{"nrhp_refnum":"96000371","name":"First Old School Baptist Church of Roxbury and Vega Cemetery","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Near Jct. of Co. Rt. 36 and Cartwright Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Roxbury","county":"Delaware County","state":"NY","lat":42.24935026000006,"lon":-74.53599304816817,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1996-04-12","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Religion","Community Planning and Development"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A rural historic district in Vega, Town of Roxbury, Delaware County, New York, consisting of a Greek Revival Old School Baptist meeting house built in 1856, the adjoining Vega Cemetery, and related site and structure features.","why_significant":"The nomination presents the church as a largely intact, restrained example of a traditional meeting house built by Primitive (Old School) Baptists. It also documents the congregation's roots in a 1796 church said to be the first of any denomination in Roxbury. The church and cemetery together illustrate the Old School Baptist movement and rural community life in the Catskills.","narrative":"Along County Route 36 in the Catskill hamlet of Vega, a small white meeting house and an adjoining burial ground mark the home of the First Old School Baptist congregation of Roxbury. The front-gabled, wood-framed church was built in 1856 and shows restrained Greek Revival detail: a plain entablature, corner pilasters and a pedimented west facade. Inside are a shallow vestibule with curved gallery stairs, a plain meeting room, a U-shaped gallery and simple bench pews. The nearby creek served for baptisms by immersion. The Vega Cemetery holds early nineteenth-century marble stones and graves of congregation elders and members of the wider community. The congregation traces its origin to a Baptist church organized in 1796, reputedly the first in the town, and later aligned with the Old School faction opposed to centralized missionary organization. The district is recognized for preserving a nearly unaltered rural religious setting.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Mid-19th Century, Greek Revival","criteria":[],"status_note":"Church exterior is essentially intact to 1856; foundation, sills and floor joists were restored in 1991 and window sashes restored in 1994. Historic and current functions are both religious and funerary.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:51:50.412339-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NY/96000371.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/96000371/400af3681c-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/96000371/400af3681c-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"Lalmeister","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:New_York_-_First_Old_School_Baptist_Church_of_Roxbury_and_Vega_Cemetery_-_20171001130406.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Lalmeister</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:New_York_-_First_Old_School_Baptist_Church_of_Roxbury_and_Vega_Cemetery_-_20171001130406.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75317205","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Old_School_Baptist_Church_of_Roxbury_and_Vega_Cemetery","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5453463"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/new-york/delaware-county/first-old-school-baptist-church-of-roxbury-and-vega-cemetery-96000371/"}