(Receive our blog posts in your email by clicking here. If the author links in this post are broken, please visit our Free PDF Library and click on the author’s page directly.)
An ordinary traveller passing along the turnpike that winds southward through the county of Bucks in Pennsylvania would take no particular interest in a certain empty field lying on his left; but were he a lover of history he would stop short and gaze earnestly, for in the middle of a potato-patch, just where a knoll rises, stood once the structure that has become famous to posterity as the Log College.
So begins a fascinating account of “A Week in Log College Country” by Charles Spencer Richardson, Jr. which appeared in The Nassau Literary Magazine (April 1903). Drawn to the same history which inspires us here at Log College Press, Richardson tells the story of William Tennent, Sr. and his famous academy. Moreover, he recounts how he came to hold in his hands the original 1735 deed to the property upon which the Log College stood, as well as Tennent’s 1746 last will and testament and the inventory of his goods which was taken after his death.
The sun was touching the hills when I drove on down the turnpike and stopped before a large, colonial house in the village of Hatborough. An elderly lady answered my ring and in response to the query whether she knew of any documents connected with the Tennant property, said that there were some old papers in the garret but that she had not examined them. She soon returned with several musty, yellow parchments which she gave to me with the remark that they were of no possible benefit to herself….In a foot note to his History of the Neshaminy Church, written about 1850, the Rev. D. K. Turner mentions the documents, but for over half a century they have lain untouched in the attic of the Carrell house and owing to the fact that they are of parchment, they are as legible as on the day when they were written, one hundred and sixty-eight years ago.
The memory of William Tennent and the Log College has been kept alive by many — and especially today by the William Tennent House Association. But the story of a drive through Bucks County, Pennsylvania over a century ago and what Richardson learned and discovered on that trip, makes for fascinating reading today for those who treasure the heritage of the first American Presbyterian theological seminary. That story, along with the documents mentioned, can be read here.
