and a forthcoming book
About
this site
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.
Can you help to identify these churches?
Each month or
two I post an image of a church I've photographed but otherwise
know nothing about, soliciting the assistance of readers to provide
vital missing information or explanation. Readers have identified 29 of the churches,
and I'm very appreciative of that help. Please send a note with any information, or even your speculation—flg@njchurchscape.com.
New Hope Pentacostal Church
Route 543 just south of Burlington
We found this trim frame church, probaly built about 1890, most likely by a Methodist group. There is no cornerstone or other indication of its original congregation.
Update: Even before this page was released Paul Schopp came up with an identification. It was originally the Shedaker's Sunday School, organized about 1860 under the auspices of the Broad Street Methodist church in Burlington. I'm pretty sure this building was either erected later or underwent a major renovation, probably in the 1880s-1890s.
Holy Light Church of Jesus Christ
Burlington, at the corner of Union & York
An interesting late-nineteenth century Romanesque church standands in Burlington. The church was closed when I visited in 2001, so there was no one to ask about its history, and it's not listed in Woodward, so it was built after 1883.
Update: Paul Schopp had no trouble with this one; his father preached there many years ago. It was erected as the Union Methodist Episcopal church.
unknown frame church
between Daretown and Rosehayn
Barry
Caselli, one of the regular contributors to this site sent this
photo of a small frame church he photographed a few years ago.
He did not note then the name or location of the church—something
I sometimes forget as well. He believes it was taken somewhere between Daretown and the Alliance cemetery. The house
number on it is 213. It's possible the church
is somewhere between Daretown and Rosenhayn.
Unification Chapel
Elizabeth, Grand Street, just off Route 1-9
A substantial wooden-frame church, now deteriorating, stands prominently just east of Route 1-9. The building was a stylish one, proably erected after 1870. I believe Union County or the City of Elizabeth
at one time designated this as worth preserving, but there was no history
attached to that designation.