City of Springdale History On-Line

"He is an avowed abolitionist of the most violent stamp and a known and open advocate of disruption...." So wrote Jared Stone, pastor of the Springfield Presbyterian Church, about his predecessor, Adrian Aten. The man Stone described as violent and disruptive in 1848 had preached the first sermon in the new and still unfinished church fourteen years earlier. During Aten's eight-year tenure, fifty new members joined the church, and when he left Springfield in 1841, the well-wishes of the community rang in his ears. Yet when Reverend Stone wrote the words quoted above, he believed himself to be in a struggle with Aten and the abolitionists for the soul of the community. It may seem that Stone exaggerated but the abolitionists evoked that kind of response.

The nation agonized over the question of slavery in the forty years before the Civil War, touching virtually every aspect of life and every community. Even those who opposed slavery differed over how to respond to the institution. Early anti-slavery advocates hoped a moderate program of education and persuasion would lead the South to emancipate its slaves voluntarily. Some disliked slavery but feared the presence of blacks in northern society even more, and advocated emancipation and colonization to Liberia. Others were militant abolitionists who saw slavery as such an evil that they demanded nothing less than its total repudiation.

The furor over slavery convulsed southwestern Ohio, an area that had strong social and economic ties to the South. With only a river separating Cincinnati from the slave-holding states, many runaway slaves crossed the Ohio in search of freedom. The issue of slavery was subject to ongoing debate. Tensions led to a three-day race riot in Cincinnati in 1829 during which a mob drove blacks who were in violation of the Black Codes, originally passed in 1802 to limit activities of free blacks. These laws required that blacks and mulattos living in Ohio have a certificate of freedom, and a bond for their good behavior and upkeep secured by two freeholders. The codes also excluded blacks and mulattos from the public schools and disallowed their testimony in court cases involving white persons. Although tied to the South economically and by the sympathies of many of its white citizens, the Cincinnati area also became a stop on the underground railroad and a center of anti-slavery activities. James G. Birney printed his anti-slavery newspaper, The Philanthropist, in Cincinnati. In 1831 a mob destroyed the paper's offices.

In Springfield men and women of influence had long been active in the anti-slavery fight. In April 1817 the Miami Presbytery appointed Reverend John Thompson as one of a committee of three to prepare a memorial "...on the subject of man-stealing and slavery." The presbytery tried to persuade the synod to ask the general assembly to make a statement on the subject. Although the committee failed in 1817, the following year Thompson went on another anti-slavery mission. This time he and two others persuaded the general assembly to deliver a statement against the sale of slaves. In a highly controversial move, the assembly made it the duty of the church to exclude from the sacraments those who dealt in the sale of human flesh.

Thirty-six hundred blacks lived in Hamilton County in 1850, the greatest number in any Ohio county, but only a few blacks lived in Springfield. According to census data, no blacks were reported in 1820. Ten years later, in 1830, a girl between the ages of ten and fifteen lived in the household of O.G. Stearns, and a man between the ages of twenty-four and thirty-six in the household of Anthony Hilts. Living in the household of white persons probably meant the girl worked as a domestic servant and that the man was a farm laborer or apprentice. Although questions of race and slavery may not have affected them personally, many people in Springfield, like other Americans, developed strong beliefs on these issues.

Runaway slaves on fleeing North to freedom found sanctuary with sympathizers at several safe houses. In the area around Springfield, the home of John Van Zandt of Mt. Pierpont, a village near Sharon, became known as Eliza House because it supposedly provided the inspiration for Harriet Beecher Stowe's famed Uncle Tom's Cabin. VanZandt, a former Kentucky slave owner who had freed his slaves and moved to free Ohio soil, did not hesitate to break the law in helping slaves to escape. In April 1842, after two of his Sharon neighbors discovered him with eight runaways in his wagon, he was turned in exchange for the reward offered by the slaves' owner. Salmon Portland Chase, the great Cincinnati attorney and abolitionist, volunteered to take the case and gave VanZandt a brilliant and impassioned defense. However, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against him and some observers felt Chase had ruined a brilliant career. Later, he became Secretary of the Treasury in the Lincoln administration and eventually the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. VanZandt, on the other hand, paid a high price for his convictions. He was imprisoned for a time and Eliza House was sold to pay his debts. The Methodist Church of Sharon barred him from its services.

