Our congregation appreciated being led in worship Sunday October 12 by a group of fourteen persons who volunteer their service to promote the wonderful benefits of the Camp Donegal experience for young people and adults.  They filled the whole hour’s service with drama and prayer and presented a variety of songs of praise and devotion with instruments and beautiful voices.  Leader of the Worship Team is Amy Wade who also serves as director and counselor of Camp Donegal.  Pastor Tom provides a variety of services there also.

            Kari Labagh was a member of and the choreographer for the Elizabethtown Area High School dance team that won the home routine showcase at the Eastern Dance Association summer camp at the University of Maryland.  They also won ribbons for spirit and performance.

            Nancy Landis has been instrumental in organizing an art cooperative called Heritage Artisans Guild.  The guild focuses on historical trades, crafts and art forms to be exhibited and sold at the Winters Heritage House Museum, Elizabethtown where Nancy is also the program manager.  Her specialty is watercolor painting and fractur.  One of her entries at the E-town Fair depicted sheep shearing and was awarded Best of Show.  The sheep at the Landis family farm recently produced twin lambs for which Nancy was present to supervise.

            Marlene Arnold is the new president of the Donegal Society, only the fourth female to head the society in its soon 100-year history.  Newly named vice presidents are Paula Leicht and Harvey Miller who is a Lancaster attorney.  Noble Johnson and Bruce Limpert continue as very competent treasurer and secretary, respectively.  The society welcomes church members to join the group that annually provides $5000 for maintaining Donegal’s trees and grounds and has been a constant mainstay of the church since its 1911 organization.

            Our congratulations to Jeff Witman on his receipt of a Distinguished Service Award from the National Theraputic Recreation Society.  Jeff is an associate professor in the department of behavioral sciences at York College.

What good things have you seen or heard recently?

Every October on World Communion Sunday I think of a little church in the Central African Republic where I took communion some thirty-odd years ago.  I was a Peace Corps volunteer at the time and had hitched a ride with a missionary out to my post several hundred miles from the capital of Bangui.  Transportation was very hard to find and both Protestant and Catholic missionaries kindly helped volunteers reach their various posts in the bush.  I don't recall the name of the village where we had stopped for church that morning or even the particular denomination of the missionaries who had so generously carried me on their own journey out to the bush. But I can feel, as if it were yesterday, the sense of peace and love I felt knowing that my own church family at home was taking Communion on this very same day.  More important to me today, is the memory of that tiny little Christian congregation, sitting on a dirt floor, with none, absolutely NONE, of the material securities with which I had grown up, praying the same prayer of Communion, sharing the same bread and juice, that people at home were sharing.  What also remains in my mind is their prayers of thanks for all of the churches around the world who were sharing in this day of World Communion.  It made it all so real, that at home, when we send our thank offerings, when we say our prayers, when we share Communion on World Communion Sunday, it is real. The Church is one foundation, and we are all one family of God.         (Sally Harvey)

Should Simon Cameron Be Given Credit for

Lincoln’s Election to Second Term?

        A recent Cameron visitor at Donegal, in search of information about his Cameron ancestors, brought to light some facts about Simon Cameron’s extensive political influence, a topic (politics) which his been quite prevalent everywhere in recent months.

        You may be aware of Simon’s many business ventures.  He became involved in canal building when that was considered a necessary transportation mode. Next he became cashier of a newly chartered bank at Middletown and moved his family there from Harrisburg for a 25-year period.  Banking gave him time for other business ventures such as railroads, which had become the new transportation need.  He helped create and finance many of the railroads over a large area, and was president of all of them at various times.  Another venture was the iron business, which, with partners, he had purchased a number of forges, foundries and blast furnaces.

        All of this success gave him prominence in organizational capability and he was called to organize a delegation for the first national political convention in the U.S., meeting in Baltimore in 1836 in support of Van Buren for president. Then in 1845, Cameron was selected by President James K. Polk to fill the Senate seat vacated when James Buchanan was appointed Secretary of State.

        Simon continued as U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania by subsequent election until he was appointed by Lincoln as Secretary of War in 1861.  When the Republican Party, organized in 1854 and took an anti-slavery stand, Cameron who was always openly anti-slavery, became one of the leaders.

        Believing that the beginning war would require all the available resources and continue for some time, Cameron made extensive preparations, thereby being highly criticized by many who thought otherwise.  So he resigned after less than a year.  And Lincoln, in confidence, allowed him to name his successor, Edward M. Stanton.  Cameron then was appointed by Lincoln for a special diplomatic mission to Russia. 

        After Simon’s return from Russia, Lincoln made him a Citizen Counselor at the White House, showing that there was no animosity between them.  So that when there was opposition to Lincoln’s re-election, Cameron prepared a statement on Lincoln’s integrity and merits with a declaration that Lincoln’s nomination and re-election were necessary for the Union’s success in the war.  This signed declaration was then telegraphed all over the country.  Its publication accomplished all that its originator had hoped – within three weeks, there was an almost unanimous re-nomination of Lincoln when the national convention took place in 1864.

        This account was taken from a very good brief biography of Simon Cameron, written by Herbert H. Beck and published by the Lancaster County Historical Society in 1952.  Beck, a well-known historian of Lancaster County, closes that episode by stating, “The writing of this declaration on Lincoln’s behalf was one of the great acts of Simon Cameron’s life.”

                                                            Mary Karnes

Last Edited on 10/25/2008