History

by Anna Louise Bates, Church Historian
November 2025

In 1949, race relations in the United States were reaching a fever pitch. The Methodist Church, and the New Paltz Methodist Church in particular, were aware of national tensions.

Race Relations Sunday, started in 1923 in the Methodist Episcopal Church South, was an annual observance in the Methodist Church dedicated to confronting racism, promoting interracial understanding, and supporting ministries of racial justice. The MEC South condoned slavery prior to the reunification of the northern and southern branches of Methodism in 1939. It is possible that the formation of Race Relations Sunday in the South was a way for the church to acknowledge its own complicity in racial segregation while encouraging members to work toward reconciliation. Whatever the case, Race Relations Sunday became part of the Church’s main body after the reunification of its Northern and Southern branches.

The New Paltz Methodist Church enthusiastically supported Race Relations Sunday. The 1949 Church Newsletter proclaimed that the New York Conference “supports 15 Negro colleges and universities … whose influence for better race relations has been incalculable.” The Reverend Lee H. Ball called for generous donations, for “…the operating costs of our Negro institutions has doubled since the end of the war, while the applications for admission have more than doubled. Let us make our 1949 offering really generous…” At that time, the New York Conference supported Clark College in Atlanta, where students were “well housed and equipped on a beautiful campus.”

The New York Annual Conference supports efforts to improve race relations through education, advocacy and support for cross-racial ministries. Its’ Commission on Religion and Race encourage multicultural congregations and leadership development.

Today, Race Relations Day is called Human Relations Day, and is celebrated on the Sunday preceding Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday. This will fall on January 18, 2026. The NYAC churches continue to fund ministries that strengthen multiracial and multicultural congregations, provide scholarships, and support justice initiatives. Given the tense nature of race relations in the United States today, we might start planning now to generously support our National Conferences’ efforts come January.

----Notes are from the New Paltz Methodist News, February 11, 1949

by Anna Louise Bates, Church Historian
September 2025

The New Paltz United Methodist Church and Memorial Methodist Church of Modena underwent a historic merger in 2025. The new combined church is the New Connexions UMC. This is the first of several articles chronicling the historical connection between these two churches. Future articles will depend upon my access to documents from the Plattekill/Modena church. For now, I will focus on early circuit riders who served both locations. John Reynolds was such a preacher.

Reynolds was appointed to the New-Paltz and Plattekill circuit in 1846. During this time, he lived in a bank building in New Paltz. The New Paltz church building was only six years old at this time and was located with its entrance on Main Street. The building would be moved several years later to a location on Church Street. That building is currently the Jewish Community Center in New Paltz. The current church building on Grove Street was built in 1929, partly because of the old church’s proximity to the local stable. This would have been the stable that the Reverend Reynolds walked to from his home at the bank building on the night of October 18, 1846.  According to his memoir in the Conference journal, “He had, as usual, gone to the stable to provide for his horse for the night, when a person soon afterward passing though the stable, discovered him lying near his horse, and breathing like one in a deep sleep.” He passed soon afterwards. The memoir says he preached: “… with a heart warm with the love of God and deeply impressed with the value of souls.” Reynolds was about 65 years old. He had been in the itinerant ministry for about 35 years, since his acceptance to the New York Conference in 1811.

The Reverend Reynolds’ story is typical of early circuit riders. They lived strenuous lives and worked hard for reasons that are perhaps difficult for our generations to fathom. He never married. The journal comments: “Although the providence of God he was not permitted to leave a dying testimony, such was the purity of his life and the daily evidence of his separation from the world and of his consecration to God, that no one who knew him intimately could for a moment doubt but that his death was as safe as it was sudden.” Safe? That meant that he was free from sin and surely destined for an honored place in Heaven.

It is because of the dedication of such early preachers that we have the New Connexions UMC today. May we draw inspiration from the stories of the circuit riders and redouble our efforts to live lives worthy of true Methodism.

