The Reluctant Reverend, Part I

Another blog sharing the text of presentations I made during the Bovina UP Church Bicentennial. This is part one of a two part entry covering some of my presentation about Bovina UP Church pastors on Saturday evening, October 10.

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In December 1831, a lame Scotsman hobbled into Bovina. What sounds like the start of a bad joke actually is the start of one chapter in the busy life of the Reverend John Graham. Graham had traveled up from New York City by steamboat, stage and sleigh to get to Bovina. And he was not impressed with his surroundings.

Graham had only arrived in New York a few weeks before this trek from New York after a nine-week voyage from Scotland. Graham had been sent to Bovina specifically as a preacher for the Associate Presbyterian Church congregation, having only recently received his appointment to preach for the Associate Synod of North America. The Bovina congregation had been without a regular pastor since the presbytery had removed its first pastor, Reverend Robert Laing, 8 years earlier in 1823, for reasons not totally clear.

Graham did not intend to become the second pastor. The people he met really wanted and needed his services. His first sermon in Bovina took place during a storm, but he still filled the church. But Graham wasn’t interested in staying. He had just come to America and wanted to review his options. He was not in love with the steep, nar¬row, rocky roads nor with the cold climate and the high mountains Bovina offered. And he thought some of the people he encountered had habits inconsistent with their religion. He felt he had neither the strength of body or mind to take on the job.

So Graham left Bovina, never expecting to return. He spent a relatively comfortable winter in Hebron, NY, in Washington County. Late that winter, he was appointed by the Synod to go to the Guinston Presbyterian Church near York, PA. He headed there in March of 1832, traveling via Albany, New York and Philadelphia. Graham liked what he saw. He saw people that were well trained in their religion and were at peace among themselves. And the congregation liked him - an elder went with Graham in May to the Synod meeting in Philadelphia to put forward their request that Graham spend a year as a supply pastor, with the idea of then putting out a formal call to him.

But upon arriving in Philadelphia, Graham was instead met by a representative from the Albany synod with a unanimous call from Bovina. Graham was stunned and staggered by the news. Before he had left Bovina, he had made it very clear that if they did put out a call to him that he would not accept it. He reviewed this turn of events. He really wanted to return to the people in Guinston. He liked them and they liked him. And he was certainly going to be more comfortable in an area that was more urban and near one of the largest cities then in America, not to mention a somewhat more comfortable climate. Bovina’s rocks and mountains and that cold weather were not inducements to head back north.

But in the end, Reverend Graham realized that he had to accept the call from the Bovina congregation. After all, it was the call in hand. He reflected on how often they had been disappointed and that they needed someone to “warn and instruct them, and keep them from falling in with the erroneous doctrines abounding.” So, with some fears of his ability to do the job, he reluctantly trudged back to Albany to prepare for his ordination. Graham was installed as the pastor of the Bovina Associate Presbyterian Church on October 31, 1832. He ended up staying as pastor for 21 years. His residency in Bovina was the longest of any place he lived throughout his 76 years.

Graham was born in 1793 in Montrose, on the east coast of Scotland. Living on the North Sea, he had the sea in his blood. When he was fourteen, he decided he wanted to be a sailor. Though his parents disapproved of this, Graham forged ahead spending some time at sea. After a few narrow escapes falling into the sea, his parents were able to convince him to go take the safer occupation of working for a farmer. Ironically, it was while farming that he received the injury that made him lame the rest of his life; while herding cattle one day, he was running, fell, and dislocated his hip. He spent a year recuperating at home and when he was able to go out, he needed crutches.

This farming accident limited him in what he could do as an occupation. By 1815, he was in Edinburgh working for a businessman. He spent a successful five years there but found the city detrimental to his health. He decided to go to College, then to Theological Seminary. He went to Crosshill, Ayrshire in the southwest of Scotland in 1825 to teach on the estate of Lord Alloway. Graham spent several comfortable years in this community as a teacher. He would have stayed longer, but one of the frequent splits and unions of the Scottish Presbyterian Church led to a need for more preachers and Graham was approached. He agreed to be trained as a preacher in the ‘Original Seceders’ branch of the church.

After his ordination, he spent a year traveling the length and breadth of Scotland and Northern Ireland preaching. It was not always easy – Graham often found himself short of funds. And remember, he was lame.

Everything changed in 1831 when Graham’s father died. He had often thought that he would like to travel to America, but his father was against this. With his father now gone, he decided to act on this desire. In May, he notified the Synod of his plans to emigrate. He preached his last sermon in Scotland in Glasgow that August and then traveled to Liverpool where sailed on September 1, 1831. Graham arrived in New York after a stormy nine-week voyage. He was in New York for a brief time before making his first trip to Bovina. He had been in the United States a little less than a year when he found himself somewhat reluctantly settled in Bovina.

Stay tuned for the conclusion of Reverend Graham's story in a future blog posting.