Designed by Philadelphia architect Benjamin Price, it is the only Victorian Gothic church in the town, and one of a few in the county.

Next to the church is a cemetery with almost two centuries of graves, including those of early Hartford settlers and some Revolutionary War veterans.

The church and cemetery occupy a 4.4-acre (1.8 ha) lot on the eastern side of Main Street at the northern end of downtown Hartford.

Across the road rises 480-foot (150 m) Christian Hill; the church grounds sloping gently down to the east.

A rubblestone and bluestone exposed foundation, which itself sits on solid rock (shale in some sections), supports the church.

The sanctuary, 33 by 48 feet (10 by 15 m), referred to as the building's auditorium, has the pews, still the original white oak with black cherry trim, facing north instead of east, reflecting the influence of the New England meetinghouse tradition.

They are affixed to 2¼-inch (6 cm) maple tongue-in-groove decking, kerfed to allow them to radiate outward, and nailed directly to the floor joists.

[1] The earliest recorded burial in the cemetery is that of Abraham Downs, an early settler of the Hartford area, in 1792.

He served under George Washington as a teenager for three years, seeing action at Bunker Hill and Groton Heights as well as surviving the difficult winter at Valley Forge.

The cemetery also has an unusual burial mound for its Civil War veterans, rare and possibly unique for the area.

During the 19th century it was locally involved in some major national issues, including the debate over slavery that culminated in the Civil War.

[1] Another of the first settlers was David Austin, land agent for DeWitt Clinton, who had bought many large tracts in the area.

The reunified church, now part of the Washington Union Baptist Association with other congregations in the county, soon found other issues to replace anti-Masonry, which had died out.

Abolitionist rallies at the church led the young men who attended to cross the street to a local cabinetmaker's house that had become a recruiting center.

They made farewell speeches at the church, marched to the green at the center of town where the war monument is today, and after a final blessing there went to catch the train to Washington at Salem, where together with a detachment from the neighboring town of Hebron they formed Company E of the 123rd New York Regiment.

[1] Tensions continued among the congregants as the late 19th-century temperance movement gathered social and political momentum.

It was particularly strong in central Washington County, where the Prohibition Party began regularly running candidates for the state legislature.

A local newspaper, the Granville Sentinel, reported that the fire had been set by someone angry about recent prosecutions of unlicensed liquor dealers.

Troy businessman William Rowe, a Hartford native, contributed generously and got others from the region who had gone south to make their fortune to do so as well.

Another benefactor, James Northup, a wealthy local potato farmer who had served in the State Assembly, contributed another thousand dollars and the Meneely bell the following year, 1892.

It was not necessary to expand it as it had been with its predecessors; the only physical changes made were the fire that burned the original parsonage in 1922 and the demolition of the sheds to the rear in 1955.