Celebrating its 175th anniversary this year, the Union Village United Methodist Church is one of Warren’s oldest institutions. From Barbara B. Tomblin’s wonderful history of her church, published in 1975, we excerpt the story of the formative years: "It can hardly be called a village - just a wayside hamlet. In the last century when these four roads met here, the natural consequence was that industrial germ of all new settlements - a blacksmith shop. Later came the store and tavern. Little houses have since dropped haphazard along the roadsides, but the village has long since been finished and now seems quite in the decadence of age," wrote Andrew Mellick, Jr. a hundred years ago. The description of his little village is a fitting one for the country crossroads at the intersection of the road from Mount Bethel to New Providence and Summit and the road from Watchung over Stony Hill to Gillette, known 150 years ago as "Dug way" road. The corner here came to be known by the people in nearby Turkey (New Providence) as "the village" and in 1825 as Union Village. It is uncertain when the first pioneers settled near these crossroads for the land was originally owned by William Dockwra who held 3,000 acres in Warren Township south of the Passaic River. The origins of Union Village, therefore, must be sought eastward among the stalwart settlers of Turkey. The first of these early settlers was Peter Wilcoxie who bought 424 acres along the Green Brook in the eastern part of New Providence Township in the early 1700's. Once known as Feltsville and now a deserted village, Wilcoxie's settlement was followed by another at Turkey in 1736 when a second allotment of land was made. In 1737 a Presbyterian church was organized in Turkey and two years later a meeting house was built. This was the only church in the town for many years and on the testimony of Betsey Day we know that a Methodist society existed in Turkey by 1798. Quarterly conference records show that the Turkey class was flourishing in the year 1800 and grew considerably under the preaching of William Mills. In 1803 the members of the society decided to build a permanent place of meeting on a lot donated by George Cory. Methodism did not come to the American colonies until 1766. Since in the year 1779 there were only 140 members in the entire state of New Jersey, the church at New Providence can rightly be considered "one of the mother churches of Methodism in this country". The original Methodist class meeting was founded in 1770 at Trenton by a man named Joseph Toy, but the true founder of the faith in New Jersey was a gifted preacher and evangelist named Francis Asbury. Labeled a Tory during the Revolution and forbidden to ride, Asbury sought refuge in Delaware and when the war was ended established an independent Methodist Episcopal Church in America. Freed from the mother church in England, American Methodism grew rapidly. Francis Asbury crisscrossed New Jersey, preaching in towns and making converts which he brought together in class meetings. The growth of the new sect was phenomenal and by 1785 there were 1028 Methodists in New Jersey organized into three circuits. The class meeting was one of the principal reasons for Methodism's rapid spread for the new converts were brought together in private homes under the leadership of a devout layman and were able to meet for education, inspiration, and fellowship on a weekly basis. The class leader was "to carefully inquire how every soul in his class prospers, not only how each person observes the outward rules, but how he grows in the knowledge and love of God. " A traveling preacher or circuit rider visited these classes on a regular basis and not just on Sundays. Preaching throughout the week the Methodist itinerant reached a larger audience than the ministers of some other denominations which confined their preaching to church buildings and Sundays. The Methodists were also able to secure more preachers because unlike the Anglicans their preachers did not have to be ordained by an English Bishop and unlike the Presbyterians they did not have to have a university education, at least not at first. It was, in fact, this lack of formalism that made Methodism so attractive to country people. "The mobility of the circuit system, the informality of its worship, the joyous quality of its hymnody appealed to rural inhabitants and made possible the establishment of chapels where other denominations failed to penetrate." It is not surprising, then, that with a Methodist church prospering in nearby New Providence a class should spring up in the village to the west. The first mention that such a class existed in the Union Village area comes in a diary kept by Betsey Mulford Crane, the wife of John Crane and a member of the New Providence church. On June 27, 1824 Mrs. Crane