Building date: 1851
Original use: Church
Corner structures: Concrete pilasters
Mortar application and content: Vertical heavy
Types and uses of stones: Decoration by stone color. are sandstone and white quartz, a typical treatment of the north-east region.
Types and choice of windows: Lentils wood
Structures with similar masonry details:
Masons who worked on building:
Unique features:
Map views courtesy Google Maps. Address is Google Earth confirmed; 43°12'41.07"N 76°58'33.87"W. Current owner of record, United Methodist Church as of the 2019 Tax Roll.
Town of Sodus and Wayne County Maps
United Methodist Church, 8575 Ridge Road, Alton. The steeple is a later addition - a touch of Romanesque style while the church itself is Greek Revival. Lintels above windows are of wood. Richard Palmer blog.
"The Cobblestone Houses of Upstate New York", compiled by Dorothy Wells Pease. Research done in collaboration with Hazed B. Jeffery, supplemented with material furnished by Carl F. Schmidt, 1941. Reference the twelfth paragraph on page 39.
"Cobblestone Architecture in the Rochester Area", by Gerda Peterich, 1953. Reference Alton Church and figure 39. Editor's Note: This digitized version of the original typescript manuscript is reformatted for digital display, edited for errors, and includes blue tinted highlighted links to improve access within the document, to the appropriate structure pages in the Cobblestone Info Base, or to external resources on the internet. This document is one of two known typescript drafts, likely a thesis or essay bound as a book and apparently never published. One is available in the Cobblestone Museum Resource Center, the other in the University of Rochester Art and Music Library. A companion or precursor typed paper of the same title exists, perhaps used for a talk and/or photographic display of cobblestone structures.
"Cobblestone Structures of Wayne County" Alton Church excerpt, 1955, Verlyn Edward Klahn, pages 263 and 264. Essay submitted for Hoffman Foundation, Wayne County History Scholarship, awarded 1955. Reprint permission granted by Wayne County Historian.
"Cobblestones Still Intrigue", by Arch Merrill, "Arch Merrill's History" column, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, 10/30/1960
"The Geological Origin of Cobblestone Architecture", by Gerda Peterich. Specific reference to this structure on page 10.
"Alton Methodist Church Has Long History", by Arch Merrill [photographs by Fred Powers], Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, January 13, 1963. Transcription follows:
Back of the old cobblestone meetinghouse that stands on Route 104 in Alton is story of patient, painstaking labor on the part of its founders.
In the middle of the 19th century, so the story goes, men of the congregation carefully gathered cobblestones from Lake Ontario's shores in bushel baskets, which were loaded on stone-boats and hauled by oxen to the church site. In 1851 the stone church was completed.
It is now Alton Methodist Church but it began life in 1842 as the Christian Church of Alton. The principal organizer of the society was the Rev. Amasa Stanton; the first deacons were John Kelly and John Baker and the first clerk was George Gould. When the cobblestone church was built, the trustees were John G. Kelly, Frederick Utter and William R.K. Hone. Around 1880 the church was taken over by the Methodist Protestant denomination, an affiliation it retained until merger with the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1939.
Its Pastor since June 1959 has been the Rev. Victor L. Smith, who also serves the Methodist Church at Sodus Point where he resides. A graduate of Houghton College and Drew Theological Seminary, Madison, N.J., he previously previously held Methodist pastorates at McGraw and Lodi.
His predecessors have included the Rev. F. M. Purdy, the Rev. Henry M. Becker, the Rev. David Short, the Rev. L.J. Reed, the Rev. Alden Allen, the Rev. J.C. Walden, the Rev. Floyd C. Rogers and the Rev. Fay A. Wideman, who served from 1945 to 1959, the longest tenure of any pastor. During his pastorate an elaborate centennial observance of the church was held in 1951.
Mrs. Dayton Pitcher, now 82, has been attending Alton church since the age of six, and for more than 50 years was its organist and for many years taught its Sunday School. Other long-time members are Samuel VanderPool of Sodus who joined in 1905 and Mrs. Agnes Raymoor of Alton in 1906. The present membership of the society is 150.
This distinctive 112-year-old house of worship in the pleasant Wayne County fruit country is a tribute to the craftsmanship of the cobblestone masons, those artisans of many years ago. Richard Palmer blog.
- Alton United Methodist Church, courtesy the Tom The Backroads Traveller blog.
- Alton United Methodist Church, courtesy the Tom The Backroads Traveller blog.
Wayne Historians Organization (WHO), Historic Sites Inventory United Methodist Church (cobblestone)
The Cobblestone Society & Museum Tours:
Cobblestone School Sodus Cobblestone Homes Tour, Stop #7 09/13/1986
- "Cobblestone Architecture", 1944, Carl Schmidt
- Page 25, Page 57
- "Cobblestone Architecture of Upstate New York", by Gerda Peterich, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol 15, Issue 2 1956, Pages 15-16. By permission of the University of California Press, "The requested material is in the public domain and you are welcome to use it."
- "Cobblestone Masonry", 1966, Carl Schmidt: Name reference, Alton Methodist Church
- Page 182
- "The Era of Cobblestone Architecture", unpublished manuscript 1972. To access the manuscript content about this structure, see 146, 147. Wayne County, Methodist Church.
 Sod-5 Alton 2.jpg ¹ Pease Collection 1940-41 |  GP Wayne Sodus Sod-5 1-1 N.jpg ¹ 11/3/1971 |  GP Wayne Sodus Sod-5 2-1 N.jpg ¹ 11/3/1971 |  GP Wayne Sodus Sod-5 2-2 N.jpg ¹ 11/3/1971 |
 Sod_5_1.jpg |  Sod_5_2.jpg |  Sod_5_3.jpg |  Sod_5_4.jpg |
 Sod_5_5.jpg |  Sod_5_6.jpg |  Sod-5 Alton 1.jpg ¹ |  Sod-5 8575 Ridge Rd 1.jpg ² |
 Sod-5 8575 Ridge Rd 2.jpg ² |  Sod-5 8575 Ridge Rd 3.jpg ² |  Sod-5 Alton 3.jpg ¹ |  Sod-5 Alton 4.jpg ¹ |
 Sod-5 Alton 5.jpg ¹ |  Alton Church 1.jpg ³ |
¹ Image courtesy Cobblestone Museum.
² Photography courtesy Martin and Sheila Wolfish.
³ Photography courtesy Richard Palmer.
