August 2024 – janetintroy

The Methodist Episcopal Churches of Troy, NY: Trinity M.E. Church, Congress St M.E. Church, the Hemlock Church.

Extended notes on State Street Methodist Episcopal Church (now Christ Church United Methodist) and the buildings and congregations that came from it.

“The circumstances attending the organization of Trinity Church are briefly detailed in the first records of the society. ‘ The Methodist Episcopal Church in Congress Street, Troy, N. Y., was organized in the month of October, 1846’ (…) In June (1847), an old blacksmith- shop, a wooden building, on the south side of Congress Street, at its intersection with Ferry Street, was reconstructed for a house of worship, which was thereafter familiarly called the “Hemlock Church,” Hillman adds, “The organization of the Congress Street Church may be traced to a prayer-meeting first held about the year 1832 (…) at the house of Isaac Hillman, standing a short distance east of the site of the Hemlock Church on Congress Street.(…)The small building proving inadequate for the uses of the congregation, the society determined to build a larger edifice of brick, and purchased the site of the present church, on the north side of Thirteenth Street, near its intersection with Congress Street.” The building was dedicated in 1849. (Hillman, pp 102-111)

With the Hillman family so invested in this particular congregation, it is not surprising that the main historical source book for these essays (Methodism in Troy by Joseph Hillman, 1888) has a lot to say about it. Indeed, Hillman and his sister donated a lot of money to complete its construction. Despite the family’s involvement, finding the site of the Hemlock/ Congress Street building as well as the Hillman home, has proved tricky.

The full account of the congregation’s beginnings, once again, hints at some disagreements or jealousies that may have been behind the organization of the new society on Congress Street. The prayer meetings, held at the Hillman residence, twice described as bring a short distance east of the site of the Hemlock Church, were held 3 times a week. Hillman reports with a modest pride: “It was afterwards asserted that more souls had been converted at those prayer-meetings than in the State Street Church, while they were held.” (Hillman, p.105) The meetings were sometimes quite long, and began to interfere with the worship times of the State Street Church, at which point there were several attempts to have them stop earlier, all unsuccessful. Hillman adds: “In fact those prayer-meetings were great feeders to the church.” (Hillman, p.107) Perhaps those attempts to control the prayer-meetings is what made this congregation determined to be separate from the State Street church, which finally happened in 1850, taking a core of members of the North Second Street and State Street congregations to the new church. In another hint of disagreements past, when describing the new building, Hillman adds: “The pews in the church were free, and since its erection no rentals for sittings have been imposed or collected.”(Hillman, p.110.) However, Hillman is not so shy about writing about the major theological disagreement, which necessitated the split: a sermon preached in 1847, by the Rev. John Clark, broke from a key Wesleyan tenet, and despite the conference demanding he never preach that way again, the idea took hold among some State Street members. It proved intolerable to some of the stalwarts of the church.

Even this new congregation had an almost immediate split, because in deciding to build a new sanctuary on Thirteenth Street, a faction decided to remain at the Congress Street site and replace the wooden building with a brick one. It was first named the True Wesleyan Methodist Church but the one image this writer located, in the 75th anniversary booklet of Trinity Church, show a brick “Congress Street M.E. Church” in 1866, with the Sunday School class gathered outside – 17 years after Trinity M.E. Church was first opened. By claiming it in the booklet, I can only presume this congregation did return to the Trinity fold not too long after the photograph was taken, unless the original church on 13th Street was very different before it was adapted…still working on that!

Not surprisingly Methodism in Troy includes a number of stories about Hillman family members – stories which deserve their own essay, but which include a treacherous sea journey, in which ship and people were deemed safe only through the prayers of the Troy meeting, to Hillman’s sister giving up her spot on a lifeboat on a burning ship in the Hudson, to save a young servant. The servant survived, Hillman’s sister did not.

The congregation merged with that of State Street-Fifth Ave in 1965, creating Christ Church Methodist Church. A year later, with the denomination’s merger with the United Brethren denomination, the official name became Christ Church, United Methodist, and so it continues to this day.

Arriving in the congregation in the early nineties, the author was told that this merger was seen as one of the most successful of its kind. Nonetheless, members of Trinity Church remained very proud of their association with that society, often referring to themselves as “Trinity members” long after the church had closed. The church was regarded as a good, local, family church with multi-generational friendships between attendees and their families. Its membership was just as dedicated and hard-working, as it had been in 1832, so it is hardly surprising, that although the State Street congregation kept its building, and possibly more important to them its historical site, the leadership quickly incorporated many of the Trinity faithful into influential positions. Even in the 1990’s, many former Trinity members continued in leadership roles.

