Dating an Undated Glass Lantern Slide Showing the Little Red Church (Huguenot Memorial Presbyterian Church)

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During a recent weekend, while working in the collections of The Office of The Historian of The Town of Pelham I came across an interesting glass lantern slide. It was in an archival envelop labeled incorrectly "St. Paul's". Upon viewing the slide it was readily apparent that it contained an image of the Little Red Church that stood on the site of today's Huguenot Memorial Church until 1917 when it was moved to a nearby lot across Pelhamdale Avenue on Boston Post Road.

The little church was constructed as part of the Pelham Manor & Huguenot Heights development in 1876. The last service in the Little Red Church took place on December 10, 1916. As noted above, however, the building was not demolished at that time. Rather, it was moved across Pelhamdale Avenue to a site on Boston Post Road near the Getty service station located there today. It was used as a retail store for many years until it finally was razed.

The cornerstone of today's Huguenot Memorial Presbyterian Church building was laid on Children's Day, June 10, 1917.

The image below shows the glass lantern slide containing the image of the Little Red Church building. The slide is kept within the glass negative and glass lantern slide collection of William R. Montgomery, former Pelham Town Historian.

Interestingly, the image is undated and there is no record of when the picture was taken. However, computer enhancement of the image may have allowed me to date the photograph fairly accurately.

You will note that in the image above, there are two tiny signs attached to the tree that appears in the left foreground of the image. I have scanned that portion of the glass lantern slide at very high resolution to magnify it and have digitally enhanced the resultant image. This makes it possible to read the lower sign. A small version of the digitally enhanced image appears immediately below.

The sign reads as follows:

"DURING BUILDING
OPERATIONS
SERVICES WILL BE
HELD AT THE
MANOR CLUB
SUN SCH'L AT 10
CHURCH AT 11 15
EVERYONE WELCOME"

This sign strongly suggests to me that the photograph was taken between December 10, 1916 (the date of the last service in the church building) and June 10, 1917 (when the cornerstone for today's church building was laid).

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