--All materials are from the 1847 New York Conference Journal, and a hand-written history of the New Paltz UMC created in about 1898.

by Anna Louise Bates, Church Historian
May 2025

The Wings of Faith was a Christian folk group formed at the New Paltz United Methodist Church during the pastorship of Stephen Bauman during the early 1980s. The group’s membership shifted over time and included multiple talented musicians from the New Paltz congregation. Melissa Bauman was the primary founder. Other star members included Susan LoVerso, Karen Moeller, Barbara Collins, Arla Clouser, Kay Rowe, Anne Albiez Clocher, Lisette Holmes, Janet Salt Frommer, Betsy Haight, Kerry Kiphart, Pat Fisher, Audrey Shaver, Joanne Regan, and others. 

The group performed progressive hymns and spiritual songs accompanied by guitar and piano, with occasional additions of other instruments such as tambourines and dulcimers. They met for weekly rehearsals, wherein they planned music for upcoming services and concerts. Kay Rowe recalled the annual evening concerts held at the church.

The group possibly drew its name from Charles Wesley’s hymn, “Give Me the Wings of Faith (to rise above the veil…).” Kay Rowe remarked that the songs the group chose seemed to give them spiritual wings: “it was uplifting.” Rowe also mentioned that the group performed cutting-edge hymns not found in the traditional hymnals of the 1980s. She recalled the songs “Be Not Afraid,” and “On Eagle’s Wings,” both of which are now standards in our worship services. They also performed spiritually charged songs that were not actually hymns.

The Wings of Faith performed during church services at NPUMC and at venues throughout the New Paltz community. The group continued into the 1990s until it faded around 1995. 

Music has always been a vital part of the New Paltz congregation. The church is currently undergoing significant changes. Once the dust settles on the organization of the church and its affiliated congregations, perhaps some of our musically talented parishioners might follow in the footsteps of the Wings of Faith. We would welcome a vibrant music ministry!

by Anna Louise Bates, Church Historian
March 2025

The New Paltz United Methodist Church has a long history of members who care about our world community and who act to spread love and resources to peoples in need of necessities. This month, I chose to focus on Erica Chase-Salerno, a bright star who served our church and the world community tirelessly during her short lifetime.

The July 30, 2000 Sunday Freeman includes a story about Erica’s mission trips to Haiti in 1999 and a planned trip to Mozambique in 2000. The trip to Haiti was part of a church-sponsored effort to build a community center. She described her experience in Haiti to Blaise Schweitzer (Sunday Freeman staff writer), sharing that, in addition to physical labor, she struggled to learn the creole language spoken by the residents there. Her later trip to Mozambique was aimed to relieve residents impacted by floods. In addition to helping build and rebuild community facilities, both the Haiti and Mozambique trips focused on food and medicine for those they served. Erica had a huge heart, a quick mind and undying desire to serve the world.

Besides her many trips abroad, she worked locally with agencies such as Family of New Paltz and the Salvation Army. Erica was a world traveler. Besides the trips mentioned here, she traveled to Cambodia, Thailand, South Africa, the Dominican Republic and other places.

During the 2000s, Erica married and raised two children. She converted every event in her life into an opportunity to serve others. The July 12, 2009 Poughkeepsie Journal described Erica’s holistic pregnancy workshops.  She wrote for multiple children’s publications. It would not be possible to parse Erica’s active life in one short article.

Know that members of the New Paltz United Methodist Church loved her and admired her seamlessly boundless energy. Erica passed in 2019, leaving a legacy that inspires all of us who aspire to God’s command to seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly.

by Anna Louise Bates, Church Historian
January 2025

Long-time parishioner Selden J. Spencer, remembered as one of the most active members of our church community and a bit of a character, was born in 1923 and grew up on a small farm in Bradford County, PA. He taught secondary school at several places during his graduate studies at Pennsylvania State University, ultimately earning a Ph.D. and acquiring a position as a biology professor at the State University of New York/ New Paltz. He held that position until he retired in 1988.  He married M. Jean Mumford in 1951.

