April 10 Today in OPC History

On April 10, 1958, the Presbytery of New York and New England ordained Harold Dorman and installed him as pastor of Cornwall OPC, in Cornwall, Maine, where he had been filling the vacant pulpit as a licentiate for four years. In 1977, the church relocated to Showhegan, when it purchased a building that had previously served as a laundromat and a garage. Mr. Dorman continued to serve as pastor of the church until his retirement at the age of 97 in 2014. No one served longer in a single pulpit in the history of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church than Pastor Dorman.

Born in 1917 in Hamden, Connecticut, and converted as a teenager under the ministry of Pastor Craig Long, Dorman served three years in the Army and then studied at Calvin College and Westminster Seminary. His skills as a handyman afforded him the opportunity to know his professors beyond his classroom experience: he remodeled Cornelius Van Til’s home, he helped to build Meredith Kline’s home, and he laid linoleum in Paul Woolley’s home. These gifts would be employed in ministry as well. His labors in a small church in a rural Maine setting required him to serve bi-vocationally, and he augmented his salary as a town treasurer, electrician, plumber, and carpenter.

Front Page Picture: Harold Dorman in the 1970s

Picture: Harold Dorman at his ordination on April 10, 1958.