rentwood,
Maryland. But none of these products of the Nineteenth Street Baptist
Church have done a better work than Miss Jennie Deane, the founder of
the Manassas Industrial School, in Virginia, and Miss Nannie H.
Burroughs, the founder and promoter of the National Training School
for Women and Girls, Lincoln Heights, Washington, D. C. Nor should
Mrs. Laura Queen be forgotten, for by her labors the doors of Stoddard
Baptist Home were first opened.[17]

The Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church, the next to be established,
was formally organized November 21, 1841, in a little frame school
house located on H Street near 14th Northwest. The moving spirit in
this undertaking was John F. Cook.[18] He had been received as a
licentiate by the Presbytery of the District of Columbia on the
twenty-first of October of that same year. Eighteen persons took part
in this organization. Of these John F. Cook and Alfred A. Cook had
been official members of the Union Bethel, now the Metropolitan
African Methodist Episcopal Church. The pioneer members came from the
First, the Second, and the Fourth Presbyterian Churches of the city
and one from the Shiloh Church of New York, of which the Rev. Theodore
S. Wright was pastor. The reasons why they desired the establishment
of an independent church were clearly set forth in a series of
resolutions which were not unlike those which occasioned the
organization of other Negro churches. The new society was received
into the Presbytery May 3, 1842, when in session at Alexandria,
Virginia, then a part of the District of Columbia. John F. Cook was
installed as the first pastor July 14, 1855. Under his pastorate the
church prospered, increasing its membership to 125.

The successor of Mr. Cook was William T. Catto of Philadelphia, the
former pastor of the First African Presbyterian Church of the country.
Others to occupy the pulpit as supplies and pastors were Benjamin T.
Tanner, subsequently a bishop of the A. M. E. Church, William B.
Evans, Henry Highland Garnet, J. H. Muse, J. Sella Martin, John B.
Reeves, during his connection with Howard University, Dr. Septimus
Tustin, George Van Deurs, a Swede, and John Brown, a Scotchman. The
last mentioned incumbent was succeeded by the Rev. Francis J. Grimke,
who has served longer than all other pastors combined, and with marked
success. During the first years of the ministry of Mr. Grimke, which
began in the spring of 1878, there was great spiritual awaken