History of the Church Before We Became the Riverside Community Church
1
A History of the Pleasant Vale Church
The Origins of The Stevenson Union Church Association and the Riverside United Methodist Church
by Miss Johanna Busk, June, 1968
this is a republication of a paper originally written by Miss
Johanna Busk in 1968.
2
The photos used are from the Oxford Historical Society Photo Collection.
• Pg. 1: Stevenson Union Church, Oxford Historical Society photo
• Pg. 1: Riverside Methodist Church, Vision Appraisal, Assessment photograph
• Pg. 3: Stevenson Union Church, photograph from F. Lenahan.
• Pg. 5: Original Riverside Cemetery, photograph from F. Lenahan
• Pg. 6: Present Riverside Cemetery, photograph by Earl F. Curnan, 3rd, from
www.OxfordPast.net
• Pg. 7: 1949 Sunday School photo, courtesy of Joyce Cleveland Hummel.
Funds from the sale of this booklet will be used to defray costs of the 2012 Peach
Festival featuring photos of the Stevenson / Zoar Village area, the construction of
the Stevenson Dam and photos of the Riverside area.
At the End of a Fishing Trip
The second Sunday in July 1912 two young men came to the end of a two weeks fishing trip,
down the Housatonic River, from Great Barrington, Massachusetts, to a spot just south of Zoar
Bridge in Pleasant Vale, Oxford, Connecticut.
They had lived on freshly caught bass and trout, on bread and coffee and on eggs bought at
farms along the river. At night they had slept under pup tents.
They noticed a small white meeting house, close to the river in Pleasant Vale. The door and the
windows were open, and people were entering the church. The two men decided they too would
attend the service, so leaving their fishing gear and tents outside, they entered the church, taking
seats in a cack pew.
April 9, 1966, Walter Sherry, one of these young men, told how he had noticed and remembered
the galleries at the rear and at the two sides of the church, also at the front, behind the altar, a
beautiful stained glass window, and hanging from the center of the ceiling a shining chandelier,
holding many oil lamps.
After the service the minister had greeted them warmly, and told them he was glad they had
attended church before going fishing. However, they told the minister they had arrived that morning
in Pleasant Vale at the end of the two weeks fishing trip down the Housatonic. The other man
was William Sullivan, and after the service both men walked over the hills and through the woods
to their home in Naugatuck, Connecticut.
June 25, 1966. Walter Sherry cooked the hamburgers at a cook-out supper, given by the Women's
Society of Riverside Church, Oxford, Connecticut, on the grounds of the church on Freeman
Road, Oxford, Connecticut. The meeting house he had attended in 1912 had been demolished
by the building of the Stevenson Dam, and a new church had been built by the Connecticut Light
and Power Company on Freeman Road, while all the area of former Pleasant Vale had been
flooded.
3
The Riverside Church
Stevenson Union Church Association
Pleasant Vale, Oxford, CT.
The meeting house the young men came to had been built about 1810, or a few years earlier, in
Pleasant Vale, Oxford, Connecticut, between the Housatonic River and the road to Birmingham
(Derby) by folk living south of Zoar Bridge in Oxford, Monroe and Newtown. This whole area was
called Stevenson. People of all denominations united in the building of the meeting house, and
all able-bodied men cut logs and timber and hauled them by teams of oxen to the site given by
the owner of the land for the meeting house. There they built the two storied chapel with galleries
in the rear and on two sides. The doorway was in the center of the building, opening into a hallway,
where a stairway led to the galleries. There was a window on each side of the hall-way door,
with three windows on the upper floor. Inside the chapel there were three windows on each side
of both its lower and upper floor. The pulpit and the altar were at the opposite end of the entrance.
