Jacksonville (NY) Community United Methodist Church history

Introduction page

An exciting and stressful day. Exciting because I finished transcribing and indexing my great-grandmother’s handwritten history of the Jacksonville, New York M.E. Church. Readers should note that the name of the church changed over time, and as I was finishing the project, I asked: What do I call this? I decided on the name the community is using now.

Next page with quote from an 1898 newspaper

While transcribing her diaries I learned in 1946 Jessie (Tucker) Agard was asked to write the history of the community church. In January 1947 she purchased a manuscript book for $10.00 at Miller’s Paper Store in Ithaca, New York. Every day that winter she noted, “worked on church history.” I was curious to see this book, but no one seemed to know where it was. Thanks to my cousin and former Jacksonville Town Historian, Nancy Dean, a copy of the handwritten pages were found.

Jessie’s history of the church starts in 1790 and continues with board of trustee minutes through 1946. I learned this spring that she was asked to continue, which she did until 1957 when Florence Graham took over. During our visit to Jacksonville this May I was able to hold the manuscript book that Jessie purchased and copied the history into.

The morning was stressful because I took five copies of the completed history to the UPS store to ship to the Bridgeport National Bindery in Agawam, MA—a good thing, but always wondering, did I get everything right? Are all the pages in order (even though I checked each one)? Murphy's Law?

Five copies prepped and ready to ship to Bridgeport National Bindery

 I look forward to holding the bound books in my hand, and then distributing them to the proper repositories.

This project is for you great-grandma Jessie Agard.