The Church in the 1920s

Light snow is falling. The sounds of holiday greetings and boots crunching on snow fill the air as people trudge up the steps and into the single room of the white clapboard church. Soft light from kerosene lanterns in the old chandelier radiates from above. Plain glass windowpanes reflect wavy images of children, parents and neighbors holding candles to light the sheets of music in their hands. As the first verse of “Oh, Come All Ye Faithful” begins, the singers’ breath can be seen in the chilly air.

Seen on a television Christmas special, this would look nice, but a bit old-fashioned and corny, not reality.

But it is reality every Christmas Eve in the Beaverkill United Methodist Church. On December 24, we open the church, bring in portable kerosene heaters, place candles and music in the vestibule, and pull the bell cord to call neighbors for a service of lessons, carols and celebration. It is a community activity. We are welcomed by our neighbor Bebe Loizeaux, who served as pastor until recently. Then, valley resident Stuart Root leads us in song, and another neighbor reads the Christmas story from Luke. Before we sing “Silent Night,” we remember friends who are no longer with us.

But the memory of those who have lived in the valley is still with us when we gather in that little church. From the beginning, the Beaverkill United Methodist Church was a community place. Thomas Davidson, a prosperous farmer who also built the Beaverkill Covered Bridge, and his wife, Sarah, gave the land and money to build the church in 1879. Other residents gave money or willed their farms to complete construction and open the church for services in 1883.

The church served the bustling village of Beaverkill. In the 1850s the hills were filled with the sound of timber falling and the valley was alive with the activity of the tanning industry. There was a blacksmith shop, sawmill, dry goods store, post office and over 50 homes. After the Civil War the tanning industry went into decline, and in 1887 the tannery burned down. The farms remained for a couple of decades, but today all that is gone. Where the village once was is a New York State campsite, and most of the open fields and high meadows are now covered with forests of New York’s Forever Wild Preserve. Once wilderness, the valley became a bustling town and a place of farms and boarding houses, and has returned to forest.

Today, Beaverkill is still a vital community, a place where people come to experience the river and the hills surrounding the valley. The sense of community and tradition also remain strong because of the existence of this small, white clapboard church.

When we first come to the valley in 1964, we wanted our infant daughter, Kate, to be christened. Our neighbors opened the church for our celebration, insisting that we were welcome to use the church even though we had just arrived. It was a beautiful May day, with lilacs in bloom and the air filled with the scents of a Catskill spring, and the sound of the cold, clear water rushing over the stones in the Beaverkill River.

The neighbors who welcomed us assured us that they would be “godparents” to us and our new baby, and welcomed us into their homes and talked about their lives in the valley. I think of these people when I sit in the sanctuary on a summer’s morning, with the back door and shutters open to the tilted gravestones surrounding the building.

John and Patricia Adams, and Kate

They created and kept this place for us, and we still come to celebrate life passages: the joy of a christening or marriage, or the sadness of a funeral. The old green wooden doors of the church are open to all from a wide spectrum of religious beliefs who experience the community here. Although the Methodist pastor acts as a partner, Episcopalian ministers, Catholic priests, and rabbis all perform services in the church. At each service, the valley is filled with the sound of the old bell ringing.

Last year we heard that the church was in need of repair. The Methodist Conference was faced with the high expense of restoration and long-term maintenance. The most practical solution was vinyl siding. Although the church’s official membership is under ten and regular services are held only in summer, the people who “belong” to the church are many. The entire valley came together to find a way to raise money to repair and paint the building, keeping the original clapboard siding. As we worked, we realized that we wanted not only to preserve the unique beauty of this structure, but also the heritage of our valley. The Friends of the Beaverkill Community was formed and we communicate about valley issues, primarily by email and telephone. The communication systems may be modern, but the uniting factor has been this church.

Our daughter, like others of her generation, was married in the church and plans to have her own son christened there. Over 100 years have passed since the doors first opened, but the spirit and generosity that make the church available to all remains. This is most evident when we gather to celebrate Christmas Eve. As we sing, we sense how our church represents both the passage of time and the permanence of community in the Beaverkill Valley.

The Church in 1967