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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Atsion Free Union Church
Shamong Township, Burlington County

The village 0f Atsion, in the Wharton State Forest, barely appears on maps anymore, but in the last century it was the site of a thriving iron furnace. A few hundred yards in from the highway, off a dirt road apparently leading nowhere I found the Atsion church, which was once called the Richards Church and then the Free Union Church. It was built in 1828, probably by the proprietor of the furnace, about the time it was organized. Services are still held, and it is now known as the Grace Bible Church.
     A small vestibule has been added to the front, and the whole encased in aluminum, but in line and scale, it is not so different than it would have appeared to a passerby one hundred fifty years ago.
     Another hundreds yards into the woords is the remains of the old school house, boarded up and deteriorating, but still, a nice representation of a school from the 1880s or so.

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Copyright (c) 2005 Frank L. Greenagel