Presbyterian Historical Society, the National Archive of the PC(U.S.A.), seeks to answer the question:

Where Did Per Capita Come From?

As with so many other issues, American Presbyterians have struggled with the means of supporting their mission and ministry. Eschewing England’s system of patronage by landed gentry, American Presbyterians’ Scots forebears supported their ministers by pew rents. By the middle of the nineteenth century, pew rents had fallen out of favor, and a thousand flowers bloomed to support local ministry. Who paid for this gathering? PCUSA Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society at General Assembly, Saratoga, N.Y., 1879. View in Pearl. But how would a national body, meeting annually to conduct the legislative and juridical work of the Church, support and sustain those assemblies? Read more now…