1854
Brother Wm. D. Mahan presented a letter of dismission & recommendation as a Licentiate from the St. Louis presbytery, and was received as such under the care of this presbytery.
[Source: Minutes of the Chilliothe Presbytery of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, March 3, 1854, page 32]

1859
W. D. Mahan - Chillicothe Presbytery - McAdow Synod
Commissioner to General Assembly, May 1859, Evansville, Indiana
[Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1859, pages 5]

1860
W. D. Mahan, Gallatin, Mo.
Minister - Chillicothe Presbytery - McAdow Synod
[Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1860, page 98]

1865
Rev. Wm. D. Mahan received April 7, 1865 from Chillicothe Presbytery.
[Source: Minutes of the Salt River Presbytery of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, April 6, 1865, page 61]

1865
Wm. D. Mahan, Louisiana, Mo.
Minister - Salt River Presbytery - McAdow Synod
Commissioner to General Assembly - May 18, 1865 in Evansville, Indiana.
Served on the Committee On Sabbath Schools and Parental Training.
[Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1865, pages 164, 167 & 208]

No Directory in 1866, 1867 General Assembly Minutes

1868
Rev. W. D. Mahan, formerly a member of Salt River Presbytery of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, presented a letter of dismission and recommendation from said Presbytery, and was received as member of this, New Lebanon Presbytery.
[Source: Minutes of the New Lebanon Presbytery of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, April 3, 1868, page 313]

1868
W. D. Mahan, Arrow Rock, Mo.
Minister - New Lebanon Presbytery - Synod of Missouri
[Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1868, page 106]

1869
W. D. Mahan, Arrow Rock, Mo.
Minister - New Lebanon Presbytery - Synod of Missouri
[Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1869, page 85]

1870
W. D. Mahan, Arrow Rock, Mo.
Minister - New Lebanon Presbytery - Synod of Missouri
[Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1870, page 80]

1871
Mahan, W.D., Arrow Rock, Mo.
Minister - New Lebanon Presbytery - Synod of Missouri
[Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1871, page 81]

1872
Mahan, W.D., Boonville, Mo.
Minister - New Lebanon Presbytery - Synod of Missouri
[Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1872, page 123]

1873
Mahan, W.D., Boonville, Mo.
Minister - New Lebanon Presbytery - Synod of Missouri
[Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1873, page 100]

1874
Mahan, W.D., Booneville, Mo.
Minister - New Lebanon Presbytery - Synod of Missouri
[Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1874, page 99]

1875
Mahan, W.D., Boonville, Mo.
Minister - New Lebanon Presbytery - Synod of Missouri
[Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1875, page 82]

1876
Mahan, W.D., Boonville, Mo.
Minister - New Lebanon Presbytery - Synod of Missouri
[Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1876, page 92]

1877
Mahan, W.D., Boonville, Mo.
Minister - New Lebanon Presbytery - Synod of Missouri
[Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1877, page 87]

1878
Mahan, W.D., Boonville, Mo.
Minister - New Lebanon Presbytery - Synod of Missouri
[Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1878, page 96]

1879
Mahan, W.D., Boonville, Mo.
Minister - New Lebanon Presbytery - Synod of Missouri
[Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1879, page 103]

1880
Mahan, W.D., Boonville, Mo.
Minister - New Lebanon Presbytery - Synod of Missouri
[Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1880, page 118]

1881
Mahan, W.D., Boonville, Mo.
Minister - New Lebanon Presbytery - Synod of Missouri
[Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1881, page 90]

1882
Mahan, W.D., Boonville, Mo.
Minister - New Lebanon Presbytery - Synod of Missouri
[Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1882, page 120]

1883
Mahan, W.D., Boonville, Mo.
Minister - New Lebanon Presbytery - Synod of Missouri
[Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1883, page 129]

1884
Mahan, W.D., Boonville, Mo.
Minister - New Lebanon Presbytery - Synod of Missouri
[Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1884, page 118]

1885
Mahan, W.D., Boonville, Mo.
Minister - New Lebanon Presbytery - Synod of Missouri
[Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1885, page 133]

