Category: Methodist History of Troy, NY

Dr. John Loudon – Troy’s 2nd Physician

Troy from Mount Ida (*)/ painted by W.G. Wall ; engraved by I.R. Smith ; finished by J. Hill. Available for download at loc.gov (the Library of Congress) -*appears to be from Mt. Olympus not Ida, and is a view of Troy etched the year of Loudon’s death, 1820.

Dr. John  Loudon, (1760-1820), the second physician to arrive in Troy, became an important early member of the landowning dignitaries in Troy, known for his generosity and kindness to those with little with which to pay for care. As we shall see, he also took a robust interest in matters of religion.

I have written before of Loudon’s “dream of pigeons,” which seems to have persuaded his very reluctant brother-in-law, Jacob D. Vanderheyden, to let the Methodists buy the land our buildings now sit on. This same landowner had previously either donated land for other denominations, or sold them for one dollar.The fact that only the Methodists had to pay top rate (plus interest in the form of rental until paid off) is  one of the many signs of the distrust with which the denomination was treated in the late 18th and early 19th century. Loudon’s dream, when he had not yet officially joined the Methodist Episcopal Church, became such a legend that fifty years after his death,various newspapers nationwide were still reporting the dream story. The Cincinnati Daily , on December 8th, 1873, reported:  “The Troy Press says that the site of the State Street ME Church was selected ‘because of a dream’ upward of 50 years ago as reported by Dr. John Louden, a prominent physician(…) who was a leading member and worker of the Methodist denomination(…) the good doctor dreamed he saw a flock of white doves alight on the corner of State and Fifth Streets. The impression was so vivid that the doctor could not shake it off…”.

The seriousness with which Loudon took his decision to join the Methodist movement, despite it being deemed at best unseemly, and dangerous at worst, has left us with documentation on how much emphasis people of the time put on their spiritual wellbeing. At a time when people choose a church, if they choose one at all, on the speed the priest can get through the mass, the ability of the band, or its political bent, the idea of such theological heart-searching seems quite alien.

Loudon was born in 1760 in  Dungur, county Antrim, Ireland, of Scottish parents. Sylvester writes: “John Loudon, M. D., on his settlement in Troy as a physician and surgeon made himself known to the public by advertising in the American Spy, published in Lansingburgh, the following card: “The subscriber, having finished the studies of physic, surgery, and man midwifery at the University of Edinburgh, and practiced in Europe for some years past, now offers his services to the inhabitants of Troy. John Loudon, Troy, Feb. 14, 1793.”  (p.136) He soon began to work alongside Dr. Gale, Troy’s first physician. In 1794,  working together, the two doctors treated a  smallpox outbreak,and were reportedly “extremely successful.” They estimated Troy’s population as being 400 and 500 at that point.

A.J.Weise, in the History of the City of Troy from the Expulsion of the Mohegan Indians to the present Centennial year of independence of the United States of America , 1886  (pp 82-3) recounts a story in the Troy Gazette of July 8, 1806, which reminds us how different life in the new settlement was: “It was not an uncommon sight to see bands of wandering Indians in the streets of the village at this day. The Stockbridge tribe was more generally represented than any other of the aboriginal people of Northern New York, for they were claimants of the territory of Reensselaerwyck on the eastern side of the Hudson River, and in this respect were more in favor with the people than the Mohawks of the western side(…) On Friday, 4 July in this village two Indians we believe in the Stockbridge tribe, fell into dispute(…) Participating largely in the liberty and liquor, which usually warms the breasts of independent and unshackled patriots of all professions on the Fourth of July, and not submitting themselves to any laws, they fell into fighting.”  The elder stabbed the younger one,  who then attacked the elder one with a heavy stone, breaking his skull and beating him with his bow. Bystanders thought him dead, but after  a few minutes, he got up and walked away. Having been committed to jail, Dr. John Louden was sent for and he “trepanned the skull of the older Indian, and removed the broken parts.” The ultimate fate of the man is unreported.

The same author in his book, “Troy’s 100 Hundred Years” wrote: “I could name a number of individuals who would be an acquisition to any place, such as (…) Dr John Loudon” one of the 10 names he mentions ( p 46). Loudon had quickly become a respected member of the community. At various times he was a fire warden, village trustee, assistant alderman when Troy was first made a city, a (Methodist) church trustee, previously an elder in the Presbyterian Church, and surgeon for the 1st Regiment, 2nd brigade, under Gilbert Eddy. He was married twice but there is no evidence of him having any surviving children

Like the majority of early arrivals in Troy, Loudon was Presbyterian, and had been a keen student of religion since his teenage years. Like many others he had grown up within strict Scottish Presbyterian traditions: John Knox studied with John Calvin in Geneva in the 16th century, and created the Church of Scotland – the Scottish Presbyterian church – when he returned home. The first dedicated religious building was a small white wooden building in what is now Sage Park, at the corner of Congress Street and 2nd Street.  As Troy grew, numerous other Presbyterian churches sprung up, many a couple of hundred yards from another. Gradually other denominations built buildings – the Baptists, Episcopalians and Quakers all built early places of worship. In 1808, the Methodists who had been meeting in private homes in and around State Street for 15 years, decided they wanted to build on a lot beside the common land at Fifth Street (now Avenue.) When they asked to buy the lot, the owner, Jacob D. Vanderheyden refused but John Loudon secured the purchase through his compelling dream – and family influence (his second wife, Blandina Owen, was the sister of Vanderheyden’s second wife, Mary).

Was Dr. Loudon already intrigued by Methodist challenges to Calvin? He would of course have known some of Troy’s leading businessmen who were Methodists, even working in official village business alongside them: Stephen Andres, Le Grand Cannon, Mahlon Taylor, Oliver Boutwell and Samuel Goodrich, the principal of the small school which stood in what is now Sage Park. Did he meet some of the very early but dedicated Irish Methodists before he emigrated? Or was he simply aware that his brother-in-law was singling out this one group in a prejudicial way and it offended his sense of fair play? We cannot know, unless something written by him comes to light. Either way, he came to the aid of the small Methodist society and they were successful in getting the land, even if they paid exorbitantly for it.

Less than two years later, Loudon relinquished his membership in the Presbyterian Church and became a Methodist. The letters he wrote to his Presbyterian pastor, Troy’s first clergyman, Dr. Coe, and his Presbyterian congregation, became the basis for a long obituary written by William Ross. It was  published in two parts in the Methodist Review magazine in May and August of 1820, within weeks of his death. The article shows the serious way Loudon made his decision and his careful study of the pertinent differences between the thinking of Calvin and Wesley. Loudon may have been unusual in explaining his thought process as he surrendered his title of elder in the Presbyterian Church, but from the few hints we get from the journals and the books held dear by early Methodists, clergy and lay, his understanding of the theory of religion was not unique: people wanted to be sure their soul was right with almighty God, and they wanted to know it for themself.