Selden and Jean joined the New Paltz Methodist Church when they moved to the area, and remained devoted and active members until their deaths, Jean in 2018 and Selden in 2020.  During their years at the church, Selden earned a reputation as an environmental activist. He also possessed a remarkable tenor voice and participated in the choir and various church music programs. He played violin, ukulele, and harmonica.

Nature was Selden’s passion. He was a birdwatcher and member of the John Burroughs Natural History Society. He often took his students on field trips to the beautiful natural sites around New Paltz. Jean was a member of the Women’s Society of Christian Service, and she persuaded Selden to address that group in June 1970, on the topic of, “Pollution: What can we do?” His presentation included slides that he made during some of his field trips. 

The December 16, 1986, Poughkeepsie Journal includes an entertaining story about Dr. Spencer’s support of students protesting the removal of a colony of monkeys, purchased by the school to observe their behavior. The effort failed, despite promises by Selden and the biology students to provide necessities for the monkeys which the school could not afford.

Selden’s appreciation of the natural environment led him on camping excursions to Alaska, Hawaii, Isle Royale on Lake Superior, and multiple locations in Europe and worldwide. His obituary notes that he took his wife and two children, James T. and Paul S. Spencer, on a cross-country road trip to Monterey Bay during the “Summer of Love” in 1969, “in a Pugeot Station Wagon.” 

My memories of Selden date from my arrival in New Paltz in 2004. I visited the United Methodist Church several times before becoming a member. On my second visit to the church, Selden met me at the door with a large coffee can full of walnuts from his tree. Our church boasts a historical membership of remarkable individuals, and we remember Selden J. Spencer as one of our brightest lights.

by Anna Louise Bates, Church Historian
November 2024

Reading reports of how New Paltz Methodists celebrated Christmas in past decades reminds us how times have changed. Methodism was, at one time, a thriving Protestant denomination in the United States. Local churches boasted a large attendance every Sunday.

According to the December 15, 1950, New Paltz Methodist News,planned activities to celebrate Christmas that year included a Christmas pageant on Christmas eve, wherein “… thirty persons in costume will be our cast.” The musical program would include choral singing, and noted with pride almost palpable today that “Miss Helen Schoonmaker will be our soprano soloist. Our guest musicians will be Miss Joyce Rosenfeld with her harp and Mr. Parry Berago with his violin.”

In addition to the main celebration, a special party called “Mother Goose’s Christmas Party” was planned for the church’s children.  And, for added enjoyment, “… since it is snowing that day, we expect Santa Claus also will arrive at our party.”

Everyone, adults and children alike, brought “White Gifts,” being small gifts wrapped in white paper, that went to selected charities.  In 1950 the gifts went to “a Methodist settlement house in Boston.” Suggested gifts included toys, games, dolls, picture books, or articles of clothing for children and babies.” Donations were solicited from everyone, including the church’s children, who filled “dime stockings” for the cause. Surely, this is Methodism at is best!

The Newsletter that detailed plans for Christmas ended with a hopeful prayer: “Surely we should reflect upon the half-century that is ending, marked by a world depression, a world revolution, and two world wars. … We need to face our uncertain future in the Christian faith with a prayer that we may “Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace.” All readers were invited to spend the closing days of 1950 “in prayer in meditation, and in the Service of Communion.”

Here we are, approaching Christmas in 2024.  We lament our shrinking churches and church membership, and the desperately low number of children in our remaining congregations. Church closures and mergers abound. And all this is happening during a time when many of us fear the near future. We worry about the plights of immigrants, climate change, wars that could at any moment engage our own citizens. Perhaps, rather than fear, we should draw strength from our church’s history.  We have a strong heritage, and we should remember our beautiful past Christmas celebrations with an eye of hope, and not despair that we don’t have as many members now. The words of Pastor Lee H. Ball bring tears, but also reminds us who we are: “Again the Christmas Candles will glow upon thousands of altars, and in millions of homes, shining symbols of our faith that the Light still shines in the Darkness, and that the Darkness can never put it out.” Smaller in numbers, yes, but also strong in faith. Let our past inspire us to rebuild our church and celebrate the new light Christ brought to our world.