USA > New York > Warren County > Warren county : a history and guide > Part 12
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Church and School
A MONG Warren County's earliest settlers there was a transplanted religious community, not fleeing from persecution nor from an overcrowded or impoverished home land, but deliberately setting forth to found a colony on the war-torn frontier. These people were members of the Society of Friends, and came from the prosperous Quaker settlement in the Dutchess County Oblong on the Connecticut border. The fact that the original grantees of the Patent of Queensbury quickly transferred a large share of their interest to Quaker leader Abraham Wing and his followers, lends support to the tradition that wealthy co-religion- ists in New York City used their influence to secure this land grant for the County's Quaker pioneers.
No meeting house was built by this first little group of Friends who established themselves briefly in Queensbury between the French and Indian War and the American Revolution, but at a monthly meeting of the Society of Friends in Dutchess County in 1767 the Queensbury set- tlers were granted leave "to hold meetings on each First Day at twelve. o'clock." In a very few years they were driven out as refugees by fire and sword, for their frontier settlement lay in the path of the contending forces and beyond the limited protection afforded to more settled com- munities.
But when they returned after American independence had been won, they had scarcely finished their own log cabins and mills to grind grain and to saw boards, before they erected a house of worship on Bay Road near Halfway Brook in Queensbury. This log structure served also as a school house.
About the year 1798 a commodious frame meeting house was built on the upper Ridge Road which was superseded in 1875 by the red brick Friend's Church now located on Ridge Street, Glens Falls. At that time the old building was moved to a site near Ridge Road at Oneida Corners beside the Grange Hall where it eventually was torn down and replaced by the present community church.
Before the end of the eighteenth century a Baptist Church was built beside a small body of water now known as Lake Sunnyside. The pastor, the Reverend Rufus Bates, ministered to a flock scattered in all the settle- ments that he could reach, numbering not less than 200 souls. Elder Je- hiel Fox also preached to a Baptist congregation in Thurman before 1800.
The first Presbyterian preacher was a Christian Indian, the Reverend Anthony Paul, a full-blooded Mahican. He was educated in Connecticut
Culture
STUDIO OF MME MARCELLA SEMBRICH, BOLTON, LAKE GEORGE
F
CENTRAL SCHOOL AT BRANT LAKE
INTERMISSION, BARN THEATER, LAKE GEORGE
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, GLENS FALLS
Photo by John J. Vrooman
ST. MARY'S ACADEMY, GLENS FALLS Photo by John J. Vrooman
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GRILLWORK PATTERN, CHURCH INTERIOR
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and there was licensed to preach by the Congregational Association. For a while he lived in Bolton, his sermons were well received by the New Englanders there, and through his efforts a Presbyterian Church was formed in Stony Creek in 1800. Mr. Wheelock took the Reverend Mr. Paul's father-in-law, Sampson Occum, an Indian, to England. There his preaching so impressed Lord Dartmouth as to interest him in the educa- tion of the Indian people, for which purpose Dartmouth College was founded.
Itinerant Methodist preachers came early and were very active. Richard Jacobs was sent by the Reverend Freeborn Garretson in 1796 to introduce Methodism into northern Warren County, then known as Thurman. Jacobs was drowned while trying to ford the outlet of Schroon Lake, and the Reverend Henry Ryan, a local preacher, who had gathered a congre- gation in Warrensburg, was invited to preach there. The Reverend David Noble, who as a young Irish Episcopalian had been converted to Meth- odism by John Wesley's preaching, entered this region in 1798. His great- great-granddaughter, Helene Noble Wood, is the widow of Frank Wood who recently served Lake George Village as mayor and as postmaster.
By 1799 Henry Ryan and "Billy" Hibbart, itinerant preachers, were traveling 500 miles a month to fill 63 appointments. In 1810 Thurman's Patent was set off as a two weeks' circuit embracing the Hudson and Schroon Valleys from Schroon Lake to Luzerne. Tobias Spicer, who rode the circuit in 1812, visited 13 preaching places every two weeks, his route embracing also the shore of Lake George. The people he served were poor, his work was arduous, and had he counted his compensation in cash it would have been small indeed.
