The blaring of horns outside the Society of Friends Church on Ridge Street were not a visitation from angels.
“The revival meetings at the Friends’ church were disturbed Monday evening when a number of young rowdies who gathered in front of the church amused themselves by blaring tin horns, shouting, whistling etc.,” The Morning Star of Glens Falls reported on Feb. 27, 1884. “Had there been officers in the vicinity, the disturbers doubtless would have passed the remainder of the night in the lockup.”
Friends Church on Ridge Street, circa 1878. (Photo: The Arthur Fisher Collection at The Folklife Center of Crandall Public Library)
The distinctive, historic brick structure still stands on Ridge Street.
The former house of worship has been used for offices since the 1970s.
The congregation organized in 1873, and met temporarily at 3 p.m. on Sundays at First Baptist Church of Glens Falls until land could be purchased and a sanctuary built.
The foundation was laid in October 1874, and construction was finished in 1875, at a cost of $1,300 – the equivalent of about $30,000 in 2021 dollars.
Quaker faith had been common locally ever since Abraham Wing, a Quaker, founded Queensbury and Glens Falls in 1762.
The faith was long-noted for its emphasis on pacificism, abolition of slavery and equal rights for women.
Quaker meetings are distinguished by allowing anyone who wishes to speak or pray.
The Rev. John Henry Douglas become the Glens Falls congregation’s first regular pastor in 1879, pastoring locally for about two years.
Hopefully the Glens Falls congregation was more generous than some of his earlier congregations had been.
“My wife and child lived years in poverty. We tasted not of meat or wheat bread,” he said, speaking to a gathering of Quaker pastors in 1884.
Douglas believed sermons should get to the point.
“Don’t try to preach a long sermon. Just deliver the message that burns in the heart,” he advised. “Mind the life, whether the sermon be three minutes or three hours long. Be natural.”
In 1885, the Glens Falls congregation hosted the New York State Friends annual meeting.
“The train which arrived here at four o’clock yesterday afternoon and at 7:30 in the evening brought large delegations of Friends, and the number now in town will approximate 130,” The Morning Star reported on May 28, 1885.
More would arrive in the days to come for pre-conference activities leading up to the May 29 opening of the six-day conference.
“It has been an accepted maxim that the advent of Friends always brings a rain, but this is certainly a notable exception, as finer weather could not have been granted,” The Morning Star reported, of the opening day.
Evangelist George W. Willis of Ohio, known as ‘the boy preacher,” was among the speakers.
The Rev. William Allen, a former black slave, was another speaker.
Allen was born a slave April 2, 1818 in Greene County.
He was separated from his family at age 11 when his owner sold him.
His mother’s parting words were: “My boy, be good and kind to everybody. Love the Lord and he will take you out of trouble after a while.”
Allen was freed at age 27 and went to Indiana where he learned to read and write, and later became a Quaker pastor.
“His style of address is forcible and clear, illustrative and eminently practical,” The Morning Star reported.
After the closing session, many of the conferees visited Lake George before leaving Glens Falls on the early train June 4.
“The weather has been unusually pleasant, and even Sunday, when it was raining, the meeting house was crowded to its utmost capacity.”
The Glens Falls “Band of Hope,” a temperance organization, met at the brick church in the mid-1880s.
In 1886, the congregation broke from the Quaker tradition of exclusive a cappella singing when it accepted the loan of an organ from Dr. Stephen Birdsall, who lived in the nearby mansion at the corner of Ridge and Williams streets, a historic structure that is now an apartment building.
In 1973, the Glens Falls congregation left the building when the congregation merged with the South Glens Falls congregation.
“Numbering about nine or ten active members, the Society of Friends will leave the brick church on Ridge Street they have occupied for the past 98 years,” The Post-Star reported.
Gary Walrath, director of the Glens Falls Historical Museum, now the Chapman Historical Museum, urged that the building be preserved, a wish that has been fulfilled.
“The new and the old must not be in conflict with each other,” he said.
Sources: The Morning Star, Feb. 27, June 4, 1884; May 28, 29, June 4,5, 1885; The Glen’s Falls Republican, Jan. 26, 1873; Oct. 13, 1874; The Granville Sentinel, March 26, 1886; The Post-Star May 25, 1973; “History of Warren County,” H.P. Smith, 1885