So here are some of Loudon’s own words on why he was renouncing a Calvinist world view, for an Arminian understanding (Jan Arminius was  a Dutch Reformed Church theologian and influencer of John Wesley.) If you want to know a little bit more about what Loudon is discussing here, or to understand his points, I have posted immediately before this article, on this website, a comparison of Calvinist and Armenian thought in modern language,  and includes links to more information.)

In 1810, after sending this letter, Dr. Loudon joined the State Street Methodists. Ross quotes him: “I beg your attention for a few moments, while I address you as the congregation of this church. By your appointment, I’ve had the honor of holding the office of Elder among you, I now resign that office to you, because I cannot in conscience hold the doctrines, which are taught in this church, and which are supported by the Session in general. In the first place, they say God directs by his sovereign agency all things. To this, I reply: though God is the author of every good and perfect gift, yet he neither determines nor directs the sins of any of his creatures.… In the second place, they held that God in the dispensation of his grace through Jesus Christ gives two kinds of grace, the one sovereign and special, and the other common. To this, I answer the grace of God, which brings salvation has appeared unto all  men and there are not two kinds of grace, one real, and the other counterfeit, but there is but one kind. It may differ in degree but not in equality (…)They say in the third place, that having received a special grace, they never can fall from it, nor make shipwreck of their faith. In answer to this, I would refer you to all the cautions and admonitions given to the church.(…) To differ in some speculative points and religion has been common in all periods of the church; but for members of the same church to differ in the first and most essential principles of religion, has not been so common.“

Loudon then expanded on these points, adding quotations from the Bible, for each objection. 

In the following month’s magazine, the obituary continued with comments on Loudon’s character. Ross writes: “He first became acquainted with the Methodist in this city (…) When he joined us, our church in this place was inconsiderable and obscure(…) Both as a private citizen, and as a practicing physician, he was highly respected. As a citizen in common life, he endeavored to promote peace, propriety, and good order, in every department of society. This he did, not only by precepts, but also by examples of sobriety, industry, and economy. He was a lover of peace; – honesty, plainness, and candour were conspicuous traits in his character. As a physician, he was deservingly honored, not only on account of his knowledge of the healing art, but in consequence of a judicious and successful application of that knowledge. And without derogating from others of the same profession, it may be said he was the poor man’s doctor. Let the poor of Troy testify how often he has entered the habitations, lighted up the lamp of hope, and the blessing of God, restored health to the sick without money and without price. But this is not the best, Dr. Loudon was a Christian. And in him, the Christian graces shone with particular luster(…) Such was the confidence we had in his integrity, that he was considered as a pillar in the church, and as a father in the congregation of the Saints(…) He was, however, particularly united in Christian affection to those with whom he was connected in church fellowship(…) In life and in death he evinced a laudable desire for the temporal, as well as spiritual, prosperity of the church.— For a series of years, he gave liberally of his earthly substance for the support of religious worship, and for the comfort of the servants of Christ, who were engaged in spreading the influence of evangelical truth. And as a monument of his benevolence in death, we are now in possession of a good dwelling-house, together with necessary appurtenances, designed to be a permanent residence for the minister stationed in Troy.“

Ross concludes: “Although God had given him a robust constitution, yet his exposures in the performance of his professional duties were so frequent and great, that a number of times he was brought to the borders of the grave.“  In fact, Loudon had contracted tuberculosis in the exercise of his duty, and a few months before his death, a heavy cold had made his condition worse. For his last four weeks he was bed-bound, where, we are told, he was visited by “people of all classes” with whom he spoke about spirituality. He died in his 60th year, on Saturday,  February 12th 1820, at his residence on the northeast corner of Second and Ferry Streets, where his widow lived for twenty years after his death. The Central Library is now at that location.

Dr. Loudon had a considerable list of property from his large practice in and around Troy. The handwritten inventory, which is in the collection of the Hart-Cluett Museum,  lists all his possessions at the time of his death. It includes many pages of furnishings, household goods, clothing (6 nightcaps!), and a list of debtors, which show that he loaned money to people as diverse as church members and city entrepreneurs with business ideas, to widows needing help with daily expenses. He also owned several  properties at that time: the house he reportedly donated to the church was at 141 3rd Street, and had previously been his surgery.

A few years before his death, Loudon had been named to a committee to organize the laying out of a new cemetery. That plot was plowed over by the city around 1990. It seems possible Loudon and his wife, along with many early Methodists were buried there, as were  other Vanderheydens, as many of those early names do not occur in surviving cemeteries, or appear as names of those reinterred when cemetery land was re-purposed. The cemetery is now a patch of empty ground at the end of Cypress Street, just off Congress Street, and is flanked by the Poestenkills Gorge and Falls, and Prospect Park.

Janet Douglass, Troy, May 2026.

The disused cemetery was the subject of a YouTube video by Dr Rubinstein, who has researched many such areas in the city.  Search his videos on You Tube under Dr RGST: The Cultural Historian.

The books and magazine quoted are all available online and can be read without charge:

Methodist magazine ran 1818-1828 and is available on Google Books, as are 

Troy’s 100 years by A.J. Weise, 1891, and The History of the City of Troy, from the expulsion of the Mohegan Indians to the present centennial year of the independence of the United States of America, also  by A.J. Weise, 1876.

A History of Rensselaer County by Nathaniel Bartlett Sylvester,1880 

Troy and Rensselaer County, New York; a History: by Rutherford Hayner, 1925 are available at archive.org, the Internet Archive of the Library of Congress

The Hart-Cluett Museum is located on 2nd Street in downtown Troy and researchers can be book time in the Research Library, by going to their website: hartcluett.org 

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“All Means All” – Wesleyan Methodism v. Calvinist Protestantism

A summary of Methodist ideas to accompany and clarify the next two essays

This is a brief review of the shock-waves caused by the introduction of Wesleyan ideas into the Protestant world of the 18th century, and why Methodist teaching felt both scandalous and dangerous to many well-meaning and seriously faithful Christians. This essay is for those who want to better understand the issues of the two essays that follow it. Today most Methodists and Presbyterians never give any of this much thought, though in the evangelical, most Calvinist wing of the church, these same issues do come up quite frequently and Wesley, his mentor, Arminius, as well as Methodists can be deemed in error.

