Rev. Robert Cathcart, D. D.
Historical Biography

Rev. Robert Cathcart, D. D., deceased, was the son of Alexander Cathcart and Mary Walker, his wife. He was born in November 1759, near the town of Coleraine, Ireland, where his early education was conducted. He afterward became a student at the University of Glasgow, where he graduated, and having selected the ministry as his profession, studied divinity at that institution. He was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Route, and labored within its bonds for several years. Having an uncle in America , the Rev. Robert Cathcart of Wilmington, Del., he came to the United States in 1790, and joined the Presbytery of Philadelphia, filling various vacant pulpits in that vicinity. During this period he declined a call to Cape May, on account of its supposed unhealthful ness. In October 1793, he was installed pastor of the Presbyterian churches at York, Penn., and Round Hill, in Hopewell Township in York County, by the Presbytery of Carlisle. Of the latter church he was pastor for forty-two years, and of the former for forty-four years, preaching in each on alternate Sundays, while pastor of both. During these forty-two years, though the Hopewell church was distant from his home in York fifteen miles, he never failed when at home, to reach his pulpit, excepting on one Sabbath when ill. For thirty successive years he was yearly elected by the Presbytery to which he belonged its commissioner to the general assembly of that denomination, and for twenty years was stated clerk of that body. The degree of doctor of divinity was conferred on him by Queen’s, now Rutger’s College, New Brunswick, N.J. He was for thirty years a trustee of Dickinson College, Carlisle, and obtained from it the degree of doctor of divinity for Scott, the great Scriptural commentator. Always identified with and an active promoter of public education, he was one of the original trustees of the York County Academy, and president of the board for many years. Some years before his death he tendered his resignation as president, but the board declined to accept it. He was a liberal contributor to all the missionary and charitable enterprises of his own church, as well as to those not strictly denominational, such as the Bible and Tract Societies, and the American Sunday-school Union. It has been justly said of him that he taught his people liberality by example, rather than by precept. One of his successors wrote of him: “I knew Dr. Cathcart as well as a son could know a father, visited him daily for years, and, with the best opportunities for judging, can say that he was among the best and purest of our American clergy.” Another summing up his character, says: “He was remarkable for his honesty, liberality, gentlemanliness, philanthropy and form of government.” In 1776 he married Susan Latimer of Newport, Del. He survived her thirty-nine years, and died on October 19, 1849, leaving three sons and two daughters, of whom only one daughter is now living. Dr. Cathcart was a man of great learning, of board and liberal culture, and catholic views on all religious questions. Though ardently attached to the Presbyterian Church, in which he was born and to which he devoted his life, there was nothing narrow or sectarian about him. He was an orator in the ordinary sense of the term. His delivery was somewhat monotonous, and with little gesture and no attempt at rhetorical display; but the purity and elegance of his diction, the depth and breadth of thought, the originality displayed in his sermons, always attracted a large and attentive audience of the most cultivated and intellectual people in the town. His high personal and professional standing in the community, his long connection with the highest judicatory of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, and the influence he there exercised in molding and guiding the policy of the church, make it eminently fitting that he should be selected as the representative of Presbyterianism in his work. In the great schism, which rent the Presbyterian Church in twain about 1837, Dr. Cathcart was an earnest advocate of the liberal or “new school” side. The trial of Rev. Albert Barnes for heresy by the synod of Pennsylvania, took place in the York Church. One of the few lawsuits concerning church property growing out of that schism was instituted by the “old school” minority of the York congregation to recover the church and parsonage property. It was tried in 1841 before Judge Hayes of Lancaster, Messrs. Mayer and Chapin being of counsel for the “new school” party, and Messrs. Hambly & Mason for the “old school,” and the former gained the suit both in the court below, and the Supreme Court. The cause is reported in 1 Watts’ and Serjeants’ Reports.


Taken from the book, “History of York County, Illustrated 1886” by John Gibson, Historical Editor