USA > New York > Erie County > Buffalo > A history of Buffalo : delineating the evolution of the city > Part 5
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Out of a mission opened in 1882 by the Evangelical Asso- ciation of North America there arose the Rhode Island Street Church of that association, organized and incor- porated in 1885, when it entered a chapel of its own. Till that time it had met in a Presbyterian chapel on Fifteenth Street. In recent years it has been changed, by change of language, from a German to an English church.
The First Free Baptist Church, having sold its Niagara Square building to the Congregationalists, built anew on Hudson Street in 1882. The Prospect Avenue Baptist society replaced its original building by a larger new one; the German Evangelical St. Paul's Church built newly on Ellicott Street, between Tupper and Goodell; the Vine Street African M. E. Church remodeled its building; the Reformed Dutch Church sold its Eagle Street building to the Swedenborgians.
The year 1883 seems to have been at the beginning of a remarkable activity in the organization of new churches, especially in the German fields. The Evangelical Re- formed Emanuel's Church was founded as a mission by "the Western New York Classis of the Reformed Church in the United States," and a chapel built for it at the corner of Humboldt Parkway and East Utica Street. The St. Trini- tatis German United Evangelical Church was organized and established on Gold Street, near Lovejoy, to meet the
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needs of the German population in that section. It erected a first building in 1883 and a second in 1887. The St. Ja- cobi (or St. James) Evangelical Church was formed by members withdrawn from St. Marcus Church of that de- nomination. It bought Providence Chapel, on Jefferson Street, near High; but built on the same site in 1885. A Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Church, of the Trinity, was organized by the Rev. F. O. Hulthren, of Jamestown, at a meeting in the German St. John Lutheran Church, and established on Spring Street, near Broadway. The Dela- ware Avenue Baptist Church came now, fully organized, from the Olivet Mission, and built the chapel which it occupied for many years, before giving place to the Twen- tieth Century Club.
In this year of religious energy, the Methodist Episcopal Union was organized, and Francis H. Root was its president from 1885 until his death. A High Street Baptist mission which had existed for some years formerly and had been dropped, was revived and its ultimate fruit was the Maple Street Baptist Church. A new building was erected for St. Mark's M. E. Church.
Three Baptist Sunday Schools and missions were estab- lished in 1884, from each of which arose a church. One was opened on Glenwood Avenue, at the corner of Purdy Street, for which the Baptist Union bought a chapel that had been built by the Protestant Episcopalians, but given up for another site. For the second, the same Union pur- chased a large framed building which the Lutherans had given up, in the heart of the Polish district, and so planted, on Clark Street, near Peckham, what grew into the First Polish Baptist Church. From the third, called the Calvary Mission, sprang the Lafayette Avenue Baptist Church, the original chapel of which has been enlarged twice since the building of it in 1890.
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A Methodist Sunday School, opened at East Buffalo in 1884, sowed the seed of the Lovejoy M. E. Church, which dedicated a modest chapel the next year, and built an addi- tion to it in 1887.
It was in 1884 that Trinity P. E. Church society was united with that of Christ Church (formed in 1868 by the secession from St. John's), occupying temporarily the chapel built by the latter on Delaware Avenue, north of Tupper Street, while erecting there the new Trinity, which was dedicated on Easter Day in 1886. The last service in the old Trinity edifice was held on the 5th of July, 1885.
A Sunday School opened by the First Congregational Church in 1884, on Chenango Street, near West Ferry, gave origin to the Pilgrim Congregational Church, organized in 1886. Four years later it built on Richmond Avenue and Breckenridge Street. In 1884 the St. James P. E. Church built newly on its old site ; a building for the Third German Baptist Church was dedicated, and that occupied by the Second German Baptist Church was enlarged. The Dela- ware Avenue M. E. Church edifice was remodelled. At this time Bishop Hurst of the M. E. Church became resi- dent in Buffalo, and an episcopal residence was purchased by Francis H. Root. The present pastor of the English Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Holy Trinity, the Rev. F. A. Kähler, began his ministry to it in 1884.
A chapel built by the Buffalo Methodist Union and a Sunday School opened in 1885 were the beginnings of the now large and flourishing Richmond Avenue M. E. Church. The church was organized in the next year, with twenty- three members, and an addition to its chapel was built in 1887. The Northampton Street German M. E. Church was established in a small chapel in 1885, and a larger chapel erected five years later. The St. Thomas P. E. Mission be- came an organized church and parish in the same year.
