Old Dutch Church at Schodack, New York

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Schodack is in Rensselaer County, New York, south of Albany. Historically it was part of the Colonie of Rensselaerswyck, under the control of the van Rensselaer family.

In the early years of Schodack, baptisms and marriages were likely to be recorded in the Albany church or possibly in Claverack or Kinderhook, after churches were started in those places.

A Reformed Dutch congregation was established at Schodack in about 1770. Its first minister was Johannes Casparus Fryenmoet. For its first several decades, the Schodack congregation was too small to support its own minister, so it was united with or shared resources with other small congregations in the area. According to Vosburgh, from 1770 to 1777 it was united with Kinderhook, from 1788 to 1794 it was united with Greenbush, from 1798 to 1804 it was united with Bethlehem, and from 1804 to 1820 it was united with Nassau. ^[1]

This church is often described as the Church at Muitzeskill. The church is located in the hamlet of Muitzeskill, whic is centered on the crossroads of the Muitzes Kill Road and the Schodack Landing Road in the town of Schodack. The building of the Reformed Church of Schodack is at the crossroads. The current church building was built in 1876.

Resources

Schodack Church, Consistory Minutes, 1770-1809, are on Ancestry.com in U.S., Dutch Reformed Church Records in Selected States, 1639-1989. The title of the data set does not accurately reflect the dates of the contents. Baptisms commence in 1770 or 1771 and are recorded as late as 1832. The marriage record ends in 1831. At https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/6961/43103_356283-01212 there is a list of members received by confession of their faith on Nov. 21, 1830. Additional membership records for 1830-1831 are at https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/6961/43103_356283-01194

The church baptism and marriage records are indexed and searchable, but the member lists, pew lists, etc., do not seem to be indexed. See https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/6961/43103_356283-01213 for the approximate location of the beginning of the church history materials.

Numbered list of early members is at https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/6961/43103_356283-01213

Transcriptions of the records, done by Royden Woodward Vosburgh and published in two volumes, are online in an NYGBS collection on findmypast. As of 19 April 2020, they are not yet indexed. See https://www.newyorkfamilyhistory.org/elibrary/religious-records-new-york-state-1639-1914 for a list of church records in the NYGBS collection.

An alphabetical list of baptisms reported in the records are at https://sites.rootsweb.com/~nyrensse/muitzbapt.htm and there is a chronological list of marriages at https://rensselaer.nygenweb.net/muitzmarr.htm . The records on Ancestry.com often contain more detail than is found in these lists.

See also: Baptism and Marriage Records of the Dutch Reformed Church of New Netherland and Beyond

Footnotes

1. ↑ Vosburgh, Royden Woodward. Records of the Reformed Dutch Church of Schodack at Muitzeskill. Vol. 1. New York City: The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, 1920. Accessed on FindMyPast.com.