About Us

Bensalem Presbyterian Church

2826 Bristol Road, Bensalem, PA

   Office: 215.757.7800

eMail: oldbenpres@verizon.net

 

Minister: The Reverend Kenneth B. Wonderland

Minister eMail: Minister.oldbenpres@verizon.net

 

Minister House Phone: 215.741.1236

Music Directors:  Dimitri & Lenore Kauriga

Church Secretary:  Sally Basdeo

 

Clerk of Session:  Diane Lange

Church Treasurer:  Robert Gilmer

Sunday School Superintendent:  

 

Bensalem Presbyterian Church is recognized by the Presbytery Philadelphia, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as being organized in 1705 and is one of the few Colonial era Presbyterian congregations in the region still worshiping in its original site. The grounds were deeded    to the congregation in 1711. The original document, written “in the Tenth year of the      Reign of Queen Anne over great Brattain,” is still in existence and is carefully treasured.

The first church members were Dutch-speaking Calvinists who were soon joined by English-speaking Presbyterians. The Dutch Reformed congregation formally withdrew in 1730, leaving the Presbyterians with this location. The surviving records of both congregations, rich with genealogical information, are on deposit with the Presbyterian Historical Society in downtown Philadelphia.

The current stone church, built sometime in the early 1700s, replaces an earlier wooden structure believed to have been located closer to the cemetery. The cemetery, now        closed, contains marked graves dating from the Colonial era and the remains of both Revolutionary and Civil War veterans.

The old sanctuary was gutted to the walls by a major fire in 1906. The struggling congregation rebuilt within a few years, and was even able to grow as Bensalem    Township made the transition from a farm community to a Philadelphia suburb. It added    an educational wing with classrooms, kitchen, and fellowship hall to the rear in the late 1950s. The current interior was extensively remodeled and modernized in the 1960’s.

Always small, this historic congregation has had one brush with greatness. From 1726,    the Reverend William Tennent, while minister of the yoked congregations of Bensalem    and Neshaminy, conducted a school for the Classical instruction of his four sons as        well as those of the area gentry. Over two decades, his academy evolved into the famous “Log College,” the direct ancestor of Princeton University. 

 

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