writes, "I went to hear Mr. Wiggins preach. In the afternoon, we all went up to Mr.Tucker's to hear him again." Mr. Tucker, to whom she referred, lived a half mile down the road from the crossroads on a farm originally settled by John Tucker and later owned by the Sage family. John Tucker's son, Joseph, who was born in 1767, lived on the farm at the time of the first Methodist class meeting with his wife Deborah Line and their four children. The Tuckers owned a good deal of land near Union Village and had intermarried with many of the nearby families. Joseph's daughter, Betsey, had married Elam Genung who lived in Union Village and ran a store. It was but one of several in Warren Township and it must be remembered that in the early 1800's Warren was a sparsely settled rural area. Elam Genung's store was undoubtedly a center of activity in the eastern part of the township and he became a member of the Township Committee in 1828. He married into a devout Methodist family when he took Betsey Tucker as his bride on June 15, 1820 and it is not surprising that he played a major role in the founding and building of the Methodist Church in Union Village of which he became a trustee. Also living at the crossroads in 1824 were the George Townley's. His neighbor down the road on the same side was William Titus. Titus married Jane Squier and had ten children. Across from his home and up the road was Isaac Moore's house. He served in the Revolution as a private. On the opposite corner from Moore and Genung was the property of David French. French, who was born in 1747 and served in the Somerset Brigade, came from Connecticut Farms and married Sara Wilcox, daughter of Peter Wilcox, on May 30, 1776. The Frenchs had ten children and their son David became a prominent member of the Union Village church. In her diary Betsey Crane does not tell us who belonged to the first class in the village, but she does give us rare glimpses of the early life of the village and the activities of the Methodists in the area. The next entry in her diary reads, "A great time at Elam Genung's. A Liberty Pole raised and the place called Union Village." The crossroads, which had been known as the village or Genung's now had a name. On September 4, 1824 Betsey Crane writes, "Father up to the Camp Ground fixing stand." Then on Friday, the 10th, she states, "Camp Meeting began today." Camp meetings were common in those days and can be defined as a religious assembly on a given day at an appointed time announced well in advance with the understanding that as many persons as possible would attend with bedding and provisions fully prepared to stay until the closing song. Mrs. Crane goes on in her diary entry for the next day, "I went to Camp meeting this morning at Wolf Hill. Rained very hard all afternoon." This meeting which took place above Tucker's home on Wolf Hill was only the third meeting to be held within the Newark Conference. It was preceded by a meeting at the home of Benjamin Munn in Parsippany in 1806 and one at Rahway Neck in 1818. The Wolf Hill meeting drew a crowd as Mrs. Crane discusses in her entry for Sunday, September 12th: "I went to Camp Meeting through the mud. It was thought there was 4,000 people. Mr. Rusling preached in the morning, Manning Force in the morning too. Mr. Rusling in the afternoon and evening." Camp meetings were a peculiar American institution, a church "without doors or formalities." They gave men a chance to brag and talk big at a safe distance from the scene of their stories, children a chance to meet new playmates, and women a break from their unrelenting routine. A saying of the time went, "The crops were forgotten, the cabins deserted, and in large settlements there did not remain one soul." A crowd of under a thousand was considered paltry and Bishop Asbury wisely understood the value of these meetings. He wrote, "To collect a number of God's people together to pray, and ministers to preach, and the longer they stay, generally the better - this is field fighting, this is fishing with a large net." Asbury was so enthusiastic about camp meetings he sought to have them incorporated into the charter of the church and have his preachers hold outdoor revivals as a part of their work. By the time of the Wolf Hill meeting in 1824 camp meetings had become standardized. They began on Friday afternoon and the sermons were followed by exhortations and gatherings of seekers around the "mourner's bench". This crude bench in front of the altar was the idea of a Methodist itinerant named Valentine Cook. He decided to invite the "mourners" or penitents forward rather than waiting for workers to go out amongst the crowd to seek them out. Preaching at Wolf Hill was Manning Force, the Presiding Elder. Born in 1780, Force began his ministry in 1811 and for fifty-one years was a prominent