These windows were of plain glass. Later a stained glass window, "The Prodigal Son,"
was installed behind the altar as a memorial to Tomlinson, (first name not known). The chapel
was lighted by eighteen oil lamps hung in a glittering chandelier from the center of the ceiling. On
the lower floor were also single lamps on the side posts of the galleries, and candles were lighted
ont he altar. A man stood on a six-foot ladder to light the lamps for services, and again to
extinguish the lamps after the service. To do the latter he turned the wicks down low enough so
that they would extinguish themselves. The women used this same ladder whenever they cleaned
the lamps. In later years it was Manie Nash, who climbed the ladder, removed each lamp and
handed it to Ethel Loveland. The two women then cleaned and refilled the lamps with oil and
replaced them in the chandelier. Water from the well at the house across the road from the
church (in later years the home of Roxanna Dillon) was carried in a pail for the cleaning of the
lamps and other necessary purposes. A large stove heated the chapel. A few hours before each
service a man would light the fire in the stove and Roxanna Dillon wold cross the road from time
to time to tend it until the hour of the service. She was Roman Catholic, but she was gladly
performed many acts of usefulness for here Protestant friends and neighbors. A large closet in
the hallway of the meeting house was used for storage of the six foot ladder, brooms, pails, a set
of white iron ware dishes and other utensils. Two dozen silver knives, forks and spoons were kept
at the home of some member of the congregation, usually at the home of Mrs. Henry Loveland,
the mother of Grover Loveland.
The meeting house had no
kitchen, nor a special room for social
activities. A long table was set
up in the rear gallery for most entertainments
and for small dinners.
The large stove, heating the
meeting house, had on its top two
removable lids, and food and coffee
were placed on top of the
stove and kept hot. Larger affairs
such as picnics, strawberry and
peach festivals were held out of
4
doors on the meeting house grounds or at the home of some member of the congregation. Huge
freezers of home-made ice cream, home baked cakes and cookies and coffee were the usual
refreshments. The long table loaded with chocolate or coconut layer cakes, as well as all sorts of
other cakes and cookies was a tempting display. Before the present day colorings for cake frostings,
Ethel Loveland's mother made a pink layer cake, its frosting colored pink by crushed strawberries,
which was a much admired innovation.
There was a group of Methodists living in and near Pleasant Vale in Oxford, Connecticut in 1792.
The Stratford Circuit of the Methodist Episcopal Church, comprising fifteen preaching places,
was formed in 1813. These fifteen preaching places were: Derby, Milford, Humphreysville (Seymour),
Nyamphs, Great Hill, Quaker Farms, George's Hill, Bridgewater, New Milford, Brookfield,
Newtown, East Village, Stepney, Trumbull, and Stratford.
The meeting house in Pleasant Vale, Oxford, was built in or before 1810 by members of all
denominations who were living in or near the Pleasant Vale area on both sides of the Housatonic
River. The meeting house was open for anyone to preach in and during its first years it was
variously occupied by Quakers, Mormon Apostles, Methodists, Second Adventists, and in one
case it was said a man spoke in an unknown tongue. Few, if any, of the M.E. Societies on the
Stratford Preaching Circuit formed in 1813 had any church buildings. Ministers preached wherever
they could. Furthermore, it was not until 1818 that the Methodist Episcopal Church was
recognized by the State of Connecticut as a church organization, and their ministers permitted to
perform marriage ceremonies. Seymour Methodist Church was built in 1818, while Derby, a
preaching place since 1793, did not have a church building before 1837. After the formation of
the Stratford Circuit in 1813 the only stated services in the Pleasant Vale were by Methodist
ministers, who "riding the circuit," came around once a month or oftener. Thus the Methodist
ministers were predominant in serving the Pleasant Vale Meeting House. Having few if any church
buildings of their own, preached by special permission in the Pleasant Vale Meeting House, for
this Union Meeting House could invite the Methodists to use their building, whereas the regular
denomination refused to recognize them.
Thus the only regularly organized religious society in the Pleasant Vale area came to be the
Pleasant Vale M.C. Society. There being no objections, in process of time as services increase
from monthly to fortnightly and later to weekly, the society practically occupied the meeting house.
The land occupied by the Meeting House had been donated without the formality of a deed for it.
The Pleasant Vale M. E. Society were occupying the building regularly, so we find in the Oxford
Land Records, Volume 12, page 396, that Josiah Smith on August 19, 1834 deeded the land
occupied by the meeting house to the Pleasant Vale M.E. Society. Sharpe's History of Oxford
between pages 91-94 has this statement: "A vote was taken to turn the old building over to the
Methodist Church presiding elder for the district, but the vote was said to be invalid, and the
record of the vote afterwards burned, the building was still a neighborhood affair."
At times East Village, Great Hill and the Stevenson Union Church were served by the same
minister. One of these ministers rode the circuit on horseback, probably others have done so.
One popular minister, Henry Sutton, arrived each Friday on the 5:15 P.M. train at Stevenson from
New Haven. He spent the week-end at the homes of members of the congregation, frequently at
the home of Grover Loveland, or of Charles or Fred French. Rev. Asa Fuller, the last minister to
5
serve the old Pleasant Vale Church walked from East Village to his service at Stevenson Union
Church.
