This question comes home to many of us, as we see the changes going
on about us, and we cannot answer.
CHURCHES AND PASTORS.
The first house of worship was erected in Blooming Grove, 1759. The
old church stood until 1823, when the present building was erected.
The first pastor was Rev. Enos Ayres, who stood first on the roll of
the first class graduated at Princeton College. He died in 1762 and
was buried in the old burial ground, a part of which, including his
grave and the graves of Rev. Samuel Parkhurst and Rev. Benoni
Bradner, was covered by the new church building. In 1764 he was
succeeded by Rev. Abner Reeve, father of the celebrated Judge Reeve,
who founded the law school at Litchfield, Conn. Rev. Abner Reeve
resigned about 1786. In 1786, Rev. Samuel Parkhurst came as a supply
and soon died here, and his grave is also under the present church.
Then followed, in 1770, Rev. Anasiah Lewis, Rev. Case, Rev. Green
and Rev. Silas Constant, as stated supplies for a time. Rev. Benoni
Bradner filled the pulpit from 1786 until 1892, dying in 1804. He was
buried here, his stone still standing erect under the church. After
his retirement Rev. Joel T. Benedict preached a few months, Rev. Noah
Crane, 1803 to 1811. He was succeeded by Rev. William Rafferty, who
married a daughter of John Chandler and resigned in 1815, to become
president of St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland. Returning on a
visit in 1830, he died here, and is buried in the old Chandler family
burial ground on the old homestead now occupied by B. C. Sears.
August 7, 1816, Rev. Luther Halsey was installed as pastor. The
church was admitted under the care of the Presbytery, with the
reservation of its form of government, and remained in the
Presbytery of Hudson until 1833, but has always been in fact
Congregational. Rev. Luther Halsey served the church with great
acceptance. Great revivals blessed his ministry, at one time nearly
one hundred being added to the church. The present church building
was erected under his ministry, and frequently filled. He resigned
in 1824 to accept a professorship in Nassau Hall; later became
professor of theology in Allegheny, in Auburn, and in Union
Seminaries. He died in Pittsburgh on November 2, 1880, aged
eighty-seven years. He was succeeded at Blooming Grove by James
Arbuckle, then pastor of the Eighth Presbyterian Church of
Philadelphia, who was pastor of the church until his death, July,
1847. In 1847, Rev. Ebenezer Mason, son of the celebrated John M.
Mason, D.D., of New York City, became pastor, who died here the next
year. After his death the pulpit was supplied until April, 1851, when
Rev. Austin Craig was called, and served this church for fourteen
years, when he resigned to accept the presidency of Antioch College,
Ohio, and later was president of the Biblical School at
Stanfordville, Dutchess County, N. Y., where he died, but is still
held in loving remembrance by many of the congregation and in the
town.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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