figure in the Newark Conference. Rev. Nicholas Vansant wrote of him, "The word ‘honey' was a favorite with him, and he carried in his spirit and his life a rich measure of the sweetness signified by the word." The spirit of the Wolf Hill camp meeting was kept alive in the coming year in the Tucker family home by Sunday afternoon sermons and week-night prayer meetings. Mrs. Crane mentions them often. For example, on Sunday, October 3, 1824 she writes, "I have been to Mr. Tucker's this afternoon, his text was 'I will arise and go to my father.' " And in reference to a prayer meeting she comments that Elam Genung preached from the text "Turn ye, turn ye." Even the snow did not daunt the enthusiasm of the Methodists and Betsey Crane observed on February 6, 1825, "Debby went to Mr. Tucker's with Linus and Aretus and Hannah (children of Joseph Crane). I never saw so many sleighs in one day." There was a revival of interest in religion in New Providence that year and on June 25th Mrs. Crane reports that 80 people joined the church. On June 21st another camp meeting was held, this time on the Pettit farm on Stony Hill. The Pettits were an old family, Ben Pettit Esq. having bought 105 acres in 1729 and another 100 acres in 1737. Ben Pettit was a captain in the militia and in 1783 he married Elizabeth Day. They had four children and at the time of the camp meeting Timothy Day Pettit was living on the farm. Apparently, by the summer of 1825, the converts to Methodism in the Union Village area had become so numerous that the building of a new meeting house was undertaken. The deed to the land owned by Isaac Rightmire is dated August 4, 1824, but Mrs. Crane does not mention any construction of a church until her entry in her diary on December 14, 1825, "Father at work on the Meeting House by Elam's." The next day she writes, "Father at the same work." On December 17, 1825 it rained most of the day so Sunday must have found the roads to the new meeting house rutted and muddy. "We all went to the dedication of the new Meeting House at Union Village. A sermon was preached by Rev. Mr. Roy from Mark 16: 'He that believes and is baptized,' " writes Mrs. Crane. Unfortunately, few details about the building of the church are known. No doubt the actual construction was a labor of love by the men of the congregation for the timbers were hand hewn and prepared for joining by the mortise and tenon method. The result of their efforts was a simple, sturdy country church. Being a small country church, Union Village was served by many preachers. In 1825, as a preaching place on the Essex Circuit, it was supplied by David Best and William A. Wiggins. Mrs. Crane refers frequently to both men in her diary, especially to Mr. Best who Stephen Day reported to have been "an able thinker, but, a defective deliverer, together with some eccentricities, rendered him somewhat unpopular." In a sermon delivered on June 13, 1824 Best "offended the girls," wrote Betsey Crane and this was evidently not the first time he had shown disregard for young ladies' sensibilities. One woman told Stephen Day of an incident in her girlhood when Mr. Best refused to admit her to a Love Feast because she wore a veil on her hat. After a seven mile walk the poor girl was "driven into the cold to find shelter where she could,, until her friends who were admitted should join her." Mr. Wiggins on the other hand was something of a favorite for Mrs. Crane writes on May 29, 1825, "A great many people to Meeting-, Mr. Wiggins sick, the people disappointed." In 1826 both men were replaced by George Banghart and Thomas J. Thompson. The New Providence and Union Village churches were fortunate to hear sermons by many different preachers for in those early days the pulpit was filled by whomever was available that particular Sunday. Perhaps the most notable preacher to sermonize in our area, however, was Bartholomew Weed who spoke on the afternoon of September 13, 1824 at the Wolf Hill meeting and probably preached on other occasions as well. Weed was a "Methodist of the old style; his early Christian life was among the fathers and pioneers of the connection." He was a minister for 64 years, 44 of them in the Newark Conference, and "for himself retained to the last a strong preference for the simple manners and plain dress of his early associates. His life was never easy and during the early days on the circuit Weed was away from his family for a month at a time. His first wife died while he was on a distant appointment, but the trials and tragedies of the itinerancy never dimmed his passion for preaching. In fact, when his physician informed him that his work was probably done, he burst into tears and said, "What, am I never to preach the Gospel any more?" We know so little about the men who served our church in its early years, men