Drew Methodist Church

In 1878, writer and abolitionist, Jonathan Townley Crane and Mary Helen Peck Crane and their nine children moved from Paterson, New Jersey to Port Jervis. Crane served as pastor for the Drew Methodist Church until his death in 1880. A six and a half year old Stephen Crane, along with his brother and future lawyer, William Howe Crane, his sister and writer and teacher, Agnes Elizabeth Crane and his brother Luther Peck Crane, future brakeman and flagman for the Erie Railroad, lived with their family at the parsonage. The original church was destroyed by a windstorm in 1893. The second church was destoryed by a fire nearly one hundred years later. The current structure was built in 1999. The Drew House, the parish house (pictured to the left), was built in 1920 and has since been sold by the church. Today it is a guest house, the Victorian at Orange Square.