Building date: Begun in 1855 and dedicated in 1857
Original use: Church
Corner structures:
Mortar application and content: Vertical, slight embellishment
Types and uses of stones: Small red. Glacial stones
Types and choice of windows:
Structures with similar masonry details:
Masons who worked on building:
Unique features:
Map views courtesy Google Maps. Address is Google Earth confirmed; 43°12'37.95"N 77°25'50.75"W. Current owner of record, Webster Baptist Church as of the 2019 Tax Roll.
Town of Webster and Monroe County Maps
Webster Baptist Church at 59 South Ave., Webster, was built in 1856-57. It is believed this is the largest cobblestone church ever built. Richard Palmer blog.
Roudabush Survey stated the building date as 1855.
"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 fifth paragraph on page 31.
"Webster Baptist Church, History of Monroe County", page 215, W. H. Mc Intosh, Everts, Ensign & Everts, Philadelphia 1877.
History of Church
Organized 1830, built 1857
Memorial windows - 1902
Education wing - 1957
Tower clock - 1983
National Land Mark - 1991
Webster Baptist Church Program. April 8, 1951.
"Cobblestones Still Intrigue", by Arch Merrill, "Arch Merrill's History" column, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, 10/30/1960
"Webster Baptist, Faith of Our Fathers", by Photographer Fred Powers and Historian Arch Merrill, c. 1962. Attribution not provided.
"A Brief History of Webster Baptist Church", prepared by Mrs. Wesley Kofahl November 1940, revised August 1967, courtesy Cobblestone Museum.
George Curtice letter to Robert Frasch of the Cobblestone Museum.
Congregation built Webster church, by Emily Morry
One of the largest cobblestone structures in western New York, the Webster Baptist Church has stood at 59 South Ave. for 158 years. The church's congregation predated this structure. Founded in the 1830s as the North Penfield Baptist Church (it changed names following the establishment of Webster in 1840), the institution's first home was a modest wooden frame building. After membership swelled to 250 people in the 1850s, the old church was moved to make way for a new one.
Construction was a community effort. The women of the congregation sorted through cobblestones on the lakeshore, passing them through rings to ensure they chose stones of uniform size. The stones were then transported to the church site five miles away by horse and wagon.
The resulting Greek Revival building, endowed with a dome supported by eight Corinthian columns, was dedicated on Jan. 1, 1857.
The church's bell was the village's first. It rang each Sunday to draw followers to service and sounded for funerals, announcing the age of the deceased by the number of bell tolls.The church chimer was cracked by a group of local boys in the 1860s during the course of their raucous July 4 celebrations. Several years passed before Webster's residents heard it ring again. The church's other main musical feature, an eight-pipe Aeolian organ, graced the site in 1938. Donated by William and Elizabeth Chapin of Rochester, the cumbersome instrument made an arduous journey to Webster from the Chapin's family home on South Fitzhugh Street in Rochester.
The following decade, the nearly 100-year-old church began facing spatial and architectural deficiencies. By 1955, the edifice could no longer accommodate the congregation's growing Sunday school population. As a temporary solution, a trailer was drawn to the church every week to serve as a mobile classroom. Two years later, Webster Baptist's education building opened, while the church itself underwent a full renovation in 1965.
The following year, the church launched its Open Door Book Shop. It proved a welcome addition since at the time, Webster had a library, but no bookstore. Beyond offering religious reading materials, Open Door sought to carry a wide range of both fiction and nonfiction books. As the Rev. Adamczyk explained in 1966, "We will specialize in titles on some of the controversial issues facing us, such as Viet Nam, race relations and the ecumenical movement to help those interested to explore both sides."
The church's leadership in the 1960s also sought to engage the local community with music. In 1967, Webster Baptist hosted a "Pop" Saturday night Easter service featuring a local group named the Cult performing hit songs with the aim of highlighting their biblical themes. The program's director, Mahlon Gilbert, said: "We have found more in the Beetles (sic) and the Monkees than just electrified noise. The Youth Council sees part of the Gospel ... in the secular and famed pop songs known to every school lad."
The Webster Baptist Church continues to be a welcoming space for both congregants and community residents today, offering social gatherings, cultural events and classes in addition to religious services within its historic cobblestone walls. Richard Palmer blog.
"The Geological Origin of Cobblestone Architecture", by Gerda Peterich. Specific reference to this structure on page 12.
"Cobblestone Architecture in the Rochester Area", by Gerda Peterich, 1953. Reference First Baptist Church and figure 11. 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.
Webster Baptist Church 29 South Avenue Webster, NY Monroe County, courtesy the Tom The Backroads Traveller blog. Editor's Note: Address discrepancy.
The Cobblestone Society & Museum Tours:
Webster Baptist Church 4th Annual 06/06/1964
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National Register of Historic Places Registration
- "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, Webster Baptist Church
- Page 73
- "Cobblestone Landmarks of New York State", 1978, by Olaf William Shelgren, Jr., Cary Lattin, and Robert W. Frasch, Photographs by Gerda Peterich: Name reference, Webster Baptist Church
- Pages 32 - 33
- "The Era of Cobblestone Architecture", unpublished manuscript 1972. To access the manuscript content about this structure, see 37. Monroe County, Webster Baptist Church.
¹ Image courtesy Webster Town Historian.
² Image courtesy Cobblestone Museum.
³ Photography courtesy Gerda Peterich. Cobblestone Museum.
4 Photography courtesy Martin and Sheila Wolfish.
4 Photography courtesy Richard Palmer.
