With the recent death of Pastor Kenneth G. Smith, it seems fitting to look at the history of the congregation he first pastored, which is now North Hills (Pittsburgh, Pa.) RPC.

RPs settled in what is now metropolitan Pittsburgh very early. Pioneering RP missionary John Cuthbertson crossed the mountains to visit the sizable RP settlement at the city of Monongahela in 1779. When the Reformed Presbytery ordained John Black in 1800, he was installed as pastor of the “Ohio” congregation, based in Pittsburgh, and the congregation grew rapidly.

Nearly everyone adhered to the “New Light” movement in 1833, but the remaining members grew quickly and built a new church across the river in downtown Allegheny in 1836. It grew rapidly, reaching nearly 400 communicant members by 1866, when members in Pittsburgh became a separate congregation. Four years later, a split led to the formation of the new Central Allegheny congregation. These three continued growing, reaching 750 members by 1891, but they were affected by the RPCNA’s long decline in the 20th century.

Pittsburgh and Central Allegheny merged in 1928, forming the “Central Pittsburgh” congregation, which built a large structure near the old Central Allegheny building, while the Allegheny congregation moved up the hill to the vicinity of the RP Home. In 1930, they had 245 and 110 members, respectively.

For the following several decades, Central Pittsburgh was one of the RPCNA’s flagship congregations, while Allegheny was a more typical church. Although the seminary was located much closer to the suburban Wilkinsburg congregation, it moved its operations to Central Pittsburgh during an extensive renovation project in the 1950s. Ken Smith was pastor here for five years, from 1952 to 1957.

In the mid-1960s, the city of Pittsburgh decided to conduct a major urban renewal effort in central Allegheny. Some older buildings were unaffected, including the previous Allegheny church (now owned by the local electric company), but Central Pittsburgh was forced to move. Like many other churches at the time, they chose to leave the city entirely and built on a completely new site on Thompson Run Road in Ross Township. Due to their new location, they were renamed North Hills. Further decline in the Allegheny congregation, due partly to urban flight, prompted its merger into North Hills in 2001. Since then, the united congregation has grown, and many members of North Hills RPC were joyfully dismissed to found the new Grace (Gibsonia, Pa.) congregation in 2009.