The Round Top Churches: (Out of the Wilderness)
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Vol. 5: Out of the Wilderness

A History of the Hamlet of Bethel in the Town of Pine Plains, New York


By: Newton Duel, Elizabeth Klare, James Mara, Helen Netter, Dyan Wapnick
1996

§6 The Round Top Churches


Old Round Top was built in 1746 on one acre of Lot 30 in the Little Nine Partners Patent, on land owned by James Alexander. In the very complicated deed of partition of the patent lands, Alexander, although not an original patentee, had received several lots. Johan Tice Smith and Michael Rowe, both Palatine Lutherans, had obtained a verbal promise from Alexander for a gift of one acre of this land to be used for a church building and burying ground. Although the ground was selected and the church was built, Alexander died leaving the promise unfulfilled and open to dispute. Finally, on May 15,1769, a deed to the land was given by Peter VanBrugh Livingston, who had married Alexander's daughter, Mary. The terms of the deed state that the ground was to be used "forever hereafter" for "the worship of the Almighty God as practiced by the Lutheran evangelical churches or use the same for a cemetery or church yard," and that one ear of Indian corn was to be used as payment to Livingston or his heirs every first day of May

According to Huntting, Round Top was so named because of the shape of its roof. This nomenclature has led over time to much discussion. One theory states that the roof was concave and made of bark after the Indian long houses. A more likely proposal, put forth by Huntting and documented by the former Round Top Church in Amenia Union, gives us a building with four wooden sections above the main body and joined at the top by a circular frame. This was not a belfry or bell tower but the roof itself. The Round Top in what later became known as Bethel was sometimes called "Nine Partners" to distinguish it from the one in Amenia Union.

Huntting surmises that the first preacher at Round Top was the Rev. John Christopher Hartwick, who became pastor of the Rhinebeck Lutheran Church in 1746, and that this marked the beginning of a long association between these two churches. Since Round Top was built for worship by German Lutherans, the early sermons were delivered in German, and it would be of interest to determine when the English language came to predominate. The first baptism here was on March 4, 1760, of James Hettie, son of James and Nellie Hettie. Before this, communicants probably traveled to the church in Rhinebeck for this purpose. The first communion was on June 4,1763. The communion service was bought in 1760 when, the tradition goes, Alexander McIntosh traveled to Albany on foot to obtain it. Huntting states that German Reformers, who worshipped here with the Lutherans until the deed of 1769 specified this as a Lutheran church, took the communion service with them when they left and established the Red Church in 1772. This church was located on present-day Rte. 199 several miles east of the hamlet of Pine Plains.

In 1780, the first Round Top probably having fallen into disrepair, a second Round Top church was erected on the same site. This church was 30 by 40 feet, with 18 ft. posts and benches for seats. It is probable that it was never finished off inside.

The height of interest in the Round Top churches was between the years of 1760 and 1788, during which time there were 294 baptisms, after which activity began to fall off. A break in Round Top's record between 1776 and 1780 was most likely caused by the Revolutionary War. According to Huntting, the creation of the Union Meeting House in 1815 (now the Pine Plains Presbyterian Church), in which Lutherans had 1/4 interest, was a prime reason for the decreasing activity. Also, as the early members of Round Top passed away, many of their descendants moved into "town," which was a growing business district. This period marks a shift in the predominance, both secularly and spiritually, from what would later be called the hamlet of Bethel, to what would later be called the hamlet of Pine Plains.

As Round Top began to be used by other denominations, the church building was allowed to fall into disrepair. However, a subscription paper dated March 21, 1826, called for the repair of the church. Although $93 was subscribed, the repairs were never made, and in 1827 the church was dismantled and the timber sold at auction.

The Round Top Burying Ground

The Round Top burying ground as it eventually developed was divided by the highway, now Carpenter Hill Road. The portion on the east side of the road was reserved for the descendants of Michael Rowe, being one of the founders of the first Round Top Church, and it became known as the Rowe Cemetery.

The part of the property west of the road was designated for general burying purposes, "free for all burials." It is here that the earliest graves are located, as documented by Lawrence Van Alstyne in 1903. Several members of the Hoffman family were buried there before 1800, with Hendrick, who died at 70 years of age in 1789, being the first. Even from the earliest time the Rowe family appears to have been the largest in the area, and sixteen members were buried in the public section both before and after the Rowe Cemetery was established. The earliest Rowe to be buried here was Andrew who died in 1784. Other well-known local names are those of the Case, Husted, Pulver, Shelden, Smith, and Winans families. The graves were marked with small white headstones.

More elaborate monuments can be seen in the Rowe Cemetery on the opposite side of Carpenter Hill Road, the most imposing being that of William Rowe who died in 1888. The Van Alstyne record lists twenty-six individuals of the Rowe/Row name along with such other Bethel families as Case, Mclntash, Mosher, Owen, Pitcher, Reynolds, Scribner, Tanner, Thomas, Winans, and Wooldridge.

In 1852 William S. Eno had purchased property in the hamlet of Pine Plains, part of which was laid out in plots and driveways for cemetery purposes, and Evergreen Cemetery was established, termed by Isaac Huntting in 1898 "the finest cemetery in grounds and location in Dutchess County." Consequently the smaller grave yards scattered throughout the town were no longer needed. However, burials took place in the Rowe Cemetery well into the late 1800's.

The small enclosed ground adjacent to the Rowe plot belonged exclusively to the Barrett, Gray, and Reynolds families, who were interrelated. The most recent burial there was that of Elizabeth Gray Barrett, who died in 1892. She was the wife of Lawrence Barrett, an ancestor of the Pine Plains Chase family

After the second Round Top was demolished in 1827, the church property came into dispute when the heirs of Michael Rowe, wishing to add to the burial ground for themselves and their descendants, built an enclosure around where they felt the church property lines should be. The problem was that Samuel Deuel, the adjoining landowner to the south, did not share the Rowes' opinion. The dispute was settled in 1829 by a written agreement drawn up by Pine Plains lawyer Stephen Eno, in which two parcels of land were exchanged and the boundaries thus agreed upon.


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