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

Free Union Church
Liberty Township, Warren County



Union churches, supported by Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, and Christian members (usually) were not uncommon in the early decades of the nineteenth century, especially in the west central part of the state. Free Union is a hamlet in the center of Warren County, and this church was erected about 1853 as just such a church. It was used by preachers of almost every denomination, it seems, but eventually the Methodist took it over.
     Snell (1881) lists a Union Methodist Episcopal church at the foot of the Jenny Jump Mountain on the border of Hope Townships (where this sits) but locates it in Hope Township. That congregation, he says, was organized in 1785-80 and they built a church in 1856. It is possible that Snell was confused, because he also included a listing for the Free Union church which he claims was organized in 1868 (much too late a date, according to other sources, especially Hampton's Centennial History of the Newark Council of Methodist Churches) and erected a builting in 1876 (which is also too late for this building, in my opinion).