Northwestern Pennsylvania was opened for settlement in the latter part of the eighteenth century. The French had been driven out, the Indians were not militant, and a region rich in promise beckoned to the hardy pioneers. Venturesome Scotch and Scotch-Irish folk, with some English, crossed the Alleghenies and began to claim the territory as their own. Like Abraham, they were seeking "a better country" where they could worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences, and could bring up their children "in the fear and admonition of the Lord." They came afoot, or on horseback, or in dug-out canoes up the river from Ft. DuQuesne.

    Meager as was their equipment - rifle, ax, and simple household goods - they yet had room for the Bible and Psalm book, in order that they might continue the custom of family prayers. A few neighboring families would occasionally gather together for community worship. It was not long before itinerant preachers began going from settlement to settlement to hold services of public worship and to administer the sacraments. It would seem as though Presbyterians were in the majority in those early days, and here and there a Presbyterian Church would be organized.

    Rev. Elisha McCurdy and Joseph Stockton were sent into the region by the Ohio Presbytery in 1799. They recommended that a church be established in Meadville. In 1800, twenty-one year old Joseph Stockton and his young wife, located in Meadville, traveling over narrow forest trails on horseback with their worldly possessions on pack horses.

    Most of the settlers came to the southern part of the Presbytery by dugout canoe up the Allegheny. Nearer the lake, pioneers came over land from eastern New York and New England along crude forest trails bringing with them wives and children on horseback with a horse or two, sometimes a cow and a pig, a few chickens, an ax and rifle and a limited supply of cooking utensils. Early records indicate many of the people were of Scotch-Irish descent and brought a Bible with them and a strong desire for some organized form of religion.

    Land needed to be cleared, homes needed to be provided and fields for harvest must be cleared. Families worked together to provide these essentials for survival. Log cabins were built, perhaps no more than fifteen feet square and sometimes only with three sides to protect a family from the elements. Meager patches of corn, oats and potatoes and wheat were grown among the great stumps and roots of the partially cleared forest.

    These people speedily wrought clearings in the vast forest which surrounded their little log cabins. Immense monarchs of the forest were first girdled, then laid low, cut into logs and piled up on great heaps and burned up. Meager patches of corn, oats, potatoes and wheat were grown amongst the great stumps and roots. But the county was so much in the woods that one could see no sort of landscape from any point. The tall forest shut in the little clearings, and one could not tell how much was cleared, nor could one get any clear idea of what the country really looked like. There were no such vistas of fertile lands and bountiful crops as one may now see from the site of that first church building. Those "good old days" held much that was not thought particularly good for the pioneer who had been used to the conveniences of civilized community life "down east"; and the actual, physical conditions of the settlers were in many ways far from agreeable and comfortable.

    Right in the Middlebrook section, as in other places in the county, the provisions for feeding and housing the livestock were so poor that many animals perished from exposure and hunger. Thus the term "spring poor" held a very significant meaning in the pioneer life of the county. "Browsing" and nibbling the young shoots of the bushes and small trees was much resorted to by the cattle in order to eke out their scanty supply of winter food. Grain was too scarce to feed. Even the food supplies of the people themselves were often little more plentiful, and it was not an unusual occurrence for the head of the house to put a two-bushel bag of grain on his shoulder, which weighed 100 or more pounds, and walk off through the obscure woods trails for six, ten, maybe twenty miles to a mill to have it ground for his family use. A little patch of flax grew the fiber from which the family linens were made on the crudest of home-made implements; while later a few sheep grew the wool which, mixed with the flax fiber, made the "linsey-woolsey" garments of our esteemed ancestors. They tanned the skins of wild animals and made their own boots, for shoes were a real luxury; and even these, in warm weather, were carried nearly to the places of meeting and gatherings before placed upon their feet, in order to save them.

    When snows were deep, the father would often contrive a "dish-pan sled" from split strips of wood, and with a rude harness over his own shoulders, transport his small youngsters to some distant place of learning through the winding forest paths. This county was then no place for the indolent, the weak-minded and nerveless class of men and women. Those who attained settlements hereabouts were amply supplied with fortitude, courage and resolute wills which co-ordinated with magnificent physiques. The manners of the people were simple, open, hearty and extremely hospitable. They were, of course, simply and plainly clad in home-spun "linsey-woolsey, butternut colored clothing," but we must remember that "theirs was the age of home-spun." A day's work in the harvest field was equivalent to a bushel of wheat; and a pair of shoes were worth a cord of wood or of bark. The product of their labor and skill in the forest or in the field was, by the force of circumstances, their substitute for legal tender.