Since most of the national churches split over the issue of slavery, it was not surprising that the Springfield schism over abolitionism arose in the church. On one hand, the abolitionist leadership came from the ranks of the evangelical ministry. At the Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, for instance, the ardent abolitionist Theodore Dwight Weld encouraged open debate on slavery, and students organized abolitionist activities in the community. When the seminary's administration sought to halt this activism, large numbers of students and faculty withdrew and transferred to Oberlin College. These abolitionist ministers and students of theology opposed any compromise or any accommodation to the evil of slavery. On the other hand, the national churches also had southern congregations and southern ministers who justified slavery from their pulpits.

Shortly after Reverend Adrian Aten left his Springfield pulpit in 1841 and settled at Red Oak, he "became enlisted in the abolitionist cause and entertained schismatical and revolutionary views," wrote Reverend Bergen in his history. Aten openly opposed the Presbyterian policy on slavery. For twenty years the Presbyterian church had asserted that chattel slavery was not in itself in conflict with moral law. The Synod of Cincinnati and the Presbytery of Chillicothe agreed, stating their opinion that slave holding was not necessarily a sin and should not prevent the slave owner from partaking in communion. In April 1845 when the general assembly of his church again refused to denounce slavery, Aten protested vehemently.

One year later, in April 1846, Aten's conscience led him to even greater extremes. At the Presbytery of Chillicothe, Aten denounced the general assembly's decision. Then he proceeded to attack the Synod of Cincinnati for approving and sanctioning the general assembly, risking his professional life. Yet his next proposal was even more drastic. He proposed a resolution to the Presbytery of Chillicothe that it separate from the general assembly and the synod until those bodies "returned to the principles of the word of God and the constitution of the Presbyterian Church." Chillicothe refused and Aten left the church he had served his entire adult life.

Arten returned to Springfield in February or March of 1848 but not to his old church. Rumors circulated that Aten returned because of an invitation from the strong anti-slavery contingent in the village. Stone himself felt that Aten knew of influential families "unhappy over the alleged existence and tolerance of slavery in the Presbyterian Church and that if an opportunity offered itself would withdraw." Some of these families were his own relatives. Aten's wife, Margaret, a member of the influential Long family, had extensive family connections with most of the Springfield elite.

Whether or not Reverend Aten went from house to house converting Springfield to the abolitionist cause, as Reverend Stone asserted, or whether he hired small boys as runners to canvass Springfield asking "are you willing that Mr. A. should preach here?" it soon became evident that Aten did, indeed, plan to establish an abolitionist church in Springfield. Aten hoped to affiliate with the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. In May 1848 the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church sent a committee to the field to inquire into the facts connected with Aten's proposal. In June 1848 it received Reverend Aten into the church by certificate from the Presbytery of Chillicothe. The group also granted a petition for the organization of a vacancy at Springfield. In October a call from the Springfield congregation for Reverend Aten was received and accepted.

The Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church originally formed when Scottish immigrants split from the main body of Presbyterianism in 1782. The ARP was the most assimilated of a number of such sects. In 1830, the Western Synod of that church, which governed the Springfield church, resolved slave-ownership to be incompatible with Christian doctrines. Officially, the ARP did not support any specific abolitionist society but "...her doctrine, her discipline, her public sentiment are all against slavery." The other synods refused to acquiesce in this resolution which led ultimately to another schism over slavery in the 1850s. By 1848, Reverend Aten had established "a thorough-going Abolitionist Church...in which all tender consciences may find repose!" Many of its members came from other congregations, angering ministers like Stone.

Those who left included:

Phoebe Ann Sebring Erase - gone to A

Lavinia Skillman Riddle " " " "

James Corrigan " " " "

________ Richie " " " "

Martha Ogden " " " "

Even two of Kemper's fellow elders, Thomas Q. Skillman and Balthus Rusk, joined Aten's new church.