The current junction of Ferry and Congress Streets. Troy NY, with the location of the original junction on the extreme left of the image. The green brick house mentioned, is obscured by trees close and behind the orange road sign, far left.

Finding the exact locations of the 2 earlier buildings, as well as the Hillman home, has proved difficult. The road layout is similar but not exactly the same. Ferry and Congress Streets still merge as they climb the hill going east from the city, but they merge just below Eighth Street now, more than a hundred yards west of the location of Hillman’s day. Numbering has probably been changed, too, as Ferry Street did have its numbers changed – attested by the historical marker for Samuel (“Uncle Sam”) Wilson’s home which is now put as 76 and not the 144 of Sam’s day. In fact reports of the Congress Street M.E. Church being at 22 Congress Street, and Hillman’s home at 188 Congress Street, make them seem not so very close after all: unless one of those refers to the new numbering. The lot numbers on early maps are different again. Some other road layouts in the area have also been changed a little, and, of course, almost all the buildings have been replaced in the area of most interest. Earliest records show Congress Street as a mass of small workshops and stores, many occupied by members of the State Street Church. That the small blacksmith shop was a first location is intriguing, as one of the earliest converts was himself a young blacksmith apprentice on that street: Noah Levings went on to become a well known preacher, teacher and financial secretary of the American Bible Society. It would have been a nice link to the earliest history of Troy Methodists to use that site, but we may not be able to know at this point, if it was the same one – Troy had many small foundries and blacksmiths.

I am going to continue to research this question and will add an update when there are answers – the address of Samuel (“Uncle Sam”) Wilson’s farm, may help, as there has been more research into his history, but he was certainly a near neighbor to the Hillmans at some point. The last reference to the Congress Street, smaller brick church (above), was as it being the location of the Burns & Ryan Undertakers’ business, which may prove useful. It has been suggested it is the one older brick building under the hill at the approximate spot – a green residence with a shape reminiscent of a chapel – but the structure and orientation is not so convincing, when compared with the photo (unless, as commented above, that brick building is the earlier version of the 13th Street church, and the renovations very much more substantial than recorded!) The actual building may have been, like Uncle Sam’s home, pulled down for a road development that never happened, or part of the wider urban renewal project, which almost deprived Troy of so much amazing architecture, but still managed to destroy a lot. Without a mention for over a hundred years, various fates could have befallen the old church.

The building pictured at the top of the article shows the church after it was enlarged in 1880. The cornerstone was first laid on 13th Street, just north of its junction with Congress Street, in October 1848. The church was dedicated in 1849, and the following year, the society became an independent congregation with its own minister. It was enlarged, by 200 seats, in 1860, with enlargement to the Sunday School rooms in 1862. Hillman writes: “In 1880, the church was renovated and enlarged and attractively improved in appearance by the addition of corner towers and other architectural features, at a cost of $14,084.94. The building was rededicated December 28, 1880.” (Hillman. pp 110-111.

The structure burned, a decade after the congregation moved out, and was razed. A parking lot partially covers the site, today.

The etchings are from Hillman’s book, Methodism in Troy, 1888, which is available to read free online at various archives, including the Library of Congress. The photograph of the Congress Street Sunday School is from the booklet produced for the 75th Anniversary of Trinity Church, which is owned by Christ Church, United Methodist. A copy can be viewed at Troy Central Library. The photographs are the author’s.

The Methodist Episcopal Churches of Troy, NY: First German Methodist Episcopal Church & St Titus Methodist Mission

Extended notes on State Street Methodist Episcopal Church (now Christ Church United Methodist) and the buildings and congregations that came from it.

