Old Log Church, Schellsburg, PA

On Labor Day, as I was driving home from Blue Knob State Park, I happened across this lovely old church, built in 1808 and surrounded by a very old cemetery.

Known as the "Old Log Church," this place has a website and a Facebook page, neither of which is updated very frequently.  But I'd come across it several times in my Internet surfing.  It was a real surprise to see it sitting serenely amid its many graves, just west of Schellsburg on US Highway 30, also known as the Old Lincoln Highway.

 There are some interesting things to notice in the architecture of this wonderful old building.  First is the wineglass pulpit.  This building was shared by two congregations; one was German Lutheran and the other German Reformed (basically Presbyterian).  In the early 19th century, neither of these religious groups approved of unnecessary adornment in their churches.  But the fanciful wineglass pulpit served two functions: it made preaching central to the psychological space of the church, and it suggested the sacrament by its chalice-like shape.  In a way, the pulpit and the spoken Word become the Holy Grail.

 It must have been a powerful moment for the faithful of old when the minister, all dressed in black, in his powdered wig and preaching bands, mounted the stairs to the high pulpit.  Silence would fall as he opened the sacred text, the clear light of day illuminating him from behind.

And of course, the language would have been German.  Everything in this part of Pennsylvania is German.  The farms are tidy and meticulously kept--all very Teutonic.  The towns all have German names, as do most of the residents.

This is the view from that wineglass pulpit, looking down to the main floor--or nave--of the church.  Notice the stairs up to the gallery.

 Life on the frontier was hard and its luxuries few.  Can you imagine spending two hours of a Sunday morning on these straight-backed benches, and then coming back for another hour or so on Sunday evening?  Faith must have provided enough comfort in our ancestors' lives to make up for the stark discomfort of their churches.

 The view from the gallery, or balcony.  This is where servants, hired hands, and poorer folk would have sat--and the benches are even more torturous than the ones in the nave.  (Of course, there were no slaves in Pennsylvania by 1808.)  All told, you could squeeze a lot of people into this place, but the fire marshal would not be happy.

Some literature about this church makes the mistaken claim that it was the first Protestant church west of the Susquehanna River.  This is patently false.  We know of many churches in Washington County that were founded in the 1700s; Chartiers Hill Presbyterian dates back to 1776, but some are even older.  In Allegheny County, Old St. Luke's was founded in 1765.  Service Presbyterian Church, in Beaver County, goes back as far as 1790.  And First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh dates back to the establishment of Fort Pitt in 1758.  Ah, but erroneous claims to primacy notwithstanding, the Old Log Church is a beautiful spot, stately and serene.  And its cemetery could be worth many hours of discovery, if you have hours to give it--which I did not.