Milton Loyer, Conference Archivist
March – 100 years ago
On March 18, 1923, the Calvary Methodist Episcopal Church in Waymart, Wayne County, dedicated its enlarged facility. This society began at Canaan Four Corners and worshiped in a log school house until erecting a building in that community in 1834. When the population shifted to Waymart, the congregation arranged to share use of the Presbyterian building there – but a dispute with the Presbyterians led the Methodists to erect their own building in 1856, and a Sunday School room was added later to the rear of the building. In 1923 the Sunday School room was moved back thirty feet, and a new two-story building with a full basement was erected between the church and the old Sunday School room.
For many years a congregation in nearby Steene was part of the Waymart charge. That congregation worshiped in a school house for a number of years before purchasing the old church building at Canaan Four Corners and moving it to Steene in 1859. After the Steene appointment was discontinued, that building was sold in 1924 and is now a private home.
April – 50 years ago
In 1968 when the Methodist and Evangelical United Brethren (EUB) denomination joined to form the United Methodist Church, the congregations in the EUB’s New York Conference, which covered all New York state outside metropolitan NYC, were placed in the five corresponding Methodist Conferences: Central New York, Northern New York, Troy, Western New York and Wyoming. On April 12, 1973, the final meeting of the Joint Distributing Committee met to divide the assets of that conference five ways – prorated according to membership. The Wyoming Conference had inherited 117 former New York EUB members and was entitled to 1.70% of those assets. In 1986 the Northern New York and Central New York Conferences united to form the North Central New York Conference.
In 2010 when the Wyoming Conference was dissolved, its assets were similarly prorated according to membership – 45% to the newly created Upper New York (merger of North Central New York, Western New York and the New York portions of Troy and Wyoming) Conference and 55% to the expanded Central Pennsylvania (renamed Susquehanna) Conference.
