On a Sunday morning in September 1777, an express rider brought word to the congregation of Donegal Church that the British army under Lord Howe had left New York to invade Pennsylvania, confronting pastor and people alike with a test of their patriotism. Their pastor, the Rev. Colin McFarquhar, had been accustomed to offer prayers for the King of England, but pastor and congregation gathered beneath the tree, joined hands under its shade, and pledged their loyalty to the cause of liberty and the founding of a new nation in the western land. Colin McFarquhar, a graduate of Edinburgh University in Scotland, came from Garelock in Dumbarton County near the firth of Clyde and was received into the Presbytery of Donegal on May 22nd, 1775. Separated from his family for ten years while they were detained in Scotland, he was reunited with them in Donegal after freedom was declared, and his pastorate at this church continued for thirty years until 1806, when he resigned after the death of his wife. He died in 1822 at his daughter’s home in Hagerstown, MD, and his remains were brought back to lie nearby.