No. 27 July 2003
The authoritative source
on
early churches in New Jersey
ISSN 1543-3250
[ search ]
About
this site
We've created a database and photographic inventory containing more than
half the 18th & 19th century churches in the state and add to it
each month. We solicit all contributions and suggestions
from
visitors.
photo gallery
Architects & Builders
—
Highlights —
Last
month's feature
Route 322 expedition
Book
reviews
1,000 New York Buildings
Hoboken
- Deutsche Evangelican Church
Vintage
photo of the month
Old Pilesgrove Presbyterian
Endangered churches
A dozen at-risk buildings are noted. Submit your nomination for the most
endangered churches in the state. We will research the submissions and
feature one each month, then maintain that list indefinitely.
Annotate
this article
Do have additional information about any of the buildings in this article?
Or perhaps an old photograph or an article that can enrich our knowledge?
Please submit that information for the benefit of other visitors.
How
to use this site
Architects & master builders
Consult the database
Annotate the database
Upload a photo
Suggest a church for inclusion
Glossary
List of churches, by county
Photographic notes
Links to related sites
Bulletin Board
Contact us
Feature
of the month
Two
Churches in Plainfield: Common Roots, Different Styles:
A
few blocks from the Quaker meetinghouse that marked the original center
of Plainfield sits a church that is as opposite in form and function
from the meetinghouse as it is possible for a house of worship to be,
yet they have common roots. 
The
Society of Friends erected their meetinghouse as a place to assemble,
and believed that such a building should not call
attention to itself. Although men and women entered and sat separately,
their buildings are invariably symmetrical, symbolizing the equality
between men and women. There is no altar, no pulpit, no stage, no organ,
no decoration or adornment of any sort. The materials are all of the
kind that would be used for a home or barn. The double-hung window sashes
are identical to what might be found in a modestly prosperous home of
the period. Doors and shutters are plain, some might even say crude.
Five
blocks away a visitor one hundred years after the Plainfield meetinghouse
was erected would encounter a mighty architectural
shout—the Seventh Day Baptist church. The orange brick of the tower glows
in
the afternoon sun, as though just removed from the
annealing
oven.
Its materials are glazed brick, rusticated and carved stone, red tiles, and ornamental
granite. There are no shutters to hide the sculpted Gothic tracery
of the windows. The chimney, tower and pinnacles, undoubtedly rich in Christian
iconography, puncture the sky in late nineteenth century exuberance. These Baptists
met to hear the word and celebrate with music, and to be sure that no one missed
the point of the services, the pulpit and the stage are the hub of this building.
In short, within a few blocks of each other, we have extremes of both architecture
and attitude, of outlook and the manifestation of that outlook, but both denominations
arose out of dissent within the Church of England in the Restoration period that
followed the pinched Puritan dominance of Cromwell's tenure.
Most Americans
know little about either the Society of Friends or the Seventh Day
Baptists. Curiously, both date to roughly the same period—the
mid-17th century England, when dissent from doctrines and practices of
the Anglican church led to many separatist movements. Both denominations
came early to the colonies, and both were persecuted in New England by
the dominant Puritan church. The Quakers who settled in Plainfield were
a mission of the Piscataway Friends, who came from New England prior
to the great immigration that settled Burlington and, a bit later, Pennsylvania.
The Seventh Day Baptists who organized their congregation almost certainly
came from Piscataway as well, for it was there that a separation from
the Baptist church occurred in 1705, when a deacon of the local church
became convinced of the biblical basis for Sabbath observance. That deacon
and sixteen others withdrew to form their own church, and in 1738 this
congregation was organized in Plainfield.
The
practice of Saturday worship (the seventh day) occurred not only within the Baptist
convention, but also in a German pietist movement in Ephrata,
Pennsylvania (the German Seventh Day Baptist denomination, often referred
to as Dunkers) about 1728. That observance was also promoted by a schism
in the Society of Friends led by George Keith (better known in New Jersey
history as the surveyor of the Keith Line demarking East and West Jersey)
about 1702. Who knows but the Keithian doctrine on Sabbath worship might
not have influenced the good Baptist deacon's reading of scripture?
the Friends meetinghouse
The meetinghouse is standard Quaker architecture: a two story symmetrical
frame building with two entrances. The style is repeated in brick and
stone in south Jersey and Bucks County, Pennsylvania. This building
was erected in 1788, 
and is supposedly an exact replica of the earlier
building which was erected in 1738. It sits at Watchung Avenue and
East Third Street, fronting on what was once the commons.
The building is 48 feet by 34 feet, and sits on
a stone foundation. The wooden roof was replaced in the 1930s by slate, and about
that time the
original carriage sheds were converted into a Sunday school. The building
is shingled, and the windows are 8 over 12 on the lower floor and 8 over
8 on the upper. On the west side there is a single entrance with a small
porch supported by two columns. A fire destroyed a portion of the building
in the 1920s, but it was rebult in the same style.
the Seventh Day Baptist church
One remarkable feature of this church is the interior dome of the main
auditorium, which gives the room the appearance of a
baptistery, like the
famed
Baptistery
in Pisa. It is the only one I know of in the state. The church was
erected in 1890 
in
a late Victorian style that borrows from both Romanesque and Gothic
architecture—Romanesque
in the use of towers and chimneys
and turrets, different textures, and the use of rusticated stone, but
it adopts and adapts from later Victorian Gothic as well, inside and
out. The tracery in the interior is clearly Gothic influence, while
the clay pantiles of the roof are just as clearly Romanesque. The architect
was O. M. Teale, but a search revealed no additional data on him, or
any other buildings of his.
The main auditorium is circular in shape, with magnificent plaster tracery
covering the ceiling and the widow arches. It was damage to the ceiling's
tracery from a leaking roof that led to the decision to replace the tile
roof some years ago. The tiles were made in upstate New York especially
for this church, and are still stored in the church basement.
Adjoining the main auditorium is another astonishing open space amphitheater,
designed in the “Akron plan” manner, with a double tier of
small rooms in a gallery, opening on the auditorium by means of sliding
doors. That design enabled a number of Sunday School classes to be held,
all with access to a general prayer or lecture session as well. The two
auditoriums are joined by sliding glass doors, and the pulpit is visible
from much of the area of the amphitheater.
The
is the third church on the site, located at Central Avenue and West 5th
Street. The congregation's second building, a large Italianate design
erected in 1866, remains on an adjacent plot, now occupied by the Board
of Education.
The Plainfield Friends meetinghouse is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as well as the state register (along with two other Plainfield churches) and there is a wonderfully complete set of measured drawings done by the Historical American Buildings Survey (HABS) in 1936. Teale's masterpiece, arguably the most delightful church in the state, is neglected. It is not on any national or state register and seems virtually known outside the city of Plainfield and the community of architectural historians in the state.
POLICIES
| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS | ABOUT
US
Copyright
© 2003 Frank L. Greenagel