Title: St. John’s Evangelical Church Cemetery Records

Date Span: c. 1900-1998

Acquisition Number: N/A

Creator: St. John’s Evangelical Church

Donor: St. John’s Evangelical Church

Date of Acquisition: 1998

Extent: 1 reel

Format: Microfilm; 16mm filmed with a 34X lens

Language: English

Locations: The Monroe Fordham Regional History Center, Archives & Special Collections Department, E. H. Butler Library, SUNY Buffalo State

Processed: Reprocessed 2017, Hope Dunbar

Access: 
The St. John’s Evangelical Church Cemetery Records are open for research. Materials are only available on microfilm for access within the department. Appointment required.

Reproduction of Materials: 
See Archivist for information on reproducing materials from this collection, including photocopies, digital camera images, or digital scans, as well as copyright restrictions that may pertain to these materials. 

Even though all reasonable and customary best-practices have been pursued, this collection may contain materials with confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations. Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the SUNY Buffalo State assumes no responsibility.

Preferred Citation: 
[Description and dates], Box/Item/Reel number, St. John’s Evangelical Church Cemetery Records, The Monroe Fordham Regional History Center, Archives & Special Collections Department, E. H. Butler Library, SUNY Buffalo State.

Biographical Note:
St. John's was organized by 21 people in 1847 as United Evangelical St. John's Congregation in Black Rock, a German speaking congregation. For the first five years, members met in homes, a school and a Baptist church.

The congregation's first church building was completed in 1852 and extensively remodeled in the late 1870s. Soon afterward, lightning struck it, destroying the steeple and the pipe organ. The damage was repaired within a year, but by 1889 the congregation needed a larger church. So the congregation demolished the old church and built a new one -- the present one -- on the same site.

The congregation was reorganized on March 9, 1900, by 35 charter members as St. John's Reformed Church of South Buffalo. For several decades, services were conducted in German. In 1904, the congregation joined the Evangelical Synod of North America and became St. John's Evangelical Church. When the Evangelical Synod of North America merged with the Reformed Church in 1934, the Black Rock church became St. John's Evangelical and Reformed Church.

The name was changed to St. John's United Church of Christ after the merger in 1957 of the Congregational Christian Churches and the Reformed Church. The church closed its doors in 1999 and was located at 85 Amherst St, Buffalo, New York 14207. News article concerning the closing is included in the collection.

Scope and Contents:
Cemetery records. The records in this collection belong to St. John's United Church of Christ on Amherst Street, pertain mainly to the operation of their church cemetery. The records belong to the church board and were compiled in their present format by Mr. David Hoock, one of the key board members. Some of the records filmed are the property of his family.

Arrangement:
This collection was housed in 5 loose leaf notebooks. The first notebook contains "Cemetery Taxes and Letters." The other four notebooks contain the records pertaining to the cemetery "lots." The purchasers of the lots are listed in alphabetical order.

The church closed its doors in 1999 and was located at 85 Amherst St, Buffalo, New York 14207. News article concerning the closing is included in the collection.