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Zion's German Evangelical Reformed Church enlarged its edifice in 1885 to a seating capacity for 1,500 people. The commodious stone building now occupied by the Rich- mond Avenue Church of Christ was erected in that year. A chapel was built by the Woodside M. E. Church.
The Church of the Ascension experienced a grievous loss in 1885, in the death of the Rev. John M. Henderson, who had been its rector since 1861.
Bethany Presbyterian Church, growing out of a mission opened not long before by Calvary Presbyterian Church, was organized in 1886. The Bethany German Evangelical Church and the German Evangelical Lutheran Christ Church were also founded in 1886; the former on Eaton Street, by the pastors of the German Evangelical Synod; the latter by its present pastor, the Rev. T. H. Becker, as the outgrowth of a mission Sunday School opened some time before, on Broadway, at the corner of Fox Street. The German Evangelical Lutheran St. Paul's Church was organ- ized in the same year, erecting church buildings, parsonage and school house in 1887. For a Fifth Street Baptist Mis- sion, started in 1886, the Trenton Avenue Chapel was built four years later, between Carolina and Virginia streets.
A building which received the name of the Ripley Memo- rial M. E. Church was erected in 1887, on Dearborn Street, near Austin, by the Rev. Allen P. Ripley and his children, in memory of the late Mrs. Ripley, and presented to the trustees of the church society then organized.
Four missions opened that year developed as many new churches. Two of these were of Baptist origin, one build- ing a chapel on Vernon Street, in which the Parkside Baptist Church was organized in 1890; the other opened in Alamo Hall, on the White's Corners and Abbott roads, but seated a few years later in its own chapel on Good Avenue and Triangle Street, and resulting ultimately in the organization
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of the South Side Baptist Church. From the third mission of the year came the Hampshire Street or Normal Park M. E. Church, for which a building was dedicated in 1889. Plymouth M. E. Church and the Methodist Union co- operated in the support of this mission. The fourth was founded by the pastors of the city conference of the Evan- gelical Synod of North America, with such quick success that the Evangelical Bethlehem Church was organized in May of the same year, under the Rev. A. Goetz, its present pastor, and established in a chapel on Bowen Street, now Woltz Avenue.
No less than six newly organized churches were added to the religious forces of the city in 1888. The Second United Presbyterian Church, cradled for almost a score of years previously in the Hamburg Street Mission, took an inde- pendent form and built for its services on Swan Street, op- posite Chicago Street, where it was seated until 1906. The Church of the Good Shepherd (Protestant Episcopal) was organized, occupying the Ingersoll Memorial Chapel on Jewett Avenue, built by the late Elam R. Jewett in memory of the Rev. Dr. Edward Ingersoll, long time rector of Trinity Church. A congregation branching from the First German Evangelical Lutheran Trinity Church, formed the Emmaus Church, building on Southampton Street, near Jef- ferson. The Seneca Street M. E. Church was organized, and built for its services at the corner of Seneca and Imson streets, with help from the Methodist Union. The Sumner Place M. E. Church, arising from a mission conducted by the Lovejoy Street Church, assumed its organized form and erected a plain framed chapel the same year; and the Met- calf Street M. E. Church was formed, acquiring for its use what had been a Union Chapel and Sunday School.
St. Paul's Cathedral was half destroyed on the 10th of May, 1888, by an explosion of natural gas and consequent
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fire. It was promptly restored. The Zion or East Street German M. E. Church edifice, also, suffered serious injury, from lightning, and was rebuilt.
Organizations of the Epworth League, among the young people of the M. E. Church, were instituted in 1889. Cal- vary M. E. Church was organized, with a dozen original members, and a building erected for it on ground, at the corner of Kehr and Northampton streets, given for the pur- pose by the Leroy Land Company. The Church of the United Brethren in Christ was formed and established pros- perously, in a place of worship at the corner of Masten and Laurel streets. The Jerusalem Reformed Evangelical Church, organized in this year, is located on Miller Avenue, at Nos. 45-47. St. Luke's P. E. Church was removed to a more commodious new building, on Richmond Avenue, at the corner of Summer Street.
In the Ninth Decade .- The venerable edifice of the First Presbyterian Church, built in 1827, was demolished in 1890, to clear the site which had been bought for the Erie County Savings Bank, and the new building for the First Church, on the Circle, at Wadsworth and Pennsylvania streets, was begun. The new Temple Beth Zion, of impressively fine Byzantine architecture, on Delaware Avenue, above Allen Street, was finished and dedicated in 1890. The Rev. Dr. Israel Aaron, its present pastor, had come to it three years before.