“Although Troy had from a very early date not a few German inhabitants, it was not until 1855 that an effort was made to form a religious society, composed exclusively of German people. At that time it was estimated that there were no less than 2500 Germans in the city. The first German minister, who undertook to form a German society of a religious denomination in Troy, was the Rev. Mr. Swartz, the pastor of the German Methodist Church in Albany, who in 1855 began to conduct religious services in a building on the northwest corner of First and Ferry streets. Some months later, the Rev. F. W. Dinger of the New York Conference continued these services in the True Wesleyan Methodist Episcopal Church, on the south side of Congress Street, at its intersection with Ferry Street. In that building, the First German Methodist Episcopal Church of Troy was organized, on July 25, 1857. The society was incorporated March 31, 1859 (…) Shortly afterward the society purchased two lots on the north-west corner of Union and State streets for $1,500. The buildings on the lots were destroyed in the great fire of May 10, 1862.” (The History of Methodism in Troy, Joseph Hillman, 1888. p. 114-6.)

Interestingly, maps show that was the very point where the fire stopped along State Street, was just half a block from the current Christ Church, making the German Church the last structure lost on that street. The society then rebuilt, on that same lot, creating the church as pictured above, with the front facing State Street. It was dedicated on March 25, 1863.

This congregation, along with the 5th Avenue/ North-Second Street congregation merged with State Street Methodist Episcopal, in 1925, the three merged societies taking the official title of Fifth Avenue-State Street Methodist Episcopal Church. Many of the leading families of this congregation became leaders in the merged congregation, and their descendants were members until the end of the 20th century.

The original meeting house now lies under the car park behind the Central Library. As for the building above, Union Street no longer exists either side of State Street. It was the name for an alley which ran between Fifth and Sixth Avenue (alleys in Troy are named as streets) and this lot is now under the Trustco bank parking lot beside the Court building and Police Station. Maps show the building as one lot wide , but going back the whole two lots, as in the description above.

The spire of Christ Church United Methodist is at the left, the area immediately behind the sign, at right, is where Union St (alley) was. The black-topped parking lot was the site of the church.

The buildings on the east side of Fifth Avenue were removed during the 1960’s as part of an urban renewal program. I suspect this, too, was a victim of urban renewal, as the September 1950 copy “The Spire: Newsletter of Fifth Ave-State St Methodist Church,” lodged at the Troy Central Library, states the Liberty Presbyterian Church was at that time the occupant of the building above. It may have become unstable or in a fire between those two dates – so while that is unclear at time of writing, before that happened it became home to the …

St. Titus Italian Methodist Mission

So little is known of this congregation, that it has not appeared in Christ Church histories until this point. According to the collection of historical materials of Troy Conference, by Samuel Gardiner Ayres, archived at the Hart-Cluett Museum in Troy, St. Titus began as a mission to Italian families in 1913. However, he also states it began at that time in the Third Methodist Episcopal Church, which had been sold 15 years before that to the Ukrainian Orthodox congregation. I suspect this was an error, and the real location is 43 State Street – the German M.E. Church, where they remained after the latter congregation moved out.

The Adirondack Record- ElizabethTown Post newspaper for April 7th, 1932, carries an announcement by the Ausable Forks Methodist Church that: “The Reverend Lucius Martucci of St. Titus Italian Methodist Church, Troy, N.Y.” would give a talk on “The Melting Pot in America” in which he would talk of the pioneering missionary work of his mission among “the Italians of Troy.” The newspaper has another article about how the same church donated money each year to the St. Titus mission, stating it was the “only Church in the Troy Conference area, in which services are conducted in the Italian Language.” it gives the address of the church as 43 State Street, the same address as the building vacated in 1925 by the German Episcopal Church (above.) Interestingly, the author remembers several people named Martucci in the congregation, as well as the Rossi family, whose name is on a brass offering plate in Christ Church, United Methodist, to this today. It may have come along with the families when the congregation merged into State Street, at an unknown date, whether at its demolition, having shared the building with the Liberty Street Presbyterian Church, or before that, leaving the building empty for its new owner. I suspect someone will know…and if so, I will gladly update this mini history.

Line drawings and quotations are from “The History of Methodism in Troy” by Joseph Hillman, 1888, available as a PDF, free of charge, at a number of online archives, including the Library of Congress. Photographs are the author’s.

African Methodist / Wesleyan Methodist Episcopal Zion/ AME Zion Church of Troy

Extended notes on State Street Methodist Episcopal Church (now Christ Church United Methodist) and the buildings and congregations that came from it.

Of all the societies that came out of the State Street Methodist Episcopal congregation, this is the one that has had the most locations, all but the current one, having disappeared in the 190+ years since its formation.

