If there is only one lesson to be learned from the life and ministry of W.S. Plumer, it is from his marriage of sound doctrine with simple brevity of expression for those who want to know the basics of Christian living. This does not mean he was superficial or simplistic but instead capable of teaching weighty matters so a child could understand his lessons.

William Swan was born July 26, 1802 to William and Catherine (McAlester) Plumer in what is currently Darlington, Pennsylvania. He was the youngest of nine children. Before attending college at the age of nineteen, he walked nearly three-hundred miles south to Lewisburg, Virginia (West Virginia), to study with John McElhenney in the academy he mastered in conjunction with his pastoral call to the Old Stone Church. William was a dedicated student who proved capable with the ancient languages, and he and Master McElhenney became good friends. The other students called him Daddy because he was a bit older. Ready for further work, Plumer went seventy miles east from Lewisburg across the Allegheny Mountains to study at Washington College in the Shenandoah Valley. Following graduation in 1825 he headed to Princeton Seminary in New Jersey where he studied about fifteen months but did not graduate. New Brunswick Presbytery licensed him to preach in 1826, then he was ordained by Orange Presbytery in 1827. William married a widow born in Charleston, South Carolina named Eliza (Garden) Hassell on June 11, 1829.

Several churches were served by Plumer’s more than fifty years of ministry. For three years he was home missionary and stated supply for Orange Presbytery during which time he organized churches at Danville and Warrenton, Virginia. These rural congregations grew so quickly that both were able to build churches while he was their supply. Continuing in Virginia, he supplied the Briery Church, 1829-1830, before he was installed pastor of the Tabb Street Church in Petersburg where he continued three years ending in 1834. His most extended calls were to First Presbyterian Church in Richmond 1834-1846, then moving to Maryland he served the Franklin Street Church in Baltimore, 1847-1854. Moving back to his Pennsylvania homeland from 1854 to 1862 he was the minister of Central Presbyterian Church in Allegheny while also professor of theology at Western Theological Seminary. One of his colleagues at Western was Professor of Oriental and Biblical Literature Melancthon W. Jacobus. Moving to Philadelphia he was stated supply for the Arch Street Church, 1862-1865, before accepting a call to pastor Second Presbyterian Church, Pottsville that ended in 1867.

Dr. Plumer spent his later years teaching at Columbia Theological Seminary, South Carolina, where he was initially the Professor of Didactic and Polemic Theology, 1867-1875, but later at his own request he became Professor of Pastoral, Casuistic, and Historical Theology until he resigned in 1880. Professor Plumer’s abilities were acknowledged by honorary degrees including three D.D.s given in 1838 from Princeton, Lafayette, and Washington, as well as the L.L.D. from the University of Mississippi in 1857. He has the unique position of being the only presbyter to serve as a general assembly moderator in both the Antebellum Old School P.C.U.S.A. in 1838, and then also in the post-war continuation of the Old School in the South as the P.C.U.S. in 1871.  Plumer would have found the Old School assembly in 1838 particularly challenging due to bitter feelings among many concerning the division into Old and New Schools in 1837.

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