This week in Christian history: Salvation Army, George Mueller, Pope Urban II

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, March 10, 2019

Salvation Army arrives in the US — March 10, 1880

This week marks the anniversary of when the Salvation Army, originally founded in 1865 in London, England, officially arrived in the United States.

Salvation Army Commissioner George Scott Railton, along with seven women who were known as the “Hallelujah Lassies,” held their first street meeting in New York City soon after arriving.

The Army had previously arrived in an unofficial capacity in 1879 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, when Lieutenant Eliza Shirley immigrated to the U.S. to join her parents and held a meeting there.

Despite encountering some hostility from the locals, within three years of their arrival Railton and the others expanded their operations as far as California.