1885
Suspended by New Lebanon Presbytery for one year.
[Source: Minutes of the New Lebanon Presbytery of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, September 25-29, 1885, pages 134-148]

1886
"Your committee to whom was referred the motion to grant W. D. Mahan a letter of dismission and recommendation after the term of his suspension expires, have had the subject under consideration, and in view of all the surrounding facts, and in view of the interests of the Church, we recommend the following:
Whereas, This Pres., at its session in Slater, Sept. 29th, 1885, did suspend from the functions of the ministry, for one year, W. D. Mahan; said one year terminating on the 29th of the present month; and
Whereas, The definite form of said suspension was more the result of sympathy for him and his family, than a desire for rigid administration of the law, and this sympathy being exercised under the hope that said W. D. Mahan would use all proper efforts to heal the wounds his course had inflicted; and,
Whereas, It now comes to the knowledge of this Pres., that he still occupies the same position, by the sale of his publications, and by negotiations to bring out new editions, therefore;
Resolved, That the suspension of the said W. D. Mahan, be, and the same is hereby declared indefinite, or, until he shall have complied with the law of the Church, as it applies in the case."
[Source: Minutes of the New Lebanon Presbytery of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, September 10, 1886, pages 185-186]

Rev. William D. Mahan, pioneer Cumberland Presbyterian minister of Central Missouri. Reverend Mahan was born in Virginia July 27, 1824, and died Oct. 19, 1906. He was married on July 27, 1850, to Martha R. Johnston, who bore him the following children: Eleanor B., deceased wife of Frank Stewart; and Mrs. Wills A. Green of this review. Reverend Mahan was born in Pittsburg County, Va., and accompanied his parents to Missouri in 1837. He came to Cooper County in 1845 and preached the gospel according to the Cumberland Presbyterian faith for over half a century. He was a son of Thomas Jefferson Mahan, who was a son of William Pope and Permelia Mahan of Pittsylvania County, Va. Thomas Mahan served in Capt. Henry Garnett's Company or the Captain John Douglas Company, Second Virginia State Militia, under Colonel Gregory, during the War of 1812, Mrs. Green is a niece by marriage of Judge McFarland, who married Mary B. Johnston, a daughter of Robert Johnston, a Cooper County pioneer, and is a second cousin of Col. Thomas A. Johnston of Boonville. An ancestor was Thomas Mahan, whose name appears on the roster of exchanged prisoners sent from Quebec in November, 1779, during the American Revolution. Another ancestor, named Smith, served in the Revolution. He enlisted Feb. 12, 1778, and served until February, 1779.

Rev. W. D. Mahan was widely known as an author and writer of religious books. He published "Archaeological Writings of the Sanhedrini and Talmuds of the Jews," which were afterwards combined in the Archko Library. He based his deductions and decisions upon the results of extensive personal research and study in the ruins and libraries of Rome and Constantinople, gathering at first hand the information necessary from archaeological inscriptions and had the translations duly made by scholars so that he could incorporate the matter in his books. He wrote and published "Caesar's Court," in 1895. The Archko Library, which originally consisted of five volumes, was afterwards combined and published in its entirety by the Archko Book Company of Boonville. He wrote "History on Baptism" and other pamphlets. Rev. Mahan devoted the best years of his life to the production of "Acts Pilate," his first book.
[Source: History of Cooper County Missouri by W. F. Johnson, pages 506-507]

Washington, Dec. 1.--The Rev. W. D. Mahan was the author of one of the most extraordinary forgeries ever attempted. The facts are stated as follows:

"The death of Rev. W. D. Mahan, which has just occurred at Boonville, directs attention to a most remarkable literary controversy which involved a church in turmoil. Mr. Mahan was a Cumberland Presbyterian minister of good standing in the church. He was an interesting speaker, with no special pretensions to scholarship. In 1885 he left Cooper county, Missouri, where he had been preaching, stating that he was going abroad and would spend some time in Rome. Months passed and the Boonville Advertiser printed letters from him telling what he had seen and found in the Eternal City. Shortly after his return to Boonville he published a most curious book. It was a volume of some 200 pages purporting to be a translation from a manuscript which he had found in the vatican library in Rome and translated into English. He gave to the book the title of "Acta Pilati" ("The Acts of Pilate,") and the manuscript, the account of the finding of which was given with much circumstantial detail, purporting to tell of the trial of Jesus before Pilate by a writing of the time giving an official record of the proceedings of the court.