In the eighteen-nineties the Housatonic Power Company, now the Connecticut Light and Power
Company, surveyed the land on both sides of the Housatonic River at Stevenson, Connecticut for
a projected dam across the river. The dam was to generate electricity for that section of the state
and its adjacent territory.
A great deal of land would be flooded by the building of this dam, including the land and the
meeting house in Pleasant Vale, Oxford, and the land of the Riverside Cemetery Association,
also located in Pleasant Vale adjacent to the meeting house. The Housatonic Power Company
entered into negotiation with the congregation of the Pleasant Vale meeting house for an option
on the land and the building of the Pleasant Vale meeting house until such a time as the dam
would be constructed. In exchange for this option they would agree to deed to the Pleasant Vale
meeting house congregation a similar piece of land east of the flooded Housatonic as close as
possible to its then location in Oxford, Connecticut, and to build on this land a new church to
replace the one to be flooded.
In order to legalize its title to grant this option to the Housatonic Power Company, the congregation
of the meeting house in Pleasant Vale, Oxford, Conn., which was built in 1810 or earlier, was
incorporated by the Connecticut General Assembly in Session January 1897 as the Stevenson
Union Church Association, and the charter for this incorporation was approved by the Assembly
February 25, 1897, The original record of this incorporation is among the original records of the
Acts and Resolutions of the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut. The ordained elder of
the Methodist Episcopal Society in the area was made an ex-officio member of the Assocaiton.
The new building was to always to be open for Methodist services.
The Riverside Cemetery Assocation
In this same period the Housatonic Power company offered, in exchange for an option on the
land of the Riverside Cemetery Assocatiion, until such a time as the dam would be constructed,
to deed to the Riverside Cemetery Association, in Oxford, Conn., a plot of land similar to the then
cemetery. on the east bank of the flooded Housatonic River, as close as possible to its then
location in Oxford, Conn. Furthermore,
it would guarantee, provide
for, and pay for the removal of all
the bodies, including those in the
pauper's corner, with all their
monuments to the new location
of the cemetery, to be adjacent
to the property of the Union
Church Association in Oxford,
Conn.
A special law of Connecticut, approved
February 25, 1897, and
found in Volume 12, Special
Laws, Page 672, the Riverside Original Riverside Cemetery (photo courtesy J. Lenahan)
6
Cemetery was authorized by the State to remove the remains of all persons buried in Riverside
Cemetery, with the headstones and enclosures to the new lot in Oxford, Conn.
On May 5, 1899 an agreement between Riverside Cemetery and the Housatonic Power Company
was entered into and signed for the removal of all bodies to the new location when the dam
was to be constructed. This agreement was signed by Allan W. Page, President of the Housatonic
Power Company for the company and by Charles W. French, R. Hinman, and Charles Sherwood
for the cemetery association.
On April 10, 1918 the final agreement for the removal of all bodies with their monuments from
Riverside Cemetery to its new location was made by the J.A.P. Crisfield Construction Company
with the Riverside Cemetery Association, and a similar agreement about the same time was
made by the J.A.F. Chrisfield Construction Company with the Stevenson Union Church Association
for the building of the present meeting house. The construction company furnished detailed
plans for the building which were carried out in every detail.
The Connecticut Light and Power Company commenced the construction of the dam across the
Housatonic from Stevenson to Oxford, Conn. in 1918, and the dam was completed in 1919. Mr.
Berkenbine was the surveyor and the J.A.P. Chrisfield Construction Company was the builder of
the dam.
The deed dated December 9,
1919 from the Stevenson Union
Church Association, formerly
known as the Methodist Episcopal
Society of Pleasant Vale, Oxford,
Conn., to the Connecticut
Light and Power Company, for
the meeting house and real estate
134 x 264, 8/10 of an acre,
and free from all encumbrances
for the cost of $1.00 and real estate
is recorded December 19,
1919 in Vol., 31, page 197 in the Land Records of the Town of Oxford.
The deed for the Riverside Cemetery property to the Connecticut Light and Power Company is
recorded in Vol. 31, Page 198; that of the Power Company to the Cemetery Association is recorded
in Vol., 31, Pag 200 of the same Land Records in Oxford.
