First Baptist Church (FBC) was formed in 1834, meeting for the first several years of its existence in the “Old Red Schoolhouse” that stood at the time on the corner of South and West Streets. Our first place to call our own was a brick structure of 40 x 60 feet, in our present Maple Street location, built in 1840.
We were graced to have among our pastors the Rev. D.C. Hughes, father of Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, and so Charles grew up here among us as a “pastor’s kid.”
Our second building, replacing the old brick meeting house, was built in stages. First a 60 x 60 foot chapel was completed in May, 1884. The chapel served as our meeting place as the old brick building was torn down and the new sanctuary built, until its completion in 1885, and is still used today as our fellowship hall. The building was further enlarged in 1926, and the sanctuary completely remodeled again and rededicated in October, 1953.
In 1912, FBC sent Miss Julia Bent to the mission field in Madras, India with the Women’s Baptist Foreign Mission Society. Miss Bent is still remembered by some of the long-time members here, and a new chapel bearing her name was added in 1964 as part of the addition of a Christian Education wing.
For 50 years, between 1957 and 2007, FBC ran a preschool program for 3- and 4-year olds. The opening of the pre-K program by the Glens Falls City Schools in 2007 made it necessary to close the preschool, but we live in hope that one day soon we will be able to reshape and renew our ministry to children.
Members of FBC also established a thrift store mission which has now grown into its own entity, providing used clothes and small household items at low cost to the public and using the proceeds from sales to fund a wide variety of missions and social concerns in the Glens Falls area.
Today, FBC is a congregation typical in many ways of “Old First” churches. We have debated on several occasions the possibility of moving out to the suburbs of Queensbury, but have remained downtown, for all its troubles, feeling that God’s calling for us is to be a light in the city.
Through the years, FBC has also hosted many community gatherings. Until 2003, FBC provided space for Warren County’s Meals on Wheels site, and was a daily meal site for the Office for the Aging’s senior meals program. Since then we continue to host 12-step AA and Al-Anon groups. And in the spring of 2010 we opened our doors to the Warren Washington ARC to host a day-habilitation program for persons with disabilities.
More recently we have begun to reclaim a prophetic mission and voice, hearkening back to one of our finest hours, when in the early 1900′s, FBC played host to Susan B. Anthony in the struggle for gaining women’s voting rights. Among Warren County’s generally conservative residents the event caused enough of an uproar that the police were called to surround the building to keep the lecture’s participants safe from the mobs.
In 2005 we took a strong stand to advocate for the rebuilding of the low-income housing project in Glens Falls, which had fallen into a shameful state of disrepair. FBC was involved in the early days of founding the Open Door soup kitchen ministry. In 2006, when the roof of the rented facility on South Street caved in, FBC became that ministry’s temporary home until repairs could be made, and we continue to be involved today, providing meals on a regular basis.