The Presbyterian minister logged nearly 70, 000 miles in the wilds of Colonial America visiting scattered Covenanters. His feat was not by modern conveyance, but on horseback. It was not on established thoroughfares, but on frontier trails through forests and across swollen rivers. Further, it was not in safe corridors, but through pockets of hostile Indians and wild animals. What would motivate an individual to persevere in this mission?

The first Reformed Presbyterian minister in America was John Cuthbertson, who served between 1751–1791. The details of his ministry are derived from the remarkable diary he kept of his travels. While looking at his overall ministry, we also will look at his particular ministry to the Covenanter families who worshiped at the “Junkin tent” in central Pa., outside of New Kingstown, Pa.

John Cuthbertson was born April 3, 1718, in Scotland, of godly parents who were members of the Church of Scotland. He studied theology under the celebrated John Macmillan, who was deposed from the Church of Scotland after espousing Covenantal views. Ordained in 1747, Cuthbertson ministered to scattered Covenantal societies in Scotland before going to Ireland to do the same. In the spring of 1751, he was sent to America by the Reformed Presbyterian Church.

Arriving at New Castle, Del., on Aug. 5, 1761, after a 46-day voyage, Cuthbertson was accompanied by a colony of Covenanters. This included his sister’s family, Archibald and Janet Bourne, and their infant son, John. Cuthbertson spoke in praiseworthy terms of the providential care on this sea trip. He then traveled to the Pennsylvania–Maryland border, where he preached his first sermon in the home of Joseph Ross on Aug. 9.

The Scripture text was an interesting choice for a first sermon. It was Jonah 2:8, spoken by Jonah in the belly of the great fish. It reads, “They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.” Cuthbertson thus began his ministry with a plain call to the lost to recognize their sinful state. This clarion call would continue throughout his life and ministry. In 1878, there was a Biographical Sketch of the Rev. John Cuthbertson, written by two Presbyterian ministers A. S. Aiken and J. M. Adair. They state in that sketch that “he appeared to search diligently for souls—and endeavored to carry the gospel to his covenanted brethren, wherever he could find them or hear of them” (p. 6). This gospel proclamation continued during his 40-year ministry. It is obvious that “he came to proclaim Christ’s gospel to the perishing in America” (Aiken & Adair, ibid., p. 30).

John Cuthbertson also was called to edify the elect of God, found the Covenantal families. An internet definition of Covenanter is “a Scottish Presbyterian who supported two agreements, the National Covenant of 1638 and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643, intended to defend and extend Presbyterianism.” But that sterile definition doesn’t really define the spiritual convictions of these men and women in Scotland, Ulster, or the colonies of America. To confirm these two covenants was much more than their mere signing of a piece of paper, as they did in Scotland. It spoke of sacrifice, even to the point of death. And many of them died at the hands of the established Anglican church in the British Isles. Do an internet search for “Covenant Martyrs” or “Covenant monuments” on your computer. Or read the book Fair Sunshine by Jock Purves. The sacrificial faith of the Covenanters will be spread boldly before your mind and heart.

Countless Americans know of the terrible African slave trade in the early years of the U.S. Precious few of citizens, and even Christians, know of the terrible background of Covenanter slaves sent to this country for their faith. Yet in the period known as the Killing Years in the old country, such displacements of Covenanters took place in ships as squalid as those that shipped men and women of the black race. And while that was occurring, faithful bands of Covenanters in these terrible times worshiped outside, without benefit of buildings and ministers, for Christ’s crown and covenant.

With that background, it was not out of the ordinary for this hardy stock of Covenanters to worship in the American colonies in a “tent”—which was really a misnomer. It was not a physical structure, but the canopy of a large tree, with a wooden stand for the minister and another for a Bible, with rough pews for the people and nothing but the open sky for the roof. It was usually centrally located, near a byway, close to a Covenanter family.