In 1891 the Laymen's Missionary League of the Protest- ant Episcopal Church was organized. A Sunday School opened by the First Congregational Church that year in a hall, above a saloon, on Amherst Street, at the corner of the Military Road, was followed by the building of a chapel on the Military Road, near Grote Street, and the organization of the Plymouth Congregational Church. In 1896 the chapel was enlarged. Kenmore M. E. Church was organ-
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ized that year, and building for it was undertaken in the following year. Out of a Sunday School mission in Roche- vot's Hall, Jefferson and Best streets, opened in 1891 by St. John's congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Concordia Church of that communion was formed in 1892. The P. E. parish of St. Andrew's was organized in 1891, and its new church edifice erected in the following year. At the same time the P. E. Church of St. Mary's on the Hill began a handsome building of stone, which it finished in 1893. The present church edifice of Bethany German Evangelical Church was built in 1891 ; and a new chapel for the Richmond M. E. Church was erected in 1891-2, preparatory to the undertaking of the fine large main building now occupied by the church.
Especially among the German Protestants, 1892 was a year of many new plantings. Twenty members from the First German Evangelical Lutheran Church established the Gethsemane Church of that communion, which built on Goodyear Avenue, near Genesee Street. Salem Church, of the German United Evangelical body, was founded by thir- teen men, who arranged for services in the Sunday School room of an M. E. Church until they had built for them- selves, the same year, at the corner of Garfield Street and Calumet Place. Calvary Evangelical Lutheran Church was established by the Mission Society of the Lutheran Church of Buffalo, to provide services in the English lan- guage for many Germans who had lost familiarity with their own tongue. It occupied for ten years a small framed building at the corner of Ellicott and Dodge streets. Four Y. M. A.'s, of different Lutheran Churches, joined in start- ing a mission Sunday School, with accompanying services, in a hall on Fillmore Avenue, at Utica Street, where it was conducted as the Fillmore Avenue Mission for six years. Then the Memorial Church of the Evangelical Association
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was organized, and a building erected on East Utica Street, at the corner of Wohler's Avenue.
From a Baptist Mission Sunday School, opened in 1892 on Walden Avenue west of Bailey Avenue, there came a church, organized in 1897 and known first as the Walden Avenue Baptist. Its services had been held in a movable tabernacle; but now it received from the Baptist Union the gift of a building, derived from a legacy of $5,000, left by the late Eric L. Hedstrom on his death in 1894, and it took the name of the Hedstrom Memorial Church.
Another bequest to the Baptist Union, of $10,000, by the late James Reid, who died in 1887, was applied in this year, 1892, to the establishment of a church which had grown from the mission opened in 1884 in the Polish section of the city. The First Polish Baptist Church was seated accord- ingly in the Reid Memorial Chapel, on William Street, between Coit and Detroit, where services in both the Polish and the English languages are held.
In 1892 and since that date, as stated by the pastor of the Richmond Avenue Church of Christ, that society "has mothered three missions," which became churches, namely, the Jefferson Street, the Forest Avenue and the Dearborn Street Churches of Christ.
The Universalist Church of the Messiah dedicated its new edifice, on the southwest corner of North and Mariner streets, in 1892. The First Congregational Church built its present house of worship, on Elmwood Avenue at the corner of Bryant Street, in the same year. The German Evan- gelical Lutheran Christ Church built newly, at a cost of $35,000. The Sentinel M. E. Church assumed that name, on the dedication of a new church building. The Glen- wood Avenue Baptist Church was organized, and its build- ing enlarged.
A Sunday School, opened in the spring of 1892 by Mr.
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Halsey H. Taylor and a few others, at the corner of Walden and Bailey avenues, led to the organization, in the following July, of the Walden Avenue Presbyterian Church society, which bought a lot and built a chapel very quickly, at the corner of Walden Avenue and May Street. Its Sunday School is one of the largest in the city.
Mission work among the Italians was opened in 1893 by an Italian Baptist minister, the Rev. Ariel Bellondi, who came to Buffalo that year. He found a few Protestants in the large Italian colony which had been growing in the Ken- sington section for half a dozen years, and his labors bore early fruit, in the formation of the First Italian Baptist Church, for which a plain framed building was erected on Edison Street, near East Delevan. The Baptist Young Peo- ple's Association, instituted in 1894, now lent special aid and support to the Italian mission work.