Mrs. Bertha Peck's little girl was the first one to be buried in Riverside Cemetery in its new
location. On May 18, 1966, Harry Andrews was laid to rest by the wife of his wife, Goldie, in
Riverside Cemetery, both close to the church they loved and served.
The New Stevenson Union Church
The Warranty deed from the Connecticut Light and Power Company to the Stevenson Union
Church Association, an ecclesiastical association in Oxford, Conn., was executed October 30,
1919, and signed by J.A. Roraback, Vice-President, and by C.L. Campbell, Secretary of the
Connecticut Light and Power Company, for the present church property is recorded in Vol. 31,
Photo by Earl F. Curnan, 3rd, from www.OxfordPast.net
7
Page 199 of Oxford, Conn. Land Records by J. B. Sanford, Town Clerk.
The Stevenson Union Church Association held no services during the construction of the dam,
1918-1919, for the church in Pleasant Vale had been demolished, including the stained glass
memorial window. The set of ironware dishes had been placed in the commissary of the construction
company. When the new church was completed, Ethel Loveland, with the help of Bertha
Peck, washed the ironware dishes, and then Ethel Loveland carried them in her Ford to the new
church and placed them in the kitchen cupboard.
The new Stevenson Union Church was constructed and completed in the fall of 1919, on its site
on Lake Zoar, Oxford, Conn., as close to its former location on the Housatonic River as it had
been possible to build it. It stands north of and adjacent to the re-located Riverside Cemetery, in
the center of an acre of land. It has plenty of parking spaces. It is surrounded by beautiful trees,
in a peaceful, secluded spot. One feels a sense of worship even before entering the small architecturally
perfect chapel.
Sunday School in 1949
Students at Riverside Methodist Church Sunday School posed for their photos in May 1949.
They are from left to right: First row, unidentified, Fred Parsons, Linda Knorr, Sharon Knorr;
second row, Joyce Cleveland, Beverly Sanford, Helen Cleveland, unidentified, and Laurel Weed.
Last row: Roger Terrell, teachers Dorothy Sanford and Myrtle Weed, unidentified, Helen Terrell,
Nancy Terrell, Barbara Terrell and Eleanor Cleveland. (Courtesy of Joyce Cleveland Hummel.)
Anyone abe to identify the “unknown” students, please notify any officer of the Oxford Historical
Society. Thank you.
A History of the Pleasant Vale Church
The Origins of The Stevenson Union Church Association and the Riverside United Methodist Church
by Miss Johanna Busk, June, 1968
this is a republication of a paper originally written by Miss
Johanna Busk in 1968.
2
The photos used are from the Oxford Historical Society Photo Collection.
• Pg. 1: Stevenson Union Church, Oxford Historical Society photo
• Pg. 1: Riverside Methodist Church, Vision Appraisal, Assessment photograph
• Pg. 3: Stevenson Union Church, photograph from F. Lenahan.
• Pg. 5: Original Riverside Cemetery, photograph from F. Lenahan
• Pg. 6: Present Riverside Cemetery, photograph by Earl F. Curnan, 3rd, from
www.OxfordPast.net
• Pg. 7: 1949 Sunday School photo, courtesy of Joyce Cleveland Hummel.
Funds from the sale of this booklet will be used to defray costs of the 2012 Peach
Festival featuring photos of the Stevenson / Zoar Village area, the construction of
the Stevenson Dam and photos of the Riverside area.
At the End of a Fishing Trip
The second Sunday in July 1912 two young men came to the end of a two weeks fishing trip,
down the Housatonic River, from Great Barrington, Massachusetts, to a spot just south of Zoar
Bridge in Pleasant Vale, Oxford, Connecticut.
They had lived on freshly caught bass and trout, on bread and coffee and on eggs bought at
farms along the river. At night they had slept under pup tents.
They noticed a small white meeting house, close to the river in Pleasant Vale. The door and the
windows were open, and people were entering the church. The two men decided they too would
attend the service, so leaving their fishing gear and tents outside, they entered the church, taking
seats in a cack pew.
April 9, 1966, Walter Sherry, one of these young men, told how he had noticed and remembered
the galleries at the rear and at the two sides of the church, also at the front, behind the altar, a
beautiful stained glass window, and hanging from the center of the ceiling a shining chandelier,
holding many oil lamps.
After the service the minister had greeted them warmly, and told them he was glad they had
attended church before going fishing. However, they told the minister they had arrived that morning
in Pleasant Vale at the end of the two weeks fishing trip down the Housatonic. The other man
was William Sullivan, and after the service both men walked over the hills and through the woods
to their home in Naugatuck, Connecticut.