So very briefly: the Protestant Reformation is deemed to have started when a Roman Catholic priest, Martin Luther, challenged the might of Rome in 95 “theses.” The main thrust was that people are saved by their faith alone, and that studying the Bible is what teaches us how to be people of faith. After Luther, “protestant” theologians sprang up in several countries, but John Calvin and Huldrych Zwingli in Switzerland, and John Knox in Scotland became the main proponents. Many of the first leaders of Troy were New Englanders whose families had been influenced by the Scottish Presbyterian church, founded by Knox.

The Roman Catholic and Protestant churches all have St. Augustine as the basis of their understanding. Writing in the late 4th and early 5th centuries, it was Augustine who broke one of the last ties with the Jewish faith of Jesus, with his emphasis on “original sin” which replaced the idea Jesus would have known: “original blessing.” Once original sin – the idea that humanity is “sinful”, right from birth – was accepted wisdom, the question became: if we are all all broken, how do we become whole – how does someone get right with God? It took a few hundred years, but eventually a large body of Christians decided it could not be decided by priests or bishops, or even a pope; nor could it be by being able to buy favor through deeds or donations (the medieval “indulgences”, Luther decried) –  it had to be a personal decision; it had to be about having the right faith as revealed in the Bible: this was the essence of the protestant reformation.

Calvin, Zwingli and Knox were the main explainers of this new take on faith, but they had challengers and chief among them was a minister of the Dutch Reformed church, Jacobus Armenius, and it was his arguments, not Calvin’s, which convinced John Wesley, founder of Methodism. The two understandings of the nature of God and how one “gets right” with God are incompatible, often in complete opposition. There are many resources to help someone understand these two opposing views and links follow my essay, but here is a short summary of Wesley’s objections to the already well established Calvinism of his day.

“The Five Points of Calvinism” are occasionally known by the acrostic TULIP: Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and Perseverance of the Saints.  Wesley’s followers created their own four point summary of their faith from his writings: the Four Alls.

In Calvinism, Total Depravity means that everyone is born to sin, that loving God is unnatural for humans, and are therefore morally incapable of being “saved”, redeemed, or becoming holy, unless God affects it for them. Unconditional Election is the option that God chose, at the beginning of time, who would be elevated to being in relationship with God, regardless of their deeds and even, as we will see, will: the rest get to suffer the wrath they deserve for being born sinful (I realize you may be thinking what I do here…but I am just telling you what Calvinist belief is… I am obviously not Calvinist.) Limited Atonement decrees that only the elect, as above, get to enjoy the benefits of Christ’s atonement, that is, are forgiven for being born sinful. Irresistible Grace claims that because some people were chosen by almighty God, those people are acceptable to God whether they like the idea or not, because God cannot be resisted, and Perseverance of the Saints  just means that because God chose them and they are saved and put right with God, they cannot lose that status. (If they later do something really heinous, then that shows they were never really one of the elect.)

In contrast, John Wesley, basing his writings on Arminius, denounced Total Depravity and declared people were not depraved but alienated – without a knowledge of God; instead of Unconditional Election, Wesley believed people can choose to be one with God, to choose to be God-fearing (God-loving). Instead of Limited Atonement, he proclaimed that God’s love is freely available to all  –  if they want it; as for Irresistible Grace:  for Wesley, grace is not irresistible – someone can choose to resist God’s grace, so they have a choice to make. Lastly, instead of Perseverance of the Saints, Wesley wrote that people can have a sense of security and assurance in their faith, but that a life with God should bear the marks of that life in the way it is lived. It includes a call for holy living, so that the person does not fall back out of the state of grace.

So Wesleyan theology is sometimes summed up as being about the “Four Alls”:

All need to be saved (put in right relationship with God)

All can be saved (all does mean all)

All can know they are saved (feel reassured of being accepted by God)

All can be saved to the uttermost (we can continue to grow in holiness)

When the first Methodists arrived in the village, later city, of Troy, it was almost exclusively Protestant, and overwhelmingly Presbyterian. Of the other early faith groups – the Baptists were also strongly Calvinist; only the smaller group of Quakers, and the Episcopalians were not. A few decades later, Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Universalists and Unitarians and other faith groups arrived, less linked with Calvin, but the first pioneers of Troy, and especially the leaders would have considered, like most migrated New Englanders and recent European immigrants of the day, that Methodist teaching was radical, absurd, not sensible and probably dangerous.

What matters is: people took their faith and the concern of their eternal condition extremely seriously. What would happen to your eternal soul if you chose the wrong option? And in this choice the Methodist way was both more recent and a minority opinion: novel in every sense. But there was also something in this message that gave ordinary people hope and excitement, as we can tell by the fervor with which they embraced the teaching of preachers and those who spoke at the frequent revivals and camp meetings.

It is against that background that we see the likes of Dr. John Loudon so deliberately and ponderously, even shockingly,  take a deliberate step away from the majority denomination of the early leadership of Troy, of which he was a member, renounce his Presbyterian membership, and join the Methodists. His treatise, printed over two magazine articles after his death, is testimony to the amount of theological research and thought and prayer he put into that decision. Two hundred years on, it is almost impossible for us to imagine or believe that all this took up so much of people’s time and waking thoughts. The fact that it did explains the difficulty of bringing a new faith idea into the public conscience, which was what our early State Street Methodists were aiming to do, despite public opposition. The following essay features Dr. Loudon, and the one after that describes the physical violence early Methodist preachers endured for their convictions and the mockery and prejudice faced by the Methodist societies.

Janet Douglass, Troy, NY

May 2026.

There is an excellent and succinct 11- minute video on YouTube, which can be found by searching for “The Four Alls: Summarizing Wesleyan Theology” by Rev. Daniel Hixon. It includes the New Testament verses Wesley created these all from, if you need further information on why he affirms these things.

From the internet site, The Voice: Biblical theological resources for grown Christians: “Tulip Calvinism compared to Wesleyan Perspectives” by Dennis Bratcher ” at  https://www.crivoice.org/tulip.html or search for TULIP Calvinism and Wesleyan by Dennis Bratcher for a handy chart with the differences side-by-side.

There are also many contemporary arguments in favor of a Calvinist approach available on the web, as both text discussions and on YouTube.