Joseph Hillman in his History of Methodism Troy from 1888, which includes the engraving of their third location as seen above, writes:

“The origin of the African Zion Methodist Episcopal Church, is traceable to a class connected with the State Street Church, called “the colored class,” which was led in 1830, by John Dungy, an intelligent and pious man of African descent, who in 1831 became the pastor of the small congregation of colored people, which that year was known as the African Methodist Church of Troy. In 1832 the society took the name of the Wesleyan Methodist Episcopal Zion Church of Troy. A small wooden dwelling, on Fifth Street, north of Liberty Street, was fitted for a house of worship for the congregation. In 1841, the society purchased a lot and building on Fifth Street, and altered the structure into a church. On February 23, 1842, William Meads, Jacob Brown, Lewis Butler, Littleton Becket, and Lewis Jones were elected trustees of the Wesleyan Methodist Zion Church of the city of Troy. The property was sold about the year 1863. In the spring of 1864, George Bristol purchased for the congregation, the property on the east side of Seventh Street, between State Street and Broadway, the title of which was afterward conveyed to Joseph Hillman, Reuben Peckham, and Adam C. Fellows as trustees. On the resignation of A. C. Fellows, H. Clay Bascom, was elected his successor, and he in turn was succeeded by Henry C. Curtis. On the death of Reuben Peckham, Edward O.House was appointed to fill his place. On the brown stone tablet in the front wall of the brick building, in which the congregation worships, is inscribed : A. M. E. Zion Church, organized, A. D., 1832, erected A. D., 1865. The present membership is 79.” (Hillman. pp 118-20

I have included the entirety of that text, because it illustrates the issues that surface in writing about this congregation: we do not know in what spirit the separation of the State Street society, along lines of race and color, took place. The history gives us tantalizing, but contradictory, information. And when the author was invited to give a historical address in the current Fifth Avenue AME Zion, at one of their historical celebrations, the pastor did so explaining the congregation had few records – other than a founding date a few years earlier than the one mentioned by Hillman.

But the real puzzle for us today, stems from the photograph of the trustees of the congregation as preserved in Hillman’s book: the trustees include two men from the State Street leadership. Was their presence paternalistic? Was their presence altruistic, wanting to advertise the continued friendship of the two congregations, at a time when America was recovering from civil war, but hurtling into its ugly era of Jim Crow laws? Or somewhere between those options: they considered themselves as simply protecting their investment, both financial and emotional, with the African American society? Unless we get a lot of new information we can only guess.

Before we add just a little more information to that discussion, let’s talk about the origins of the congregation, and its various locations.

After looking at the various early maps, and not finding the first two churches named anywhere, all I can conclude from Hillman and other texts, is that the first location: “the small wooden dwelling on Fifth Street and north of Liberty” was a small wooden house typical of the neighborhood at the time – a worker’s home, which later made way for the breweries and factories that would be built there. The congregation had, in any case moved to their next location, also on Fifth Street, according to Hillman. They moved there in 1842. There may yet be records of the location for the sale of that second church, around 1863, as this was a time of massive rebuilding after the Great Fire of 1862. That fire engulfed a huge area, stopping half a block short of the State Street M.E. Church, but engulfing the site of the German M.E. Church, and a Presbyterian Church less than a block away. The biggest clue to location, however, is that in 1834, Troy’s very first church building, a Presbyterian church which stood on Congress Street in what is now Sage Park, was physically moved to Liberty Street, and began to be used as a day school for children of color, with evening classes for their elders. This in turn led to the building becoming the Liberty Street Presbyterian Church – a famous African American congregation. It would make sense that these locations were not too far apart. A number of buildings still standing could be imagined as being modified for a church, as there are a few wooden ones to this day, as well as what could be early brick buildings on the street. Most of that block became industrial buildings around this time: the purchase of the property around 1863 could have been to raze it to build a factory or a brewery, or could still be there, obscured by later renovations

The view north from Liberty Street along Fifth Avenue towards the current Christ Church, United Methodist, on State Street.

Their third church was the brick edifice, in the engraving at the top of the article.It was on the east side of what was Seventh Avenue, between State Street and Broadway, an area just north of the current County Buildings (formerly a school). The 1885 Sanford map, which can be viewed online at the Library of Congress, shows it in the center of that street, at a location very similar to one which had previously been used by the Ladies’ Home Mission, which Weise tells us was burned in the Great Fire of 1862. The whole area was rebuilt after that massive devastation, which destroyed homes, businesses, churches, the RPI building of that time, and the train station.

