Vintage Stereoview: Essex Baptist Church Steeple

Vintage stereoview: Steeple of Essex Baptist Church rising in the background. (Thanks to Todd Goff for sharing this photo.)

We love sharing vintage artifacts and photos on our Essex on Lake Champlain Facebook page and inviting our visitors to play some Vintage Essex Trivia every Monday. Thank you to Todd Goff for sharing the stereoview image above with us!

In the background we can see the steeple of the Essex Baptist Church. The Baptist congregation had joined with two others to form the Essex Community Church, and the former church was serving as a Masonic Lodge when it was destroyed by fire in 1943. That historic church steeple is now missing from Essex forever.

The building in the foreground generated much conversation as the community tried to figure out which Essex home it was! Check out the speculation and deduction below:

Emily G. Phillips: Jessie Parker’s house? facing out to Beggs park, with what could be part of the old nail factory in front?

Robert Hammerslag: Is this Steve McKenna’s house (Orchard St) with the Baptist church behind it?

Susan Martini: No. We currently own the McKenna’s old house on Orchard. However, David Hislop may be right in thinking it is the house that just sold that overlooks Begg’s Park. That would mean the church behind is the old Baptist Church that use to sit in, what currently is, our back yard.

David Hislop: Must be the brick house (just sold) next to the Gussman’s facing Beggs Point Park. Before the porches were added!

Dianne Lansing: I’m guessing….is it Sylvia Thorn’s house? No…that can’t be as there is no street in the front. What are those “stacked up tombstones” in the left fore ground?

Christine Herrmann: So, the brick house facing Beggs’ Point… was that the Parkers’ house? If so, I spent many days there during the summers in the middle 1950s.

Jill Seymour: well the clothing looks like mid to late 1800’s.

Susan Martini: If the house is the brick house facing Begg’s Park then the church behind the house is the old Baptist Church that use to sit, in what currently is, our back yard.

George Davis: I’m thoroughly flummoxed with this one! Might be time to take a wander and report back. It does appear to be the former Baptist church in the background, but the brick (?) house in the foreground remains a mystery for me…

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