Black Methodist church rebuilt as replica

The church stood on the outskirts of Liverpool from 1841 to 1908, when a fire destroyed the building.

The Queens County Museum has a copy of the only known photograph of the church.

Schrader decided he would build the model last December.

It took him three or four months to complete, he said.

He learned the craft of building model houses from his father while still in school.

After retiring in 1988, Schrader made it his hobby.

He already has two model buildings on display in the Queens County Museum of the Liverpool Town Hall and Dr. Smith’s house in Liverpool.

A model of the Alton house is on display in Caledonia, he said.

The Hank Snow Museum also displays a model he built of the train station.

Schrader also has four or five models on display in his yard on Wolfe Street in Liverpool.

The Black Methodist Episcopal Church is the first model he has furnished on the inside.

“I didn’t know what was inside the church,” and neither did anyone else, explained Schrader, so “I just made what I thought was in it.”

He decided to donate the church to the museum because he “thought it would be the best place for it.”

Schrader is now preparing to build a replica of Perkins House.