John Fea, who teaches history at Messiah College in Pennsylvania, will discuss “New Jersey Presbyterians and the American Revolution” Sunday at the 11th annual Mary Tanner Lecture, sponsor
By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
John Fea, who teaches history at Messiah College in Pennsylvania, will discuss “New Jersey Presbyterians and the American Revolution” Sunday at the 11th annual Mary Tanner Lecture, sponsored by the Lawrence Historical Society.
The lecture is set for 2 p.m. It will be held in Sweigart Auditorium on the Rider University campus. The lecture is being co-sponsored by the Rider University History Club and Phi Alpha Theta, the national history honor society.
The annual lecture series is named for the late Ms. Tanner, who was a longtime supporter of Lawrence history and co-founder of the Lawrence Historical Society, and the first woman to serve on Lawrence Township Council.
Lawrence Township, which was originally known as Maidenhead, is located in what was the province of West Jersey, said Lawrence Township Historian Dennis Waters. West Jersey was settled mostly by Quakers, but many Presbyterians settled in Maidenhead, he said.
Presbyterianism runs deep in Lawrence Township, Mr. Waters said, noting that there are three Presbyterian congregations in Lawrence — the Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville, the Lawrence Road Presbyterian Church and the Slackwood Presbyterian Church.
It is not possible to understand the American Revolution in New Jersey and the larger mid-Atlantic region without recognizing the vital role played by the leaders and members of the Presbyterian Church. Many members of the Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville participated in the Revolutionary War and are buried in the cemetery outside the church.
Mr. Fea does not believe that the early Presbyterians of New Jersey get enough credit for their role in the American Revolution, and he will try to correct that oversight in his lecture Sunday afternoon, Mr. Waters said.
Mr. Fea earned a master of divinity degree in divinity and a master’s degree in church history from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Ill., and a Ph.D. in American history from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
Mr. Fea’s scholarly and teaching interests center on early American and early American religious history, according to his website, www.philipvickersfithian.com. He is a professor of American history and the chairman of the history department at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, Pa.
He is working on a book about the religious history of the American Revolution that is tentatively titled “A Presbyterian Rebellion: The American Revolution in the Mid-Atlantic,” according to his website.