First Baptist Manlius

The search that brought Reverend Burton to our pulpit in the spring of 1902 began on December 15, 1901, when a Pulpit Committee (W. N. Nightingale, H. E. Ransier, and G. H, Tripp) was nominated and undertook an extraordinary effort to find a suitable Pastor for the Manlius Baptist Church. It was a far cry from a few years earlier, when the Clerk was lamenting a shortage of eligible Pastors (and the money to pay for one.) The exact order of events in securing a Pastor was confused because of conflicting reports. The Pulpit Committee found eight candidates and by March 16, 1902, all had been heard. The Congregation voted that they had heard enough candidates. The Pulpit Committee recommended Reverends Usher, Bailey and Burton as the best of the lot. The congregation asked to hear Elder C. J. Burton again, and as a result, on March 23, 1902, in a business meeting after the evening service , voted 39 yes, 3 no and one "spoiled" to call Reverend Burton. The call was made unanimous. On March 25, 1902, the Trustees voted to pay Reverend Burton $520.00 a year and an unspecified yearly donation. The Trustees also endorsed the call of the Church to Reverend Burton.

On April 17, 1902, Prayer Meeting Night, Reverend Burton was received by letter from the Baptist Church (Oxford and Greene), Brisben, New York. Mrs. Burton was received by letter from a Church in Gilbert's Mills on April 6, 1904. In her August 21, 1902, letter to the September 1902 meeting of the Onondaga Baptist Association, Yettie Harris, Clerk, reported "after three months candidating our present Pastor, Rev. Charles J. Burton, was sent us and he is already proving himself a wise leader, winning the respect of the community and the love of the Church. We are united in all good works and full of courage for the future." She also noted that "our new parsonage had been painted, the grounds graded and a fine lawn added...Thus in things spiritual and temporal the Lord has been with us."

At a Trustee meeting called for December 10, 1902, the chair of the Finance Committee was asked to investigate the probability of getting ladies to act on the Finance Committee. On January 6, 1903, Mrs. Jennie Curtis was appointed the new chair of the Finance Committee and was given the power to appoint her assistants. We do not know who she chose for the 1903 or 1904 committees (she was the chairman for both) but the 1905 members were Miss Louise Davis (of the Davis Baking Powder Family), Mrs. G. H. Tripp, Mrs. Kate Ransier, Mrs. Allen Patrick with Mr. William Nightingale, Chairman. (For 1906 the committee consisted of five men; the experiment was over for a time.) On February 20, 1903, a donation of $80.00 was given to Pastor Burton as promised, and, in 1904, $100.00, and in 1905, $57.00.

Yettie Harris, Clerk, in her July 30, 1903, letter to the Onondaga Association Meeting of September 1903, reported, "Our pastor has been actively at work. In addition to the regular work of the Church, he has often preached Sunday afternoons at Eagle Village, two miles out." She also reported that the Church was delighted with its electricity.

An important event occurred in 1903 with the publication of our first known newsletter, The Church Reporter, Volume 00, No. 0, November l, 1903, cost 10 cents. The editor was H. E. Ransier, Church Treasurer, whose main purpose was to bring the congregation's attention to the state of the Church finances for the first nine months of the year. He made some interesting comments about the many repairs and improvements made or in progress in the Church. He inquired, "How do you like the new electric lighting of the Church?" and answered his own question by writing that "our visitors say it is as near perfection as they have seen." He reported that redecoration of the Church caused a cancellation of services on October 25, 1903, and a relocation on November 1, 1903, when services were held in Smith Hall next door. Seventy five attended Church services and Sunday School. The prayer room was being papered and new curtains hung. "It presents a very pretty appearance." "A piece of carpet from the main room will be laid soon." Mr. Ransier also mentioned that the stove may be placed in a pit under the floor. The room would be "cleaner, more roomy, and more comfortable for the leaders and those in the `amen' corner."

Mr. Ransier told of how the canvas for Electric Lighting raised the whole amount needed. "Then the ladies thought that a new carpet was needed so they proceeded to see what could be done to secure one." "When the people had been seen, they had the whole amount necessary in cash. Others said that with the new lights and carpets, the old paper would look out of place, so they began soliciting funds with decided success. So that the work has been started and will be finished soon, possibly this week."

The Church got a rebate for paying cash for the carpet; all improvements paid for. Mr. Ransier concluded with the plea, "Is it not within our ability and reasonable that a hearty effort be made to close this year (with) a clean record and a Jubilee? Unfortunately for us, this was Mr. Ransier's first and last known attempt at a newsletter.

It was "within the Church's ability" and a "hearty (and a successful effort) was made" and on February 1904 the Finance Committee chaired by Mrs. Jennie Curtis was appointed to arrange for a Jubilee Social. This was to celebrate what Yettie Harris called in her 1904 letter to the Association "a unique experience- every obligation (except for the parsonage mortgage) met, and a balance in the Treasury. A Jubilee was held and `not a few brethren from other places rejoiced with us.'"

