Historic Paxton, her days and her ways, 1722-1913

After Mr. Williamson left us we had supplies all winter from Princeton Seminary, and the next summer Mr. Alexander Essler preached for us four months, and he recommended Mr. Luther Davis, who came in 1895. We all liked him so much! The church moved under him and has kept moving ever since, under Mr. Pickard and our present pastor, who has labored so faithfully among us for seven years. Mr. Pickard, by the way, was the only minister of Paxton since old Parson Elder who ever married one of our girls ; and he didn't do it until after he had left us. Do I remember when the Sunday School started? No, I don't; but it must have been over seventy years ago, for I attended Sunday School when I was a little child. We met in the main room of the church, and Miss Ann Elder, daughter of Widow Elder, was my first teacher. Mr. Robert Elder, a grandson of a brother of old Parson Elder got up the school. He lived where Dr. Kauffman lives now, on one of the old Parson's farms. It had been left to him by his father's cousin Robert, rather than to the stepnephews. Those wills of Joshua and Robert Elder stirred up quite a bit of feeling in the old days. But all that has nothing to do with the Sab- bath School. It was held only during the summer months. It is only in the last twenty years that we have had the school all the year around. There was always a great scarcity of material for teachers and some of them were very young. We used to make a great deal of the Shorter Catechism and everv one of us had to know it, and all the explanations, too, by heart. Miss Ann Elder and her sister led the singing, "raised the tune'^ we called it then, and they later led it in church. What about our music, wasn't I in the choir? Indeed, I was! The choir was started by Miss Matilda Brown in 1856, in the house of old Parson Elder. We used to meet round in different houses for choir practice. I was a charter member and sang in it for thirty-five years. The first hymn book I remember was Rous's Version of the Psalms and Hymns. How we used to shout those good old hymns! No rag-time and such things like they use for God's service nowadays. When I first remember much. Elder Jordan "raised the tune." He took the fork after David Espy, who was precentor for many years. And after him came Joshua Elder. They would give us the note with a tuning fork and we would all follow in like a flock of sheep. David Elder was our first choir leader and the singers were Miss Matilda Brown, Miss Lucy Rutherford and myself sopranos, the Misses Sara and Jennie Rutherford, altos; James Elder, tenor, and William S. and John A. Rutherford, bass. At first we sat in the front pew of the church, then the choir stirred up things and the gallery was built over the vestibule and we all went up there. That was the first time we had a melodeon and we took up a collection to buy it. We never had an organ until after the big changes in the church in 1887. I remember we bought a new melodeon for the square box that was built for the choir on the floor of the church because the congregation was getting so small and none of the young people would sit down stairs. Mrs. Wilhelm gave us the organ we use to-day, back in 1888, and Mrs. Boyd and I chose it.