Mount Vernon Seventh-day Adventist Church

Our journey began in the fall of 1932. Thaddeus Wilson, Sr. a layman and local elder of the New Rochelle Seventh-day Adventist Church, purchased two thousand Present Truth tracks and invited James North, also a layman, to accompany him in a systematic distribution of the tracks in the Mount Vernon area. It was their wish to start a Bible class. They told the people to whom they gave the tracks that they were missionaries for God and they would be back the following Sunday with another tract. Their persistence paid off. A weekly Bible study class begun and in less than a month the interest and attendance had grown.

Thaddeus Wilson, Sr. and James North fasted and prayed that God would open a way for them to move forward with a self-supporting tent effort. Shortly after, a tent was purchased, which seated 120 people and was pitched at the corner of South Eighth Avenue and West Third Street on July 1933. For ten weeks, evangelistic meetings were held and the effort became a success. It created widespread interest among the communities in the Mount Vernon area and the news about it was also published in the local papers. As a result, nine individuals were baptized and the following year eight more persons.

The seventeen new believers from both efforts became members of the New Rochelle Church, and later formed the nucleus of the Mount Vernon Mission. During the Mission’s growth, the New Rochelle Church was very supportive. They gave their means and time to help the mission, and the work in Mount Vernon. In 1939, Elder Wilson, now an ordained minister, was made the pastor of the new congregation. In that year, the mission was organized into a church. This was a milestone in the history of the Mount Vernon Church.

Twenty-one pastors have shepherded this church starting with Elder Thaddeus Wilson, Sr. to our present Pastor Pierre Eddy Laguerre. The Mount Vernon Church has seen and experienced the goodness of the Lord over the years. To Him be the glory and the honor for ever and ever.