Records of Sumner Presbyterian Church (Sumner, Wash.), 1877-1995

The Sumner Presbyterian Church was organized on April 29, 1877 under the name "Puyallup" for the valley and river of the area. Neither Puyallup nor Sumner had been chosen as town names at that time. The first church building was begun July 9, 1918. It was completed and dedicated on April 14, 1878. The Presbyterian Church came to Washington Territory in 1858 when the Board of Domestic Missions of the church sent the Reverend George W. Sloan to establish the church in the northwest. He was aided by Valley pioneer William Kincaid, a lay elder of the Olympia church. It was largely his influence which led to the permanent planning for the new church. Another man prominent in the establishment of the Sumner church was the Reverend George Whitworth, who was headquartered in Seattle where he was president of the University of Washington. He had begun to hold regular services in the Sumner area in 1874, traveling through the valley by horseback. When the church was organized John F. Kincaid donated land from his father's donation land claim as a site for the church building. This church was set on Old Country Road, now the corner of Main and Traffic Streets in Sumner. The wilderness site of 1877 soon became the center of religious and social life, and later the educational center of the community. In 1883, Whitworth Academy, later to be named Whitworth College, was established there. This first edifice was sold to Morse Manufacturing Company in 1911 for $1,200, when progress decreed the site of the first church was needed for a railroad right-of-way.