At the corner of Grand and South Streets in Newburgh, New York, two blocks west of the Hudson River, the stone walls and steeply pitched slate roof of Calvary Presbyterian Church rise above a neighborhood that has known centuries of change. The congregation describes itself as a place of renewal in a renewing city, and the building, completed in 1858 from a design by architect Frederick Clarke Withers, still anchors the block. Calvary worships at 10:30 on Sunday mornings, broadcasts its services online, opens its doors for community dinners on the third Saturday of each month, and partners with Habitat for Humanity, health ministries, and a growing concert series that has filled the sanctuary with organists, jazz ensembles, and a cappella choirs.
A Congregation Born of Two Churches
Calvary's roots run back to 1773, when a Presbyterian mission was established by the Bethlehem Church to witness to what the early members called the needy and sinful inner city of Newburgh. The mission became a Presbyterian Society on July 12, 1784 and met in a former army clothing warehouse at First and Montgomery Streets. In 1793 a wooden colonial church went up on that site, with the pastor preaching from a bench and members bringing stools, crates, and benches from home. By 1817 the hundred members were renting pews.
In 1855 fifty-five members withdrew and on February 10, 1856 organized Calvary as a separate church. The parent body kept the name First Presbyterian and engaged the English-born architect Frederick Clarke Withers to design a new house of worship on the South Street glebe. On Thanksgiving Day, 1858 the debt-free forty-five-thousand-dollar structure was dedicated. It drew immediate international praise. The two congregations reunited in 1945, kept the Calvary name, and continued to worship in this single building. The congregation's sense of call today is captured in its own words: to follow the example of Jesus the Christ, honor God, and be actively involved in neighborhood and community through outreach that welcomes many from beyond the church.
The Withers Sanctuary and Its Treasures
Calvary's home is widely regarded as one of the finest Gothic Revival churches in the Hudson Valley and was Withers' first American commission for a church. The architect argued forcefully in his day that classical temple-front buildings were inappropriate for Christian worship and built instead a structure hewn of blue stone laid in random courses with gray stone dressings. The interior features geometric middle-point design, alternating round and polygonal columns, gothic arcades with exterior wall buttresses, clerestory windows alternating five-point and six-point star patterns (Bethlehem and Jerusalem), and a ceiling that originally was painted to suggest a beamed wooden vault. The gated pews of yellow pine, the wooden baptismal font, and the reredos, given as a memorial in 1884, are all original.
On the south and north walls, ten stained-glass windows trace the life and times of Jesus, beginning with the Call of Peter and Andrew and ending with the Resurrection at the empty tomb. The newest window, installed in the narthex in 2003, was created by church member Sue Young as a recreation of one of the hand-colored bulletin covers painted by the Reverend Carlos R. Lantis during his twenty-seven years of service, and features a sunflower, a butterfly, and a baby's reaching hand as images of beauty, promise, and trust. Behind the altar rises the reredos, a white Italian marble memorial given in 1884 in memory of Eliza Raynor, the young wife of J. Adriance Bush. Its symbols include the Alpha and Omega, the rose and passion flower, the trumpeting angel of Life and the scythe-bearing angel of Death, and a great central window depicting the story of Martha and Mary.
Lofted at the rear of the sanctuary is the church's most celebrated instrument, a rare Ernest M. Skinner pipe organ dedicated on December 4, 1937 and left in its original unaltered condition. Encased in oak with burnished metal pipes, it numbers 2,178 pipes, not counting the harp and chimes, and includes a 32-foot pedal stop otherwise found in the region only at the Cadet Chapel at West Point. Skinner personally visited the trustees to close the deal, famously walking across the boardroom table on his hands to demonstrate his vigor. The organ was a gift of Mrs. Harriet Emigh Brown, widow of Judge Charles F. Brown, in memory of her own years singing in the Calvary choir. After the March 5, 2020 fire, the organ was completely disassembled by the Foley Baker Organ Company, removed from the building, and fully restored; it returned to a fully functional condition in September 2023.
The Fire and the Renewal
In the early hours of Thursday, March 5, 2020, a fire broke out in the rear of the adjoining fellowship hall. The sanctuary itself was saved, but smoke, water, and ash filled the building and the fellowship hall was gutted. Restoration work began within days and continued through the COVID-19 shutdown, with Belfor Property Restoration stripping the fellowship hall to its cinderblock walls and steel beams, Lamb Studios cleaning the stained glass, CDR Alarm rebuilding the security system, and Lime Electric planning a conversion to LED lighting subsidized by Central Hudson. In late January 2021 the Skinner organ was carefully disassembled, with every pipe and screw labeled and the 500-pound blower motor sledded down the steeple spiral stair. The fellowship hall has since been restored, plumbing and new radiators installed, and the sanctuary refloored and repainted. The experience deepened the congregation's sense of calling; the church's stated refrain remains that without faith and the willingness to use it to serve others, history is just history.
