BIO: Joseph Vance, Cumberland County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Judy Bookwalter

Copyright 2009.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cumberland/
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History of Cumberland and Adams Counties, Pennsylvania.
Containing History of the Counties, Their Townships, Towns, Villages, 
Schools, Churches, Industries, Etc.; Portraits of Early Settlers and 
Prominent Men; Biographies; History of Pennsylvania; Statistical and 
Miscellaneous Matter, Etc., Etc.  Illustrated.  Chicago: Warner, Beers 
& Co., 1886.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cumberland/beers/beers.htm
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                                PART II.

             HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY. PENNSYLVANIA.

                            CHAPTER XXXVIII.

                          BOROUGH OF CARLISLE.

399  BOROUGH OF CARLISLE.

  REV. JOSEPH VANCE. D.D., pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, 
Carlisle, son of Samuel and Mary Vance, of South Strabane Township, 
Washington Co., Penn., was born October 8, 1837.  In 1853 he entered 
Washington College, now Washington and Jefferson, and graduated in 
September, 1858.  In the same month he entered the Western Theological 
Seminary at Allegheny, Penn.  He was licensed to preach the gospel by 
the Presbytery of Washington in April, 1860, and graduated from the 
seminary in 1861.  His first charge was the Assembly Church, Beaver 
Dam, Wis., where he began his work in July, 1861.  In June, 1862, he 
was ordained by the Presbytery of Winnebago.  In January, 1865, he 
entered the work of the Christian Commission, and was sent to 
Vicksburg, Miss.  In February he was appointed by Col. John Eaton 
assistant superintendent of the schools of the Freedman's Department in 
the district of Vicksburg, and served in that capacity until the 1st of 
July.  He was called to the Second Presbyterian Church of Vincennes, 
Ind., in September, 1865, and continued as its pastor until it was 
united with the First Presbyterian Church in April, 1873.  Accepting a 
call to the church formed by the union, he remained until July, 1874.  
During his pastorage in Vincennes he was stated clerk of the 
presbytery, permanent clerk of the synod and a trustee of Hanover 
College.  In April, 1866, he was married to Mary Hay Maddox, of 
Vincennes.  She died in July, 1871, leaving one child, Charles 
Thompson.  During the summer of 1875 Dr. Vance supplied the pulpit of 
the First Presbyterian Church of Reading, Penn., in the absence of its 
pastor.  The Rev. Dr. C. P. Wing having resigned the pastorate of the 
First Presbyterian Church, Carlisle, in October, 1875, Mr. Vance was, 
in November of the same year, invited to supply the pulpit, and on the 
30th of April, 1876, was installed pastor by a committee of Presbytery, 
consisting of Rev. Drs. C. P. Wing, J. A. Murray and George Norcross, 
of Carlisle, and Thomas Creigh, of Mercersburg.  In September, 1880, he 
was married to Sarah H. Maddox, of Vincennes, Ind.  Miriam C. is their 
only child.  In June, 1884, the degree of D. D. was conferred upon him 
by the Western University of Pennsylvania, and also by Washington and 
Jefferson College.