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No.105  September 2013
The authoritative source
on early churches in New Jersey
We've created a database and photographic inventory containing more than a
thousand of the 18th & 19th century churches in the state and add to it each
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books from Wooden Nail Press

Feature of the month Episcopal churches designed by “John Doe”

Dispatching a digital file to a printer for a new book is (1) the culmination of
12-16 months of work over an extended period, (2) one of the many satisfactions
of being an author-publisher, and (3) the last event before the sure-to-follow
bummer of discovering a typo that should have been caught. There are, of course,
additional concerns about whether the book will sell enough to cover the cost of
gas for the many trips to Cumberland County that were required. Whatever. The
Cumberland Churchscape is now with the printer and will soon (second week in
September) be available at Amazon. A sneak preview of the opening chapter is
available free (228K PDF download) here.
    High among the other satisfactions is discovering the identify of a hitherto
unknown architect for a exceptional building. My research is generally limited
to close examination of the printed literature, making inquiries of the resident
minister, and sometimes looking for stylistic parallels with churches of known
architects. In Cumberland that approach revealed an unusually rich architectural
provenance for an early Presbyterian church. The close similarity of the Bethany
Presbyterian church in Bridgeton to St. John's Episcopal church in Salem and a
happy reference to an identical church in Easton, Maryland lead to information
that supports a firm conclusion that Philadelphia architect William Strickland
was responsible for all three. Moreover, I am convinced on the basis of plan and
style that the basic plan was borrowed from Ithiel Town's Trinity Church in New
Haven, Connecticut, erected some 20 years earlier. Town drew on James Gibbs'
book, A Book of Architecture, who got his inspiration from All Saints, in Derby,
England, a thirteen-century parish church. The English penchant for
record-keeping might reveal the name of All Saints' architect, but that would be
pressing our luck. The connection between medieval England and South Jersey by
way of London and New Haven is a delight; an unexpected bonus from a county
whose mid-nineteenth century churchscape was generally dominated by vigorous and
sometimes raucous revival meetings led by unlettered exhorters who probably
couldn't qualify to run for office.
     That connection, in any case, is a prelude to the real matter of this
month's feature, which is my inability to identify the architect for a handful
of exceptional nineteenth century churches, many, as it turns out, Episcopalian.
I have flipped my inadequacies as a researcher around, you may have noticed, and
implied in my title is that Episcopal priests and vestries, however much they
cared about Gothic arches, buttresses and fully-articulated chancels, were
overly circumspect about recording the name of the architect, hence the
placeholder name of John Doe for the individual whose identity in not known.
That's an overbroad generalization, of course, because the work of Upjohn,
Wills, Dudley, Notman and others are well known. Here I've listed several fine
Episcopal churches that were certainly done by an accomplished architect whom
diligent efforts have failed to identify. Maybe you can help.

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St. Paul's Church, Rahway. b. 1843

St. Paul’s is a gem—a primitive Gothic building, which owes more to the
Neoclassical Wren-Gibbs form than to the Gothic idiom. By the 1840s the
Episcopal leadership in New York and New Jersey began to urge the Gothic style
of the fourteenth century English parish church as the only acceptable design
for Episcopal churches. Hence the rectangular footprint (the chancel at the rear
was a later addition) with a projecting tower centered on the nave. This
building has more in common with Reformed churches in Bergen County built 80
years earlier than it has with Episcopal churches built a few miles away 15
years later. The large Gothic arch windows were unmistakable Gothicisms, but
were occasionally found on even Greek Revival churches. It is clear that
architects and builders were trying to make use of Gothic elements but were not
yet comfortable and simply tacked on decorative items; the pointed arch windows,
pinnacles and crenelations atop the belfry are the only Gothic elements of the
exterior. The church has much in common with Ithiel Town's Trinity Church in New
Haven (CT), erected 25 years earlier. At this time, architects were often
regarded as little more than house-carpenters by the elite, so it is perhaps not
unusual that there is no record of the architect or builder.

St. Andrews Church, Mount Holly. b.1844

St. Andrew’s was founded as a mission church of St. Mary’s, Burlington by the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) in 1742 and their first building
was located in what is now the graveyard on Pine Street. The second church was
begun in 1786, but not completed until 1813. The present church was built in
1844, the corner stone being laid by Bishop Doane, an unremitting advocate of
the English Gothic style, who certainly had a voice in the selection of the
architect. We know that James Powell, a deacon of the Baptist church, was the
contractor, but he did not design the church, which is an early example of the
perpendicular Gothic style. The buttresses reach to the top of the tower, which
has a crenelated parapet and elongated pinnacles. Fine tracery in the windows
and what appear to be crockets on the pinnacles. It is built of brick, with a
rough-cast (stucco) covering. The extended chancel and vestry were added in the
1880s. A conversation with the rector regarding design and construction records
a few years ago was unproductive. There is nothing naive about the plan or
execution—note, for example, the way the corner buttresses are canted 45
degrees.

St. Peter's Church, Perth Amboy. b. 1852

St. Peter’s is reputedly the oldest Episcopal parish in New Jersey. Records show
the first service was held in 1685 or 1698 when 12 Church of England
communicants designated themselves the Congregation of St. Peter’s Episcopal
Church. Early records are often ambiguous or inconsistent and it is sometimes
difficult to determine theagree-upon date of a church's founding. Congregations
like to adopt the earliest date that can be plausibly supported. The first
building was erected shortly thereafter, and the second in 1722. That one was
destroyed by fire and this fine Gothic structure erected in 1852. Like the Mt
Holly church, the stepped buttresses of the tower are functional, not just
decorative; the square tower yields to an octagonal spire. Lancet windows have
replaced the wide Gothic arch windows of Rahway's church. A major renovation was
needed after the Black Tom explosions at the munitions plant across Raritan Bay
in 1918 caused significant damage to ceilings, walls and windows.