Worship on Sundays and Mid-Week
Sunday worship is held at 10:30 in the sanctuary and is led by the Reverend J. Edward Lewis, Sr., pastor and teaching elder. Services are broadcast on Zoom and Facebook Live. The mid-week Bible study meets on Wednesdays from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. via Zoom, with the pastor walking the group through the lectionary and current texts.
Music is a defining part of Calvary worship. The Calvary Ringers, the church's English handbell choir, have been performing at Calvary and around the Newburgh area for roughly fifty years and span three generations of ringers, from age sixteen to over sixty. The Ringers play during Sunday morning services once a month from September through June and try to play every Sunday of Advent and Lent; they participate in the Hudson Valley Handbell Festival on the last Saturday in April each year and often play at the Newburgh Ecumenical Thanksgiving Service. The vocal Calvary Choir, brought back together in September 2017 under the direction of Musician in Residence Joseph Bush, rehearses Monday evenings at 7:30 and Sunday mornings at 9:30, and presents a varied selection of arrangements each Sunday. The choir is affectionately known as the Joe Bush Singers.
Outreach Across the City
Calvary's ministry list reads like a portrait of Newburgh itself. Once a month the congregation hosts a Community Dinner on the third Saturday of the month, inviting neighbors to share a home-cooked meal in fellowship hall. Bike Newburgh brings riders out to share services and provides free bike repair on the street. Through PresbyBuild, a coalition of Presbyterian congregations partnered with Habitat for Humanity of Greater Newburgh since 2002, Calvary supplies volunteers on build sites and hosts the weekly Saturday coffee break for those volunteers in its fellowship hall; the coalition has contributed more than four hundred thousand dollars and sponsored eight of Habitat Newburgh's eighty-five completed homes. Calvary also supports Rural and Migrant Ministry, Project Life, and a health ministry that hosts health fairs, addiction recovery group meetings, and Acupuncture in Community. The church is also the steward of the Old Town Cemetery on its glebe-lands, a pre-Revolutionary burying ground that includes the one-of-a-kind Robinson Mausoleum.
The Jobie E. Lewis Jr. Children's Educational Fund was established by the congregation in memory of the pastor's late son to support the educational needs of children in the family and community. In March 2021 the church launched its My D.E.S.K. (Dedicated Education Space for Kids) Mission, building thirty simple wooden desks in the sanctuary, which had just been cleared of restoration scaffolding, and donating them to families at Horizons-on-the-Hudson Magnet School, one block away. Volunteers worked with masks and social distancing; the school PTO donated books to go with each desk. The story made the front page of the Times Herald Record and was picked up by the Presbyterian Mission agency and the Litton TV program Hearts of Heroes.
Concerts, Library, and a Living Tree
Two concert series now call the Calvary sanctuary home. The Thornwillow Concerts at Calvary series returned to the building after the organ restoration, opening with a recital by the internationally known organist Paul Jacobs on November 4, 2023. The newer Community Concerts at Calvary series brings organists, chamber ensembles, percussion, and choral groups into the building; recent seasons have featured Bobby Sanabria and his Multiverse Big Band in a celebration of Afro-Latin jazz, the trumpet-and-organ duo of Chuck Seipp and Craig Williams in Spirit of America, and the LGBTQ+ and allied a cappella chorus Key of Q. The Calvary Free Library, located in the study off the main hall in fellowship hall, is open during church hours for borrowing, donating, or sitting a spell. The Calvary Book Club gathers on the first Thursday of each month from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m., rotating among members' homes for dessert, coffee, and conversation about a chosen book.
Inside the narthex stands the Living Tree, a hand-carved oak trunk with brass and copper leaves, given in memory of C. Edward Moshier, who loved his family and this church from 1935 to 2000. Donors may place a leaf on the tree to mark a wedding, anniversary, birth, baptism, confirmation, death, or any occasion worth remembering. Summer Family Movie Nights return to the fellowship hall on summer evenings with free films for the neighborhood. Withers' heaven-pointed spire still rises 135 feet above the corner of South and Grand, pointing the way through every chapter of the church's long life.
Visiting Calvary
Calvary Presbyterian Church sits at 120 South Street, at the corner of Grand and South, two blocks west of River Road (Marine Drive). Sunday worship begins at 10:30 a.m. and is followed by fellowship. Parking is available around the church and on nearby streets. Those joining online can find the service streamed on Facebook Live and on Zoom. The church office can be reached at 845-562-8730 or info@calvarypresbychurch.org, and giving is accepted through PayPal or by mail at 120 South Street, Newburgh, NY 12550. Building use requests are considered by the Session, which meets on the second Sunday of each month.