The 19th Century Struggle for Musical Instruments in Worship

“The use of musical instruments in the church, it should be known, was not approved by its early members and no little opposition was shown to the gradual innovations that were made to support the congregational and choir singing with such instruments as the bass viol and organ. At one time, the singers in the church attempted to introduce the use of a bass viol and obtained a player to bring one to the church for a rehearsal. Seeing the objectionable instrument in the gallery, while on his way to class-meeting, Isaac Hillman took his pocket-knife and cut the strings of the viol, thereby defeating, the purpose of the ambitious choristers. Although he had used so summary a method to sustain the authority of the society, he nevertheless indemnified the viol-player for the loss of the strings of his instrument.” (Methodism in Troy by Joseph Hillman, son of Isaac, p. 60)

Accompanied music in churches today seems so very ordinary, it is hard to consider what outrage the introduction of musical instruments into worship could possibly have caused, though there are Christians denominations to this day which forbid their use. In fact, many of us are  very familiar with the very opposite of that: friends and family members for whom the absence of a fabulous organist, extensive voice or hand bell choir, or a great band, is reason to avoid a church altogether. 

Our early records reflect the progression happening in many Protestant churches of the day: from unaccompanied congregational singing and chanting  – solos were also impermissible –  to the arrival of an organ. Indeed, we even have the wording of the original letter detailing why a group of leaders tried to prevent it.

So what was the problem? After all, the Psalms, in the Christian Old Testament, mention singing and dancing accompanied by musical instruments. The issue centers on the fact that in the brief comments in the Book of Acts, and in the Letters, about the early gatherings of those who followed “the Way” of Jesus, mention no instruments by name. When the people driving the Protestant Reformation started to look closely at the Biblical texts, intending to return worship to what they felt had been its original form, they found no instruments mentioned and began to call accompanied singing a “heresy” and so they outlawed it.

The records of the State Street Methodist Church reveal the hesitancy of moving away from this received Protestant wisdom. The congregation had been hiring a succession of men to teach multi part singing in the “classes” as well as to general congregation, from at least the late 1820s. In the early 1830s, the choir requested they be allowed to rehearse, at least occasionally, and for a one month trial period, with a bass viol: a very tentative step, indeed. They understood there would be objections, as detailed above. Nonetheless, the choir prevailed,  and the bass viol appears to have become somewhat acceptable in Sunday services within a decade. The idea of installing an organ, however, would  be a far larger step, partly it seems, because siting an organ seemed such an irrevocable step, and maybe even an offensive one to the very structure of God’s house.*

Christian Heritage Edinburgh has this brief history of the organ in worship:

“In AD 670 Pope Vitalian introduced the first organ in church history at the cathedral in Rome, but organs were not widely played in churches until the eighteenth century. In fact often they were met with great suspicion and even anger. The organ gradually made its way into general usage in the Catholic Church by the thirteenth century but some of the Reformers, particularly John Calvin (1509-1564), considered it an instrument of the world and the devil.” 

Even so, by the mid 1700’s organs were being installed in congregations in New England, especially in Episcopal and Congregational churches, and pressure gradually mounted in all denominations to include musical instruments, with a large and complicated organ as a prized status symbol.

In the State Street Methodist society, those who fought hardest to prevent the acquisition of an organ called themselves the Memorialists. They were led by Dr. Avery J. Skilton, and when their cause appeared unsuccessful, they requested that the Leaders print their letter of objections, in full, in the minutes of their meeting held on August 22nd,1852. It begins: 

” To the Leaders and Stewards Meeting regularly assembled Brethren. 

A Church is an assemblage of pious persons associated together for the purpose of worshiping God, and of mutually aiding each other by advice, encouragement and exhortation to a Godly life and conversation, and to the exercise of holy disposition,” After several hundred words it concludes with a summary of the complaints of the Memorialists, who believed the leaders had made an “absurd” choice because firstly, the use of musical instruments is “unsanctioned by the Gospel”; an “imposition on their feelings” of people who joined the Church before this addition; an “injustice in a trespass upon the rights of property” of the members have paid their annual pew rental (threatening legal actions of trespass no less!); “an attempt to force the Church of God into accordance with man’s political preferences” (a comment on a presumed perceived imbalance between the objectors and those saying nothing, versus the leadership); “A withholding of the right of private judgment and conscience” – because there had not been a general ballot; and finally, they declared that the Leaders’ Meeting had “transcended its powers” and“violated the rights of members without the shadow of delegated authority” – a complaint that there had not been a vote for everyone, but neither were the leaders elected by the congregation as their representatives. The letter was signed by Dr Avery J. Skilton, Peter Bontecou, James Carnell, E. A. Burrows, William Ritter, Chester Brockway, Cynthia Brockway and S(Samuel? Sarah? Saul?) J. Peabody. 

By early 1853, the organ was installed and the topic only reappeared in the minutes when requests were made in following months to first “dispense with the organ voluntarys”(sic) and later, the organ interludes, showing that while the organ was deemed helpful in hymn singing, not everyone was comfortable with it being used in a performative way – or maybe this was a nod to those who had objected all along. The disagreement had been intense and passionate, yet those who protested the installation of the first organ did not leave the congregation when they failed. If limiting the use of the organ for a while was a small accommodation to its detractors, who had not simply moved on when they lost the discussion, this author can find it nothing other than heartening.

Janet Douglass, Troy, NY. February 2026.

*The organ discussion takes place in the Leaders’ Minute Book which records meetings from1849. It begins with the February 1852 meeting: “On motion of Bro. Matthews, it was resolved that the chorister be permitted to introduce an instrument called the melodion into the choir of the church on trial for one month.” Permission was continued for another month in March, but there was a motion “to rescind use” in April, but the decision was delayed after much discussion. A second April meeting and another long discussion ended with the resolution “in view of the feeling of the church on the subject of instrumental music in divine worship the purchase of an organ for the above purpose is inadvisible.”   At the meeting on July 2, 1852, “Dr. Skilton presented a paper…purporting to be a protest against the erection of an organ in this church, which he desired to read.” on the subject, and the following month his paper was recorded in the official minutes, as above. 

The first organist of the church was Mr. Conant who had first been hired as the Singing Master or Chorister, both terms are used, in November 1849. He was discontinued some months later, rehired in December 1850 and in February of 1852 he made the request to introduce a melodion. After Mr Conant left his position, the society tried to hire a Mr. Clucas but this led to strife with the leadership of St Paul’s who also believed they had hired him. There is no evidence he ever took the position with the Methodists, but Mr William Cluett did,  and the long and generous history of the Cluett family and this group of Methodists, began.


Quotation on the history of the organ is from www.christianheritageedinburgh.org.uk

For a contemporary take on the” heresy” of musical instruments in worship, read https://www.swrb.com/newslett/actualnls/InstrHer.htm

A Dream of Pigeons

An early story of the State Street Methodists, as recorded by Joseph Hillman

Isaac Hillman’s 1888 book,“Methodism in Troy,” is our main reference to the earliest days of the Methodist congregation on State Street in Troy, NY. We spent a whole year celebrating our 200th anniversary in 2007-8, including re-enacting some of those tales. We began with 3D wire and paper pigeons flapping their wings as they flew down wires from the balcony, over the heads of the congregation, landing at the communion rail at the start of worship one morning: an invention of resident engineer and installation creator, Alice Rose. They were decorated by members of the Sunday School and volunteers from the congregation, and 4 remain hanging in Fellowship Hall as a reminder of the dramatic event.

