organizations, were examined page by page, and every piece of information that seemed of value was carefully copied out and used. The second important sources of information were the histories of Stark County, the earliest newspapers published in Canton, and the earliest church papers of Ohio. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.