Christ's Lutheran Church in 1894

Pastor B. Q. Hallenbeck, conducting services in the third church building, which, like the second one, was known as the "Church on the Rocks," because it sat on a rocky ledge overlooking the Sawkill (about ¾ mile east of our present location--that is, north of present-day Route 212, across from the country club).

The congregation had the preceding year decided to start building a new church and had purchased a lot in the village, elected a Building Committee, and laid the cornerstone for the present building on Mill Hill Road.

According to church historian Mark Anderson,

There is no record on file of who designed the building, and we have only anecdotal evidence regarding the builders--probably the Herrick family, who were members of the church at the time. (A few years later, they were builders for Ralph Whitehead at the Byrdcliffe arts colony, north of Glasco Turnpike.)(1) Anderson, Mark J., For All the Saints: Christ's Lutheran Church, Woodstock, New York, 1806-2006 [Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2006], p. 167. (Close)

In September, the congregation settled an ongoing debate and decided to raise additional money to build "free" carriage sheds on the new church grounds. According to Anderson,

This had been a contentious question at the [old] church building. It seems as though there were very strong feelings about whether to provide such a building. In the 1870s, Pastor Sharts had reported that some members had left the church as a result of the debate. Here, at the new building, such as shed was provided from the beginning.(2) Ibid., draft. (Close)
Erwin Holumzer explained about the carriage block in front of the church to accommodate passengers on the incoming carriages (the driver of the carriage would then proceed to park the carriage in the shed at the rear). Of course, passengers on outgoing carriages would be better able to get into them as well.
The next time you are standing on the large bluestone in front of [today's] parsonage you might recall this bit of history.… The bluestone was probably quarried during the latter nineteenth century, somewhere in the Catskills, possibly California Quarry. After being hand-chiseled and shaped to specifications, it was loaded on a horse-drawn stone wagon with a stone derrick, and delivered to Christ's Church in Woodstock where a new church was then being built. This large piece of bluestone was unloaded and placed upon a platform of smaller stones at the end of and adjacent to the sidewalk and driveway that was on the side of the church. [It] then became a "carriage block" to some and a "horse block" to others. It allowed an easy descent from [or ascent into] the horse-drawn carriages… it was also a place for a horseback rider to dismount [or mount].(3) Quoted in The Scroll, November 1977. (Unless otherwise indicated in a footnote, excerpts from church records or from The Scroll are cited in ibid.) (Close)
Six decades later the stone would become the front door platform for the current parsonage.

Mrs. Helen Lasher, 49, was no doubt instrumental in raising the funds to purchase the memorial stained glass windows (see below), to be installed in the new church. Click any one of the stained-glass-window pictures (east, west, or north, in that order) to enlarge it and to see details at the top.

[ East windows ] [ West windows ] [ North windows ]

The Woman's Home and Foreign Missionary Society of the Lutheran Church of Woodstock hosted a course of lectures, including one by Rev. P. S. Phelps, a Dutch Reformed minister from Sharon Springs, an intimate friend of the pastor, who dressed in Japanese costume and shared some thoughts on Japan; a very interesting talk on China; an address by the Synodical treasurer, Mrs. J. B. Badgley, about work in both the home and foreign field; and Rev. Chester H. Traver, then of Rhinebeck, with a grand lecture on Africa.(4)

Here Anderson, p. 110, is citing Lasher, Helen, "The Woman's Home and Foreign Mission Society" [paper delivered at the centennial celebration]. (Close)

The Bible School was flourishing. A class of 8 students in the Sunday School catechetical class were confirmed by the pastor.

The congregation purchased a number of second-hand volumes of Sunday School literature from the Lutheran Church of Red Hook. Because the little pasteboard box could not hold all the books, Fordyce Herrick made and presented to the Sunday School a book case.

The Woodstock Region in 1894

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The United States in 1894

[ Grover Cleveland ]

Grover Cleveland (Democrat) was President. The 53rd Congress was in session. (The midterm elections that year would elect the 54th Congress.) A dollar in that year would be worth $20.91 in 2006 for most consumable products.

Immigrants from the British Isles and western Europe (especially Great Britain, Ireland, and Germany)--the so-called "Old Immigrants," most of them boasting a comparatively high level of literacy and accustomed to some level of representative government, who were either Protestant (most of them) or Catholic, were arriving during this decade at an average annual rate of 111,000. The "New Immigrants," those from southern and eastern Europe (especially Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Russia), largely illiterate and impoverished, who tended to be either Catholic, Orthodox, or Jewish and who had little experience with representative government, were arriving at an annual rate of 184,700--two-thirds again as much as the Old Immigrants' rate, a fivefold proportionate increase from a decade earlier and twice as many in raw numbers. The New Immigrants huddled together in large cities, such as New York City and Chicago.

The United States was now in first place among the manufacturing nations of the world.

Solidly Democratic white supremacists held political power all over the South. Blacks (and poor whites as well) continued being forced into sharecropping and tenant farming; former slave masters were now bosses and landlords. Through the "crop-lien" system, the serflike small farmers could get food and supplies from storekeepers by agreeing to a lien on their expected crops, a lien they would never be able to fully pay off. The economically dependent blacks who tried to vote faced unemployment, eviction, and violence. The daily discrimination against blacks grew increasingly oppressive. "Jim Crow laws," systematic state-level legal codes of segregation, maintained a way of life for African Americans that was grotesquely inferior to that of whites. Blacks had inferior schools and assigned places on such public facilities as railroad cars, theaters, and restrooms. Blacks were continually assaulted by harsh reminders of their second-class citizenship, and the white supremacists dealt brutally with any black who dared to violate the customary racial code of conduct. Record numbers of blacks were lynched, often just for the "crime" of asserting themselves as equals.

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The World at Large in 1894

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Notes

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