First Presbyterian Church of Newtown, 1924.

The First Presbyterian Church of Newtown is the oldest church in the borough of Queens. The congregation was established by a community of English settlers who had moved into the area in the 1650s and constructed an all-purpose thatched roof building that also served as school and town hall. In the first decades, the community was a mix of English dissidents, French Huguenots, Dutch Reformed, Church of England adherents, and others. In 1715 the church received its charter and was officially named the First Presbyterian Church of Newtown. The church was an early advocate of religious freedom in America and was the site of much strife during the American Revolution. The Presbyterian community was vehemently opposed to British rule and suffered at the hands of British soldiers, who jailed church members and used the church as a prison before demolishing it.

The church building seen here was erected only four years after the end of the war. Finished in 1787, the "Old White Church" saw the community through considerable growth during the 19th century. The surrounding graveyard (which predated this structure by decades) was the final resting place of generations of community members. In 1891 a wealthy parishioner willed $70,000 for the construction of a new building. The new brownstone church was completed across Queens Boulevard in 1895. This wood-frame structure continued to be used for church functions until it was heavily damaged by a fire in 1928, and razed one year later. The cemetery remained even after the removal of the structure; the parish sold the land in 1958. At that time, some unknown number of graves were unearthed and removed to Evergreens Cemetery in Brooklyn. Today an apartment building occupies the lot where once the 18th-century church and cemetery stood.