"Then people began to wonder that this country preacher should have stumbled at the vatican upon a manuscript of such transcendent importance. Rev. Dr. James A. Quarles, then of Lexington, Mo., now of Washington and Lee University, challenged the accuracy of the statements in the book. William E. Curtis, then, as now, correspondent of the Chicago Record-Herald, took the matter up, investigated it at Rome, and pronounced the manuscript spurious and the alleged translation a forgery.

"Mr. Mahan denied the charges, asserted the truth of which he had written. A church trial was called. The New Lebanon presbytery, of which he was a member, tried the case at length. Evidence was introduced to show that Mr. Mahan had never been to Rome, but that he had spent the month he was absent from Missouri on a farm in Illinois. The editor of the Advertiser showed that the letters that paper had printed were postmarked at a little town in Illinois. Mr. Mahan claimed that they had been sent there to be remailed. The verdict of the presbytery was practically unanimous, however against Mr. Mahan. He was suspended from the ministry for two years. [Actually one year] After the suspension he made no effort to return to the pastorate, but lived quietly at the home of his son-in-law, a hotel keeper in Booneville. He declined to make any further statement regarding the part he had taken in the preparation of the book except to say when it was told him that the literary world pronounced it a forgery:
"'Well, I have been a much deceived and a much persecuted man.'

Mr. Mahan's book was published in Philadelphia and attained quite a large circulation. It was generally received as a fortunate discovery of historical evidence confirming the scripture account of the trial and crucifixion of our Lord. Many newspapers described it as an invaluable contribution to the human knowledge. As I remember Dr. Mahan explained in his preface that the original manuscript had been found by himself in the library of the mosque of St. Sofia in Constantinople, where it formed a part of the remains of the archives of the Greek church handed down from time of Constantine. Knowing that there is no library connected with the mosque of St. Sofia and no literary archives of the Greek church, after consultation with Dr. Friedenwald, then in the congressional library at Washington and now in the University of Pennsylvania, I wrote to Dr. Andrew D. White, then United States minister to Turkey. Dr. White replied promptly, confirming my own recollections, and further said that no such person as Rev. Mr. Mahan, of Boonville, Mo., had ever been seen in Constantinople by anyone connected with the legation or consulate or Robert College or by any of the missionaries or the representatives of the American Board of Foreign Missions. It was scarcely conceivable that an American Protestant clergyman would visit Constantinople without calling upon the representatives of the government or the members of his profession.

The preface to the book also stated that the manuscript had been translated by the linguists in the library of the vatican, and that the original manuscript had been deposited there with the keeper of the archives.

A letter from Father Ehrie, perfect of the library of the vatican, stated that Rev. W. D. Mahan was entirely unknown there and that no person connected with the library had ever seen or head of the "Acta Pilati" or any such manuscript. Nor had Father Ehrie ever heard of the publication.

I then wrote to Boonville to ascertain something about the author of the forgery, and a complete account of the movements and career of Rev. Mr. Mahan was obtained which confirmed the theory that his book was a fake. Nevertheless, It is almost incredible that a country preacher, with no special pretensions to scholarship, as his obituary states, should have produced so plausible a forgery and it would be interesting to know how it was done. But so far as I have been able to learn, to his very last day, Dr. Mahan insisted upon the truth of his original story that the manuscript had been discovered by him in the library at St. Sofia, and had been translated at the vatican in Rome.
[Source: The Paducah Evening Sun, December 1, 1906, page 7]