St. James' Episcopal Church Watkins Glen NY

Saint James' Episcopal Church was founded in 1830 and is located in Watkins Glen, NY. We are a Christian congregation that welcomes everyone to join us in worship.

Saint James' Church is under the jurisdiction Episcopal Diocese of Rochester. Rt. Rev. Dr. Prince Singh is the current VIII Bishop Of the Diocese.

Mission Statement The mission of Saint James' Episcopal Church is to profess the Good News of Jesus Christ through worship, effective ministry and outreach so that others may know his redeeming love.

Our Vision

Worship:

The prayerful structure with which we worship is found in the Book of Common Prayer. The Book of Common Prayer was compiled centuries ago by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and contains the patterns of worship and ancient forms of prayer that existed in the earliest days of the Christian church. The Book of Common Prayer guides our worship in the Daily Offices of Morning, Noonday, and Evening Prayer and celebrations of the Holy Eucharist. The Catechism of the Book of Common Prayer explicates the Sacraments of the church.

Saint James' Church in Watkins Glen is committed to maintaining the Book of Common Prayer as the center of our worship.

Ministry:

Through our various ministries, Saint James' has a very real presence in the community.

Pastoral Care - Being there to listen, council, pray, worship and to administer the sacraments to all of our people. Education - Through sermon and through study, the Church can be a source of knowledge to anyone interested and willing to learn.

Outreach:

What is outreach? Well, it's exactly what it sounds like - reaching out. What can we give back to society? What positive role can the church have in terms of helping the community? These are the central questions. While Saint James' is not a massive church that has tons of programs of its own, we can still make a difference in the lives of many people in Schuyler County. Our Thrift Shop which provides gently used clothing and shoes has served the people of Schuyler County for decades. And through our collaboration with Catholic Charities, we can also reach out by providing food, clothing and support to the less fortunate on a larger scale.

 

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https://www.saintjameswg.org/  

 

 

You can find us at the corner of Sixth and Decatur Streets.  

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History of Saint James' When the Erie Canal opened in 1825, it revolutionized travel and business in the Finger Lakes region, tying isolated rural communities to the wider world. New small feeder canals linked the Erie to Seneca and Cayuga lakes, spurring further settlement and development of what had been wild Indian Country only a few years earlier. Steamboats were already running the length of Seneca in 1830 when Samuel Beebe organized an Episcopal parish called “Saint. James’ Church at the Head of Seneca Lake.” The organizers, including wardens Isaac Q. Leake and Harry Leonard, obtained a lot to build a four-columned wood framed church building from Dr. Samuel Watkins. After Beebe left in 1832 for the canal-blessed boomtown of Buffalo, the tiny St. James’ congregation limped along without a rector or financial support for the building.

All that changed 1857 when Frederick Davis Jr. moved to the community from Mt. Morris to build a malt house. Wanting his children to be brought up in the traditions of the Episcopal Church, Davis helped bring the Rev. Duncan Cameron Mann to serve both Saint James’ and the Saint John’s parish in Catharine a few miles to the south. That was 1861. By then the community had been incorporated as the town of Jefferson and later renamed Watkins after the local doctor. (The town would not take the name Watkins Glen, in honor of its extraordinary gorge, until 1926.). Meanwhile, county lines were drawn in 1854, and it was named Schuyler County after Philip Schuyler of Albany, one of George Washington’s most trusted Revolutionary War generals and the father-in-law of U.S. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton.

Several members of Schuyler’s family tree had fought with and later negotiated with Indian tribes, including the Seneca, in upstate New York. Several others were prominent Episcopal clergymen.

The wife of Saint James’ new rector, Caroline B. Schuyler Mann, was related to Philip Schuyler through the family patriarch, Philip Pierterse Van Schuyler, who had moved to the Albany area from Holland in 1650. Cameron Duncan Mann had been a journalist in Rochester before he answered a call to the priesthood in his late 30s. At the time, Caroline Mann’s brother was an Episcopal rector in adjoining Seneca County.

The Manns and Davis, who was still relatively early in a prosperous 50-year local career, were among those who decided that Saint James’ needed a new brick building. The cornerstone of Saint James’ Episcopal Church was laid at the corner of Decatur and Sixth streets in 1863, and the sanctuary was completed a year later. The first service in the new church was held on Christmas Day 1864.

These Civil War years were boom times for organized religion in the Finger Lakes region. Fledgling groups of Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and Catholics were all struggling to establish themselves in Watkins at the southern end of Seneca Lake. The Presbyterians built their own larger brick church directly across Decatur street in the late 1860s. The Baptists built theirs only a block away some 20 years later.

