Location: Walton, N.Y.

Presbytery: Atlantic

Organization: Sept. 5, 1861

Membership: 31 communicant; 4 baptized

Pastor: Steven McCarthy

Website: waltonrpc.org | facebook.com/RPWalton | reformedvoice.com/waltonrpc

The U.S. Civil War began in spring 1861. That fall, a new congregation of the RPCNA was organized in upstate New York. Walton RPC began with 19 members, two elders, and two deacons. In 1863, a building for worship was erected five miles from town on East Brook Road. The first pastor, David McAllister, arrived that year and constructed a parsonage across the street, which remains to this day as the Henderson farmstead.

In 1874, the original building was disassembled, moved into the village by horses, and rebuilt where it currently stands on East and Bruce Streets. You can spot the original foundations from the dirt floor of the church basement, where, in the 1970s, the Covenanter youth put on what must have been a truly spooky haunted house.

Many additions have enhanced the building over the years. Beautiful stained glass windows with recognizable Bible symbols replaced the clear glass windows in the sanctuary in the 1910s. These pictures have served as topics for at least one recent sermon series. You will no longer find four wood stoves and long black stovepipes in each corner of the sanctuary or kerosene lamps in the windows. However, you will still find the light and warmth of God’s Word provided week by week.

The current parsonage on Townsend Street was purchased in 1928 when Rev. and Mrs. Frank Lathom arrived. Seven other Walton pastors and their families have since called it home. Steven and Emily McCarthy arrived in 2013 and have welcomed all three of their children there since.

Frank Lathom had the longest pastorate of any man in Walton, from 1928–1952, with a profound impact on both the congregation and the community. In 1929, he started Released Time religious education in the public schools, even taking it on the road to country schools in Rock Rift, Trout Creek, and Oxbow. He served as director of Delaware County Bible Association—placing Bibles in homes that did not have one—chaplain of the Delaware County Historical Association, and county superintendent of churches for 125 churches and 80 pastors for over 14 years.

Major floods hit the Walton area in 1996 and 2006, devastating dairy farms—the bedrock of the area economy—and other local businesses. The national heroin epidemic has also swept through the area, claiming lives and filling the county correctional facilities. Multigenerational poverty is evident, straining schools and other public services. Delaware County has had the highest rate of suicide in New York State. How does a congregation with such a quaint history serve a community in such crises? Our essential resources are the same as ever: God’s Word and prayer.

Our congregation worships morning and evening each week. The adult Sabbath school works through books of the Bible using the Adult Quarterly of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. Though our hearts broke to close Released Time in 2017 due to insufficient staff, a children’s Sabbath school has now resumed with three regular students and usually a couple visitors. Prayer meetings are held twice monthly, some of our women have a Women’s Missionary Fellowship, and our pastor has held various midweek studies, including a monthly men’s breakfast.

Our newest couple began coming to church last July. Our pastor started a Bible study with them in Oneonta this spring that involved a number of new contacts. At the same time, he began reaching out to the campuses of SUNY Oneonta and Hartwick College, and we expect an incoming freshman to join us for worship this fall.

Though we enjoy a good relationship with other churches in the area, we are conscious of serving as the only confessionally Reformed witness in about an hour’s radius. Please pray for perseverance in ministering to one another amidst often failing health. Also pray that God would lead young families to join the church so that this witness to Christ’s faithfulness would continue in the Catskills of upstate New York.