Park Church - Religious Freedom on Waymarking.com

By 1840 slavery in the United States was rapidly becoming an issue about which no one
could be neutral. The establishment of "The Liberator" by William Lloyd Garrison in 1831 for
the purpose of leading people to think seriously about the slavery question was bearing fruit
throughout the North. The brutality with which fugitive slave laws were enforced, and the
stories told of the South, particularly of conditions in slave markets, added to the feeling.
Everywhere those who were moved by the demand for the abolition of slavery began to press for
action, and to do whatever they could wherever they were.
There was a station of the "Underground Railroad" in Elmira. The work of this
organization was stimulated by the fact that a runaway slave named John Jones came to Elmira
in 1844 on his way to Canada. He was kindly treated and came to believe that no one in Elmira
would report him. He stayed and became a kind of foundation stone in the Elmira station of the
"Railroad." A fascinating account of Jones' career and a good deal of information about Elmira's
part in this route of escape is given in Clay Holmes' book "The Elmira Prison Camp."
As a part of all this foment over slavery, certain members of the First Presbyterian
Church in Elmira wished to have the church on record as an anti-slavery church. They presented
a petition which, if honored, would have had the desired result. The petition was tabled. To an
ardent abolitionist this was no better than an open statement in favor of slavery. A contemporary
record says that the minister of the First Church preached "certain sermons upon slavery which
resulted in alienation of feeling."
Those whose sense of justice and humanity were offended by these things began to think
of breaking away and founding a new church – secondary accounts say an"anti-slavery" church,
but the official records are less specific.
On the Second of January of 1846, forty-one members left the First Presbyterian Church to form a religious body fully resolved of Christian conscience to support the abolitionist stance against slavery.

As part of the Points of Inspiration Trail Project you can visit this congregation known for it's abolitionist and humanitarian views. Led by Reverend Thomas K. Beecher, Park Church was the summer church of Mark Twain and his family. The existing church was designed by famous New York architect, Horatio Nelson White, in 1872

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Date Logged Log   05/10/2019 ripraff visited it