But why pigeons? In particular, why did we start with pigeons? It is because of a story told by Hillman. Here are his words:

”The congregation began to seek a suitable site for a meeting house. On the uninclosed ground then known as the Common, lying east of the line of Fourth Street, an eligible plot was found, which was designated on the map of the village as lots 743 and 744. They were originally part of the farm of Jacob D. Van der Heyden, which had been surveyed and laid out into building lots in 1807. As he had generously given to the Presbyterians and Baptists the ground on which they had built their meeting-houses, it was thought that if he were respectfully solicited he might be induced to convey lots to the society as a gift. When he was approached it was found• that he was not only unwilling to part with the property but personally opposed to the project of the society, asserting that the Methodists had no need of a meeting-house. Dr. John Loudon, a popular physician, who had begun his practice in the village in 1793, became greatly interested in the welfare of the society of which in 1810 he became a member, and he undertook to intercede with his brother-in-law to convey, for a small consideration, the lots to the trustees of the church. It is related that the business so much engaged his thoughts that one night he dreamed that he saw a large flock of pigeons fly over the village and settle down on the proposed site of the meeting-house. This dream he interpreted to presage the future prosperity of the church. After some further overtures, Jacob D. Vander Heyden consented to sell the ground for $500, demanding, however, the payment of an interest annually of $35 until the property was possessed by the purchasers. The conveyance was made on Christmas day, December 25, 1808.” (pp23-24 Methodism in Troy, Hillman, self-published 1888.)

The  first two buildings were on that same piece of land, on the eastern edge of the Williams Street alley between Fourth and Fifth, facing State Street, where the parish house and garden are today. Early illustrations show that the first small white clapperboard building was on otherwise empty ground. The land had been Jacob D. Vanderheyden’s farm. This was the land which Vanderheyden had made available for the African American community, enslaved and free, to hold their annual week-long PInkerfest celebration. As the influence of the original Dutch farming families – with their numerous enslaved workers – waned, the land reverted to common land which Hillman describes as “not very inviting” as it was mostly dense weeds, briars and very little grass. Hillman further writes that a nearby stream would frequently overflow and leave “a strip of water on the east side of the church where children, in winter, found good sliding on the ice covering it.” (Hillman, p 27)

Housing at the time was still limited to First, Second and Third Streets with most commercial buildings on the banks of the Hudson, on River Street and increasingly along Congress Street: the land was, at the time, truly on the edge of the village.

The years of the 19th century would prove Loudon’s dream interpretation to be valid. The State Street site was the scene of many religious revivals, and birthed Sunday Schools and new Methodist churches in the area, as well as inspiring many to become pastors.

The trustees of the congregation solicited funds to build the “Troy University”, a towering ideal which sadly graduated only one full 4 year class, as original benefactors decided to promote other academic institutions. The building, with its four tall spires, dominated the Troy skyline for more than a century. It stood on the hill at the end of State Street, in full view of the congregation as they came to worship. When the university closed for lack of funding, it  was purchased by the rapidly growing Roman Catholic faithful, and eventually sold to RPI. The last part of the original 1840’s structure was torn down 120 years later to build the current RPI library. 

On the edge of Round Lake, a  Methodist campground, set up by Hillman and his colleagues, in 1868, attracted 20,000 people annually to hear the preachers. It became a Chautauqua-style educational meeting, before becoming the settled village we see today, with houses built on the original church tent plots. Attendees gathered to hear well-known preachers and to sing hymns. The magnificent 1847 organ, which was placed in the tabernacle in 1888, is regarded as a treasure of the organ world, and the public can attend organ recitals every Summer.  Methodist Farm on Crooked Lake, which is still operational as a Methodist summer camp, was bought and set up by local Methodists in the 1920’s, including the financial support of the State Street Methodists. 

This all started with a dream about pigeons. As in the time of Jesus, early settlers of this nation  put great store in dreams as a way for God to inspire them. A dream could sway even a staunch opponent like Vanderheyden to have his mind changed – at a price! 

In the late 1860’s a plan was formed to build the current church, and the adjoining plot – now nowhere near an overwhelming stream – was purchased to make the site the size it is today.

As for Troy’s actual pigeon flock – some of whom survive despite the attentions of bald eagles and a variety of  hawks – they can be seen at the end of the next block from the church at Barker (“Pigeon”) Park, along the Riverfront and in Monument Square, where some kind soul throws out food for them each morning.

The life of Dr. Loudon,  the Round Lake campground, Methodist Farm on Crooked Lake, and Troy University will all have their own essays  – as will the subject of antagonism toward early Methodists, as witnessed in the difficulty with which the congregation secured the land it still holds to this day.

Janet Douglass, August 2025.

Reed Brockway Bontecou (1824 – 1907)

Stories from the lives of members of the State Street Methodist Episcopal Church

The gravestone of Reed Brockway Bontecou M.D. in Oakwood Cemetery, Troy, NY.

While the Cluett family, which played such an important part in the history of Christ Church, is now probably the best remembered name locally, on a national scale the most renowned person, by far, would be Dr. Reed Brockway Bontecou.

Dr. Bontecou’s name appears in medical journals dealing with surgery techniques and the beginnings of plastic surgery, in photographic journals detailing his photographs from the Civil War, and on Civil War and veteran sites, because of the pioneering nature of his surgical methods and how he recorded them in photos at such an early date of the craft. A few years ago, the Hart-Cluett Museum in Troy had a whole exhibit dedicated to Dr. Bontecou and displayed his medical bag.

In terms of the history of Christ Church, United Methodist in Troy, his lifetime spans all three of the buildings that have stood on State Street between the Williams Street alley and 5th Avenue, growing up in a devoted Methodist family. 

He was descended from Pierre Bontecou, a French Huguenot, who was linked to Dutch Protestants before him. Pierre arrived in New York City as a refugee from the regime of King Louis XIV in the late 1600’s, and the family originally worshipped in a French speaking Huguenot (protestant) church. One branch of the family ended up in New Haven, CT. They were industrious and successful, but like many in the area suffered financially and physically at the hands of the British during the struggle for independence. This brought one branch of the Bontecous to the “village of Lansingburgh”  in the late 1780s. Subsequently, Peter Bontecou, father of Dr. Reed Brockway Bontecou, was brought to Coeymans by his parents. But when still “a young lad” he removed to Troy to work as a clerk in a shoe store. He later became the proprietor.

