THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF KINDERHOOK
COLUMBIA COUNTY, NEW YORK
By Capt. Franklin Ellis64
1878
The Methodist Episcopal church of Kinderhook became a legal body July 14, 1843. The following trustees were chosen to attend to the temporal affairs of the church: J. B. Jenkins, John N. Stickles, Jesse Merwin, Francis W. Bradley, Henry Snyder, Andrew H. Kittle, and William Thomas. These appointed a building committee, composed of F. W. Bradley, J. N. Stickles, and J. B. Jenkins, who erected a small meeting-house in the eastern part of the village of Kinderhook, in 1844. In 1871 this house was enlarged to afford accommodations for three hundred persons, and it is now an inviting house of worship, whose estimated value is four thousand five hundred dollars.
The services of the Methodist church were held in the town prior to 1843, but that year it became a separate charge, having Rev. Elijah Crawford as pastor. Since that period the pastors, in the order of their connection have been Revs. James N. Shaffer, Thomas Ellis, Hiram Chase, J. Leonard, P. R. Stover, Oren Gregg, Thomas A. Griffin, Seymour Coleman, G. Ward, Richard F. Wade, J. G. Phillips, Alvin C. Rose, Hiram Chase, J. W. Belknap, William Clark, Henry Smith, S. S. Ford, J. W. Quinlan, Wm. Ryan, Elam Marsh, and (since 1876) J. P. Haller.
The church has at present seventy-five members, and maintains a flourishing Sunday-school of eighty-five members, which is superintended by Robert Loman. It supports a library of one hundred and twenty volumes.
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