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St. Luke's Church, Catskill, N. Y

The incorporation of St. Luke's parish took place on the feast of St. Bartholomew, the 24th day of August, in the year 1801. Although the Reformed Church in Leeds was built many years earlier, and was at the time in what was known as Catskill, St. Luke's is nevertheless the first religious organization in this village. Records of baptisms performed in the Winter and Spring of 1798, by the Rev. Robert Griffith Wetmore, an itinerant Priest of the Church, indicate that there were religious services several years at least before the actual organization of the parish.

The first nominal Rector was the Rev. Ammi Rogers, yet it is doubtful whether he was actual Rector for more than a few weeks, and that merely for the purpose of legal incorporation. At that time he was on his way from Ballston to Branford, Connecticut, where he had been called to become Rector of Trinity Church. An effort to induce him to remain in Catskill seems to have been unsuccessful. Dr. Thomas Thomson and Samuel Haight were chosen to become the first Wardens; and the Vestrymen were Caleb Benton, John Blanchard, John Andrews, Solomon Chandler, Jonathan Booth, John D. V. S. Scott, Isaac Nichols, and Frederick Chollett. During the one hundred and ten years intervening since that time there have been twelve Rectors of the parish.

For three years the congregation worshipped in a schoolhouse on Thomson street. The first Church building was of brick, with wooden steeple, and towards its construction Old Trinity of New York contributed $2,000. It was occupied for the first in 1804, and consecrated on September 3, 1809, by Bishop Benjamin Moore. This building stood on Church street, and was totally destroyed by fire just thirty years after its consecration, September 11, 1839. The second building, erected on the same site as the first, was designed by the famous artist Thomas Cole. This too was of brick, with tower of like material added a few years later. It was opened for services in January, 1841, and consecrated by Bishop Treadwell Onderdonk on August 10, 1844. The life of the building as a place of worship was in length nearly double that of the first, coming impressively to an end on June 5, 1899. The final services were a Celebration of the Holy Communion at an early hour, Morning Prayer a little later, and prayers with reminiscent addresses in the evening. The preceding day was Sunday, and the two preachers at