Century-Old Church Near Oxford Doomed

Mon., Oct. 29, 1956     BINGHAMTON PRESS

By LARRY REED

Press Bureau Chief

BEING RAZED-The Basswood Meeting House, formerly the Free Will Baptist Church of South Oxford and a landmark near the Oxford-Coventryville Road, is being razed.

 NORWICH- The old Basswood Meeting House, a landmark in the rural area southeast of Oxford is being razed.  Some of its lumber still solid and of more substantial dimensions than present day second-growth boards will go into a new home nearby on the same lot.

   For more than 100 years, the meeting house that derived its name from its basswood pews, and its predecessor, have looked out across a rural valley basking in the afternoon suns and facing the brunt of prevailing westwind storms.

MEMORIES

   Some will have memories of first formal, church introductions, that led to courtships and marriage, others of weddings, or church suppers in the old meetinghouse or on its lawn now grown up to brambles and brush.

   There will be memories of the first opening of hearts to God's graces, first convictions of Faith, memories of funerals, and of baptisms in a nearby brook.

   History of the church goes back to the day, April 15, 1848, a time when the oxen still vied with the draft horse on the farms of the area.

5 FARMERS

   That day five farmers met in the Miller Schoolhouse at South Oxford with the purpose of forming the Free Will Baptist Church of South Oxford.

   Another meeting Feb. 18, 1854, according to the minutes of the church society, was adjourned March 18, at the Carhart Schoolhouse.

   There followed the cutting of timber on nearby farms and the sawing of it into lumber, and then several building bees.

   The church was opened June 18, 1855, to a congregation of some 100.

   The night of Feb. 5, 1874, this original building was destroyed by fire.  The choir had practiced in the church the evening before, and it was thought an overheated stovepipe caused the fire.

ONLY THING SAVED

   The organ, a clock, some other furniture, and a chandelier, probably an oil-lamp chandelier, were all that was saved.

   Two days after the fire a subscription was being taken, and soon a new church was built, the building now being razed.

   The last services were held in the Basswood Meeting House in 1930.  Dwindling of the congregation because of modern transportation and the abandonment of some of the farms in the area was the cause.

   In 1934, the church was transferred to the Baptist Church of Oxford to be sold.

FOR DANCE HALL

   According to one story, the only prospective purchaser was a dance hall proprietor, and there arose a wave of objection to turning The House of God into a dance hall.

  The old meeting house was turned over to the Town of Oxford with the stipulation it be used for town purposes, and for several years it was a storage place for snow plows and other town machinery.

   About a year ago, the town sold the building to Benjamin Button and Earl Carhart adjacent farmers who are tearing it down and have dug the foundation for a home nearby.