years The congregation that eventually became the National Presbyterian Church traces its heritage to the 18th century when Scottish stonemasons constructing the White House began holding Sunday morning worship services in a carpenters’ shed on the White House grounds. By 1795, the group had grown large enough to form St. Andrew’s Church and to install John Brackenridge as its minister. Church members met in private homes until 1800 when they occupied a frame structure at 10th and F Streets, NW. The small group persisted, meeting in several places between 1802 and 1811 including a school on East Capitol Street, a Masonic Lodge between 1st and 2nd Streets near the Washington Navy Yard, and even the Supreme Court of the United States chamber in the basement of the unfinished United States Capitol. First Presbyterian Church Members from the St. Andrew’s group officially established First Presbyterian Church on September 15, 1812. With contributions from James Madison and James Monroe, among others, the congregation erected a frame structure. This “Little White Church under the Hill” was located on East Capitol Street on the south slope of Capitol Hill, where the Rayburn House Office Building now stands. The first service in the new church was held on June 20, 1812. When the British burned and ransacked the Capitol in August 1814, the church was spared despite its proximity to the hostilities. By 1821 the congregation numbered 114 members. Under the leadership of Ruben Post, First Presbyterian Church erected a substantial brick edifice on 4½ Street NW, which stood for over 100 years. In 1853, Byron Sunderland began a distinguished 45-year tenure as senior pastor of the church. In 1857, Sunderland began to preach in favor of the abolition of slavery, a bold act in a city that was essentially a conservative Southern town. In 1866, Sunderland invited Frederick Douglass, noted black abolitionist, to speak from the church’s pulpit when no other church in Washington would do so. At this time the Presbyterian denomination split when Southern presbyteries seceded as a body (the Presbyterian Church in the United States). Although “Old First” was at the time a member of the Virginia Presbytery, one of the seceding groups, a vote of the church’s congregation was split. As a result, the church was not attached to any presbytery for five years. In 1862, under a new presbytery it became part of the Philadelphia Synod. Sunderland served as