June 25, 1966. Walter Sherry cooked the hamburgers at a cook-out supper, given by the Women's
Society of Riverside Church, Oxford, Connecticut, on the grounds of the church on Freeman
Road, Oxford, Connecticut. The meeting house he had attended in 1912 had been demolished
by the building of the Stevenson Dam, and a new church had been built by the Connecticut Light
and Power Company on Freeman Road, while all the area of former Pleasant Vale had been
flooded.
3
The Riverside Church
Stevenson Union Church Association
Pleasant Vale, Oxford, CT.
The meeting house the young men came to had been built about 1810, or a few years earlier, in
Pleasant Vale, Oxford, Connecticut, between the Housatonic River and the road to Birmingham
(Derby) by folk living south of Zoar Bridge in Oxford, Monroe and Newtown. This whole area was
called Stevenson. People of all denominations united in the building of the meeting house, and
all able-bodied men cut logs and timber and hauled them by teams of oxen to the site given by
the owner of the land for the meeting house. There they built the two storied chapel with galleries
in the rear and on two sides. The doorway was in the center of the building, opening into a hallway,
where a stairway led to the galleries. There was a window on each side of the hall-way door,
with three windows on the upper floor. Inside the chapel there were three windows on each side
of both its lower and upper floor. The pulpit and the altar were at the opposite end of the entrance.
These windows were of plain glass. Later a stained glass window, "The Prodigal Son,"
was installed behind the altar as a memorial to Tomlinson, (first name not known). The chapel
was lighted by eighteen oil lamps hung in a glittering chandelier from the center of the ceiling. On
the lower floor were also single lamps on the side posts of the galleries, and candles were lighted
ont he altar. A man stood on a six-foot ladder to light the lamps for services, and again to
extinguish the lamps after the service. To do the latter he turned the wicks down low enough so
that they would extinguish themselves. The women used this same ladder whenever they cleaned
the lamps. In later years it was Manie Nash, who climbed the ladder, removed each lamp and
handed it to Ethel Loveland. The two women then cleaned and refilled the lamps with oil and
replaced them in the chandelier. Water from the well at the house across the road from the
church (in later years the home of Roxanna Dillon) was carried in a pail for the cleaning of the
lamps and other necessary purposes. A large stove heated the chapel. A few hours before each
service a man would light the fire in the stove and Roxanna Dillon wold cross the road from time
to time to tend it until the hour of the service. She was Roman Catholic, but she was gladly
performed many acts of usefulness for here Protestant friends and neighbors. A large closet in
the hallway of the meeting house was used for storage of the six foot ladder, brooms, pails, a set
of white iron ware dishes and other utensils. Two dozen silver knives, forks and spoons were kept
at the home of some member of the congregation, usually at the home of Mrs. Henry Loveland,
the mother of Grover Loveland.
The meeting house had no
kitchen, nor a special room for social
activities. A long table was set
up in the rear gallery for most entertainments
and for small dinners.
The large stove, heating the
meeting house, had on its top two
removable lids, and food and coffee
were placed on top of the
stove and kept hot. Larger affairs
such as picnics, strawberry and
peach festivals were held out of
4
doors on the meeting house grounds or at the home of some member of the congregation. Huge
freezers of home-made ice cream, home baked cakes and cookies and coffee were the usual
refreshments. The long table loaded with chocolate or coconut layer cakes, as well as all sorts of
other cakes and cookies was a tempting display. Before the present day colorings for cake frostings,
Ethel Loveland's mother made a pink layer cake, its frosting colored pink by crushed strawberries,
which was a much admired innovation.
There was a group of Methodists living in and near Pleasant Vale in Oxford, Connecticut in 1792.
The Stratford Circuit of the Methodist Episcopal Church, comprising fifteen preaching places,
was formed in 1813. These fifteen preaching places were: Derby, Milford, Humphreysville (Seymour),
Nyamphs, Great Hill, Quaker Farms, George's Hill, Bridgewater, New Milford, Brookfield,
Newtown, East Village, Stepney, Trumbull, and Stratford.
