Updated 10/20/17
McKeesport, Pa., seems an unlikely location for an ecclesiastical revolution, but one occurred there in 1888. McKeesport is located where the Youghiogheny River joins the Monongahela River, southeast of Pittsburgh. In the late 1700s, Reformed Presbyterians had settled along the “Yough” and formed societies, and then a congregation, which daughtered the McKeesport RP Church in 1882; it closed in 1918.
In 1888, the McKeesport RPC held an election for deacons, and a woman, Miss McConnell, was chosen. Since the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America did not at that time permit women to be ordained to the office of deacon, the session sought the counsel of the Pittsburgh Presbytery.
The presbytery in turn sought the counsel of Synod, which permitted the ordination and installation of Miss McConnell to the office of deacon by approving the following recommendation of its Committee on Discipline: “[S]uch ordination is[,] in ...