Peter was a lifelong and ardent Methodist. Whether he heard about Methodism when he arrived in Troy, or had already made contact with the dedicated group already established in Albany County, we do not know. However, our records show he was a leader of State Street Methodist from its earliest days until his death in 1868. The family genealogist describes him as “cold and austere in manner, and strictly honest in all his dealings; a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and a great student of theological works.“

Reed was his first child. He had married Samantha Brockway in Troy in 1823. A year later he had a motherless infant son. Samantha’s death 2 weeks after giving birth was credited by some historians for Reed becoming a physician. 

Even as a child, Reed was studious, with a naturally curious, scientific mind. When a boy, he started a collection of sea shells and he noted the similarities and differences as he catalogued them. According to the History of Rensselaer Co., New York by Nathaniel Bartlett Sylvester, published in 1880, he attended the “High School Academy” then Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and then graduated M. D. from the Castleton Medical College, VT. At the age of 22 years, between attending RPI and medical school, he went on a year-long voyage up the Amazon to study. He was married, on July 18, 1849, to Susan Northrup and they went on to have 5 children. 


In 1857, at the Troy Hospital, Bontecou “ligated the right subclavian artery for diffuse traumatic aneurysm of the axillary artery, the first successful case in America and one of the first three on record” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_Brockway_Bontecou

 In 1861, he left his physician’s practice to become the medical officer of the Second Volunteer Infantry of New York. Within 3 months he was running the Fortress Monroe military hospital and then was asked to lead Harewood Hospital in DC, which he left at its closure in 1866. By that time he had been brevetted lieutenant-colonel and colonel of volunteers for his faithful and meritorious services during the war. 

He returned to Troy and became the assistant surgeon at the Watervliet Arsenal, resident surgeon at Marshall’s Infirmary off Hill Street in South Troy, and had a private medical practice for four more decades. He is quoted in numerous coroner’s reports in Troy and area newspapers, was an official examiner for those seeking Civil War pensions, and held a number of prestigious positions in medical societies. He published reviews of his work and inventions, which included a special kit for soldiers to take with them into battles to self-treat a wound until help arrived, greatly increasing their chance of survival.

His name appears in the works of Arthur Weise who published several books on Troy in addition to Sylvester’s history of Rensselaer County. The Hart Cluett Museum had a display about his life and work, a few years ago, and displayed his medical bag.

According to the site dedicated to medical collections: “Bontecou’s peers respected ‘his unselfish character, his strict devotion to the truth, his extreme modesty and his unswerving fidelity to his students, colleagues and friends,’ noted one physician. Another doctor called him, ‘the Napoleon of Surgeons.’ “ That site hosts a long article, with illustrations, and catalogs his medical achievements. It is entitled: “Dr. Reed Bontecou’s Pocket Surgical Wallet, Bloodstained from the First Recorded Battlefield Amputation in the Civil War, on a Soldier of the 5th New York (Duryee Zouaves) And the Coins Driven into a Soldier’s Groin by a Bullet!”

Dr. Reed Bontecou’s Pocket Surgical Wallet, Bloodstained from the First Recorded Battlefield Amputation in the Civil War, on a Soldier of the 5th New York (Duryee Zouaves)

The “Faces of the Civil War” blog has an entry entitled “The Napoleon of Surgeons” about Bontecou. http://facesofthecivilwar.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-napoleon-of-surgeons.html

In addition to the medical sites, he is remembered on historical photography sites for his pioneering use of the art as a documentary tool during the Civil War. This site has the most extensive descriptions of those achievements:

https://historiccamera.com/cgi-bin/librarium2/pm.cgi?action=app_display&app=datasheet&app_id=3276&

One of the largest online collections of his photographs can be found at: 

https://www.robertandersongallery.com/gallery/reed-bontecou/

The site says: “Reed Bontecou was responsible for pioneering, and taking, the largest number of photographs of wounded soldiers during the Civil War and was the single largest contributor of photographs and specimens to the Army Medical Museum and medical publications of the time. His close up images of surgery, anesthesia, and patients posing with their pathological specimens were unique to his time.”

Just a few of the many sites which speak of Dr. Bontecou, for all his great qualities, do recount a lapse of judgment and somewhat of a fall from grace, in a situation that caused his wife Susan Northrup Bontecou to file for divorce.  Details are few. One site (the Faces of the Civil War blog,) quotes a New York Times report that Susan’s accusation was “criminal intimacy”- the term used for an affair with a married person – and gives two names for the woman involved. All other references state simply that they divorced because of his affair with a young woman. For now we will leave it at this: in the strict society of his day, and doubtless among his colleagues and social group, this brief affair must have been quite a scandal, and stirred up much gossip once divorce proceedings began, but I have found few references to it.* What we do know is that, despite the embarrassment and notoriety, Dr. Bontecou did not leave the city in disgrace and his career does not seem to have been radically changed by the events. He continued to be a member – and head of – various esteemed organizations and to work with the military, at Marshall Infirmary and in private practice in Troy. The divorce was finalized in 1883. He never remarried.

Bontecou died in 1907. He is buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Troy.

(The photograph was taken by the author on 4th July, 2025. The headstone is very unusual, and I have not seen another in the century which is uncarved rock.)

Other interesting articles:

https://spotsylvaniacw.blogspot.com/2013/07/podcast-battlefield-photography-of-dr.html

https://www.hartcluett.org/rensselaer-county-blog/dreadful-accident?rq=bontecou

https://www.seekingmyroots.com/members/files/G000711.pdf

Bontecou genealogy, which starts with the amazing maritime adventures of a famous Dutch family member. 

The FindaGrave website includes additional details of his Civil War Service I have not seen elsewhere and photos of the doctor, in uniform and on horseback. 

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7050830/reed-brockway-bontecou

*Ron Coddington’s blog: Faces of the Civil War  says: “Susan Northrup (1828-1911) and Bontecou married in 1849. She alleged criminal intimacy between her husband and Emma Josephine Murray, also known as Emma Brockway. According to the 1870 U.S. Census, she is the daughter of Reed Brockway. There may be a genealogical connection between this branch of the Brockway family and that of Bontecou’s mother, Samantha Brockway Bontecou (1803-1824). New York Times, November 28, 1883.”  As I started to research the matter, errors in family trees made the strands of the tale hard to untangle for this essay: I may go back to researching who this Emma was, as the only Emma in the family was never known as “Emma Josephine Murray” – even a little research has thrown up other inconsistencies with even that brief account and no interest in the story in local newspapers so far – Janet

A Congregation where Innovation Runs Deep

Logo for Soul Cafe 1999-2005

In 1999, the pastoral team of Christ Church, United Methodist, Troy, NY, was led by the Rev. James Fenimore, whose first degree had been in Computer Science. Jim arrived at the church, not quite 30 years old, and aware of the possibilities of the new digital world for a downtown city congregation in a city with one of the leading technological institutes of higher education in the country. 

