History
The St. Andrew's congregation predates its current church building by a century. It was one of three charters in the region obtained in July 1770 by The Rev. John Sayre, sent as a missionary to the Hudson Valley from London. After the Revolution, it shared its rector with St. George's in nearby Newburgh.
Congregants had moved from a primitive log cabin to a more permanent meetinghouse as the church grew, and in 1826 they decided to build a larger one in Walden, at the time an unincorporated preindustrial hamlet known mainly for its mill on the Wallkill River. It was finished and consecrated in September 1827.
After the Civil War, the church needed to expand again. It bought the current lot in 1871 from William Scofield, after whom a nearby street is named, for $800 ($15,300 in 2009 dollars). Babcock, at the time transitioning from his position as rector of St. James' Church in Arden to the first professor at what is now Cornell University's College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, delivered plans and construction documents before leaving for Ithaca. Local contractors using local materials were hired, and the church was finished later that year. The debt incurred by the construction was enough that it took until 1880 to pay off, and only then was the church formally consecrated.
The rectory was built the following year. In 1884 the congregation decided to accommodate continuing growth by building the chapel on the western end of the lot. At the turn of the century the oil lamps that had originally lit the church's sanctuary were replaced with electric models, and in 1915 the rectory received its remodeled porch and some changes to the interior, such as the rear parlor fireplace.
Eventually the congregation decided to combine the chapel and church into one large building. This began in 1924 with a simple hyphen, and culminated 15 years later with the current linkage and its accompanying changes to the chapel's fenestration. The church and rectory have remained intact since that time.
Read more about this topic: St. Andrew's Episcopal Church (Walden, New York)
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