Our history
Two centuries on the Housatonic.
A meeting house in the valley. A dam. A cemetery carried up the hill, stone by stone. A silver bowl pulled from the mud. This is the story of a church that refused to disappear.
Many names have been attached to this church and this corner of Oxford: Stevenson, Zoar and Zoar Bridge, Pleasant Vale, Punkups, Riverside, and the Ousatonic or Housatonic River. The Punkups is believed to come from the name of a Native American settlement; Punkup and Little Punkup Roads still carry it today.
What follows is drawn largely from the notes Joyce A. Hummel set down in January 1990, and from the history Johanna Busk wrote in 1968. We're grateful to both of them for keeping the story.
- In the valley
Before 1800
A bridge across the Housatonic
A wooden span known as the Ezekiel Curtiss Bridge links the two banks of the river at Pleasant Vale, letting families on both sides gather in one place. It is carried away by an ice freshet in 1835, rebuilt as a covered bridge in 1837, and finally replaced in 1876 by a wrought-iron suspension bridge. Locals call all of them Zoar Bridge.
1805
The oldest stones
Two monuments dated 1805 are the oldest in the Pleasant Vale cemetery. Every stone faces the church.
About 1810
A meeting house in Pleasant Vale
A two-story meeting house rises in the valley between the river and the road, open to anyone who wishes to preach. Galleries line the back and sides of the second story, three tall windows run up each wall, and eighteen oil lamps hang in a chandelier that takes a six-foot ladder to fill and light. Quakers, Mormon apostles and Second Adventists all take the pulpit over the years, but mostly it is Methodists.
1813
The Stratford Circuit
Methodist clergy form the Stratford Circuit, the only group with a regular preaching route through the valley. One later favorite, Henry Sutton, arrives each Friday on the 5:15 train from New Haven and spends the weekend in members' homes.
1834
The land is deeded
On August 19, Josiah Smith releases the land under the meeting house to the Methodist Episcopal Society at Pleasant Vale for ten dollars.
1868
On the map
The Beers Atlas of New Haven County shows the M.E. Church and its cemetery, a schoolhouse for Joint District No. 12, the toll house at Zoar Bridge, a post office, a wool-cleaning factory and a stocking and yarn mill. A whole village sits in the valley.
- The dam
1897
Word of the dam
News arrives that the Stevenson Dam will be built and the valley where the church stands will be flooded. The Stevenson Union Church Association forms with one job: look out for the church.
1899 to 1918
The cemetery moves up the hill
Perhaps a larger task than building a new church. John Downs supervises the removal of every body and monument to the hilltop, including those from the Paupers' Corner. The first burial in the new ground is Cornelia Peck, the little daughter of Ralph and Bertha Peck.
April 1918
Plans for a new church
The Association votes the specifications: a chapel 25 by 35 feet with a 6-by-8 vestibule, floors of first-grade Georgia pine, and a bell tower. The old window frames and glass are to be reused and reshaped into Gothic heads. Behind the preacher, a three-part Gothic window of cathedral glass.
- On the hill
August 31, 1919
Dedicated on the hillside, free of debt
At two o'clock on a Sunday afternoon the new church is dedicated overlooking the river. The furnace is a gift of Mr. Radcliff of Shelton and the bell a gift of Stephen B. Church of Seymour. The old church had been sold to the power company for one dollar; the new one is bought back for one dollar and an exchange of real estate, on the same eight-tenths of an acre.
June 16, 1940
Services resume, year round
After years mostly closed, the freshly repainted church holds its first regular service. Twenty-eight people attend. The collection of $4.35 is given to the minister. A cord of wood for the furnace costs $14.
1951
Joining the Methodist Conference
The congregation votes to join the Methodist Conference, formalizing a relationship that had been true in practice for more than a century.
1955
Running water
Permission is granted to tap the power company's spring so the church can have water at the kitchen sink. The only toilet is still a small house out back.
About 1956
The bowl comes home
Lake Zoar is drained for work on the dam. Vivant and Myrtle Stowe walk the mud where the old church stood and find a silver bowl that Vivant recognizes as the one used for baptisms. Myrtle gives it to the church before her death in 1989. It is the only object known to survive from the original Pleasant Vale church.
1977
The doors close
Poor attendance and a dwindling membership close the church with no definite plans for the future.
November 23, 1980
Reopened
Under the leadership of Rev. Roland Gray, the steeple is repaired, the interior painted, the pew cushions replaced with carpet, and an oak cross, a gift of John Radovich, is hung above the altar. The church reopens with a congregation looking forward to a bright, positive future. Rev. Gray will serve for the next thirty-one years.
1983
A well and an addition
A well is drilled and a twenty-foot addition adds a kitchen and lavatories on the lower level, with room upstairs to one day expand the sanctuary.
- Today
2011
A new chapter
Rev. Roland Gray retires in June after three decades. Rev. Dorothy Peebles Pelley becomes pastor, and the congregation takes its present name, Riverside Community Church, as a non-denominational fellowship open to all.
2014 to today
Pastor Hal Hunt
Pastor Hal Hunt begins his ministry at Riverside. More than two centuries after the first meeting house opened its doors to anyone who wished to preach, the little church on the hill is still open to anyone who wishes to come.
Pastors who served
A long line of faithful people
Many served two or three churches at once, walking or taking the train between them. Several were students at Yale.
Pleasant Vale Church, 1894 to 1918
| 1894–95 | John E. Zeiter | |
| 1896–98 | James Taylor | |
| 1899 | Prindle | |
| 1900 | Royal W. Raymond | |
| 1901 | W. E. Slight | |
| 1902 | J. K. Sparklin | |
| 1903 | J. H. Yaggi | |
| 1905 | George W. Eastland | |
| 1906 | E. J. Harris | |
| 1907–10 | H. I. Thayer | |
| 1910–11 | George Noble | |
| 1911–12 | A. E. Beebe | |
| 1912–14 | Harry E. Sutton | |
| 1914–15 | Charles E. Williams | |
| 1916–18 | Asa Fuller | Walked from East Village to preach |
Riverside Church, 1919 to today
| 1919 | Asa Fuller | |
| 1920s–1930s | No records survive | The church was closed much of this time |
| 1940–46 | Cyrus W. Severance | Also served Derby |
| 1946–49 | Matthew H. Gates | Also served Derby |
| 1949 | Edwin Towle | Also served Derby |
| 1949–51 | J. Russell Bales | |
| 1951 | William Griffin | Student |
| 1951–52 | Omar Hartzler | |
| 1952–55 | William E. Rhodes | Also served Derby |
| 1955–57 | William J. Hughes | Yale student |
| 1957–59 | James Trew | Also served Sandy Hook |
| 1959–60 | Thomas Dicken | Student |
| 1960–62 | Walter Ranager | Also served Shelton |
| 1964–68 | G. Holger Hanson | Also served Great Hill |
| 1968–77 | Kermit Morrison | Also served Great Hill |
| 1980–2011 | Roland E. Gray | Reopened the church; served Riverside alone |
| 2011–2014 | Dorothy Peebles Pelley | |
| 2014–present | Hal Hunt |
Sources
- Joyce A. Hummel, Historical Notes on the Riverside United Methodist Church, Oxford, Connecticut (1990).
- Johanna Busk, A History of the Pleasant Vale Church (1968). Materials preserved at the Derby Historical Society.
- “Dedication at Stevenson”, The Seymour Record, front page, August 28, 1919 (1919).
Have a photograph, a program, or a memory of the church? We'd love to add it. Get in touch.