Christ Church became the first local congregation with a church website; the first Troy congregation to record services to CD and copy them for home distribution, then the first to offer DVDs and more…but I am getting ahead of my story.

In 1999, the website was up and running, CDs were, indeed, being produced, but Jim had had an idea based on his reading and conversations with other pastors he met at Drew Theology School, his alma mater…maybe what the church, what the city needed, was a different kind of church event: an evening “service” that did not seem like a church service at all. This would be nothing like a regular service: a dimmed coffeehouse setting, with good coffee and tea & snacks, free of course, live local musicians who could stop by on their way to the local busy bar music scene – paid a decent fee – and a big screen so we could show videos. The local “conference” of Methodist churches had just made it possible to buy into a licensing scheme to screen clips of current movies. Jim set about explaining the idea and winning the budget approval for the expense, which we thought would be near-impossible, but was, in fact, quickly approved, faster than we had dared hope.

We began to plan – and I have to say, there was real excitement about the idea. The upstairs fellowship hall would get round cafe style tables and candles, and a large back-projection screen would be placed on the stage, the projector hanging behind it out of view. Microphones for the musicians would be placed on the main floor of the room at the front, along with a couple of stools for the pastors, and the event run via a computer and sound system at the back of the room. The round tables were placed between those two areas. 

The “service” would have no hymns, no prayers, no spoken appeal for donations. It would begin with a brief introduction to a theme – a guiding metaphor – for the evening, followed by the musicians, at times a Christian rock band or singer, but mostly any local talent who wanted to perform, whether a college a capella group, a blues guitarist or band, a classical musician or even an opera singer. The music would last 20-25 minutes of a 40 – 45 minute gathering. “Soul Cafe” was meant to gather those for whom sitting face forward and being told what to say, sing, think and do, just did not work. The title came – with permission! – from one of Jim’s professors: Leonard Sweet had a magazine for preachers of that name, and it was so perfect for us, we asked to use it.

And the main event of Soul Cafe was always the movie clip. 

We would find a film sequence, often from a movie that was recently released, often days before so people had not had time to see it; where a more usual service would take a Bible passage and relate it to the world, Soul Cafe clips were picked to ask a question of the church. They represented a comment from the society about the society. So what did that society, have to tell us? The reflections would be no more than 5-6 minutes as the “service” ended, and the gathered group were always left with a question posed by the movie.

Well, I think the congregation, not just the leadership, felt we were being pretty “out there” to do this…

As the planning for “Soul Cafe”began,  the church was also starting to use Ebay as a way to sell donated items which had value, though not maybe to those visiting our fundraising events. The leadership team, also being interested in the history of the congregation, would also check Ebay in case State Street Methodist Episcopal items were for sale. Never the best at keeping records, we had found very few historical things in closets, though they included a blueprint from the early 1920’s lining a drawer. Interestingly, it showed that someone at that time was an innovative thinker: one of the plans even showed a ten pin bowling alley being constructed right under the aisles of the sanctuary!

It was a quick glance at Ebay while I was away in the UK that turned up some 80 year-old  bulletins of the church. I emailed the Senior Pastor, he put in a bid, and by the time I returned to Troy, the bulletins were waiting for me.

Imagine our surprise – and delight – to see maybe we were not as innovative as we thought! 

80 years before, in the days of silent movies, the Church had had movies at the evening service, an innovation of the Rev. Mark Kelley DD – probably the man who had the idea of the bowling alley under the church. 

We have only a few bulletins from 1921 and 1922, and many movie titles suggest they came from a religious source: a movie meant to inform about missionary work, or a Sunday School illustration (weren’t they on top of the latest developments!), but some of them seemed to be more about places in the world. I have traced a couple to an archive of educational films: Sights of Suva, Fiji* shown on Feb 19 1922; and Apple Blossom Time in Normandy** shown on May 8 1921.

As yet, I have not found any viewable copies, but wouldn’t it be fun to reenact one of those evening services, complete with their silent movie reel?

In 2005, the very week that the then largest, 50 inch, LED monitors came to market, the church installed two at the front of the sanctuary, along with 2 smaller ones further back, remotely operated digital cameras, a first-rate computer control booth and the latest recording and sound equipment. And so it was that the ability to screen movie clips came to morning worship and Soul Cafe ceased. The expense was considerable, and would have been unimaginable without what had happened in Soul Cafe, but it represented an openness of the congregation to embrace the new. With the new equipment, the congregation could now record CDs of worship, or weddings, or concerts, showing different angles and views. The Senior Pastor, Jim, was working on his Ph.D. on the impact of the digital revolution on church services around the country; the congregation was involved in planning, participating and running our media-rich and metaphor-based worship services. Another new era had begun – but  we now knew we were in a congregation which had valued the spirit of innovation and experimentation for a lot longer than we could have expected, when we started on our digital journey.

Janet Douglass, Troy, NY, March 2025.

Motion Pictures for Instruction 1926 by A.P.Hollis M.S. pub. The Century Co. New York 1926. Available as a Google book at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V3gCdNeICZOQdWuz5fckOWVWTcbxrEkaPDjaxNDqMLg/edit?tab=t.0

*reel 2 of 5 :  Fiji Islands by Burton Holmes Lectures,  Chicago; a rental film listed in Hollis p.348

** listed by Hollis, in the Blue-Ribbon List of Films for Cities p.213

The Rev. Dr. James Fenimore’s Ph.D. was awarded by RPI in Troy, and his dissertation “High-Tech worship: Media Technologies and Christian Liturgical Practice” is available on his website: www.JamesFenimore.com. His DMin. thesis: “How a Congregation’s Identity is Affected by the Introduction of Technology-Based Worship”  is also available on his website. He has 2 other theses available: “A church on the Edge of an Apocalypse,” a take on the history of Christ Church, is available online at: https://christchurchtroy.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/earlyhistory.pdf. Jim first featured the congregation – before he was appointed as the Pastor – in his thesis From meeting house to house of God : the Gothic revival in the American Methodist tradition of Troy Annual Conference (1870-1879), which is available from Drew University.

