It's always interesting to see how a particular time period understood itself - where it was, how it got there, and where it was going. We've just uploaded two classic histories of the Presbyterian Church: Richard Webster wrote in the middle of the 19th century about the Presbyterian Church from its founding till 1760. George Hays wrote at the end of the 19th century about the entire history up to his day. Hays' work is unique in that he asked authors from the respective Presbyterian denominations of that time to write the history of their particular church (i.e., Moses Drury Hoge writes the history of the Southern Presbyterian Church).
William Henry Foote's Sketches of North Carolina and Virginia
You don't have to live in North Carolina or Virginia to be curious about the founding and progress of the Presbyterian churches in these states. To read accounts of God's work from the perspective of a pre-Civil War minister of the gospel, check out the writings of William Henry Foote (1794-1869). He was a native of Connecticut who pastored in North Carolina and Virginia. In the 1840s and 1850s he wrote historical sketches of the most significant events and personalities from those two states, and toward the end of his life he wrote a volume on the French Huguenots. Without his books, there is much we would not remember about early Presbyterian history.