1925 Silver Bay — Reaching out to community

Silver Bay Association was connecting with the surrounding communities a century ago.

“The Young People’s Division of the Warren County Sunday School Association will inaugurate a new project on May 9 when it will hold its first county conference at Silver Bay,” The Post-Star of Glens Falls reported on April 20, 1925.

Key-note speaker of the day-long conference would be International Y. M. C. A. Country Secretary Albert E. Roberts of New York City.

Edith Quick, secretary of the New York State Council on Religious Education, also was to speak.

Y. M. C. A. General Secretary Joseph Garrison was to be song leader.

“All young people of Warren County are invited to participate in the conference and to make it a county-wide benefit.”

It was a memorable day, The Ticonderoga Sentinel reported of the conference, which 30 teens from Ticonderoga attended.

“This was one of the best conferences held in the region. The place was ideal and the conveniences unsurpassed. … Glens Falls and Silver Bay won in the Warren County song contest, and Ticonderoga was given honorable mention.”

In other 1925 Silver Bay news collected from historic newspapers:

• “Silver Bay is a busy center with conferences of many types continually in session,” The Lake George Mirror reported on July 4. “The College Y. W. C. A. delegation left Monday and yesterday 350 members of the Missionary Education Movement arrived. The speakers include many workers from the field on furlough in this country.”
• The Rev. Reuben W. Shaun, U.S. Navy chaplain assigned to President Calvin Coolidge’s yacht “Mayflower” was among the speakers at the Presbyterian Young People’s Christian Union Conference at Silver Bay Association, The Lake George Mirror reported on July 25.

About 1,000 people attended the week-long conference which opened July 20.

U.S. Rep. William Uphsaw, a Democrat from Atlanta, was keynote speaker on the opening night, The Post-Star reported on July 29.

Upshaw was known as the “dryest of dries,” not because of his speaking style but because of his fervent advocacy for temperance.

Later in the conference Upshaw was called on to make an impromptu tribute speech when the conference received word that three-time Democratic presidential candidate and Christian fundamentalist speaker William Jennings Bryan had died.

President Calvin Coolidge sent greeting to the conference via telegraph.

“It is gratifying to see the magnificent progress of the movement for the betterment of mankind,” Coolidge wrote. “The impression made on civilization by religious thinking is immeasurable and inspires a wholesome desire to lend encouragement to those engaged in the work and devotion to the praiseworthy cause for which the organization merits the approval of everyone who is truly interested in promoting human welfare.”

Argyle Presbyterian, in Washington County, received a trophy for the most dedicated to holding local events over the past year and making sacrifices to attend the convention, The Glens Falls Times reported on Aug. 4.

“This was also the largest gathering ever held at Silver Bay.”

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