REV. R. T. MCCREA
Rev. R. T. McCrea was born in Indiana county, Pennsylvania, August 3, 1838. His parents, William C. and Nancy McCrea, were both natives of the same county. Robert T. worked with his father upon the farm until he was twenty years of age, when he went to Jacksonville academy, in Indiana county, Pennsylvania. From thence, in the fall of 1861, he went to Westminster College, in Lawrence county, Pennsylvania, where he completed his classical studies and graduated in June, 1663. During the following winter he attended the Allegheny Theological seminary, in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania. In August, 1864, he enlisted as a soldier in Company D, Two Hundred and Sixth Regiment, Pennsylvania Infantry, was made second sergeant of his company, in which capacity he served until the close of the war, and was mustered out about July 1, 1865. His regiment was placed in the Third Brigade of the First Division of the Tenth, afterward the Twenty-fourth, army corps, and was part of the Army of the James. Returning home he recommenced his theological studies, and finished his course of study in the spring of 1868. In November, 1869, he was ordained, and installed as pastor of Lebanon and Shenango congregations in the Presbytery of Mercer, in Pennsylvania. Having resigned that pastoral charge, he accepted an appointment to Atlantic, Iowa, in July, 1875, where he labored for six months as supply, in which time he organized the congregation of Atlantic. In the spring of 1876, he was called to be pastor of Atlantic and Cass Center. He accepted the call and entered upon his pastoral labors in July, and on October 6, 1876, was formally installed over the charge, in which he yet remains. On the 30th of May, 1867, he was married to Miss Mattie M. Shelly, of Richmond, Ohio. She was the daughter of Benjamin and Elizabeth Shelly. Four children were born to them in Pennsylvania, namely: Elizabeth Burson, Nannie Fidella, William Clark and Sarah Edith Madge, who are yet alive, and range in age from fourteen to eight years. Two children were born to them in Iowa, Emma and Benjamin Burgess, who died at the respective ages of seventeen days and ten months and twenty three days. They are buried in the Atlantic cemetery.
Contributed by Lisa Varnes-Rex from "History of Cass County, Iowa. Together With Sketches of its Towns, Villages and Townships, Educational, Civil, Military and Political History: Portraits of Prominent Persons, and Biographies of Old Settlers and Representative Citizens." Springfield, Ill.: Continental Historical Company, 1884, pg. 414, 419.
