This engraving, done in the 1850s, identifies Reverend E.E. Pressly as Pastor of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in Due West, Abbeville County. The Associate Reformed denomination of Presbyterians had its origins in Scotland in 1733, when Ebenezer Erskine objected to the Scottish church "Lay Patronage Act," which gave the power to appoint ministers to large landholders. In America, Erskine's followers, who also withdrew from the Presbyterian Synods to become the Associate Reformed Church, were particularly strong in Pennsylvania and the South. The denomination's educational center is in Erksine College and Erskine Theological Seminary, also located in Due West (see Cheerleaders At Coeducational Erskine College), and there are many ARP churches in Chester and York Counties.
Courtesy of the South Caroliniana Library.
