THE venue

Located in Mount Vision, Otsego County, NY, at equal distance from the village of Cooperstown and the city of Oneonta, our venue is a decommissioned Baptist Church turned small performance and live-in artist residency facility.

A small history of the former Mount Vision First Baptist Church and its congregation:

The Mount Vision Baptists had already been through quite a journey when 24 members of The Branch of the New Lisbon Church organized into the Mount Vision Baptist Church and built the present meeting house, or more correctly, the top half of the present building in 1844. Following the effects of civilization and changing times, first initiated by the construction of the new road (1833) from Laurens to Hartwick on the East side of Otego Creek, the Baptists moved from their original location of Falls Bridge to the now thriving Mount Vision. The one story edifice had a tall steeple and two doors at the front because the pulpit was between two doors. The choir sat at the rear of the church. Two stoves were near the front of the church, one in each corner. Their long black stove pipes ran the length of the church to the chimneys in the rear. In the center was a magnificent chandelier holding ten or twelve “Rochester” kerosene lamps. A double row of beautiful crystal prisms circled the chandelier, and a tremendous reflector composed from many small triangular mirrors topped everything.

By 1875, the Sunday School was quite large, and the church itself had 125 members on its roll.

Hervey Kenyon Bowdish and Elder Nathan Hall were appointed to make plans for remodeling the building. Mr. Bowdish raised two thousand dollars to pay for the work. The remodeling was completed in June 1875. A kitchen, a dining hall and a prayer room were added downstairs; an alcove in the rear of the church and new steps in front ; the pulpit and seat positions were reversed.

In 1900 the clear glass windows were replaced with beautiful stained glass windows, Revered Simmons helped obtain from an old church that was being torn down.

The chandelier was taken down around 1910 when gas lights were installed, replaced by electricity in 1919.

The steeple fell victim to a wind storm, but few can place the date, except somewhere between 1925 and 1930.

Finally in 1940, or thereabouts, the church got a bell.

In 1945, the refusal to accept the New Hampshire Confession of Faith, and the substitution of “belief in the New Testament and the Teachings of Jesus” for “the miraculous Virgin birth” caused a rift within the congregation. The church could not survive the stress of the angry meeting of May 27, 1945. The pastor resigned and the church split down the middle. This location was renamed to: ‘First Baptist Church of Mount Vision”.

In 1952 the Hammond Concert Organ was given in memory of Irene Bowdish Taylor.

In 1973, the church became part of a three-church “Parish” with Burlington, Hartwick and Mount Vision. Rev. Capper preached every Sunday in all three churches until he retired in March 1981.

On June 10, 1984, the church celebrated its 140th Anniversary.

< This history has been excepted based on “A History Celebrating the One Hundred Fortieth Anniversary” compiled and edited by Rodger Harrison and Philip L. Lord, Sr.>