• To arrange a tour of our beautiful and historic building and tunnels below, please email [email protected].  We ask that you allow up to 3 days for one of our volunteer docents to respond.  We look forward to hosting you and your group.

  • Watch our weekly videos of Sermons, Gospel Lessons, Comforting Words, and Music on our YouTube page.

    (Click on our YouTube page link below)
  • Gracious and loving God, we thank you for sending your life-giving Spirit to dwell with us in the community of Emmanuel Parish; infuse us with passion for worship of you, and for service to the greater community of Cumberland and beyond. Give us wisdom and perseverance in being a mutually supportive, inviting and inclusive congregation; and help us in all things to follow the example of him whom we call “God with us,” even Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray.

    Amen

Colonial Era

The hilltop on which Emmanuel Church now stands was originally the site of a trading post operated by the Ohio Company. It was the design of this company to sell tracts of land to would-be settlers and to encourage them by providing the support of a trading post. The facility was where the settlers could bring things that they grew and made (like corn liquor) and caught and killed (deer skins, beaver pelts) to trade for manufactured goods that they needed for their lives.  It was also the center of what social activities went on in the region.

On Christmas Day in either 1778 or, more likely, 1749, the first Christian worship in this region of the country took place. Christopher Gist, who ran the trading post and who was a devout Anglican is said to have led this worship service. The name of the Church, Emmanuel (which means ‘God is with us’) is believed to have derived from this first event.

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