First Presbyterian Church

First Presbyterian Church. . , The first Presbyterian minister to conduct services at Fort Wayne was the Rev. Matthew Wallace, an Ohio pastor who served as chaplain to the army under General William Henry Harrison during the War of 18 12 and accompanied the troops in the relief of the besieged garrison here., Presbyterians were the first Protestant denomination to send a minister to the English-speaking settlers in Fort Wayne; the Rev. John Ross visited the newly platted town five times between 1822 and 1826 but found the place "unpromising.” Even so, the Presbyterians organized the first Sunday School in 1825 and in 1829 became the first congregation to secure a resident minister and build a meetinghouse (1836-1837). Its pastors founded the town's first total-temperance, tract and Bible societies and were the first to advocate the abolition of slavery; its members were the first in Fort Wayne to grant women the right to vote at congregational meetings (1847). It successively erected churches on the south side of Berry Street between Lafayette and Barr streets (1836), on the southeast corner of Clinton and Berry streets (1848), and on the northeast corner of Clinton and Washington streets (1886), before erecting the present facilities (1952-1967)., The first building of First Presbyterian Church. (Griswold, Pictorial History of Fort Wayne, I, p.324).