The Hart Cluett website has a page on Black Religious Societies with some information, which differs from my research, especially on the location of Troy High School and this church at the time – but thought that it was razed for the High School. Today, the site is under a parking lot, behind mid twentieth century offices.

From there, the AME Zion congregation moved to the former Ninth Presbyterian Church, in North Central Troy. It stood on a now empty lot at the NW corner of 5th Avenue and Jay Street, having burned down in 1969. The next – and current – home of the Fifth Avenue A.M.E. Zion Church of Troy, is in what had been St. Savior’s Lutheran Church, (formerly a Unitarian Church), which had closed in 1968. The vibrant and socially active A.M.E.Zion congregation has served the local community from this building, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 103rd Street, for over 50 years.

It is so appropriate that the history of this congregation has mostly centered on Fifth Street (now Avenue.) Fifth Street was one of the boundaries of the two fields where Jacob D. Vanderheyden, allowed the annual 6-day Pinkster or Pingster festival – meaning Whit Sunday or Pentecost in Dutch. Sylvester, in his book “The History of the City of Troy”(1880) quotes Henry Rousseau, who recalled: “In my early days there were many slaves in the state of New York. “Pingster” was the slave’s great holiday. The slaves of the four counties – Columbia, Albany, Schenectady, and Rensselaer – united in its celebration.”

As for the split between their congregation and the downtown Methodist congregation, historians of African Americans church history write that, by the 1820’s, all Protestant denominations were starting the process of splitting into separate white and black denominations. The State Street congregation seems to have done so later than many, but its timing, not longer after building a new brick sanctuary with a gallery level, does make me ponder if the church also introduced segregated seating at the end of the 1820’s, as that was one of the reasons other non-Methodist congregations had split a few years earlier. However, with the introduction of pew fees in the lower sanctuary space, to pay off the debt on the construction, I suspect there was plenty of reason for discontent. All we know, is, that the trend that had begun a few years earlier, spread to State Street.

I can imagine there was sadness when it happened, especially for the oldest members. Race – or class-based racism – may have been a matter of conversation for some Trojans, but was not seen as a subject of contention within the congregation. Hillman reports: “From the organization of the society not a few colored people were members of the church.” The inclusion of Africans in the congregation from the earliest days is corroborated by the “young daughter” of Caleb Curtis, an early founder of the society. She felt the need to defend the congregation from outsiders criticizing it, and at least some of those attacks were based on the racial identity of the members, as she felt the need to give a list of the notable person of the then village who attended, concluding:“I have thus been particular because it was asserted at a love-feast that the first society was composed of the lower order of person, and, at the same time, it was said that the time was when there was no place to hold prayer- meetings except in the basement of a house occupied by a black family. it is true that the prayer-meetings were held there sometimes. Ritta (the negro woman) was considered pious and had considerable gift in prayer. Her room was ample and decent. The person who made the statement must have been misinformed” (Phebe Curtis, quoted by Hillman, pp 13-4) Of course she knew the group actually chose to meet in Ritta’s room – her short history of the congregation, so often quoted by other authors in the following century, was based on the meetings often held in her father’s home, but also in other homes; at the very least the Curtis home was always available.

It is not surprising that African Americans, whether enslaved or free, were attracted to this young denomination: slave-owners were simply not allowed to be members of the society, following the work of the founder of Methodism. John Wesley had long campaigned for a law preventing the owning of slaves in Britain, while fighting a moral battle with those who profited from shipping slaves from Africa to the New World, many of whom lived in Bristol, where he spent much time.

As for John Dungy, “A class exclusively formed of persons of African descent was led, in 1830-31, by John Dungy, an intelligent and pious colored man.” (Hillman, pp 55) He includes him in the list of leaders of the State Street M.E. church in 1830-1 (p.176) and in the list of Methodist ministers, he is listed as the pastor of the African M. E church for 1831, 1832, 1833 and 1834 (Hillman, p. 288) after which the ministers no longer appear in his book. “The History of Troy and Lansingburgh” by A. J. Weise (1886), as well as the website of the current A.M.E. Zion congregation, lists the first minister appointed by their conference to the Zion M.E. Church of Troy, in 1834, as being Rev. R. Noyes. The only other reference found for John Dungy was a listing in the Troy City Directories for 1830, where he is listed as living at 4 Franklin St, occupation: shoemaker, and then for the years, 1831,1832,1833 and 1834 as the Rev. John Dungy, Pastor of the African Church, still living at the same address. His name is italicized which indicates him being a free person of color. He appears neither in the first city directory of 1829, nor in the 1835 one.

