Reformed Church of Beacon

The Reformed Church of Beacon was organized in eighteen thirteen as the Reformed Dutch Church of Fishkill Landing, part of the long Dutch Reformed tradition of the Hudson Valley. The current building, completed in eighteen sixty, replaced a small white frame church and stands on a rise above the main street of Beacon. The Dutch Reformed tradition came to the Hudson Valley in the sixteen hundreds with the original New Netherland settlers, and congregations like this one were the social and moral anchors of river communities long before American independence.

Beacon itself, originally two separate villages called Matteawan and Fishkill Landing, merged into a single city in nineteen thirteen, named for the signal fires lit on Mount Beacon during the Revolution to warn of British movements. The church building is among the oldest standing structures in the city and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.