1899

Pastor Isaiah J. Delo, conducting services in the new church building (the present one) on Mill Hill Road in the village. (To enlarge the picture, just click it.) According to church historians Magda Moseman and Mark Anderson(1),

The new church building was illuminated by a large, ornate chandelier hanging in the center of the chapel. It was balanced by a counterweight. Miss Florence Peper recalls helping her mother light the circle of kerosene lamps. The chandelier was pulled down with a long hook and the task took about ten minutes.

It was perhaps this year (1899) that Mrs. Delo, the pastor's wife, donated a little reed organ for the Sunday School room (click it to enlarge). Here is how a later pastor described this gift:

The value of this little organ in service has far exceeded the monetary cost. Not a few children many of whom have come to mature years have gathered around this little organ to join their voices in melodies of praise to our heavenly Father. Adults, too, in mid-week devotional services and members of the Missionary Society in the monthly meetings have been guided by its sweet tones as hearts have been united in fellowship with God.(2)

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Quoted from Frederick, Rev. Walter, "Historical Address, Woodstock, N.Y., May 3, 1931," p. 14, itself citing, without attribution, Traver, Charles H., D.D., of West Camp, "History of Christ's Lutheran Church, Woodstock, N.Y., 1806-1906," an earlier source from the centennial, when Reverend Frederick was pastor. (Close)

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The congregation purchased for $10 [$225.70 in 2006 dollars] 31 books for the Sunday School library.

Above is a view looking up Mill Hill Road just after our new church was built. It is in the distance on the left of the road. (To enlarge the view, click it.) There is no Joyous Lake or Denny's or CVS (Grand Union) to interrupt the view.

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With the discovery of gold in the Klondike, there arose, according to the Kingston Argus, a "mine craze" in Lake Hill. No gold or any other precious mineral was found there, however.

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William McKinley (Republican) was President. The newly elected 56th Congress was in session. A dollar in that year would be worth $22.57 in 2006 for most consumable products.

There were 4.7 million wage earners in factories alone (two and a half times the number three decades earlier), producing goods to the value of $13 billion ($293 billion in 2006 dollars), a 40% increase in just a decade, a 245% increase from 20 years earlier, a fourfold rise in 30 years, and a more than sevenfold rise in 40 years.

Immigrants from the British Isles and western Europe (especially Great Britain, Ireland, and Germany)--the so-called "Old Immigrants," most of them boasting a comparatively high level of literacy and accustomed to some level of representative government, who were either Protestant (most of them) or Catholic, were arriving during this decade at an average annual rate of 111,000. The "New Immigrants," those from southern and eastern Europe (especially Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Russia), largely illiterate and impoverished, who tended to be either Catholic, Orthodox, or Jewish and who had little experience with representative government, were arriving at an annual rate of 184,700--two-thirds again as much as the Old Immigrants' rate, a fivefold proportionate increase from a decade earlier and twice as many in raw numbers. The New Immigrants huddled together in large cities, such as New York City and Chicago.

Solidly Democratic white supremacists held political power all over the South. Blacks (and poor whites as well) continued being forced into sharecropping and tenant farming; former slave masters were now bosses and landlords. Through the "crop-lien" system, the serflike small farmers could get food and supplies from storekeepers by agreeing to a lien on their expected crops, a lien they would never be able to fully pay off. The economically dependent blacks who tried to vote faced unemployment, eviction, and violence. The daily discrimination against blacks grew increasingly oppressive. "Jim Crow laws," systematic state-level legal codes of segregation, maintained a way of life for African Americans that was grotesquely inferior to that of whites. Blacks had inferior schools and assigned places on such public facilities as railroad cars, theaters, and restrooms. Blacks were continually assaulted by harsh reminders of their second-class citizenship, and the white supremacists dealt brutally with any black who dared to violate the customary racial code of conduct. Record numbers of blacks were lynched, often just for the "crime" of asserting themselves as equals.

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