Nothing is known of the relationship between the white and black congregations after Hillman wrote his book in 1888, but it was doubtless far from ideal. However, during the author’s time with Christ Church, there were three occasions where the AME Zion congregation hosted its multi-district annual conference at the State Street location, where they filled the sanctuary and balcony with energetic singing, enthusiastic preaching, loud hallelujahs. It was a sight to behold, and an experience we were glad to participate in – not to mention the great smells coming from the busy kitchen and Fellowship Hall! It seemed a fitting time to welcome them back on site – and of course, the usual, mostly white, Christ Church congregation rejoiced to have their turn at being seated in the balcony…

The source book for most of the quotations is Joseph Hillman’s 1888 book ‘Methodism in Troy” which can be read online free of charge at a number of websites, including the Library of Congress. It includes the photograph of the 1887-8 Trustees of American Zion Church, with their names. Original Troy City Directories can be viewed at the Troy Central Library, and in facsimile at the Hart-Cluett Museum. Photographs are by the author.

Searching for the First Methodists in a City Not Yet Created.

An engraving of the first of the 3 Methodist sanctuaries to be built on State Street, between Williams Street (alley) and Fifth Avenue, in Troy NY.

Searching the earliest records for a settlement that was only recently declared a village, and a decade before becoming an early northeastern city, turns out to be no simple matter.

Troy, New York had not long since chosen its name, when the people we are seeking arrived in search of a new life. Fellow congregation member, Alice Rose, and I have many questions we would like answered. However, even at these early stages of our research, we are learning a lot about the people who so determinedly created, and grew, a Methodist society in this new place. This is part of the story of State Street Methodist Episcopal Church. 230 years after the first followers of John Wesley showed up on State Street, we still worship there – at Christ Church, United Methodist.

How many hundreds of times did this story play out as the United States developed, in the decade or two after the Revolutionary War? How many thousands of stories could we tell about the earliest settlers of these villages, towns and cities, if we only had the journals and records of those women, men and children, itinerant preachers and circuit riders, who grew our denomination and without whom, we might not be Methodists today?

So what do we know? Well, we know these were adventurous people.

Most of the earliest Methodist members of the State Street society came from New England, and specifically from Connecticut. They arrived to find an unpaved, barely inhabited site, where farmers brought their corn to be weighed, and then shipped down the Hudson to New York City. Native Americans still hunted, fished and gathered the ample food supply growing along the flood plain of the Hudson River. Only three homesteads were located on the land that would become Troy: the three buildings designating the division of land between the 3 Vanderheyden patroons. The New Englanders who made the journey into what looked like nowhere, created a village, then city, from the farm lands of the Vandeheydens. That city became one of the third or fourth richest in the US in the following one hundred years, showing the first settlers to be not only adventurous, but resourceful and enterprising – and extremely hard-working.

As adventurous people, it is not so surprising that we found many so hard to locate because they simply continued their adventures – their sought-for better lifestyle – by moving on. Others were hard to find in the records because they were female, or African American, who, whether freed or enslaved, simply did not count enough to be counted and recorded. A few of the newcomers had already accrued some money. A lot more became wealthy in the city, inspired by the ingenuity of their fellow citizens. Many were the necessary tradespeople, providing the necessary needs of the population, shoes and coats and wheels and houses, earning a respectable and steady income from their craft. Others arrived, with only rural skills, seeking new trades, and often took their new skills even further west as new areas opened up.

The William McBurney family is one such case.

Joseph Hillman tells us that one of the earliest residents seeking a Methodist church was an Irishman, William McBurney (McBerney.) His descendants did some of the work to trace William, which I was able to confirm in my own research, but there was good reason I could not locate much about him in Troy.

