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The Rensselaerville and Berne Baptist Church was originally a colony of the Preston Hollow Baptist Church. It was constituted August 19, 1796 as an "Old School (Primitive) Baptist Church." The first meeting house was built in 1797 just across the Rensselaerville town line in Berne on Peasley Road, just north of the "Peasley" schoolhouse, which was across the road to the north from where the Baptist Church Burying Ground is now located.
The first preachers or pastors were William Stewart and later Reverand Truman Beaman. "Rev. Ephraim Crocker was ordained to preach in 1802. He was called to Rensselaerville, New York to the Baptist Church, where he continued to preach and farm, until 1834." (Obituary of Rev. Crocker)
It is said that a Church Clerk had the older church records stored in a barn which burned, and the records were burnt with it. In 1835 the new Baptist Church building was built in the hamlet of Rensselaerville.
The location of the church and school are shown on Beers 1866 map of Berne as being in the southeast corner of lot 401. The old church building was sold for $100 in 1898 to Wallace Peasley who tore it down and used the lumber to build a wagon house on his farm.
A few years after the construction of the church a cemetery was established to the south across the corner of the road. Now only the cemetery remains.
Source: "People Made it Happen, History of the Town of Rensselaerville ca. 1788-1950" published by the Rensselaerville Historical Society, Rensselaerville, NY, 1977
We recently found out (thanks to Steve LaMont) that the actual name is Baptist Church of Bern and Knox, in the Rensselaerville Association New York -
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