Remembering Our Heritage

Dr. Milton Loyer, Conference Archivist

September – 100 years ago. 

As reported in the 1924 Christian Advocate: “The Rev. Clarence R. Hickock, Dorranceton, reports an average attendance of 160 at prayer meetings. No spectacular methods are used. A committee is canvasing the parish for money to purchase ground for a new church on Wyoming Avenue.” The original 1897 building stood at West Dorrance Street and Schuyler Avenue. Properties were bought and sold, and building plans were drawn and redrawn, but it wasn’t until April 1963 that ground was broken at the present site on Wyoming Avenue. Dorranceton was once a separate borough. In 1921 it merged into Kingston, and in 1922 Dorranceton High School graduated its last class of 27 seniors.

October – 50 years ago

The Wyoming Conference United Methodist publication highlighted two very different October 1974 accomplishments. 

October 3, 1974, marked the conclusion of a five day celebration at the Ashley UMC building, which had been destroyed by fire in February, 1972, and was now rebuilt, equipped with new stained glass windows and other memorials, and rededicated by Bishop James Ault. In the face of declining membership in a changing neighborhood, the church closed December 31, 2018, and was sold to Mision Cristiana Juan 3:16. 

On October 7, 1974, Rev. Robert Harris, later the long-time conference historian, was a returning 3-day champion on the TV show Jeopardy — only to be defeated when he missed the final jeopardy question. In those days the host was Art Fleming and the highest dollar values were $100 and $200 in the single and double portions of the show.

Remembering Our Heritage

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.