STONE ARABIANEW YORK |
 |
STONE ARABIANEW YORK |
|
Today, downtown Stone Arabia is two churches — a Lutheran Church and Dutch Reformed Church. The congregations of these two churches are among the oldest in the Mohawk Valley. One cannot help but feel the spirit of these churches as one strolls amongst them and the cemeteries behind.
 |
Trinity
Lutheran Church Site acquired, June 2, 1728. Log church built by Lutheran and reformed Palatines. A later church burned by Tories and Indians, 1780. Present building erected in 1792. Oldest Lutheran Congregation in the Mohawk Valley. Erected by Church and State of NY, 1929. (Stone Arabia Marker) |
Both of the existing structures were built after the Revolutionary War. They replaced the churches that were destroyed during the Great Raid of 1780.
 |
Former reformed Dutch Church. Organized 1711. Built 1788. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, 1977. Reformed Church services were held here until 1990. Erected 1998. (Stone Arabia Marker) |
Colonel John Brown’s grave lies behind the Dutch Reformed Church. A monument can be found over his grave.
John Brown, whose home was Pittsfield, Massachusetts, helped to organize in Pittsfield the mission to take Fort Ticonderoga in 1775. He marched from Pittsfield to enlist Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys into the expedition and participated with Ethan Allen in the capture of the fort. The cannons acquired from that undertaking were responsible for the British retreat from Boston in 1776.
Fort Ticonderoga was taken back by the British during Burgoyne’s 1777 invasion. Brown led another mission to once again recapture Fort Ticonderoga. However, this time Brown found the fort well fortified and it held against the American attack.
 |
Col. John Brown and other Revolutionary soldiers are buried west of this church. This marker erected by Fort Rensselaer Chapter DAR, Canajoharie, NY, 1915. (Stone Arabia Marker) |
Site of Fort Paris -- Sir John Johnson bypassed Fort Paris during the Great Raid of 1780 and went up the Mohawk Valley. Later, the timbers that once formed the fort were used to rebuild area structures destroyed during the raid.