Cuthbertson was also a family pastor. In his 40-year ministry, he married some 240 couples and brought under the covenant by baptism some 2,452 children. It was estimated that he interacted with 5,000 individuals in his total ministry. Eventually, Covenant congregations would be established and later formed into a Presbytery in 1774 with Matthew Lind and Alexander Dobbins, sent by the Reformed Church in Scotland after an earnest appeal by Cuthbertson.

All during this four-decade ministry, Cuthbertson used the Covenanter church in Middle Octorara, Pa., as his home base. He married Sally Moore on Feb. 25, 1756, and settled on a farm he bought the next year. Their happy union produced three children, none of whom married.

He went to be with the Lord in 1791, and is buried in the Lower Octorara graveyard. The headstone reads, “HERE LIES THE BODY OF THE REV. JOHN CUTHBERTSON, Who, after a labor of about 40 years in the ministry of the Gospel among the Dissenting Covenanters of America, departed this life 10th of March 1791, in the 75th year of his age. Psalm 112:6—The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance.”

A frequent stop for Cuthbertson during his ministry was the Junkin Tent, a place of worship for the Covenanter families outside of New Kingstown, Pa. He would visit this site of worship some 60 times.

The key Covenanter family was Joseph and Elizabeth Junkin. Joseph Junkin was of Huguenot ancestry. He was born in 1715 in Ulster and immigrated to the colonies with his two brothers in 1735. He met his Scottish wife in the colonies and married her in 1743. Living for a while in Oxford, Pa., he eventually moved to the “frontier” in Cumberland County, settling on 500 acres.

He was of hardy Covenant stock, with strong convictions in Calvinist theology and Reformed Presbyterian worship. Building his stone house overlooking the present village of New Kingstown, he raised a family of 8 boys and girls. Soon after they arrived, they established the Junkin Tent on their property. On Aug. 23, 1752, John Cuthbertson held the first communion outside of the British Isles at the Junkin Tent for 250 Covenanters. In the biographical sketch mentioned earlier, the historic communion is described.

The communion lasted five days, with worship services on three of the five days. The first day, Thursday, was a day of fasting, with a sermon by Rev. Cuthbertson. Tokens of admission were given to those qualified spiritually to partake, after an exhortation for that purpose. Prospective members were examined and received into the congregation. On Friday and Saturday, no public worship was conducted.

In the services on the Sabbath, Rev. Cuthbertson paraphrased the 15th Psalm and preached from John 3:35: “The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things in his hand.” After the sermon there was prayer and singing, and then the pastor spoke again about the sacrament, debarring some from the table while inviting others to the table of the Lord. The communicants came, singing the 24th Psalm, to sit at four tables as was the custom, to receive the elements of the supper. After the table services were concluded, he exhorted the communicants and led in prayer, and a part of the 103rd Psalm was sung. Then, after an interval of 30 minutes, another sermon was preached. The entire services of that communion Sabbath lasted nine hours. Before the worshipers started home on Monday, another sermon was proclaimed as a departing reminder from the Word of God.

We might well wonder whether God’s people today would endure such protracted services. Ministers Aiken and Adair in 1878 wondered the same question, commenting, “there would not be many left but the preacher, and most probably he too would feel like departing” (p. 30). But let us remember that our spiritual forefathers did not have the same privileges of weekly services as we do, or the access to countless Christian books and media outlets. What they had, they treasured, and exhibited a spiritual fervor which, with all our spiritual privileges, many professing Christians and churches lack today.

It is this event of the first Covenanter communion that a group of citizens will be remembering this year on Saturday, Aug. 21, when they will be erecting a Pennsylvania historical sign near the traditional site of the Junkin Tent. That site is on the northern edge of New Kingstown, in the parking lot of St. Steven Lutheran Church. The festivities begin at 10 a.m. Speaking in the afternoon at 1:30 p.m. will be Dr. David Weir, a Reformed Presbyterian ruling elder from Ridgefield Park, N.J., on the subject of “Covenanters: Then and Now.” The readers of the Witness are invited to this event.

—David Myers is a retired PCA pastor living in Central Pa. He is a member of the local committee that pursued setting up the Pennsylvania historical marker of the Covenanters’ communion at the Junkin Tent in 1752.