The authoritative source on
  early churches of New Jersey

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We've created a database and photographic inventory on more than half the 18th & 19th century churches in the state and add to it each month. We welcome and solicit all contributions and suggestions from our visitors.

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   Photographic Inventory

North Dutch Church of Sandyston
Hainesville, Sandyston Township, Sussex County

Until 1911 when the Methodists built their new church across the street, the Sandyston Township Volunteer Fire Department building was known as the Union Church. Originally erected in 1855 as an outpost of the Minisink Reformed church in Montague, but with the proviso that it might be used by any orthodox congregation (which generally meant non-Catholic in those days), by the 1870s, the church was used by both Reformed and Methodist congregations. The Methodist congregation had been organized about 1835, but Snell has almost nothing to say about the origins of the Reformed congregation. After 1911, no further services were held in the building. By the 1950s it had fallen into disuse and was converted into a hall for the Fire Company. The building has been so completely reworked that nothing except perhaps the size or scale of it is of any historic merit.