The Churches 287 



Westchester. The church edifice is situated on the road leading 

 to West Farms (Walker Avenue), and, like so many of the 

 older churches, has a small graveyard adjoining. 



As early as 1826, there was a small congregation of Methodists 

 in Kingsbridge who met in a small schoolhouse on the westerly 

 side of the Albany Post-road (Broadway) at Mosholu, which 

 lies west of the parade-ground at Van Cortlandt Park. On 

 February 14, 1835, the society was incorporated as the 

 Methodist Episcopal Church Bethel, of the town of Yonkers. 

 The same year the congregation erected a church edifice, the 

 first to be built within what subsequently became the township 

 of Kingsbridge. Since 1875, the congregation has worshipped 

 at St. Stephen's Church on the Kingsbridge Road, Manhattan. 

 Other Methodist societies were formed at City Island in 1848; 

 at Morrisania in 1850; at Tremont in 1853; a German congre- 

 gation at Morrisania in the same year ; and at West Farms in 

 1858. 



The first Baptist Church to be organized within the Borough 

 was the First Church of Morrisania, 1850. Previous to 1858, 

 the Pilgrim Baptist Church of New York opened a mission in 

 what was called West Farms Hall, where services were held 

 on Sundays by the Reverend Theodore Gessler and by a 

 business man by the name of Halsey Knapp. Success crowned 

 their efforts, and a number of converts was made, who were 

 baptized in the Bronx River. In January, 1858, the Baptists 

 of West Farms, to the number of twenty-one, formed themselves 

 into a distinct church and adopted the name of the Pilgrim 

 Baptist Church of West Farms. In November of the same 

 year, a lot was purchased on the Boston Road at Bryant Street, 

 and the erection of a small church edifice was begun shortly 

 afterward; a later edifice still occupies the same site, though 

 long unused, having been vacated on account of the noise of 



