First Presbyterian Church of Waterloo records

Collection — Multiple Containers

Identifier: 6091

Scope and content

Seven volumes containing session meeting minutes (1817-1835, 1852-1891); trustee and annual meeting minutes (1817-1845, 1852-1935); pew rent and subscription lists; and registers of members, baptisms, and members. Also included is a list of marriages in Springville and Perry N.Y. (1829-1860) and a booklet published in 1967 celebrating the 150th anniversary of the church.

Dates

1817-1935 [1967].

Creator

First Presbyterian Church of Waterloo (Waterloo, N.Y.) (Organization)

Terms Governing Use and Reproduction

Information obtained from these records may not be published or otherwise released in such form that any individual mentioned in the records can be identified..

Biographical / Historical

The First Presbyterian Church of Waterloo was organized on July 7, 1817. The church was legally incorporated on the following November 7th and met until 1824 in the village school house or court house when a meeting house was built. Neighboring churches in Geneva and Seneca Falls lent the services of their pastors until 1821 when Reverend Aaron D. Lane accepted the call to the pulpit at Waterloo. There is evidence of a significant revival during Reverend Lane's ministry because ninety-three persons were added to the church on April 17, 1831. In 1836 Reverend S.H. Gridley was called from the Presbyterian Church in Perry, New York and served the First Presbyterian Church in Waterloo for the next thirty-seven years. In 1850 when Reverend Gridley threatened to resign because the meeting house was too small to accommodate the ever-increasing membership, the Presbyterian Church Association of Waterloo was formed to oversee the construction of a new church. The present brick church was completed in 1851.