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Our History
On November 20, 1817, twenty people met on the steps of Binghamton’s Court House to assent to the Articles of Faith and Covenant prepared for a new church — First Presbyterian Church of Binghamton. The first members were enrolled by Rev. Ebenezer Kingsbury and Rev. Joseph Wood, who were representatives of the Presbytery of Susquehanna.
Over the course of the next 150 years, as the Binghamton area grew and flourished, First Presbyterian Church provided the seeds for ten more churches: the Presbyterian Church of Castle Creek (1833–1861), First Congregational Church of Binghamton (est. 1836), North Presbyterian (1870–1980), West Presbyterian (1871–2011), Ross Memorial Presbyterian (1879–2021), Immanuel Presbyterian (est. 1887), First Presbyterian Church of Johnson City (formerly Floral Avenue Presbyterian, est. 1892), Broad Avenue Presbyterian (1894–1980), Jon Hus Presbyterian (est. 1937), and South Hills Presbyterian (1962–2006). In 1980, Broad Avenue–North Presbyterian Church was formed by merger; in 2007, they merged with First Presbyterian Church of Conklin to become Conklin Presbyterian Church and the Broad Avenue–North Presbyterian Chapel.
In the mid-1980s, as our local economy began to struggle and demographics changed, mainstream church attendance declined. After several years of study, prayer, and collaboration, in 2010 the First and West Presbyterian Church congregations voted to merge into a single new congregation, and in August 2011 they became the United Presbyterian Church of Binghamton. This merged congregation is now the steward of the 200+ years of history embodied in this church.