Betty Elliott Collection on Calvary Presbyterian Church

Calvary Presbyterian Church was founded in 1856 under the leadership of Rev. Charles Ray; Henry East, Lyman Munger and John Pomeroy were the first trustees. The church initially worshipped in a building at the corner of S. St. Paul Street and Jefferson Street (1857-1869), before moving to the large brick church at South Avenue and Hamilton Street that it occupied from 1870 to 1968. A 1906 Times-Union article states that new "church was weak and was obliged to have help from the Home Missions board." However, Ray stabilized the church before leaving in 1859. Over time the congregation grew considerably (to 221 members in 1908, per an article on the church's 50th anniversary) and raising $85,000 for church purposes in its first 50 years of existence. It's notable that the church building weathered several fires over the years, including a serious fire in 1906 that destroyed the Sunday School room, the pastor's library, and several memorial windows.

Never a large congreation, Calvary Presbyterian faced issues common to many urban Protestant churches by the middle of the 20th century: aging members and a decline in both membership and income. A 1964 article states that the average of of the church's congregants was 62. In 1968, this led Calvary to merge with St. Andrews Episcopal Church, located on Ashland Street only a few blocks to the west. Combined with a new emphasis on outreach work in the surrounding neighborhood, the new Calvary-St. Andrews Church found the resources to serve its community until it, too closed in 2017. The Calvary Presbyterian Church building, however, was already long gone - the combined church offered the Calvary land, along with the neighboring St. Andrews parish hall, as a site for housing development in 1969. The building came down in 1972.