Hamlet of Stone Church

Route 19 & Bovee Road

Stone Church is in the southeast part of the Town of Bergen. Like other hamlets, the church served as a focal point. The church, once Congregational and now Presbyterian, was organized on January 24, 1828. The hamlet was called Stone Church because the original church building was made of stone from nearby Fort Hill.

The community grew up on both sides of Lake Road (Route 19) where Bovee Road and Maple Road form a four-corners. There was an old tavern built of fieldstone across from the church. The building, built by Colonel Norton S. Davis in 1824, still stands although today it is covered with stucco. It has ten rooms, each with a fireplace, and a basement with a functioning cooking fireplace. There was also a stone store and post office.

The school, the second erected in District No. 2, was built in 1843. The one-story frame building now covered with stucco houses the Bergen Museum of Local History and stands north of the church.

In 1854 W.O. Smith had a store. There was a post office, church, parsonage, and a blacksmith shop. By 1869, D.F. Dudley was doing carpenter and joiner work. Benjamin F. Henderson was a butcher, fishmonger, and farmer; Abner Hull was a notary public and farmer. Mr. Hull was the father of Carlos Abner Hull who was county clerk for 36 years and was called the “Grand Old Man of Genesee County.”

Around 1890, there were about 80 people living in Stone Church and M. Seeley was operating the store. In 1962, Sheard’s Dairy Store opened and James Williams ran Scatt’s Paint Shop.

Stone Church is in the Towns of LeRoy and Bergen. There was a story told about one house in Stone Church that was built on the town line with half of the house in each town. The law says you pay taxes to the town you sleep in, so, as the bedroom was in Bergen, they paid taxes to Bergen. It is said that once a man lived there who often had trouble with the law. So, if a police officer came to the door from LeRoy, he would evade trouble by running over into the Bergen part of his house and on the other side of the coin, if a Bergen lawman came to the door, he would take refuge in the LeRoy side. This house is now at the Genesee Country Museum at Mumford.

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