Seeing the Light

"Seeing the Light"

Submitted by Dr. Paul Loatman, City Historian

 

Each time I point it out to people, they are pleasantly surprised and wonder how they never noticed it before. On the one hand, it is so simple that it is easy to miss; on the other, its simplicity makes it even more attractive, lifting us as it does out of our hum-drum everyday existence by injecting a symbol of beauty and wonder into our lives when we least expect it. No matter how many times I see it (and I do go out of my way to do so) it is ever- changing and new with each viewing. I speak, of course, of the stained glass window of St. Luke’s facing Park Avenue which has been illuminated in the evenings for the past year. It is especially striking now during the "tween-season" after the leaves have fallen but before the snow flies, when the days are shorter and the light streaming through the multi-colored glass stands out like a jewel against the dark wintry sky. While it draws us out of the present moment with its hint of timelessness, it also draws us back into our history because of the window and the building which surrounds it help to identify who we were, and are, as a community.

St. Luke’s stands on the site of the first church in Mechanicville, and despite the fact that the original wood structure which preceded the current edifice was erected at a time of heightened religious tension in the United States, it was a pathfinder, functioning as an ecumenical church long before that movement was either practical or fashionable among Christians. Mechanicville’s religious history is complicated, due in no small part to the fact that the community was carved out of portions of two townships. Without going into too much detail, suffice it to say that while the Methodists founded the first congregation here in 1828, their lack of a church structure compelled them to worship in private homes. That’s where Episcopalians stepped in shortly thereafter, leading a subscription campaign enlisting the efforts of all Christians to build a "community" church which was open to all denominations, the only restriction being that it would function as an Episcopal church when a minister of that persuasion was in the pulpit. Truth be told, most of the subscribers were Episcopalians, and when that congregation sought official recognition from diocesan authorities in 1832, the church’s days of non-denominationalism came to an end; henceforth, St. Luke’s would be an Episcopal church.

The wooden structure originally built during Andrew Jackson’s first term as President served the needs of the parishioners for nearly the remainder of the 19th century. In the 1880s, one of the traits which marked it off as different from that of other denominations was that the parish eschewed the collection of "pew rents." An idea alien to modern day church-goers, pew rents were common among many denominations over a century ago, inviting religious reformers to charge that they created a seating hierarchy reflecting social status, with wealthier congregants sitting in the front, while the poor was consigned to the rear. Critics pointed out that this scheme of things seemed to defy the Biblical message that all souls were equal before God, and obviously, it was a point of such import that St. Luke’s rectors made sure to announce in their weekly church notices that no such fees were collected by them. Not everyone agreed, of course, and editor Mead went so far as to denounce in his Saturday Mercury columns "Irregular Church Seats" because, he contended, they defied the natural order of things, and threatened to break up families. Such a thing might be tolerated in an unorganized frontier hamlet, but never in a settled community like Mechanicville, he opined.

Whether because he was scandalized by Episcopal "helter-skelter" seating arrangements, or because the old wooden church began to show its age after 75 years of service, Mead suggested in December of 1894 that the church site would be an ideal location for a public library, or better yet, a militia armory if state officials could be persuaded to locate one here. The following week, churchwarden H.O. Bailey wrote the editor that the most suitable use of the property in question was for the free exercise of religion. He need not have worried, however, because before either of Mead’s two proposals were able to gather any steam, something providential, if not miraculous, occurred which insured that the use of the property would remain religious in nature. On September 9, 1895, Dr. Newton H. Ballou passed away, two months to the day after filing his will which left $40,000 of his $175,000 estate for the purposes of building a new church for St. Luke’s. The providential aspect in this is seen in the fact that state law would not uphold the validity of a will unless it had been written at least two months before the testator’s death.

Dr. Ballou must have thought out his bequest carefully before writing it because he attached a number of conditions to his gift. First, the benefaction had to be accepted within three months of the probating of the will. The new church had to be built on the original site, requiring the removal of the original church and the rectory. The new building had to be built of "rock-faced stone" according to plans approved by the executor of the estate, Dr. Ballou’s niece, and it would have to be completed within three years of the date of the bequest.

Needless to say, when editor Mead published a copy of the will in The Saturday Mercury before it had been probated, it caused such a sensation that the newspaper sold three times as many copies as usual. In some ways, there was nothing that unusual about the bequest because, as Mead noted, Dr. Ballou "was kind and generous and prescribed gratuitously for the poor." But, what may have been surprising was the fact that the physician spent the vast majority of his life living in communities other than Mechanicville. Born in Sheldon, Vermont on July 3, 1816, he attended Jefferson Medical College in Pennsylvania, practicing forty-five years in St. Albans and Burlington, Vermont after receiving his license in 1839. The three years he served as a surgeon during the Civil War with the 2nd Regiment of Vermont Volunteers was almost as long a tenure as the period he practiced in Mechanicville. But, despite the fact that he was living in Lansingburgh at the time of his death, Dr. Ballou’s large property holdings here, his service as church warden at St. Luke’s, and his wife’s relatives here led him to bestow his generosity on the community where he chose to be buried at his death.

St. Luke’s authorities had no objections to any of Dr. Ballou’s stipulations, and work on the new church began in 1897 when the original church and rectory were removed to the rear of the church property onto land leased from Mrs. Ocie Howland. The cornerstone of the new church was laid on July 6, 1897, but the local press noted that the number of people attending the ceremony was smaller than expected due to a heat wave which found temperatures in the shade at 106 degrees, while in the sun, it was reported to be 126 degrees. During this period, the Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists were engaged in various stages of building and expansion programs, but it was the erection of St. Luke’s which captured the public imagination, each step of its progress detailed on a weekly basis in the columns of the local press. The fact that Dr. Ballou hoped that his legacy would resemble a church he had seen while touring Europe explains some of the fascination, both in terms of its design and the composition of its building material.

The first ringing of the church’s 3,000-pound bell took place at 4 o’clock in the afternoon on November 23, 1897, and within two weeks, the much-anticipated stained glass windows arrived from Boston and were installed. Finishing touches were completed with the installation of the organ early in 1898, and the new building was dedicated by Bishop William Crosswell Doane on April 18 of that year. While the project appeared to have been completed by now, there was one fly in the ointment hinted at in editor Mead’s note that "the picture up from Park Ave is beautiful, but marred by the rectory building at the rear of the new church." Any thought of moving that structure back onto its original site after the old wooden church was torn down was scotched by attorney John C. Greene’s serving notice on behalf of Dr. Ballou’s executors that all original buildings had to be removed from the new church’s site. As Mead noted, this "put a stop to the project and caused considerable commotion." Shortly thereafter, the doomed rectory was sold to J. J. Hotaling who promised to remove the structure by September 1. Now needing a replacement, the parish initiated a fund raising campaign, the success of which led to the erection of a new rectory whose appearance did not detract from that of the new church. Now, St. Luke’s great benefactor could rest quietly in Hudson View Cemetery.

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In the 103 years that St. Luke’s has been in use, its outer appearance has changed little, if at all. However, age and weather have taken their toll on the structure, and like all such buildings, significant resources will be required to protect the legacy that Dr. Ballou bestowed not only on the area’s Episcopalians, but on all Mechanicville residents. All five of our local churches possess attributes of beauty, character, and history unique unto themselves. Yet, of all of them, St. Luke’s has a structural integrity about it which stands out and captivates the most casual observer. Let us hope that enough people "see the light" to ensure that this treasure is preserved for future generations to appreciate.