Church," services were held in private dwellings, public halls, and in the court-room on the second floor of the first court-house,—a two-story brick building which stood on the west side of the Diamond where the market-house now is. It had a wooden steeple and bell, which on Sundays became a "church-going bell" and urged the populace to "Come to church!" Be it remembered that on January 8, 1800, the official services attending the mock funeral of Washington were held in this "upper room," devoted alike to law and religion, the Episcopal service being read by the Rev. Mr. Sample and an oration delivered by Colonel Presley Neville; the whole attended with much ceremony.
"Father" Taylor, like the Rev. John Henry Hopkins (a later incumbent, afterwards first Bishop of Vermont), was not originally a member of the Episcopal Church, but, through the influence chiefly of William Cecil, was induced to take orders and come here. He was, according to Bishop Scarborough,[1] a man of strong mind, more fond of natural science, perhaps, than of theology; and such was his love of astronomy that he sometimes spent the entire night in the open air, watching the movements of the heavenly bodies. He made the astronomical calculations for Cramer's "almanacks" and others of a later date, and helped eke out a livelihood by teaching school, being an assistant instructor in the old Pittsburgh Academy. Mr. Cuming, in his "Sketches of a Tour to the Western Country," characterizes him as an able mathematician, a liberal philosopher, and a man of unaffected simplicity of manners, and describes his discourses as good moral lectures, well adapted to the understanding of his hearers. One of his sermons being too long for the morning service, he stopped, saying, "Brethren, we'll resarve the rest for the afternoon's divarsion." "Father" Taylor was killed by lightning at Shenango, Pennsylvania, in 1838, where he is buried in an unmarked grave.
The first election of vestrymen recorded in the early
- ↑ The Sermon preached at the Farewell Service in Old Trinity Church, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 3, 1869, by the Rector, the Rev. John Scarborough. P. 21. Pittsburgh: J. R. Weldin & Co., 1869.