The meeting house in Pleasant Vale, Oxford, was built in or before 1810 by members of all
denominations who were living in or near the Pleasant Vale area on both sides of the Housatonic
River. The meeting house was open for anyone to preach in and during its first years it was
variously occupied by Quakers, Mormon Apostles, Methodists, Second Adventists, and in one
case it was said a man spoke in an unknown tongue. Few, if any, of the M.E. Societies on the
Stratford Preaching Circuit formed in 1813 had any church buildings. Ministers preached wherever
they could. Furthermore, it was not until 1818 that the Methodist Episcopal Church was
recognized by the State of Connecticut as a church organization, and their ministers permitted to
perform marriage ceremonies. Seymour Methodist Church was built in 1818, while Derby, a
preaching place since 1793, did not have a church building before 1837. After the formation of
the Stratford Circuit in 1813 the only stated services in the Pleasant Vale were by Methodist
ministers, who "riding the circuit," came around once a month or oftener. Thus the Methodist
ministers were predominant in serving the Pleasant Vale Meeting House. Having few if any church
buildings of their own, preached by special permission in the Pleasant Vale Meeting House, for
this Union Meeting House could invite the Methodists to use their building, whereas the regular
denomination refused to recognize them.
Thus the only regularly organized religious society in the Pleasant Vale area came to be the
Pleasant Vale M.C. Society. There being no objections, in process of time as services increase
from monthly to fortnightly and later to weekly, the society practically occupied the meeting house.
The land occupied by the Meeting House had been donated without the formality of a deed for it.
The Pleasant Vale M. E. Society were occupying the building regularly, so we find in the Oxford
Land Records, Volume 12, page 396, that Josiah Smith on August 19, 1834 deeded the land
occupied by the meeting house to the Pleasant Vale M.E. Society. Sharpe's History of Oxford
between pages 91-94 has this statement: "A vote was taken to turn the old building over to the
Methodist Church presiding elder for the district, but the vote was said to be invalid, and the
record of the vote afterwards burned, the building was still a neighborhood affair."
At times East Village, Great Hill and the Stevenson Union Church were served by the same
minister. One of these ministers rode the circuit on horseback, probably others have done so.
One popular minister, Henry Sutton, arrived each Friday on the 5:15 P.M. train at Stevenson from
New Haven. He spent the week-end at the homes of members of the congregation, frequently at
the home of Grover Loveland, or of Charles or Fred French. Rev. Asa Fuller, the last minister to
5
serve the old Pleasant Vale Church walked from East Village to his service at Stevenson Union
Church.
In the eighteen-nineties the Housatonic Power Company, now the Connecticut Light and Power
Company, surveyed the land on both sides of the Housatonic River at Stevenson, Connecticut for
a projected dam across the river. The dam was to generate electricity for that section of the state
and its adjacent territory.
A great deal of land would be flooded by the building of this dam, including the land and the
meeting house in Pleasant Vale, Oxford, and the land of the Riverside Cemetery Association,
also located in Pleasant Vale adjacent to the meeting house. The Housatonic Power Company
entered into negotiation with the congregation of the Pleasant Vale meeting house for an option
on the land and the building of the Pleasant Vale meeting house until such a time as the dam
would be constructed. In exchange for this option they would agree to deed to the Pleasant Vale
meeting house congregation a similar piece of land east of the flooded Housatonic as close as
possible to its then location in Oxford, Connecticut, and to build on this land a new church to
replace the one to be flooded.
In order to legalize its title to grant this option to the Housatonic Power Company, the congregation
of the meeting house in Pleasant Vale, Oxford, Conn., which was built in 1810 or earlier, was
incorporated by the Connecticut General Assembly in Session January 1897 as the Stevenson
Union Church Association, and the charter for this incorporation was approved by the Assembly
February 25, 1897, The original record of this incorporation is among the original records of the
Acts and Resolutions of the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut. The ordained elder of
the Methodist Episcopal Society in the area was made an ex-officio member of the Assocaiton.
The new building was to always to be open for Methodist services.
The Riverside Cemetery Assocation
In this same period the Housatonic Power company offered, in exchange for an option on the
land of the Riverside Cemetery Assocatiion, until such a time as the dam would be constructed,
to deed to the Riverside Cemetery Association, in Oxford, Conn., a plot of land similar to the then
cemetery. on the east bank of the flooded Housatonic River, as close as possible to its then
location in Oxford, Conn. Furthermore,
it would guarantee, provide
for, and pay for the removal of all
the bodies, including those in the
pauper's corner, with all their
monuments to the new location
of the cemetery, to be adjacent
to the property of the Union
Church Association in Oxford,
Conn.