    The settlers had been in the Middlebrook a few short years when an earnest desire for community worship was realized. Some of the frontier missionaries were sent out by the Presbyteries of Redstone and Ohio.

    Rev. James Satterfield and Rev. Elisha McCurdy would be on hand on a Sabbath in August in 1801 at a point in the center of Venango Township. At the time appointed, the settlers built a rude pulpit under the spreading branches of a great birch beside a spring of clear and sparkling water.

    A letter from William Dickson of Lower Greenfield (North East) written to Rev. Johnston Eaton as follows:

    "Our house was the first place of worship erected in the county of Erie. It was on this wise: Mr. Satterfield had been sent into our neighborhood to preach a Sabbath. We fixed a kind of pulpit for him under a beech tree in the woods, and then notified every family in the congregation of his coming. We had a good congregation and enjoyed the meeting. At the close old Father Hunter" (Mr. James Hunter) "who had been an elder over the mountains, called a number of the young men together, and said: 'Boys' I want you all to meet me on next Thursday morning, early, at a certain land corner, and bring your axes and dinners with you.' We all knew what was wanted and at the appointed time were on the ground bright and early. The old man said in a brief speech: 'We must have a house of worship. The Lord will be with us if we serve Him. Now let us go to work.' And work we did with a will. The trees were cut down and cut into lengths, notched and laid up. Whilst some were doing this, others cut down a red oak and split a part of it for clapboards for the roof, and a part into puncheons for the floor, and so diligently did we work, that just as the sun was going down, the whole structure was complete. There was not a nail nor a bit of iron in the entire arrangement. The door was made of thin puncheons with wooden hinges and latch. Openings were cut for windows, but the windows not put in. Even the chunking and daubing was done, with seats and pulpit complete."

    "Yes, we found one of the nicest red oaks you ever saw to make the puncheons of. It split just like a ribbon, and when the strips of wood fell apart, they required very little dressing to fit them for their purpose. The breast work of the pulpit was simply a narrow strip of wood pinned to two upright strips, and all was complete. The truth is, we were real proud of our meeting house."

    "It would have done you good to have seen the meeting of the boys that evening, after the house was finished, around the red oak stump that had furnished the tree for the puncheons. Father Hunter made us another little speech; he said: 'Now boys, we've got a meetin' house, we must have preaching'; these ministers can't come here and preach for nothin', swimmin' streams and sleepin' in the woods at the roofs of trees, as Mr. Wood did, not long ago. We must raise a little fund to pay them for their work. Now I propose that we appoint a treasurer and raise a fund, giving twenty-five cents each."

    "This was good advice, and we at once began laying down our money on the stump, mostly laying down fifty cents apiece. When it came Father Hunter's turn, he laid down a dollar. Seeing this, one of the number took up his half and laid down a dollar instead. This was the beginning of a fund that was never exhausted whilst I continued in that congregation. The blessing of the Lord seemed to rest upon it." "I think too, that from that day to this, that tog meeting house has been a blessing to that entire region of country. It was a kind of center of attraction to people from the east, when seeking for a location. Indeed the land has all been taken up by people who wished to be within hailing distance of the meeting house. So that, from a temporal sense, that day's work was well spent, though we young people did not think much about it at the time. I think it was one of the times when we builded better than we knew."

    The original structure burned the following year, but was immediately replaced by a larger building. Supply ministers ministered to this first congregation until 1843. A substantial number of the congregation had gone to Wattsburg in 1826.

    On Sunday, September 27, 1801, the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was first administered in Erie County on the plantation owned by Mr. Dundass (North East Boro). Four ministers were present sent by The Presbytery of Ohio. A congregation of 300 gathered; about 40 communed. At that time, the congregation of Lower Greenfield (North East) was organized.

    The Erie County Historical Society and the Erie Presbytery celebrated the 125th anniversary of the erection of the first meeting house and the celebration of the first Lord's Supper in this county by Americans.

    The plot where the old church had stood was deeded to the Presbytery, the old cemetery plot was cleared and the memorial stone with the descriptive tablet was dedicated on Monday, September 27, 1926.

    The tablet is inscribed:

    "On this spot was built in 1801 the first meeting house erected in Erie County by American Citizens for the worship of Almighty God. The building was known as The Middlebrook Presbyterian Church. The first structure built in one day, destroyed by fire, was supplanted by a larger log building the following year, and this was in use until about 1843. This marker was erected in 1926, the 125th anniversary, by the Presbytery of Erie and The Erie County Historical Society."