History
The history of the Church of the Holy Cross in Warrensburg begins with a vision: In 1796 a young priest, the Reverend Philander Chase (later Bishop of Ohio and then Illinois), told the Bishop of New York that he wanted to be a missionary and Bishop Provoost sent him on a journey up the Hudson River to upstate New York. He and the Rev. George Upfold, Rector of the Churches of Waterford and Lansingburgh (later Bishop of Indiana), visited the region in the course of their missionary journeys. They travelled on horseback through the then wilderness preaching and baptizing children. The Rev. Mr. Chase recorded in his journal that he preached under a spreading tree in the town of Thurman (of which what is now Warrensburg was then a part) and that he established a preaching station thereto which he intended to return. Beyond this, no record remains of this first attempt to bring Anglicanism to this part of the world.
Following this sowing of the seed of the Gospel, nearly fifty years later the liturgy of the Church was first read in the parish of Warrensburg. The Rev. John Alden Spooner, Rector of Glens Falls, held services during the 1840s in the schoolhouse which stood on the southwest side of the Scarron River and in the lower Borough. Isolated as Warrensburg was in those days, it was not the outpost of the Church in the Adirondack region. This distinction was held by Christ Church, Chester (now known as Pottersville), a parish with which Holy Cross Warrensburg retains close ties to this day (including the current and previous Rector of Holy Cross serving as parish priest of their parish as well).
The vision for a church in Warrensburg was renewed when the Reverend Robert Fulton Crary, scion of the famous steamship family and missionary to Caldwell (now Lake George village) and parts beyond, held a service at the Presbyterian Church in Warrensburg on the afternoon of the first Sunday in Advent, December 1, 1861. Services were held there regularly until he raised money to build an Episcopal Church. On May 18, 1864 the cornerstone was laid and the organization of the parish begun. In April of 1865 the parish was incorporated and admitted to the convention of the Diocese of New York in September of the same year. When the Diocese of Albany was formed in 1869, the parish then became part of that Convention.
The edifice was constructed from native stone by local stonemason Albert Alden. The first services were held in the church on the fifth Sunday after Epiphany, February 5, 1865, and the building was consecrated by the Right Reverend Horatio Potter, Bishop of New York, on June 13, 1866. Among the furnishings of the church consecrated that day was the pipe organ, still in use today. “In the autumn of 1865 . . . an organ was built and placed in the Church by Messrs. Hall & LaBaugh of New York, for the sum of $1,080, and used for the first time on the Feast of Whitsunday, May 20, 1866. Miss Mary Mixter, afterward Mrs. Emerson S. Crandall, was the first organist, continuing in that capacity for several years, and her daughter has been and is now, the faithful and efficient organist of the Church, in her turn.” (Church of the Holy Cross Warrensburg, NY 1866–1916, Henry Griffing, read at the Semi-Centennial in June 1916). The organ was refurbished for the Centennial Celebration of the church in 1966 in memory of former organist and choirmaster Edward M. P. Magree by Sidney Chase.
The missionary passed from the scene, but his vision for this place did not. A new chapter was opened on September 13, 1869, when the vestry elected the Reverend Henry Harrison Oberly, an assisting priest at Trinity Church, Wall Street, NY and Superior of St. Athanasius’ Mission, to become the first Rector. Fr. Oberly commenced his work in Warrensburg on November 1, 1869. Fr. Oberly was representative of the growing “Catholic Movement” within the Episcopal Church, and introduced elements that remain in use at Holy Cross today such as Eucharistic vestments, liturgical ceremonial, Sarum use, plainsong/Gregorian Chant, and weekly Eucharist (though the terms "high church" and "low church" were distasteful to him–he know only one word for all: "The Church"). During his tenure Fr. Oberly also introduced altar paraments, making Holy Cross the first altar to be vested in the Diocese of Albany. The parish continues to use beautiful and historic vestments and paraments including a priceless Lenten Array. The parish vestment collection will be featured in the forthcoming book Sacristies of New York: Textile Treasures of the Episcopal Church, a project funded by The Historical Society of the Episcopal Church. Fr. Oberly resigned as rector in 1872 and has been succeeded by 17 priests.
Equally important to the clergy, though, have been the laymen and women who have guided the temporal affairs of the parish. Seventeen men have served as warden, including the first two, Col. Benjamin Peck Burhans and Stephen Griffing, who each served from 1864–1875. Three men have served more than twenty-five years in this capacity, including Henry Griffing (1877–1918), Charles Burhans (1897–1910), and Herrick Osborne (1949–1976). Over ninety men and women have served on the Vestry, many for long years; perhaps singular among them is Emerson S. Crandall, who served fifty-one years (1868–1876, 1881–1889, 1891–1926).
In 1886 a building to be used as Rectory and Parish Hall was erected as a memorial to the first senior warden, Benjamin P. Burhans. In 1987 the Wardens and Vestry voted to honor the long service to the parish of its Warden Emeritus by naming the parish hall “Herrick Osborne Hall.” A communication of December 6, 1889, from two sisters, Clara and Mary Richards, two major donors to the rectory project, proposed the establishment of circulating library for the use of the residents of Warrensburg; this vision later found full expression in the Richard’s Library, the town’s public library.
Later building projects included the Cloister, a passage connecting the Church and the Parish hall, completed in 1911. In 1966, a major renovation project was begun under the leadership of Fr. Paul E. Sanford, Jr. to commemorate the centennial year of the parish. In 1978, an education wing of two stories was built.
In 1890, Fr. Crary returned to Holy Cross to preach at the 25th anniversary of the first service in the Church. Something of his vision and spirit for this place may be caught in these words which, by God’s Grace, continue to enlighten and inspire:
The Church is no more a stranger in this village, but the mother of many children… the mother at whose knee you may pour out all your trails, and make know all your needs; the home, whose door is ever open, and into which you can flee from every danger; the house of prayer for all people, where all distinctions of the world vanish: where rank and lowly station, fame and obscurity, wealth and poverty are lost sight of, and God is the Father of all, His Son, Jesus Christ, the Saviour of all, and whose Gospel was to be preached to all by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Many things have happened since the day of that opening service; glad and sorrowing hearts have been here; tears have been shed; and smiling faces seen within these walls; Penitential Psalms and glad allelujahs have been sung; deep, earnest prayers for pardon made, and joyous thanksgivings offered.