A special law of Connecticut, approved
February 25, 1897, and
found in Volume 12, Special
Laws, Page 672, the Riverside Original Riverside Cemetery (photo courtesy J. Lenahan)
6
Cemetery was authorized by the State to remove the remains of all persons buried in Riverside
Cemetery, with the headstones and enclosures to the new lot in Oxford, Conn.
On May 5, 1899 an agreement between Riverside Cemetery and the Housatonic Power Company
was entered into and signed for the removal of all bodies to the new location when the dam
was to be constructed. This agreement was signed by Allan W. Page, President of the Housatonic
Power Company for the company and by Charles W. French, R. Hinman, and Charles Sherwood
for the cemetery association.
On April 10, 1918 the final agreement for the removal of all bodies with their monuments from
Riverside Cemetery to its new location was made by the J.A.P. Crisfield Construction Company
with the Riverside Cemetery Association, and a similar agreement about the same time was
made by the J.A.F. Chrisfield Construction Company with the Stevenson Union Church Association
for the building of the present meeting house. The construction company furnished detailed
plans for the building which were carried out in every detail.
The Connecticut Light and Power Company commenced the construction of the dam across the
Housatonic from Stevenson to Oxford, Conn. in 1918, and the dam was completed in 1919. Mr.
Berkenbine was the surveyor and the J.A.P. Chrisfield Construction Company was the builder of
the dam.
The deed dated December 9,
1919 from the Stevenson Union
Church Association, formerly
known as the Methodist Episcopal
Society of Pleasant Vale, Oxford,
Conn., to the Connecticut
Light and Power Company, for
the meeting house and real estate
134 x 264, 8/10 of an acre,
and free from all encumbrances
for the cost of $1.00 and real estate
is recorded December 19,
1919 in Vol., 31, page 197 in the Land Records of the Town of Oxford.
The deed for the Riverside Cemetery property to the Connecticut Light and Power Company is
recorded in Vol. 31, Page 198; that of the Power Company to the Cemetery Association is recorded
in Vol., 31, Pag 200 of the same Land Records in Oxford.
Mrs. Bertha Peck's little girl was the first one to be buried in Riverside Cemetery in its new
location. On May 18, 1966, Harry Andrews was laid to rest by the wife of his wife, Goldie, in
Riverside Cemetery, both close to the church they loved and served.
The New Stevenson Union Church
The Warranty deed from the Connecticut Light and Power Company to the Stevenson Union
Church Association, an ecclesiastical association in Oxford, Conn., was executed October 30,
1919, and signed by J.A. Roraback, Vice-President, and by C.L. Campbell, Secretary of the
Connecticut Light and Power Company, for the present church property is recorded in Vol. 31,
Photo by Earl F. Curnan, 3rd, from www.OxfordPast.net
7
Page 199 of Oxford, Conn. Land Records by J. B. Sanford, Town Clerk.
The Stevenson Union Church Association held no services during the construction of the dam,
1918-1919, for the church in Pleasant Vale had been demolished, including the stained glass
memorial window. The set of ironware dishes had been placed in the commissary of the construction
company. When the new church was completed, Ethel Loveland, with the help of Bertha
Peck, washed the ironware dishes, and then Ethel Loveland carried them in her Ford to the new
church and placed them in the kitchen cupboard.
The new Stevenson Union Church was constructed and completed in the fall of 1919, on its site
on Lake Zoar, Oxford, Conn., as close to its former location on the Housatonic River as it had
been possible to build it. It stands north of and adjacent to the re-located Riverside Cemetery, in
the center of an acre of land. It has plenty of parking spaces. It is surrounded by beautiful trees,
in a peaceful, secluded spot. One feels a sense of worship even before entering the small architecturally
perfect chapel.
Sunday School in 1949
Students at Riverside Methodist Church Sunday School posed for their photos in May 1949.
They are from left to right: First row, unidentified, Fred Parsons, Linda Knorr, Sharon Knorr;
second row, Joyce Cleveland, Beverly Sanford, Helen Cleveland, unidentified, and Laurel Weed.
Last row: Roger Terrell, teachers Dorothy Sanford and Myrtle Weed, unidentified, Helen Terrell,
Nancy Terrell, Barbara Terrell and Eleanor Cleveland. (Courtesy of Joyce Cleveland Hummel.)
Anyone abe to identify the “unknown” students, please notify any officer of the Oxford Historical
Society. Thank you.