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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St. Peter's [Episcopal] Church
Spotswood, Middlesex County

   

St. Peter's was designed by Richard Upjohn, who also designed Grace Church in Newark and St. Mary's in Burlington. His real innovations came in adapting Gothic elements to wooden churches, as he did in this outstanding building, erected in 1849. It is one of the earliest uses of the board-and-batten style for churches in the country, preceeded only, to the best of my knowledge, by a Congregational church in Brunswick, Maine, designed by Upjohn and built in 1845-46.
     The National Register credits Frank Wills and C.K. Pursell with the design and construction of the building; while I am loathe to take exception to the research that underlines that registration, other experts credit Upjohn, and I am inclined to agree with them. Wills designed a timber church, rather similar in style to this one, for an Episcopal congregation in Albany, NY in 1850 (demolished in 1951), so in the absence of other evidence, We should consider the matter unsettled.

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Copyright (c) 2001 Frank L. Greenagel