In 1803, forty years after the first settlement of the town of Queens- bury, the chief center of population, known to many as Pearl Village, had no church, though it had a good hotel, flourishing mills, and consid- erable trade. A subscription "to build a house of publick worship ... somewhere near the Four Corners," was drawn up March 4, 1803. It was December 18, 1808 before the building was completed and "The Union Church of Pearl Village in the Town of Queensbury" was organized with nine charter members.
The Reverend William Boardman was called as the first pastor in the spring of 1809, and in 1848 the name of the corporation was changed to "The First Presbyterian Church of Glens Falls." Old White, as the church was called, with its square belfry, was torn down about 1848. The brick building that replaced it went up in flames with most of the village in the great fire of May 31, 1864. In June 1867, a new structure, complete and free of debt, was dedicated. Again in 1884 it burned and was promptly rebuilt. In 1925 the old Warren Street site, then closely
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hemmed in by the business district was sold and a new site purchased at the southwest corner of Notre Dame and Glen Streets. Here an impres- sive Gothic structure of Indiana limestone has been erected, designed by Ralph Adams Cram of Boston.
Throughout the County there are many Protestant and Roman Cath- olic Churches. Not a few of the buildings were erected in the 1850's and 1860's when a revival of interest in religious observance swept across the Nation. In the areas that were then popular as summer resorts the visitors lent their aid in providing beautiful structures such as the Presbyterian Church at Lake George, the Episcopalian Churches there and at Bolton, and the Diamond Point Union Church. On August 14, 1940, the Kava- naugh Memorial Chimes were dedicated at St. James Episcopal Church, Diamond Point, with a radio broadcast.
Some rural churches have been abandoned while urban churches assist others by sending out preachers, some of whom serve several outlying centers. The more prosperous rural residents frequently join village churches to which they travel by automobile. Owing to the decline of agriculture there are other country people on widely scattered farms or in small rural communities who would gladly attend services and join in the religious and community activities of a church, but who are too few and too poor to maintain local churches. It is among these people, who contribute generously so far as their means permit, that home missions are maintained.
Other Protestant religious denominations represented in Warren County are the Christian Scientists, Christian Missionary Alliance, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Church of the Latter Day Saints or Mormons.
The history of Roman Catholic churches in Warren County parallels that of the other religious societies. Their activities began somewhat later, but they have built churches in all the communities where there is a considerable number of Catholic people. Their earliest church to be established in the County was St. Mary's in Glens Falls, organized in 1849. The Reverend John Murphy was the first pastor. A red brick building, begun in 1867, was completed and dedicated January 19, 1870. That edifice, minus the tall, slender spire that once crowned its belltower, re- mains in use to this day.
St. Alphonsus Church was organized in Glens Falls in 1853 with the Reverend Louis Desroches as the first pastor. The original frame building was enlarged during 1872-73, and in the latter year the first St. Alphon- sus school was opened. The present brick church at Pine and Broad Streets was erected in 1888 during the pastorate of the Reverend Louis Napoleon St. Onge.
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Throughout the County north of Glens Falls there are eight more Roman Catholic parish churches, and services are conducted at other places during the summer. Notable among the church buildings are those at Lake George, Chestertown, and Hague.
The first Catholic church outside of Glens Falls was St. Cecilia's built at Warrensburg in 1874 through the efforts of the Reverend James A. Kelley, a pioneer clergyman who traveled throughout most of northern Warren County and built churches in several parishes. In 1879 he built another church at Wevertown, then the most important community in that region. Since the decline in population due to the passing of the lumber industry, the Wevertown church has been attached to the North Creek parish and is now used only in summer. During other seasons of the year its members are taken by bus to services at Chestertown.
Within a few years of the erection of the church at Warrensburg, the Catholics of Chestertown established their church of St. John the Baptist in a building purchased from the Methodists, and in 1886, the Reverend James Flood built a larger frame structure to replace it. During 1936, the year of its Golden Jubilee, the building was razed to make way for a new edifice planned by the Reverend J. F. McMahon, present pastor of the North Creek parish, to which Chestertown is attached.
