Eighty-six years ago Echuca was little more than a river port, for the river trade began the town. In those far-away days the population was about 180 persons and all were directly or indirectly dependent upon the river trade. Ten steamers, and their barges were constantly trading up and down the Murray and its tributaries and as far off as Goolwa in South Australia. Echuca was the clearing port for the inland produce change-over from steamers to waggons and drays to go by road to the Bendigo railhead for transit to Melbourne.

To this embryo town came the Rev. John Hamilton McLachlan. He had come out from Scotland to the Presbyterian Church in Victoria and was commissioned by them to explore the possibilities of extension in the new Northern settlements. He was a man with a long-distance view and saw at once that Echuca was destined to become a flourishing and important city in future years. He visited the Presbyterian families and received such a cordial welcome that he readily acceded to their request to hold regular divine services.

The difficulty was to find a suitable room. I think it was Mr. Alexander who first suggested the old Police Camp. However, Messrs. Peelbles, Noble, Hogarth and Jamieson, as far as I can gather from old records, succeeded in getting this Camp room from the Police and in 1858 the first public service was held.

The Rev. J. H. McLachlan was the pioneer minister of this town and district. He was a man of strong character and winning personality with an optimistic outlook on life as well as a vigorous preacher of the Gospel. In fact an ideal pioneering minister. In three years he succeeded in welding together the Presbyterian community into a strong congregation inspired with his own progressive spirit and determination to advance with the needs of the rapidly growing town. The Church needed such a man for the calls on his time and physical strength in a charge that reached from the homesteads near Strathallan and Wyuna to the Northern town of Deniliquin took their toll with the years. He left to take up new work in Amherst in 1861.

The Castlemaine Presbytery continued to supply various ministers till a Call was accepted by Rev. P. Mercer. The first ten names on that Call were: George Jamieson, William Noble, Edward Jones, William Ellis, Robert Nesbit, Walter W. Moore, William R. Wilson, Charles Batten, R. B. Sloban, and Frederick Payne.

By this time the idea of a Church in the town was mooted and a site was granted by the Government of the three-cornered block where the old water towers now stand. This was later exchanged for a larger portion of land in Dickson Street. So the years have passed on. The old pioneers did a good work and built solidly for the future and now we reach the 86th anniversary of those early and stirring days of the new colony of Victoria.