Episcopal Church

St. John’s Episcopal Church, Highgate // 1831

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St. John’s Episcopal Church stands in a grove of pine trees at the southeastern end of the Highgate Falls village green in Highgate, Vermont. The church is built in a transitional style which combines the pointed arches of Gothic architecture with a unique Gothic-Palladian window, but with a traditional plan and massing commonly found in Federal style churches in New England. The church was built between 1831-1833 by Joel Whitney of nearby Enosburg, and was consecrated on May 21, 1834, by Rev. John Henry Hopkins, the first Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont. The congregation was a full parish until 1896 and maintenance has since struggled due to dwindling use. The wooden steeple was removed in the late 20th century, but the church stands as an important architectural landmark for the small town.

St. Christopher’s-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church // 1892

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In 1891, a proposal was made to build a summer Episcopal chapel, to be known as St. Christopher’s by the Sea, on Grindstone Neck in Winter Harbor, Maine. This project was supported by local area residents and by the summer community on Grindstone Neck. The construction of the church started in 1892, but it was not until August 6, 1893 that the first service was held in the chapel. The Rev. Julius Atwood, rector of St. James’ Church in Providence, Rhode Island, officiated and preached the first sermon. The church was designed by Lindley Johnson, a Philadelphia-based architect who also summered in a cottage on Grindstone Neck and designed other cottages in the colony. The Shingle style chapel is architecturally unique and rustic, a quality which is also visible at the interior, which is rustic in appearance with exposed beams and shingled walls.

St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church // 1914

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When Ridgefield, Connecticut was settled in 1708 by Europeans, there was only one Episcopal Church in the state, and the general assembly allowed dissenters their own churches so long as they continued to pay taxes to support the Congregational Church. Ridgefield’s first Episcopal church, St. Stephen’s was built in 1740 on land granted by the Proprietors who founded the town and laid out lots along the towns new Main Street. In 1776, St. Stephen’s minister, Epenetus Townsend, a Tory (loyal to the British), was ordered to leave town with his wife and five children when the Revolution picked up steam. He was appointed chaplain to a British regiment and in 1779, the battalion was ordered to Nova Scotia. En route by vessel, a severe storm arose and all passengers were lost. The church was taken over by the commissary department of the American Army. During the Battle of Ridgefield, British troops set it on fire as a statement to the townspeople. The church was replaced two more times until 1914 when the present building was constructed. The Colonial Revival church is absolutely stunning and built from plans by (unknown to me) architect Walter Kerr Rainsford. The rubblestone church is one of the most pleasing designs I have seen in Connecticut!

Grace Episcopal Church, Providence // 1845

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By 1829, the population of Providence, Rhode Island was spreading from the east side of the Providence River (near Brown University) to the west. Around this time, two dozen parishioners of the St. John’s Episcopal Church on Providence’s East Side purchased the old Providence Theater on the west side of town and renovated it for use as a church. By 1835, the congregation grew to 260, and a new church building was needed. Grace Church hired the foremost architect of the time, Richard Upjohn, to design the beautiful new building, which was the first asymmetrical Gothic Revival church in America when it was completed in 1846! In addition to its architectural significance, the building contains the first painted windows ever seen in Rhode Island. Downtown Providence eventually grew up around the church, really diminishing the chance at a good photo of the building, but later urban renewal and the razing of parts of the downtown area (many undeveloped to this day) provide some interesting sightlines of the towering steeple.

St. Saviour’s Rectory // 1898

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Standing adjacent to the beautiful St. Saviour’s Episcopal Church in Bar Harbor (last post), the church’s Rectory building fits very well into the landscape here. Built in 1898, the rectory is a two-and-a-half-story stone and frame home with a projecting entrance porch at the facade framed by a pair of steeply pitched gables. The Rectory was designed by Westray Ladd who grew up in the area, and worked in the office of Wheelwright & Haven in Boston, Massachusetts as well as with William Emerson and Peabody & Stearns before opening up a firm in Pennsylvania.

St. Saviour’s Episcopal Church // 1877

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Initially erected in 1877 and enlarged several times thereafter, the St. Saviour’s Episcopal Church in Bar Harbor is an excellent example of ecclesiastical architecture in the state of Maine. The original church building had been erected in 1877-78 at a cost of about $7,000 from designs by the New York architect Charles C. Haight. Within eight years of its construction, space limitations caused the church to undertake a major expansion. Designed by the Boston architectural firm of Rotch and Tilden, this building campaign – carried out in 1885-86 – dramatically changed the church’s appearance by developing a cross shaped plan that made use of the original structure for transepts and added a larger nave, semi-circular apse, and an imposing crossing tower. The numerous building campaigns designed by both prominent and lesser known architects, have produced a rich eclectic architectural legacy that mirrors the development of Bar Harbor.

St. Luke’s Episcopal Church // 1871

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Next door to the Inn Victoria, the beautiful St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Chester, VT, stands out as one of the only Gothic Revival buildings in the town. A small group of residents gathered in the 1860s to found a Episcopal church in the town, which already had a dominant Congregational church. They furnished money which was matched by the diocese, and Merrick Wentworth was named senior warden. Members of his family and that of Frederick Fullerton, his son-in-law, formed a large part of the congregation. Frederick and Philette Wentworth Fullerton donated a building site across the street from their home, and Mr. Wentworth’s nephew, Boston architect, William P. Wentworth, contributed plans for a Gothic-style frame church, which includes a tall corner belltower.

St. Michael’s Episcopal Church // 1860

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While I love the quintessential white, wood-frame New England churches that proliferate the region, the stone, Gothic churches always make me stop in my tracks; and this example in Bristol is no exception! St. Michael’s parish was founded in 1718 as one of the Rhode Island’s four colonial churches, funded and overseen from London. The first church, built in 1720, was ironically later burned during a British raid in 1778. It was replaced in 1785 by a plain wooden meetinghouse with funds from local residents and partitioners. In 1833, it was replaced by a wood-frame Gothic church which burned in 1858. Undeterred, the church hired New York City architects Alexander Saeltzer and Lawrence B. Valk, who designed the present brownstone Gothic Revival church. Just over a decade later, the church hired Worcester architect Stephen C. Earle, to design a chapel and parish house, across the street. The chapel building follows the Gothic Revival style, but with more Victorian flair, and is also constructed of brownstone to compliment the church. Together, the two structures transport you to the English countryside with their design and presence on the main street in town. What do you think of them?