No. 67  May 2008
The authoritative source on early churches in New Jersey

ISSN 1543-3250

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The Warren Churchscape

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Abandonings: Ottertail County

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Florence - unknown building

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Freehold - First Baptist

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Feature of the month

In search of Charles Graham, architect

For most of the nineteenth century in this country, architects were anonymous individuals only recently elevated from master builder, contractor or undertaker—one who undertook to erect a building. The county histories published in the 1880s (Snell, Ellis, Munsell, etc.) rarely include the architect's name, although the members of the church's building committee are invariably listed. But the names of architects are important for they lead to comparisons between buildings as well as to a grasp of the development of architectural styles, and that is one of our main questions—why do the churches look the way they do?

I have explored here and in my books several factors: liturgical requirements, especially for Episcopals, Catholics and Quakers; ethnic and regional traditions, which tended to disappear after the early decades of the nineteenth century; availability of building materials and construction traditions, which may account for the number of brick churches in the southern part of the state and the stone ones in the north; the availability of denomination-issued plan books following the Civil War; the meme (a widespread notion) of what an “ideal” church should look like; and the influence of a popular architect such as Upjohn, Keely, O'Rourke, Wood, and Cady, which is the matter at hand in this article.

James Goltra, a builder of many churches in the Somerset County area married the daughter of a Presbyterian minister, which probably did not hurt his business prospects. He lived to be 80 and continued working until almost the end of his life. And he brought his son into the business. We can tie Goltra with certainty to only a couple of churches in the state, but certainly a builder-contractor with a success record is going to have some influence with a building committee that specifies a “plain and neat building, 40x60, in the current style,” as several committees did. Somerset county has a number of Reformed churches built to a recessed entry, pilasters-flanking-Ionic-columns Greek Revival plan within a year or two of 1850, one of which we know Goltra worked on. In 1856 an identical Greek Revival church was erected in Colts Neck for a Reformed church, and the architect credited with the building is Ebenezer Goltra. Can we infer that Ebenezer was James' son? Reasonably, in my opinion. So now we have at least a hypothesis about why a church in Monmouth county, erected when the Greek Revival style's popularity was rapidly fading in favor of Gothic, looks the way it does.

I have called attention here to the many “bankfront churches,” as I naively called them in an early article on this website to a single source—the Old George Street Methodist Church in Philadelphia, regarded as the mother church of Methodists in this country. That influence is pretty clear. But sometimes the best efforts still end up nowhere, as my attempt to identify a common architect or set of plans for the many Wren-Gibbs derived churches build in the central part of the state in the 1870s. We can tie Goltra and a Mendham architect named Aaron Hudson to two of them, but the others are still products of anonymous architects and builders. Denominations issued plan books shortly after the 1860s, and provided low-cost plans and specifications for stylish (mostly Gothic) churches, and that helps our quest for antecedents for a number of churches.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing is to find tantalizing clues—a name here and there, or a similar-looking building or architectural element that suggests a linkage. One such name is Charles Graham (or Graham & Son), identified as a Trenton or Elizabeth architect. Let's consider what we know about Mr. Graham, for his name turns up in connection with seven churches in the state. The name “Charles Graham, architect” shows up on a list of jurors in a high profile trial in New York in the 1870s. That Charles Graham is credited with being the architect and developer of several fine upscale townhouses in New York, erected in 1870s. But can we be sure that Charles Graham, architect/real estate developer of New York, is the same Charles Graham, Trenton/Elizabeth architect? Nothing in the chronology would preclude it, but I am unwilling at this point to assert that conclusion, so let's examine Trenton/Elizabeth Graham's work here.

The Freehold Methodist church was erected in that city in 1857-58. It is a modest frame building, not remarkable in any respect but nicely proportioned and obviously designed by a professional, which in this case was Charles Graham—the first time his name appears in the records (Ellis, History of Monmouth County, 1881) that I have found. In 1865 Graham is selected by the building committee and paid an undisclosed fee for work on a new Presbyterian church in Ewing (Mercer). Problems arise and the church is eventually erected under the direction of a different architect a year or two later. In 1866 two churches are built, both credited to Graham—the Berean Baptist church in Stockton (Hunterdon) and the Simpson Methodist church in Perth Amboy. There are no other details about Graham in the published record of either church, and the two buildings have little in common. Three years later (1869) Graham is selected to design the substantial stone Presbyterian church in Newton (Sussex) [left]. This is a larger scale than most churches of the period—about the size of the churches in Perth Amboy and Ewing. That suggests Graham had a reputation for an ability to handle sizable projects. A year later (1870) he designs the equally large Presbyterian church in Blairstown (Warren), which is not so far from Newton, and the buildings are remarkably similar. Now here's where I'm willing to go out on a limb; in 1870 another church, this time a Methodist one, goes up in Tranquility, a hamlet in Sussex county, about 9 miles from Blairstown and 8 miles from Newton. And this building [below, left] is very, very similar to the churches in Blairstown and Newton. And all three churches are remarkably similar to an 1860 Presbyterian church in Belvidere, which is in Warren county, about 12-15 miles from the other three. Is it too much of a stretch to infer that the architect of churches in Blairstown and Newton was the same person who did the church in Tranquility and the one in Belvidere?

Perhaps it is not a coincidence that all four churches bear more than a passing resemblance to the Methodist church in Perth Amboy—a shallow-pitched roof, enhanced pediment, multi-tiered tower projecting from the nave, round arch windows, etc. In fact, that description fits another dozen churches in central New Jersey, including Presbyterian churches in Westfield (Union), Califon [bottom left] (Hunterdon), Liberty Corner (Somerset), a Reformed church in Pottersville (Hunterdon), and so on. One problem is that we know the name of the architect in Liberty Corner and Pottersville, and the name is not Graham. So making attributions based on similarities in design is for someone with more knowledge of architectural history than I possess. Building committees often visited other churches and returned recommending to the congregation that they build in a manner similar to a specific church they had seen, and that may account for much of the similarity among buildings. So we need to proceed cautiously when tempted to go beyond noting the similarities between churches. But Graham & Son and Graham of New York are still unresolved.

There's one more church Graham, or Graham & Son is credited with—the very interesting Congregational church in Bound Brook, erected in 1876. In style it is entirely different from Graham's other churches—a wooden-frame cruciform plan church in the stick style. That was no help to my quest. And there it stood until I found a mention in an old book (courtesy of Google) of Charles Graham who was identified as having “designed residential, hotel and commercial architecture in Manhattan . . . and several lovely churches in New Jersey.” Yesssss! Graham had a woodworking factory in New York in 1885 and earlier brought his son Thomas into the business. He began his practice in 1852 and designed the Northampton County Courthouse in Easton, Pennsylvania in 1860-61, a building I see every day as I sit at my computer. I hardly thought the answer to the identity of Charles Graham would be found in a multi-tiered cupola I stare at every day.

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