Jim’s academic work on digital worship included the benefits and pitfalls of using other people’s images as visual representations. The significance can be easily grasped if you have ever seen a so-called Bible-based commercial film, where white skinned, blonde-haired, blue-eyed males prevail scene after scene  (except maybe for Judas Iscariot…did you notice that?!) Movies can be enormously helpful – but graphical imagery can subtly mislead – or open us to the moviemakers’ biases or poor scholarship! Finding clips we wanted to present was always no quick task but could lead to valuable conversations about whose ideas prevail in society, and how to be a critical viewer of the imagery around us. 

The Methodist Episcopal Churches of Troy, NY: First German Methodist Episcopal Church & St Titus Italian 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. Out of site at the right are the municipal buildings and Police Station (corner State and Sixth.)

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.

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.

The Methodist Episcopal Church of Troy, NY: Levings Chapel/ Fourth Methodist Church/ Levings Church.

Extended notes on the Methodist congregations associated with the State Street Methodist Episcopal Church ( now Christ Church, United Methodist.)

Fourth Methodist Church/ Levings Chapel, 63 Mill Street, South Troy, NY

In the mid 1830s, Methodists who were working in the nail factory on Mill Street, began to ask for a church to be erected closer to their place of work and homes. According to Hillman, they were holding worship services at the nail factory. On September 24, 1838, they met at the factory and designated themselves as the “Trustees of the Levings Chapel in the city of Troy,” also known as Fourth Methodist Church of Troy.

In 1850, they erected a sanctuary opposite the factory. Two years later, the Rev. Tobias Spicer, another early Methodist from the State Street church,  and who was appointed as pastor of the Levings Chapel society, spoke unflatteringly of his work there: “My labors this year were mostly in South Troy, where we had a feeble society, which had lately built a church. “ None the less, by the early 1860’s the church had a membership of 140, and in 1888, at the publication of Hillman’s book, the number had swelled to 212 members, by which time the church had been renamed “Leving’s Church” though the old name of Chapel was often used. 

The congregation continued until the 1960’s, when the decision was made to close it, rather than execute the much needed expensive repairs. The remaining members merged with the Green Island Methodist Church, now called Good Shepherd United Methodist Church, and anyone looking for genealogical materials from Levings Chapel could start there.

The last service was held on Palm Sunday, 1968, and the decision seemed prescient, given that during the following Winter the roof collapsed during a heavy snow storm and shortly afterward the church and manse were torn down. The lot for the two buildings remains empty, and stands on the corner of Mill and Erie Streets, and across Erie Street from the Woodside arts center, which was previously Woodside Presbyterian Church. The photographs below show the site, now obscured from the road by trees – the blue marks delineate the platform which remains and the two disused paths leading to it, one covered in gravel and the other metallized. The tower of the neighboring former Woodside Presbyterian Church can be seen beyond the trees. The platform can also be glimpsed behind current homes from the top of Erie Street.

The substantial buildings of the nail factory and Albany Steel Works, which lined the Wynantskill at the time, have also long-since disappeared. Today there is a walk around Burden Pond, down beside the Burden Falls and then on toward the Hudson River. If you look for them, there are still bricks and a few ruins of the old mills, in places. The location is famous for the giant Burden Water Wheel that used to stand there, purportedly the most powerful water wheel ever built. Several websites give those details, and also tell how an RPI student used his knowledge of this wheel, and his engineering skills, to build the first fairground pleasure wheel for the Chicago Columbian Exhibition in 1893. His name was George Washington Gale Ferris. For the first members of Levings Chapel however, it was simply one of the amazing pieces of new technology, which made them so productive and helped create Troy’s wealth.

As for the Rev. Noah Levings, this early convert to Methodism by the State Street faithful, while still an apprentice blacksmith, will need to have a brief history of his own at later date.

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.

The Methodist Episcopal Churches of Troy, NY: Fifth Avenue/ North Second Street

Extended notes on the Methodist congregations associated with the State Street Methodist Episcopal Church (now Christ Church, United Methodist.)

“The expediency of taking advantage of the growth of the city northward of Grand Division Street, and of having a church in which the seats were free, caused the State Street society to give consideration to the project of providing a place of worship in the north part of Troy. On May 23, 1831, the Quarterly Conference appointed a committee ‘to provide a place for preaching somewhere in the bounds of the fourth ward.’ On August 8, that year, the committee reported ‘that the only place to be had ‘ was ‘the dwelling-house’ of Stephen Monroe. A committee of five persons was then appointed ‘to provide a place or places for meetings in the first and fourth wards of the city (…) Considering that the lot on the northeast corner of North Second and Jacob streets would be an eligible site for a church.” (Hillman, pp 87-8)

On the evening August 13, 1831, the trustees of the State Street society “resolved that a subscription should be circulated throughout the City of Troy and elsewhere for the purpose of building a Methodist Episcopal Church in the fourth ward of the city ‘with free seats.” showing that the idea of having paid seating in the “mother church” on State Street had become an issue for some of the congregation.

This building was a brick structure and included a basement. As soon as it was built the Sunday School which had been organized nearby, in the school-room of Miss Annie Manwarring, was moved there and prayer meetings began. “On Sunday afternoon, August 30, 1835, Bishop Elijah Hedding dedicated the church.“ (Hillman 87-88.) The congregation having grown in number, this church building was replaced with a grander structure, which was originally slightly less grand than the drawing found in Hillman’s book. The original aspect of the church can be seen in this 1869 map by William Barton which can be seen online at the New York Public Library website. The private house next door in that drawing, appears have become the parsonage.

The congregation chose to re-merge with the State Street congregation in the 1920’s, at the same time as the German Episcopal Methodist church. The merger of these three churches occurred in 1925, and is recalled by an unknown member of State Street Methodist Episcopal, upon the 125th anniversary of the church in 1939:“Time passed on with greater or less success to Methodism in Troy, until the year 1925 when the mother church grew lonesome for her children and it was decided to unite the congregations of State Street, Fifth Avenue and the German Church under one head whose name should be the Fifth Avenue-State Street Methodist Episcopal Church.”

(quoted by Rev. Dr. James Fenimore in his 1998 paper: “Christ Church, United Methodist – a Church on the Edge of an Apocalypse” from a letter to the church entitled “To the Pastor and People of State St. Methodist Episcopal Church.” This paper is available online.)

The building and its parsonage became the property of St. Peter’s Armenian Apostolic Church in 1927. That congregation left the building when they constructed their new church in Watervliet, in 1971. An African American congregation then worshiped in the church, until it became suddenly and dangerously unstable, and was razed by the City of Troy in the 1999. The parsonage was demolished a little later.

In 2024, the lot which was occupied by the church and parsonage, is used for parking. It is located between Federal and Jacob Streets on Fifth Avenue, in the area now known as Columbus Square.

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.