like George Banghart, Anthony Atwood, John Hancock, William Wiggins, Thomas Sovereign, Mr. Hinshaw and David Best. We do know that they were paid very little, only $100 a year in 1816 and about $200 plus traveling expenses in the 1820's. They probably rode horseback for one writer says, "virtually all their preachers outside of New England were mounted." Their appearance was also fairly standard: hair shoulder length, a flat crowned, broad-brimmed hat and black round-breasted coat with a long vest with the corners cut off, breeches and stockings (later trousers). Of the Union Village congregation we also know little, but from the Steward's registry can gleam some information about the early life of the church. We learn that for spring 1824 conference cash was received from Elam Genung's class for $5.35 and from Day's class in New Providence $14.51. Paid out was the sum of $10 to Manning Force, the Presiding Elder of the conference, $35.12 quarterage to David Best, and $43.90 to William Wiggins. In the next report on October 16, 1824 Mr. Tucker's class appears for the first time, contributing $8.53. As the church had no burial ground the deceased were buried in New Providence or in a small cemetery on Mountain Avenue near the Tucker home. Buried here are Joseph and Deborah Tucker, Lines and Mahala Tucker, Phebe Tucker, her daughter Martha and son Manning, and Amos Tucker. Two of the oldest graves, however, are those of Hetty Jane Coddington (daughter of Isaac V. and Phebe) who died in 1831 and Abraham Leforge who died at 67 years of age and was probably the father of Levi Ruckman's wife Jane. Also laid to rest in the Tucker cemetery are Isaac Moore who died in 1833 and his wife Lydia and daughter Susan Moore Stevens and her husband William who died in 1855. From the register of the Union Village church in 1835 we know that a Sunday School flourished with a superintendent, seven teachers and seventy-five pupils. At this time and for the next forty-nine years Union Village and New Providence were closely associated. In 1842 a camp meeting was held on Long Hill followed by meetings on alternate nights at New Providence and Union Village. After three weeks of these meetings two prominent young ladies from the Village went forward for prayers and "were soundly converted." One of them, Anne Currie Clark, arose the following evening and went to the men's side of the church to urge her uncle, a backslider, again to seek Christ. He did not do so, but her example provided the impetus for many conversions. Sixty persons became probationers at New Providence and twenty-two at Union Village. By 1844 Union Village had four classes led by David French, Martin Ruckman, William Clark, and Lines Tucker and seventy-four members. The church did not continue to grow, however, and in 1852 had only fifty-four members and three classes led by David French, Daniel Hand and Daniel W. Day. Records are non-existent for the late 1800's but we know that in 1881 Mr. S. B. Rooney served the pulpit at Union Village alone. The break was only temporary and in 1882 Nicholas Vansant was appointed to serve both New Providence and Union Village. He was succeeded in 1884 by Stephen H. Jones who was sent to a new appointment comprising Union Village, Stirling and. Pleasant Plains. The arrangement was carried on after six months by Rev. W. H. Farote, but must have been unsatisfactory for the next year Union Village returned to the New Providence fold and continued there until 1898. In that year Union Village returned to Pleasant Plains and both were supplied by students, presumably from nearby Drew Seminary. Interest in the church at the turn of the century dwindled and in 1904-5 the church was not supplied with a minister. Rev. J. E. Hancock served New Providence in 1906-7, but held no services as the village and the conference ordered the church closed and sold. Dr. Willis Fletcher Johnson and his brother purchased the little church at Union Village, but were "at a loss with what to do with it; whether to remodel it into a dwelling house, or to move it to our own place for a barn." Johnson, in a letter written in 1926 goes on to say, "But finally we decided that we would not be parties to the destruction of a church, but instead would do our utmost to have it reopened." Returning to the Conference, the church was reopened in 1908 by Thomas E. Gordon, pastor at New Providence upon the insistence of the Johnson brothers. The building was repaired, a new pulpit and choir platform built and an organ found. [The church went on to experience an amazing period of growth during the 1950s, 60s and 70s, the same time the surrounding area of Berkeley Heights and Warren Township was also developing, peaking at over 1,000 members in 1970. Our thanks to Ms. Tomblin, a fine historian, for this interesting article.] |