Transcribed by Crist Middaugh
From Allegany County Reporter, March 29, 1883
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An Old Church,
(Belfast Free Press)
We find the following notice in the Friendship Register, and we hope the object of the appeal may be carried out. There were not many churches in Allegany County when that one was built. There may have been one in Almond, and a Presbyterian and Methodist one in Angelica. The old Baptist edifice stood where it does now in 1831, when we first sat eyes upon the then quiet and undemonstrative village of Friendship.
A proposition has been made to purchase the old Baptist church, now the oldest church building in Allegany County, and convert it into a memorial building for the use of the Grand Army of the Republic, and pioneer relics, and to move it to the Island where ground will be given in perpetual lease by its owners for patriotic purposes, and the subjoined committee appointed by Hatch Post, No. 241, Grand Army of the Republic, do hereby appeal to all patriotic and public spirited citizens to help in voluntary subscriptions, and other material aid, to secure this historical building and make it one of the future attractions of our growing town.
Jno. A. Copeland,
A.J. Wellman,
A.B. Bradley.