Under Mann’s leadership and Davis’ generosity, Saint James’ gradually grew and achieved financial independence. In 1865, the vestry organized the purchase of a pump organ to replace the old melodeon that had sufficed to lead the choir. In 1874, a 1,400-pound bell was hefted into the belfry. Gas lighting was introduced to the building, and pew rental was instituted as the basis of stewardship. Coal distribution, mills and agriculture were the town’s economic drivers, but tourism was also beginning to take hold, thanks largely to the natural beauty of its dramatic gorge. After Mark Twain visited in 1871, he later wrote in the book “Roughing It” that the Watkins gorge “could challenge the old world and the new to produce its peer.”

When Mann died of consumption in 1875 at the age of 52, he was succeeded by his son, Cameron Mann. In his five years at Saint James’, Cameron Mann organized a major renovation and expansion of the building. The chancel was added, along with new space on the southwest corner of the church building for vestry and library rooms. Cameron Mann resigned in 1881 to accept a call to Grace Church in Kansas City. He later served as the bishop of North Dakota and later still as bishop of South Florida. Meanwhile, Cameron Mann’s brother, Alexander, was serving as the rector of Trinity Church in Boston and then Bishop of Pittsburgh. Caroline Mann, mother of both Cameron and Alexander, continued to live on in the rectory on Sixth Street as the First Lady of the Parish until her death in 1913.

She had outlived by four years Frederick Davis Jr., the prosperous malt house owner who, according to the vestry, “was largely instrumental in reorganizing the congregation in 1860 and building the first brick church in Watkins...” Davis’ son, Cameron Josiah Davis, namesake of the Cameron Manns, grew up the at St. James’ and entered the priesthood. He eventually became Episcopal Bishop of Western New York.

In the years leading up to World War I, Saint James‘ received several substantial contributions in cash and railroad stock that were used as an endowment that produced income for use covering parochial expenses. The time-worn system of pew renting was replaced by annual pledges to support the parish. In 1917, the year the United States entered the war in Europe, the vestry approved the spending of $1,200 on a new pipe organ made by M.P. Moller of Hagerstown, Md. To run the new organ, electricity was introduced into the church. The pipe organ replaced the old pump organ, which had been played by -- among others -- Peter G. Phinney, grandson of a runaway slave.

As the country prospered during the run-up to the Great Depression, the vestry voted to undertake major repairs and renovations to the 65-year-old building. In addition to reinforcing the foundation and installing steel reinforcement for the trusses, the project added lovely wrought iron lamps that hang over the sanctuary’s center aisle. They were imported from Munich, Germany. In 1930, the parish became affiliated with the Diocese of Rochester, ending its near-century tie to the Diocese of Western New York.

The Great Depression and War Years were not kind to Saint James’. Pledges plummeted, the Vestry sold off church assets, and the parish was reduced to mission status. For the next decade the church struggled for survival. Meanwhile, Watkins Glen was just beginning to take on an entirely new identity -- international auto racing hub. Immediately after the war, auto racing enthusiast Cameron Argetsinger was inspired by the area’s hilly terrain. In 1948 he helped organize the first road race through the downtown Watkins Glen. The Grand Prix became an annual event drawing tens of thousands. After a driver died in a crash of his Ferrari in 1950 and insurers balked at covering the in-town road race in 1953, the wildly popular car races were moved to a dedicated track up the hill in Dix. The closed circuit track allowed for more events and better safety and crowd control. Boosted by locals and by nearby Corning Inc., Watkins Glen racing has grown to include Formula One, NASCAR and other racing classes. Over the decades, the town has developed an international reputation for auto racing, and the sport’s greatest heroes have their names etched in Watkins Glen sidewalks.

While racing was catching on, an energetic new rector helped Saint James’ reverse the downward trajectory it had followed since the early 1930s. The Rev. William A. Howard became rector in 1957 and infused new zeal. The church’s financial picture brightened considerably. During Howard’s three-year stay, the church bought the John Cook house adjacent to the sanctuary for use as a rectory. By the time he left in 1960, the church was able to return from its mission status to the status of an independent parish.

Meanwhile, New York State, which had acquired the glen and turned it into a state park, added an Olympic-size pool, spurring summer tourism even more. The local tourism industry received a huge boost in 1976 when the state Legislature enacted a law allowing small wineries to sell their products directly to the public. In the immediate aftermath of the new law, Glenora Wine Cellars and Wagner Vineyards opened along the western and eastern shores of Seneca Lake, only a few miles north of Watkins Glen. Since then, dozens of new wineries and wine tasting rooms have opened in the Finger Lakes, primarily along Seneca, Cayuga and Keuka lakes.

While the demographic changes of the past two decades have not been kind to the nation’s mainstream churches, Saint James‘ has weathered the challenging period quite well. Saint James’ current rector, the Rev. Michael Hartney, is deeply involved in the local community and also serves Schuyler County’s other Episcopal congregation, Saint John’s Catharine near the town of Odessa. Saint James’ operates high-profile good and used clothing programs for the community, contributes to the county's food pantry, and it sponsors an annual music series that includes artists ranging from blue grass fiddlers to Manhattan Chamber Orchestra performers.