The authoritative source on
  early churches of New Jersey

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We've created a database and photographic inventory on more than half the 18th & 19th century churches in the state and add to it each month. We welcome and solicit all contributions and suggestions from our visitors.

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List of churches, by county
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   Photographic Inventory

Saint Paul's Church
Rahway, Union County

Saint Paul's is a gem—an early Gothic building style, but one of the last of the Wren-Gibbs style churches built by Episcopalians before the move to establish the English Gothic style of the fourteenth century as the only acceptable design. It was built in 1843 by a congregation was organized in 1835. This building has more in common with Reformed churches in Bergen County built eighty years earlier than it has with Episcopal churches built a few miles away ten years later. Note the square tower which projects completely in front of the building and the unusually large Gothic arch windows. It is clear that architects and builders were trying to make use of the Gothic idiom but were not yet tied to archeologically-correct models from Europe. Episcopal Bishop Doane was to change all that by 1846 when he insisted that the best (read only) model for an Episcopal church was one based on fourteenth century English parish churches—in other words, what we now call Gothic Revival.

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Copyright (c) 2001 Frank L. Greenagel