William left County Down, Ireland, arriving in New York City in May, 1804, on the brigantine Sally (not the infamous slave ship of Rhode Island – that one had been wrecked a few years earlier in Barbados.) He came with his wife Alice, and 3 children: the “muster roll” quoted on geni.com states all children were under 5. William was 35, and Alice was 32. They were farmers, and most likely from the area around the small town of Dromore, some 21 miles from the port of Newry, which is cited as the port the ship left from. Newry and Donaghadee, 32 miles from Dromore, were popular ports for Irish ships bound for the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The 2 leading preachers of Methodism had both visited that area in the preceding decades: Rev. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism followed his then chief substitute, Rev. George Whitefield, and preached in Lisburn, Co. Down in 1756. He returned every two years until his death in 1791. Methodism remains very strong in Lisburn to this day, and its main church is billed as the “mother church” of the younger Dromore Methodist congregation, just 10 miles away. It seems very possible that Willliam saw Wesley himself – at the very least, he surely must have known people who did.

Once in the US, the McBurneys wasted no time in moving to Troy. In our major historical source for our church – Methodism in Troy by Joseph Hillman, published in 1888, we read that “in 1806, William McBurney joined the class” of Caleb Curtis, one of our earliest members. When John Wright enquired about a Methodist society in the village a “colored woman informed Mrs. Wright that she knew an Irishman, named William McBurney, who was a Methodist. While in search of his house, John Wright heard a number of persons singing together a familiar Methodist hymn, and without attempting to repress his joyful feelings, he abruptly opened the door of the dwelling in which the voices were united in praise, and identifying the small company of men and women as Methodists, he gladly exclaimed, ‘Now I have found you!’ ”

In the list of official members of the Church in 1821-2, William McBurney is mentioned as one of the 12 “Leaders.” However, by the time we come to the first Troy City Directory, in 1829, which listed businesses and residences, only one McBurney- James- a “laborer,” is mentioned.

The family speculates, with good reason, that the family, left Troy, in the early 1820’s and followed the Erie Canal west, as did so many others. William is next found in the censuses as being in Ira, Cayuga County, home of a well-known local potter of the same name. The family located a reference, in one of William Ketchum’s books on New York State Potters, to a William McBurney, making and selling stoneware in Troy in 1820. They wonder if the well-known Cayuga potter, therefore, is “their“ William. Certainly, the newly-arrived William purchased land in Ira in 1825, and other members of the family, having disappeared from Troy records, seem to be in Ira and nearby Jordan, which is just to the south, on the Erie Canal. Indeed, a James McBurney is recorded as being in Jordan, right after the name disappears from the Troy City Directories.

This all reminds me that Troy’s fame as “The Collar City,” so much tied to the Cluett heritage, happened, in part, because Mrs. Cluett became sick on the Cluetts’ own journey to Western New York, and they simply stayed, after her recuperation in the city. Interestingly, the Cluetts were also leading Methodists and a big part of the State Street congregation for many decades. It is a story for another day, but like many other families, once they became wealthier, most of the family left Methodism – to become Episcopalian! At least, before leaving, they put the spire onto the tower – and probably left us a rare and magnificent Steinway piano…all for another day…

Today, many people who find themselves in the Methodist congregation on State Street, are also passing through the city. Visitors, looking for a Methodist congregation downtown, frequently stop in. Hundreds of students from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Russell Sage College have worshiped with us over the last 230 years, before graduating and moving on. The position of the church downtown, with the closest residences now being apartments, has also created a more transient community, held together by loyal and determined long-term members, and the legacy of the first Methodists – like William McBurney – who settled in what would become the City of Troy and practiced their Methodist faith on State Street..

Janet Douglass

A sad postscript, to this story is that of a very early Methodist preacher in the area William came from – a John M’Burney who may be related, but we cannot know. John M’Burney was beaten and killed for being a Methodist. The brutal attack is detailed in ‘The Centenary of Methodism”(p.160ff) published in Dublin in 1839 , and details how, even as his assailants beat him, he forgave them. The book can be read free of charge on Google books. The website of the Irish Methodist Church lists John as a preacher from 1772 to around 1779.

Joseph Hillman’s book, Methodism in Troy, can be read free of charge at number of online archives. The book has been our starting point. However, one of the resources Hillman used, and which we would love to locate, is a publication by the “young daughter” of Caleb Curtis, mentioned above. Phebe Curtis’ “Rise of Methodism” has been much quoted through the years, but we have not found a copy. If you happen to know of such we would be grateful to know where we can access it.

The above illustration is an engraving taken from Hillman’s book showing the first of the 3 Methodist sanctuaries that have stood on the piece of land on State Street, between William Street (alley) and Fifth Avenue, in Troy, NY.