On this day in 1936, the Committee on Home Missions voted to erect a new Presbytery in Wisconsin to include the entire state and the upper peninsula of Michigan. The initiative for this action came from the Rev. Arthur Perkins. Perkins attended the first General Assembly in Philadelphia and was a constituting member of the new church. Upon his return to Wisconsin, he began to wonder about the possibility of forming a new Presbytery to serve the upper Midwest. On June 18, 1936 Perkins wrote a letter to Dr. Machen containing a number of questions. Among his inquiries were the following: “Will there be a Presbytery set up out this way, say in Wisconsin before the next General Assembly? What are the steps necessary for us to take?” Upon receiving the letter, Machen promptly wrote back. He referred the questions about the Presbytery to Edwin Rian, then serving as the Secretary for Home Missions. Rian corresponded with Perkins about the necessary steps for establishing a new Presbytery. On July 1st, the Committee took the action to approve the new Presbytery and to appoint Perkins as the convener. This would be just the second Presbytery of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. The Presbytery of Philadelphia was the first. Rian also corresponded with the Rev. John J. DeWaard of Cedar Grove. Rian and Perkins both urged DeWaard to be involved with this new court of the church. Rian was also in communication with the Rev. John Davies about joining the new Presbytery and considering home missions work among the native American tribes in Wisconsin. The first meeting of the new Presbytery took place on July 30th. Arthur Perkins was elected as moderator. In the following decades, the boundaries of the Presbytery would expand to cover much of the upper Midwest as well as the Canadian province of Ontario. On January 1, 2000, a daughter Presbytery would be born called “The Presbytery of Michigan and Ontario.” A second daughter Presbytery was born on September 17, 2021. The new Presbytery includes the states of Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, parts of Nebraska and Kansas, while the continuing Presbytery covers Wisconsin, Minnesota and the upper peninsula of Michigan. The new Presbytery retained the most recent name – the Presbytery of the Midwest. The continuing Presbytery reverted to her original name with a slight twist. She is now called “The Presbytery of Wisconsin and Minnesota.”