Dedicated in August 1937, the new St. John the Baptist Church, monastery Gothic in style, built of Fort Ann variegated quartzite and trimmed with Indiana limestone, is one of the outstanding parish churches of the Catholic Diocese of Albany. Interior work still continues from year to year. Its beautiful stained glass windows, one of which is dedicated to St. Isaac Jogues, were produced by the Connick Studio of Boston.
The first Catholic services at Lake Luzerne were held in private homes in the late 1870's by the same Father Kelley who built at Warrensburg and Wevertown. This energetic and popular priest also built the village's first Catholic church about 1880, raising $500 at a festival in one evening. In 1928 the old building was torn down to make way for the present Holy Infancy Church, a frame building with the low, square tower so typical of the churches of rural Warren County.
The Church of the Sacred Heart at Lake George was built by the Paulist Fathers of New York City in 1884. Its interior was rebuilt in 1925 with walls of caenstone, an altar of sienna marble, and wood carving and windows by Powell and Sons of London, England. The stained glass win- dows depict scenes in the life of Father Isaac Jogues, the Jesuit priest who passed through Lake George in 1646 on his way to found the first Roman Catholic mission to the Mohawk Indians. A few weeks later he was-
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martyred at Auriesville; in 1925 he was beatified, and in 1930 canonized. It is therefore especially fitting that the church at Lake George should honor his memory.
Before North Creek had a Catholic churchbuilding it was served by itinerant priests from Lake George and Warrensburg. One of these was ยท the ubiquitous Father Kelley, who in 1884 built St. James' Church in the parish cemetery lot. The first resident pastor, Father Grimes, later became bishop of Syracuse. The second and third pastors, the Reverend James Flood, builder of a church at Chestertown, and the Reverend Roger Ward, who guided the destinies of the North Creek parish for 29 years, were, like Father Kelley, members of the little band of pioneer Catholic priests who traveled about northern Warren County on horseback and by carriage and sleigh. Replacing the first building which had been destroyed by fire, the present St. James' Church was dedicated in 1919.
The Church of the Blessed Sacrament at Bolton Landing, built in 1891 was for many years served by priests from Lake George, but now has a resident pastor.
Hague was visited by Catholic priests from Ticonderoga who fre- quently conducted services in the Town Hall until, on August 24, 1923, the impressive Church of the Blessed Sacrament was dedicated. It is a red brick structure ornamented with white stone trim and set in spacious, landscaped grounds. At present the pastor also serves St. Theresa's Church of Brant Lake, erected about 1925, and conducts services at Huletts Land- ing on the east shore of Lake George.
It was not until 1892 that enough Jewish people arrived in Warren County to establish a synagogue and Hebrew school. At present there are two Jewish congregations, both at Glens Falls. The congregation Sara Tefilo, organized in 1892 at Glens Falls under the guidance of Rabbi Laska, built a synagogue on Jay Street the following year. In 1926 the Jewish Community Building on Bay Street, Glens Falls, was opened and provided space for the first Hebrew free school in Warren County. About 1935 the Jay Street synagogue was abandoned and services are now con- ducted in the Community Building.
On August 21, 1925, the Liberal Jewish Congregation laid the corner- stone of the impressive Temple Beth-El on Marion Avenue with the Right Reverend Ernest M. Stires, Episcopal Bishop of Long Island, and Adolph S. Ochs, then publisher of the New York Times, among the speakers.
From earliest times the people of Warren County have by no means neglected the education of their youth. As early as 1786 the Friends Meeting House on Bay Road beside Halfway Brook was used as a school- house. It was only one year earlier that Governor George Clinton addressed the Legislature with these words:
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Neglect of the education of youth is among the evils consequent of war. Perhaps there is scarce anything more worthy of your atten- tion than the revival and encouragement of seminaries of learning.