The present Park Presbyterian Church was organized in 1893, with a membership of twenty-three (increased within fifteen years to 250), assembled from the vicinity of Dela- ware Park, in neighboring halls, until 1897, when a building for the church was erected at the corner of Crescent Avenue and Elam Place. In 1909, as stated below, the society was united with that of the North Presbyterian Church in a new home.
A mission from St. Andrew's P. E. Church, opened in a hall at the corner of Jefferson and Northampton streets in 1893, acquired a chapel on Roehrer Avenue and Riley Street and was organized as the Church and parish of St. Barnabas in the following year. At St. Mark's P. E. mission chapel the Church and parish of St. Mark's was formed, the chapel rebuilt and a rector installed, in 1893. In that year, too, the St. John's P. E. Church gave up its old towered edifice on Washington and Swan streets, where the Statler Hotel has been built, and erected a Guild House, at the intersection
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of Lafayette Avenue and Bidwell Parkway, in which its services have since been held.
The Ebenezer German Baptist Church was established in 1893 as a branch from the Second German Baptist Church, and erected its building in 1900, on Fillmore Avenue, north of Clinton Street.
In 1893 the Westminster Presbyterian Church began a period of freshened vitality, under the ministry of the Rev. Dr. Samuel Van Vranken Holmes.
Fitch Memorial Congregational Church, named in memory of a deceased son of the Rev. and Mrs. Frank S. Fitch, was founded in 1894, and established in a building on Clinton Street. The German Evangelical Lutheran Im- manuel Church, at East Buffalo, dates from the same year, when it began to hold meetings in the Lovejoy M. E. Chapel, but built independently in 1896-7.
The parent church of the Buffalo Baptists gave up its an- cient place of worship on Washington Street in 1894, mak- ing use of the Concert Hall in the Music Hall building until September, 1900, when its present fine edifice on North and North Pearl streets was dedicated. The Parkside Bap- tist Church, in 1894, entered into possession of a fine edifice of stone, built on ground given to the church by the owners of the Central Park district. In the same year the Second German Baptist Church sold its former property and built anew on Northampton and Wohler's streets.
1895 was a year of extraordinary creativeness in the church history of Buffalo, especially on its east side. The German Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Redeemer was organized as a mission by the St. John's Lutheran Y. M. A., and established on Genesee Street near Bailey Avenue. The Zion English Evangelical Lutheran Church was formed under the auspices of the Board of Home Mis- sions of the Evangelical Lutheran body, and seated at the
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corner of West Ferry and Nineteenth streets. The English Evangelical Church of the Atonement was organized, under the auspices of the Holy Trinity Church of that communion, with 88 members-now increased to 949, with valuable church property, on Eagle Street, west of Jefferson. The Evangelical Reformed Zoar society was formed by the united labor of several pastors of other German Reformed Churches, and established on Genesee and Rohr streets. The Evangelical Reformed Church of St. Paul, founded by the Rev. J. M. G. Darius, at South Buffalo, built on Duer- stein Avenue, opposite to Cazenovia Park, during 1895-6. The Bethel German Baptist Church, on Johnson Street, north of Sycamore, was formed by members from the First German Baptist Church. The Red Jacket Mission, opened on Seneca Street, at the corner of Juniata, by the East Pres- byterian Church and its pastor, the Rev. Henry Ward, grew soon into the organized South Presbyterian Church, with 325 present members and a good church edifice.
In 1895 the Hutchinson Memorial Chapel of the Holy Innocents, built by E. H. Hutchinson in memory of his father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. John M. Hutchinson, was opened at the Church Home. A chapel for the Linwood Avenue M. E. Church was built in 1895-6.
The Right Rev. Arthur Cleveland Coxe, Bishop of West- ern New York, dying July 20, 1896, was succeeded by the Right Rev. William D. Walker, formerly Missionary Bishop of North Dakota.
A Baptist mission, opened in 1896 at the corner of Del- evan and Grider avenues, by the Parkside Baptist Church, gave origin to the Kensington Baptist Church, organized the next year, and seated in its own building in 1901. The brick edifice now occupied by the Evangelical Bethlehem Church was dedicated in 1896. The present building of the Evangelical Reformed Emanuel's Church was also built
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in this year; and that of the German Evangelical St. Paul's was doubled in size.
