About Us
Our Church is ever evolving to keep up with modern times. It is important to build towards the future, but it is just as important to remember the past.

The history of our congregation begins with the German-Lutheran pioneers who settled in this region in the late 1700s. Small clusters of families would meet for worship in cabins or clearings, with the services typically conducted by layman. Emmanuel was formally organized in the 1820 by Rev. John Steck, a 'circuit rider' who served a number of churches in the area.

The congregation's first house of worship was a tent. A small log structure constructed in 1831 was a Union Church shared by German Lutheran and German Reformed denominations, and stood at the intersection of Cherry Lane and Hills Church Road. In 1856 the log structure was replaced by the brick structure which still serves Emmanuel Reformed United Church of Christ.

Emmanuel Lutheran congregation moved to a separate facility in 1884. This white clapboard church still stands on Roosevelt Avenue in Export. It was deeded to the Borough of Export in the spring of 2001 for use as a historical center.

In 1965 the congregation moved to its present location. Additional classroom space was created in 1981. A new sanctuary was dedicated in the fall of 1997 and provides for increased worship seating, increased parking, a greatly enhanced narthex, and additional classroom space.

Article

Emmanuel Lutheran Church & John McIlduff
by Scott A. Duff

            John McIlduff (1744 –Sept. 22, 1816) died four years before the Emmanuel Lutheran Church was founded in 1820.  But his life was inextricably tied to our church as were the lives of many of his descendants.

            John McIlduff and two of his three brothers emigrated from Belfast, Ireland to the British colonies in North America, most likely in 1773.  The brothers were of Scots-Irish decent.  John married Ann Wallace (1750-1831) after he arrived in the colonies.  They settled in the area that is now Export, Pennsylvania in about 1775.  After establishing a homestead, John a miller by profession, set up a grist mill and a saw mill.  In that day, this area was largely inhabited by Indians.  During the American Revolution British troops enlisted the Indians, sometimes supported by Canadian rangers, to attack settlers west of the Appalachian Mountains.  With the Continental Army fighting on the eastern side of the mountains, militia units were formed in the west for protection of settlements and homesteads.  John McIlduff served in one of these militia units as a private in Captain Thomas Morton’s Company of Westmoreland County Rangers from 1778 through 1783.  These rangers did not wear uniforms or carry the arms of the Continental Army.  Instead they wore homespun frontier type clothing and carried their own flintlock hunting rifles or fowling pieces along with tomahawks and belt knives.  Rangers of the Revolution did not fight in the conventional military formations of the day, but fought in the Indian way.

            Hannastown was the first county seat of Westmoreland County.  It was located less than ten miles southeast of present day Export.  On Saturday, July 13, 1782, the Seneca chief Guyasuta lead a band of more than 100 Seneca Indians and about 60 Canadian rangers dressed as Indians in a major attack on Hannastown, resulting in its destruction by burning.  Only a small number of militia men were stationed in the fort at Hannastown.  When the attack began, an alarm was raised throughout the area and the Rangers rushed to counter the attack.  One version of this story is that McIlduff was among those who answered the call; another version is that he happened to be traveling to the county seat to record a deed on the day of the attack.  The militia-call-up version makes more sense than the happenstance version.  After the burning of the county seat, the Indians continued on the attack in the area, killing and kidnapping settlers, and burning their cabins and crops.

On Sunday, July 14, before McIlduff was able to return to his home from Hannastown, the Indians came upon his log cabin.  The family story that has been told for generations is that McIlduff’s wife Ann saw the smoke from the burning of a nearby homestead and with their young son Alexander (1781-1837) was able to escape, hiding in a thicket while the Indians burned their home.  Upon his return, John found his cabin burned to the ground, the Indians gone, and his family alive.  The story continues that he was so thankful for God’s sparing of his wife and son that he deeded a plot of land on the hill near his home for a church and cemetery.  This early church was constructed of logs and canvas and was referred to as the Tent Church.  Our old church on Roosevelt Avenue was constructed next to the original structure.

            In the late 1700s the name McIlduff was shortened to Duff with all of John and Ann McIlduff’s children and their descendants taking the surname of Duff.  Beginning with John and Ann, five generations of Duff’s are buried in the cemetery next to the old Lutheran Church in Export.  The last to be buried there was John McIlduff’s great grandson W. Plummer Duff in 1969.  Seven generations of the Duff family have been members of Emmanuel Lutheran or of the church that preceded it on that site.

Each Memorial Day a flag with bronze marker denoting a veteran of the Revolutionary War is placed at John McIlduff’s grave.  The name and dates on the headstone of the old Indian fighter remains visible even after nearly two centuries of weather and acid rain.

Southwestern Pennsylvania is rich in the history of the founding of the United States of America, from the beginning of the French and Indian War at Jumonville Glen near present day Uniontown, to Forts Duquesne, Necessity, Pitt, and Ligonier, to the site of Braddock’s defeat on the Monongahela River in the town of Braddock, Forbes Road, Bushy Run, the burning of Hannastown and numerous other battles with the Indians during the American Revolution, to the countless homesteads of settlers no longer known or remembered.  The foundation of our church was laid in the earliest days of our country’s beginning with the formal founding of Emmanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church taking place in 1820.  With the recent passing of life-long member Howard Duff (1916-2009), it is a good reminder that we should remember God’s blessing on our beginning and as a congregation to reflect upon our history as we approach our bicentennial in 2020.

Bibliography
DUFF, Joseph M., A Gold Dollar. New York, NY: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1926.

DUFF, William Boyd, The Forefathers and Families of Certain Settlers in Western Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh, PA: William Boyd Duff, 1976.

HASSLER, Edgar W., Old Westmoreland: A History of Western Pennsylvania During the Revolution. Heritage Books Inc.: Bowie, MD, originally 1900 reprinted, reprinted 1998.

MYERS, Paul, Westmoreland County in the American Revolution. Closson Press: Apollo, PA, 1988.

PHILLIPS, Robert R., An unpublished work. Robert R. Phillips: Fairfax, VA, 2007.