This window is named after James Hoge, founder of the First Presbyterian Church of Columbus which is no longer in existence. James Hoge lived in Columbus from 1806 to 1862. He was the first Presbyterian pastor in Franklin County. He arrived on horseback from Virginia and settled in Franklinton, at today’s intersection of West Broad and Sandusky Streets.

At times you will see the name Hoge spelled Hogue which is the original French spelling. The Hogue family originally came from France (Normandy) and were descendants of the Huguenots, the magnificent Protestant minority which was brutally persecuted in the seventeenth century.

In 1806 Pastor Hoge organized a church with a membership of five men and eight women. This was the first church of any denomination in all Franklin County which then covered five or six times its present area. In 1811, through the generosity of Lucas Sullivant, a friend of James, a log church was built on the banks of the Scioto River. The building was destroyed by a storm. During the War of 1812 the congregation agreed to allow the army to store grain in the building. A storm damaged the roof in 1813. The rain caused the grain to expand causing the church walls to fall.

In 1814 there was another log church east of the Scioto River and that church eventually merged with the Franklinton congregation. That second group was known as the First Presbyterian Congregation of Columbus and was located on the corner of Town and Front Streets. When the two churches merged, Pastor Hoge became its minister and was paid $800 annually.

Mr. Hoge was an outstanding leader as well as known in the community. He had a strong hand in the founding of the school for the deaf and the school for the blind, and was also responsible for the first public school in Ohio in 1826.

Why was our church named after him? In 1906 Columbus Presbytery celebrated the Centennial of Presbyterianism in Franklin County and that is also the year our congregation was founded. Some monies were raised on that occasion in memory of James Hoge. We received $5,000.00 from the fund and you know the rest.