This Historic Day in Warminster in the Year 1889...

Where many dignitaries attended and spoke, including President Benjamin Harrison, Postmaster-General John Wanamaker, the Presidents of Lafayette and Hampden-Sidney Colleges, and Governor Beaver of Pennsylvania

"Sept. 5th was a pleasant day. At an early hour the roads were blocked by vehicles of all descriptions. Soon the special trains from the city brought their multitudes, who had been attracted by the announcement of the ovation prepared for the President along the road which he must drive over to reach the Tennent farm......At 8.30 the Presidential party entered carriages in the following order: President Harrison and Mr. Wanamaker; Mrs. Harrison and Gov. Beaver.......The journey up the Old York Road at once began.......flags fluttered from houses and stores, and amid the din of ringing church-bells and cheering throngs the residents waved their welcome from every window and doorway......Telegraph-poles, fences, trees were blazoned with the tricolor. Houses and barns were covered with bunting......They [Grand Army men] cleared the road......Under their guidance the President reached the grounds at last, again to be greeted by the twenty-five thousand there assembled......It was a memorable morning. When the Presbyterians of this vicinity forget it, their piety will have languished and their patriotism been lost.

The day chosen for the celebration was fair and beautiful, the sky clear, a refreshing breeze blowing from the south-east all-day, and the sun not oppressive. As early as six o’clock in the morning carriages began to arrive on the grounds. An hour later all roads leading to the place were filled with vehicles; an unbroken procession extended up from Jenkintown, and another as long came down the York Pike.

The celebration was held on historic ground formerly owned by the Rev. William Tennent, and not far from the site of the Log College. Mrs. Cornelius Carrell, the present owner of the farm, very generously offered to the Presbytery a beautiful field of twenty-five acres for such uses as were desired. This field is just west of the house in which Mr. Tennent lived in Warminster township......The site selected for the celebration was most convenient for all purposes.......three large tents were placed, affording seats for five thousand three hundred persons, and during the exercises not less than three thousand more were standing outside close by, listening to the speeches.......The platform erected under the middle tent.....were seated the speakers and invited guests.....The patriotic and floral decorations of the platform and tent were very beautiful.

At the hour of commencing the exercises every available seat was occupied, the aisles were crowded and numbers were pressing upon the outer edges of the tent........

R. M. Patterson, D.D., LL.D., of Philadelphia......The same heavens are over us to-day that were one hundred and sixty-five years ago. The same green pasture-fields...where the sons of the prophets abode are around us. The old beautiful scenes of Nature are still here. But the little rustic log building....has disappeared. From it, however, were developed not merely Princeton College and Seminary, Lafayette and Hampden-Sidney, which are to be heard from to-day, but all the colleges and theological seminaries which are training the young men of the Church for its ministry. It still lives in each and all of them. And its site is still here. Verily it is sacred. The place whereon we stand is holy ground."

Extracted from "The Presbytery of the Log College; or, The Cradle of the Presbyterian Church in America" by Thomas Murphy, D.D., Appendix