There followed laws setting up a Board of Regents with power to supervise, charter, and aid colleges and academies. Land set apart for schools in each township in 1787 was the germ of the "common school fund" from which grew our public school system. And in 1795 Governor Clinton, seeing that even more active encouragement for common schools was needed, again addressed the Legislature as follows:
It cannot be denied that they [academies and seminaries ] are prin- cipally confined to the children of the opulent and that a great proportion of the communities is excluded from them . . . The estab- lishment of common schools throughout the State is calculated to remedy this inconvenience.
The sum of $50,000 a year for five years was appropriated to be dis- tributed to counties according to their representation in the Legislature and by them to towns in proportion to their actual school attendance during the previous year. Warren County got its share and had established several schools before this earliest grant of State Aid for Education was discontinued in 1800.
In accord with the school law of 1812 Warren County was divided into school districts and in 1820 the report of the State Superintendent of Schools, Gideon Hawley, shows that all of the nine towns into which the County was then divided made their reports. There were 64 school dis- tricts of which 51 reported holding school for an average of five months. Of Queensbury's 18 districts, the 10 that sent in returns reported a school year of only three months. These did not report the number of students but the number of children between five and fifteen years of age was 541 out of a total of 2,486 in the County.
A good many pupils were over fifteen years of age and there was an average of about fifty at each school. Obviously the task of the teacher in a one-room school with very meagre equipment, few books, and such a large class of widely varying ages was by no means easy.
The State report shows that Warren County was typical so far as the number of schools, students, and teachers was concerned. There was a trend toward longer school terms and an increasing number of students. Public funds provided three months of schooling but tuition was also charged, though poor families were permitted to send their children free. However, not a few people preferred to keep their children home rather than declare themselves indigent.
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The tuition charges supplied at least a month or two more of schooling except in Queensbury. Luzerne kept its six schools open six months with an average of 70 students while the six Bolton schools ran for seven months with an average of 63 students in each school. It was not till the rate bill was abolished in 1867 that schools were really free.
In the same year that tuition for common schools was abolished, Federal aid was granted to academies of which Warren County has had three. Glens Falls Academy, according to some historians, grew from a select school established in 1803 by Mr. Randall, a Yale College graduate. This institution occupied two rooms on Elm Street just below South Street. With varying fortunes the academy, incorporated in 1841, continued under different masters and with sometimes as many as 285 students of both sexes. Its building on Warren Street was burned and rebuilt on Chester Street in 1914. Always known as an up-to-date progressive school, Glens Falls Academy, in a community with much wealth, fared better than most private day schools after the War between the States. It refused to be absorbed by the public school system and continued to serve those who could afford to pay tuition until 1937 when, with but 80 students, it finally closed.
Chester Academy, incorporated in 1844, secured a Regents charter in 1870, but eventually closed its doors. Warrensburg Academy, founded in 1854, got Regents recognition in 1860, and in 1888 was taken over by the Board of Education as a Union Free School.
In their day, academies played an important part in public education. They gave courses of instruction for teachers at a time when normal school facilities were wholly inadequate. In them most of the teachers in public schools received the only professional training available to them beyond district schools. So long as preparation for college or, indeed, any second- ary education was not to be had except in academies, it was quite proper that they should receive public subsidy.
During most of the nineteenth century many "select schools" were started throughout the County, especially at Glens Falls. It is not sur- prising that people of means wanted to give their children the benefit of instruction by better educated teachers in more sanitary and less crowded rooms than the public schools provided. Some of the select schools were short lived but others, such as the Elmwood Seminary, Glens Falls, con- tinued for many years under the direction of able scholars.
William Barnes, who founded the Barnes Select School in 1839, is said to have been the author of the Barnes Manual of Geography which was a standard textbook in the public schools of the State for many years. John B. Armstrong, after studying at Fort Edward Institute, returned
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to Johnsburg and opened a select school in Good Templars' Hall in 1860. The school lasted for only three years, but at the end of the first year he staged a "Home Coming Day" which has been celebrated there in August ever since.
As standards of education in the public schools rose, private schools became less easy to run. In general, they offered advanced instruction with subjects not taught in public schools, or else they taught social grace and artistic accomplishments to young ladies, and attracted small children from wealthy families.
