175 Years
BUFFALO TWP — Members and guests at Buffalo Presbyterian Church, 678 Sarver Road, will be having a fourfold celebration Sunday.
The church will be marking its 175th anniversary, Reformation Sunday, Homecoming and All Saints' Day with special music, a returning pastor, a slide presentation and a dinner following the 10:45 a.m. service.
“Our 175th anniversary, Oct. 28, just so happened to coincide with Reformation Sunday,” said the Rev. Jean Smith, Buffalo Presbyterian's pastor.
“We'll have a litany to commemorate the Reformation, special music, a lot of our people are coming back and the Rev. Don Dawson,” she said, adding Buffalo Presbyterian was Dawson's first pastorate. He served from 1976 to 1982. He later went on to become head of missions at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.
His daughter and her husband, Michael and Rachel Ludwig, are mission co-workers in Niger, serving at the invitation of the Evangelical Church in the Republic of Niger.
Lifelong church member Jerry Bundy said, “Dawson presided at my marriage in 1976.”
Another lifelong church member, Elise Hinderliter remembered Dawson's tenure.
“We had a really good youth group when he was here,” she said.
Smith added Dawson was one of 35 pastors the church has had in its 175-year history, from the Rev. Abraham Boyd who organized the church in 1843 when the congregation met in a building constructed of logs, to herself who became pastor five-and-a-half years ago.
According to church history, Boyd arrived in Buffalo Township in 1833, after serving the congregation of Bull Creek Church in Allegheny County for 31 years.
He had services in the area around Benjamin Sarver's mill until Buffalo Presbyterian was organized in 1843, the first church in Buffalo Township.
The church is still in its original location although the building has undergone periodic renovations and additions.
That included the digging out of a basement in 1942, said Bundy.
“My grandfather helped dig out the basement,” said Bundy.
The basement is the church's fellowship hall and kitchen.
Longtime member Jean Wetzel said the church used the kitchen for community Thanksgiving dinners in the past.
Sunday the fellowship hall will host a potluck dinner after the service.“We are encouraging everyone to bring their old recipes,” Smith said.She said, “We will be acknowledging the memorial gifts of the last several years.In keeping with the All Saints observance, Smith said, “We will have a slide show with pictures on the screen of all the folks that have gone before us. We want people to be able to connect with their old friends.”Smith said she expects at least 70 visitors to attend Sunday's service in addition to the church's 55 current members.She said the church has been fortunate to have members and friends not hesitant to share their talents including the soloists and duet singers of the praise team and her husband, Paul, a shop teacher at Mars, who has helped refurbish the church's windows and pews.“Our Catholic neighbors across the street, Jim and Karen Walsh, have adopted us,” she said. “They put in our flower bed after feeling sorry for me, seeing me struggling with it.“When he first put it in, he put a statue of the Virgin Mary in the middle of it,” Smith said. “That caused some talk. We decided to keep it there in honor of Mother's Day, but then I went to them with an apple pie and said the statue is not in our tradition.”Smith said Christian faith is responsible for the church's longevity.“We keep trying to be the light on the hill. We keep our reformed faith,” she said.
4 Aug. 3, 1843 — Buffalo Presbyterian Church organized4 1843-1844 — Log church built for worship4 1867-1873 — Construction of present sanctuary4 1942 — Basement built under sanctuary4 1943 — Church renovated4 1944-1945 — Three rooms added to front of sanctuary4 1950 — Sanctuary remodeled4 1969 — Addition built4 1989 — Flat roof removed and new roof installed4 2017 — Metal roof installed