The new building of the First Presbyterian Church was formally dedicated on the 16th of May, 1897. The Caze- novia Baptist Church was organized in that year, and occu- pied rented homes until 1904, when it built on Cazenovia Street, near Seneca.
In 1898 the Lafayette Reformed Church was founded by a colony from the West Avenue Presbyterian Church, under the auspices of the Church Extension Society of the Re- formed Church in America. This church, the only one of its denomination in the city, is of Dutch ancestry, holding the Presbyterian system. It had been previously established in Buffalo, for various periods, since 1838. Its members now number 169.
The Lovejoy M. E. Church replaced its original structure with the present brick one, and the Sumner Place M. E. Church built anew, in 1898.
The Old Lutheran Church of Holy Trinity celebrated its sixtieth anniversary in 1899.
In the First Decade of the New Century .- The South Side Baptist Church was organized in 1900, after thirteen probationary years in the status of a mission. The German Evangelical Friedens Church enlarged its house of worship. English services were introduced in the Bethany German Evangelical Church.
The religious organization which bears the name of the Church of the Divine Humanity (Swedenborgian) was formed in 1900; but a small body of its people had been meeting for worship during some years previously, in a hall on Rhode Island Street. Half a century earlier there had been a "New Church" (Swedenborgian) society of twelve persons organized in Buffalo; but its members were soon dispersed. The later society was planted with more vigor
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of life, and was able, in its second year, to build a house of worship for itself, at the corner of West Utica and Atlantic streets. Its first pastor was the Rev. F. A. Gustafson, now of Denver ; its present pastor is the Rev. Thomas French, Jr.
To test the need of a Lutheran church in the Cazenovia district, services were opened in a private residence on Triangle Street, in 1902. The result was the organization, two years later, of the Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church, incorporated in 1905, and established in a building on Kingston and Seneca streets. The Faxon Avenue Presby- terian Church was founded in 1902 by the Rev. F. J. Jopp. The framed building in which the Calvary Evangelical Lutheran Church had worshipped for ten years now gave way to a brick structure, and the church received into its body the members of a Norwegian Lutheran Church, known as Zion's Church, which had existed for some years on Harlow Place, but which was now dissolved.
In the same year the Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church society was organized and held meetings for a time in a hall, but built presently on Cazenovia Street and Glendale Place, where it dedicated a handsome church in 1908.
In 1902-3 the old edifice of Westminster Presbyterian Church was so enlarged and rebuilt that only three walls of the original structure remained. A rich decorative treatment was given to the interior by the Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company, of New York.
Two new churches in the United Presbyterian connection were established in 1903: the South Park U. P. Church, on South Park Avenue at the corner of Altruria Street, and the Ontario U. P. Church, on that street and Gallatin Avenue. Both were organized under the auspices of the United Pres- byterian Men's Association. In that year, too, the Hunt Avenue Baptist Church was organized, recalling to life a former church which had had a short life under the name of the Pilgrim Baptist Church.
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The last meeting of the North Presbyterian Church, in its old downtown home, was on the 17th of April, 1904. For one year thereafter it held services in the Assembly Hall of the Twentieth Century Club, for another year in the hospitable Temple Beth Zion,-where temporarily houseless Christian congregations have been invited to shelter on a number of occasions,-and then in the chapel of its own new church, on Delaware Avenue, at the corner of Utica, until the main edifice was finished and dedicated, in January, 1907.
Maple Street Baptist Church, and the Evangelical St. Andrew's Church, were organized in 1904; the latter on Genesee Street and Domedion Avenue.
In 1905 the splendid new church edifice of the Holy Trinity English Evangelical Lutheran Church, on Main Street above North, was finished, at a total cost of $155,000, and dedicated on May 7th, the twenty-sixth anniversary of the church. The South Park M. E. Church dedicated the building it occupies. St. Paul's Church of the Evangelical Association remodelled and enlarged its edifice. The beau- tiful Parish House of Trinity P. E. Church was opened.
The Sloan Presbyterian Church, on Broadway, at the City Line, was organized in 1906 by the Presbytery of Buffalo. In the same year a mission Sunday School previously opened by the Delaware Avenue M. E. Church, was made the basis of a new church organization, the Epworth M. E. Church at the corner of Grey and Cayuga streets. The Second United Presbyterian Church migrated from Swan Street to Woodlawn Avenue and Humboldt Parkway, where it built anew.
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