In January 1849 the Associate Reformed congregation built a church on the site occupied today by the Springdale School. Unfortunately, no complete list exists of those who joined. In addition to the above, we have the church's records of those later received back in the fold. These include:

Elizabeth Huston

Mary Ann Hoel

Huldah Miller

Mary Symmes McCormick

Elizabeth Rusk

Catherine Watson

William Watson

Mary Brown

Archibald Brown

The ninetheenth-century historian of the Millcreek Valley, J. G. Olden, also lists the following:

Robert Watson

William Hoel

Edmund R. Glenn

The incomplete list--Bergen noted that fifty-one left so this list is approximately 40 percent of the total--makes it difficult to analyze the social composition of the new church. Certainly Reverend Stone considered that he had lost some of the more wealthy and influential members of his congregation. Judge Hoffman, in his history of the Presbyterian church, noted that the "defection of such wealthy patrons hurt the church." One wealthy member was Thomas Skillman, who, according to the census of 1850 owned real estate worth thirty thousand dollars. Another was Balthus Rusk, who listed his holdings at seventy-eight hundred dollars which would still made him solidly middle-class.

Many historians see a close association between abolition and the rise of modestly-wealthy middle-class manufacturers devoted to the principles of free enterprise and free labor, and separated from the established elites whose power they challenged. In Springfield specific data is lacking to test such a hypothesis. On the basis of very scanty evidence it would appear that the supporters of abolition in Springfield were farmers and it would be difficult to see Thomas Skillman as anything other than a member of the local elite.

There is another connection, however. In a small, closely-knit village such as Springfield, personal and familial quarrels tended to become entwined around the town's most important institution, in this case, the Springfield Presbyterian Church. For some time before the actual schism, it had been a church in turmoil. The "Old School" Presbyterianism of the Springfield church demanded strict moral conduct from its membership. Drinking, dancing, card playing, gossip and failure to observe the Sabbath were all quite serious offenses. Yet judging from the numerous church trials, reality was very different as "members were disposed to walk disorderly." At least that was what Reverend Stone found. In the eight years (1841-1849) that he served the church, there were forty-four cases of discipline, including nineteen for intemperance, five for breach of the fourth commandment, two for slander, eleven for lying, six for being absent from communion and six for quarreling. So many trials occurred that the local press labeled the church "the courthouse."

Two trials in particular left unhealed wounds in the community and reinforced existing anti-slavery feeling that paved the way for Reverend Aten's return. The first of these trials began on September 15, 1847 when charges of "Unchristian Conduct" were brought against Ann Gibson. Gibson supposedly made slanderous allegations concerning Reverend Stone's treatment of a girl who had been living with his family and who, it was alleged, had run away to Gibson's house. The session found Gibson guilty but the fact that the charges involved rumors about its pastor created dissension within the congregation.

The second trial involved a clash between two of the most important families in Springfield. On June 29, 1848 the church notified Lavinia S. Riddle that she had been charged with refusing to live with her husband. Witnesses included John Riddle and his son, John L. Riddle. When the decision went against her, Riddle appealed unsuccessfully to the presbytery stating that some of the testimony in her behalf had been left unrecorded. Thomas Skillman, the father of 22-year old "Liv," and a church elder, acted as her advocate. In that same month he left the church and joined Reverend Aten.

Reverend Jared Stone himself participated in an Presbyterian Anti-Slavery Convention held in Hamilton on September 17 and 18, 1844. With his friend, Thomas E. Thomas, he prepared an anti-slavery tract. Thomas later avowed that though his friend was not an activist, "throughout his life, Jared M. Stone was a staunch, reliable, moderate, intelligent, and outspoken abolitionist." Stone held to the doctrine of his church of non-interference in the affairs of the state. Furthermore, he feared that slavery would split Presbyterianism along sectional lines as it had sundered the church at Springfield. He wrote that although he might "abhor slavery," he could not see "abandoning those church relations in the south on account of the feelings of those who lived in the free states." On at least one occasion, a visiting minister at the Presbyterian church took up a collection to purchase, and later emancipate, a slave.

In the meantime, the Associate Reformed Church became the center for abolitionist activities. As a matter of policy, the church's leadership engaged "eloquent ministers who can proclaim the evils of slavery." On Sundays and during numerous revivals they came to Springfield to help Aten spread the abolitionist gospel. Not everyone in the village approved. Some people who resented the message expressed their anger by hurling stones through windows and open doors.

With the end of the Civil War, the Springfield Associate Reformed Church closed its doors on October 23, 1864. The Presbyterian Church welcomed back those who wished to return and one of the most tumultuous chapters in Springfield's history officially came to a close.