1903 also saw the start of a new women's organization or club, comprised of the members of a ladies' Sunday School Class. The object was to promote the growth of the class, raise funds for the support of any or all projects of the Church now existing or to be undertaken, and to have a social time together at meetings, at homes, during the week with devotions, business, games, skits, music (and always delicious refreshments). The group kept a record of these activities up to June 10, 1906, skipped a page in its journal, and began the record again nineteen years later. The ladies voted to call themselves the Trojans, meaning workers. The motto selected was "My Father worketh hitherto and I work." The group organized by selecting officers and appointing committees (visiting, social and press, the latter look after the newspaper notices of the club). The group voted to retain 1/3 of the Sunday School offering collected from the class on Sunday to enhance its treasury.

Charles Jewell Burton was born in Westville, N. Y. on June 21, 1869. He entered the Hamilton Seminary as a special student in 1896 and graduated in 1901. His first pastorate was in Brisben, New York (1900-1902), where he was ordained on June 27, 1901, shortly after graduation. Charles Burton was married. His wife's name was Lydia Hollenbeck Burton.

In the August 15, 1905, letter to the Onondaga Baptist Association, Yettie Harris, Clerk, reported on a February, 1905, two week evangelical meeting conducted by Reverend Burton assisted by neighboring pastors with results so encouraging that the three churches (Presbyterian, Methodist & Baptist) held more union meetings conducted by the Evangelist Rev. W.L. Markland of Chicago. "Also at about this time, a number of Italians of the Waldenesian faith came from Sicily, one of whom preached to his countrymen in the Baptist Church, Sunday afternoons. Another, a young man (Francesio DeBartolo) was baptized by Pastor Burton and was to go to Colgate in the fall to prepare himself for work among his people either in this country or across the sea." In this letter of August 15, 1905, Yettie Harris praised the Pastor and his wife as "zealous workers much loved."

The Waldenses were a Christian religious body that believed in following the example of Jesus in the simple lifestyle, but they were most famous for their efforts to oppose and purify the Roman Catholic Church. By the 1800s they were strongest in Italy.

The Protestant Churches of Manlius continued their cooperative efforts by scheduling at times joint Sunday Evening Services. In December 1905 the Baptists and Methodists planned to hold union services the last four nights of 1905 for prayer, confessions and consultation , concluding with a watch night service on December 31, 1905.

In the Spring of 1906 Yettie Harris told of the Chapman Meeting, another series of evangelical services held in the Church. Eight were baptized and two members joined as a result of the meetings.

In 1905 the Church was 108 years old and already owned old things. The Congregation voted to send a tankard and two cups of the old communion service to the Baptist Church in Crest Bend, Kansas. On April 23, 1905, Laura Harris, daughter of Yettie and the late Reverend Charles Harris, was baptized. Laura was ten years old.

In 1904 and 1905 the last recorded removal of members for misbehavior occurred with the expulsion of a woman "who was no longer worthy of her place among us" and a man " whose conduct and language were unbecoming a Christian." This was a great change from earlier times when it appears that a major portion of time and effort of the Church was to make sure all of its members toed the straight and narrow line in all of their endeavors and much of their meeting time was devoted to that purpose.

The pastorate of Reverend Burton with the Baptists in Manlius, New York, was coming to an end. Rev. Burton's resignation was tendered to the Board of Trustees and read at the close of the Sunday Evening service April 15, 1906. At the Board of Trustees meeting on April 17, the presiding officer of the Board asked what should be done with or about the resignation of Rev. C. J. Burton. After due consideration it was voted that "in view of the fact that in all appearances a much broader field appears open and in need of his work, that the Trustees recommend to the Church and Congregation that his resignation be accepted- the same to take effect with the close of the service May 6, 1906."

On April 22, 1906, as recommended by the Board of Trustees, Rev. Burton's resignation was accepted by the Congregation. Yettie Harris wrote that Rev. Burton was "leaving for a larger field of usefulness." On May 3, 1906, letters were granted to Rev. and Mrs. C .J. Burton to unite with the Baptist Church in Catskill, New York. His resignation from his duties in Manlius took effect at the close of the service on the first Sunday in May, 1906.

Reverend Burton went from Manlius to the Catskill, New York, Baptist Church. From Catskill Reverend Burton was called to the Stroughton Street Church in Boston Massachusetts (1913-1918/19). During his pastorate in Boston, Mrs. Burton died on July 11, 1913. Reverend Burton was married to Ethel Sandell in 1915. There were two children from his second marriage, Charles J. Burton, Jr. (also to become a Hamilton Seminary Graduate) and Malcolm S. Reverend Burton's last charge was the South Street Church in Worcester, Massachusetts (1919-1937). He died there on January 5, 1937 at the age of 67.