St. John's Church, Elizabeth. b. 1860

St. John’s was organized in 1706 by a missionary of the SPG, and the present
building is the third church on the site. This Gothic Revival building was
erected in 1860 at a cost of $50,000. The interior is a fine example of
provincial English Gothic architecture.
According to correspondence with Rev. Joe Parrish, Rector of St. Johns, the
church was designed “after the twelfth century-church, St. Mary the Virgin, the
‘university church’ of Oxford University. The outside of St. John’s seems to be
modeled after Magdalen College of Oxford, near St. Mary’s. We have not been able
to determine the name of the architect, however.” It seats approximately 700 and
is the largest Episcopal church in New Jersey. The stepped buttresses, pinnacles
and decorative belt courses became staples of Episcopal architecture for several
decades. With respect to obligatory features for the (New York-based)
Ecclesiological Society that had great influence on Anglican church design at
this time, St. John's is somewhat lacking: there is no transept, no clerestory
and the chancel is too shallow.
Rev. Parrish remarked that St. John’s was apparently built to be the cathedral
church for the whole state but was left somewhat orphaned when Bishop Odenheimer
drew the line for the new Diocese of Newark only about three miles north of St.
John’s, and it never became a cathedral. Under those circumstances it is very
curious that the architect has not been identified.

St. Luke's Church, Metuchen. b. 1890

In the last decade of the nineteenth century the architectural profession was
flourishing and there were dozens of accomplished local architects operating out
of Newark, Elizabeth, Trenton, Plainfield and Jersey City. This is a wonderful
example of a Carpenter Gothic church; its proportions areideal (my judgment) and
the details quite elegant. Board-and-batten construction had been an Episcopal
tradition for 50 years since Upjohn's early work for that denomination. The
bargeboard is fascinating, the timbered supports of the entrance porch another
Episcopal tradition. The symmetrical placement of lancet windows and the small
rose windowpositioned at the point of the roof of the porch are all from Gothic
traditions. The open belfy looks like ones modified from Upjohn plans of a
half-century earlier. In my opinionit is the product of an accomplished
architect, not a local builder working from a set of plans. It has recently been
repainted in authentic colors. It was built after publication of Clayton's 1882
History of Union and Middlesex Counties, so there is no help there or on the
church's website.

Christ Church, Orange. b. 1891

The Episcopal congregation was organized in 1868 and this elegant building,
their second church, erected in 1891. It is an example of the high style that a
congregation aimed to project in this city of many fine churches. The porte
cochére made a statement—a sign that people in this congregation were accustomed
to arriving in carriages. The building has all the required elements of an
Eccesiologically-correct church—a deep articulated chancel, an east-oriented
altar, south entrance and transepts; the exterior is clearly of a later vintage
than the Gothic Revival churches of 40 years earlier. The light-colored stone
and the mixture of rounded turrets and square battlements are not elements
likely to have been found on a Gothic Revival church of the 1850s. But having
established an Anglican “brand” (to use today’s parlance), the High Church
vestry here was confident enough to approve a more contemporary look for its
church. The reredos (above) is exceptional.
Because the choice of an architect had symbolic value, a New York architect with
a national reputation would have been an obvious decision. Congregations in this
period were frequently in competition for social and cultural pre-eminence in a
city, and there were several other exceptionally fine churches in the immediate
neighborhood. The quality of the decorative elements—reredos, hammerbeams,
chancel amenities—as well as the size of the church suggests this building was a
vigorous assertion of the congregation’s leadership.

St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Lumberton. b. 1896-97

This stylish Episcopal church borrowed an English name—St. Martin’s in the
Field—an important Neoclassical church by James Gibbs located in London. This
St. Martins was erected in 1896, and I suspect the congregation was organized
about that time. It is clearly the product of an experienced architect, not the
product of a set of standard plans.
By this time, architects were comfortable mixing stone, brick, terracotta and
shingles. Notice the elements of an Ecclesiologically-correct Episcopal church
are mostly here—the articulated chancel, an east-oriented altar, transepts—even
the buttressed stone foundation. There is no information about the history of
the church on its website.

Episcopal churches are not alone in this failing; other John Doe churches
include the Methodist church in Mount Holly (b.1883), the Romanesque Livingston
Avenue Baptist church in New Brunswick (b. 1893), the impressive early Greek
Revival Presbyterian church in Sykesville ( b. 1844), St. Cloud Presbyterian in
West Orange ( b. 1890), and the delightful Scotch Plains Baptist church (b.
1870), are also orphans (in the sense their paternity is unknown).
Several are on the National Register of Historic Places, which means that the
architect's name has eluded the efforts of even the architectural historians who
prepared the extensive applications necessary to get listed. That, somehow,
makes me feel a little less defensive about my own research failures. With four
exceptions, all were built after the Civil War, which is significant because
before the war any architect without a national or substantial regional business
was likely to be regard as a house-carpenter, or at best, a contractor-builder.
Which many of them had been. The point is that these are not obscure church
(with the exception of the church in Sykesville), and several of the
congregations have published commemorative books celebrating their centennials
written by people who presumably had access to the minutes and other records of
the church. Perhaps "crowd-sourcing" will provide some names. The writers at
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A Mighty Architectural Shout: The Development of Religious Architecture in Essex
County, a book I've been working on for almost seven years (not steadily, of
course). It treats the 109 remaining churches and one surviving synagogue in the
county in a series of two- and four-page spreads, but the real subject is the
social, liturgical and cultural forces that shaped the churchscape. I deal with
the major factors—immigration, pluralism, urbanization and industrialization and
the wealth accumulation it produced, and how those factors are reflected in the
plan and design of the religious architecture of the county.

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