In the early 1860's the Plank Road Public School at Glen Street and Marion Avenue, Glens Falls, had 80 students ranging from less than five to over twenty years of age. George Greenslet, the teacher who received $30 a month, taught "the three R's" and a little geography and spelling.
In 1880, County School Commissioner Randolph McNutt of Warrens- burg reported to the State Superintendent of Public Instruction that there were only three Warren County students in normal schools, but that most of the teachers had attended academies and 150 teachers had profited by attending a teachers' institute in September of that year. He complained that many districts had allowed their school houses to become dilapidated, but that there were 11 newly built schools, 14 completely rebuilt, and that others were to be repaired in the spring at his suggestion.
Consolidation of four of the school districts in Glens Falls in 1881 into a Union Free School District was a long step toward better schools. In a report many years later, Dr. Sherman Williams, the first Superintendent of the new district, gave a vivid description of the schools as he had first found them:
You can picture the old buildings, their utter forlornness, their absence of everything that goes to make up the equipment of a modern school, but the schools themselves most of you never knew. They were not nearly up to the average of the back country rural school. In fact always excepting the Ridge Street School, I had never known anything so poor, nor supposed it was possible for such schools to exist anywhere, much less in a large and thriving town.
There was no public sentiment. The schools were merely toler- ated. There was a strong and widespread conviction that it was not the mission of the public school to offer more than the merest elements of an education. Not only was the grade of the schools low, but the work attempted was very poorly done.
Under Dr. Williams rapid progress was made. A building to house 500 students was erected in 1884, located where the present high school now
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stands. In 1888 an academic department was added with 15 students registered for a three year course of whom 10 graduated in 1891. In that year the South Street School was opened. Before Dr. Williams resigned in 1898 to conduct teachers' institutes, Glens Falls had a four year high school course and the school system was well started toward the high standing it now maintains.
In 1935 the New York State Board of Regents made a thorough inquiry into the character and cost of public education in the State of New York. An intensive study of 43 representative school systems including Glens Falls was made and each was rated as highest, above average, average, below average, or lowest. Glens Falls was one of the six school systems to receive the highest rating, and of these six, its annual cost of $135.00 per pupil was the lowest.
At present Glens Falls still has all of District 18 and part of District 2 separate from Union Free School District No. 1, but the high school serves the entire city and some outlying sections. It is organized as a three-year junior high school and a three-year Senior high school covering grades 7 to 12 inclusive. The 1941-42 public school registration for all grades in Union Free School District No. 2 is 2,587 of whom approxi- mately half, including outside students, are in the Junior-Senior High School. Diplomas were awarded to 182 High School graduates in June 1941.
The rural area of Warren County has availed itself of a liberal State-aid policy to provide the best possible schools for its children. As early as 1889 Warrensburg merged its academy in a Union Free School. In 1938 it became a central rural school district and is now considering plans for a much needed building. One-room schools for little children are still to be found in some rural districts of the County but beginning with junior high school (grade 7) most of the children are transported by school bus, along with not a few of the younger children, to first class modern schools. These are large enough to provide up-to-date departmental instruction with a varied curriculum of college preparatory, academic, manual train- ing, and vocational courses. Such schools are located at Bolton Landing, Chestertown, Hague, Horicon, Lake George, Lake Luzerne, North Creek, Pottersville, and Warrensburg.
In 1914 the State of New York, in order to help equalize the educational opportunities in rural and urban districts, provided special State aid for central rural school districts. Thus, by combining, a group of small school districts can be assured of additional aid in providing a suitable building, maintaining high educational standards, and in the transporta- tion of children to and from school. Beginning with Hague and Horicon
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in 1926, seven such central school districts have been formed, and in consequence at least fifty-four one-room and five two-room schools have been closed. In several other localities a similar result has been achieved under the older laws applying to consolidated schools and union free school districts. Bolton, Hague, Horicon, Thurman, and Warrensburg have no one-room or purely rural schools, Luzerne has a single one-room school, and Caldwell has a two- room school at Diamond Point. Elsewhere in these seven towns all children attend central or consolidated schools.
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