Issue No. 3   June 2001
The authoritative source on
early churches in 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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Last month's feature
The old churches from the other side

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Becoming America: the Revolution before 1776

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Vintage photo of the month


Kingwood Methodist Episcopal church, Hunterdon County, c 1930

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New Jersey's few remaining 19th century synagogues

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Feature of the month

Greek Revival: pagan temples for Christian worship

Greek Revival is a name given to an immensely popular architectural style in the four decades before the Civil War. Federal Hall in lower Manhattan and the Customs House in Philadelphia are fine examples, but the style can be seen in homes in upstate New York and throughout the south, as well as in public buildings in every state. The characteristic fluted columns, Doric or Ionic capitals, low-pitched roofs, corner pilasters, and accentuated pediments were considered highly appropriate for public buildings in the new republic, as they provided an allusion to the democratic virtues of the ancient Greek city-states at a time when Byron's involvement with the Greek's struggle for independence from the Ottoman Empire was the topic of the day in newspapers and coffeehouses. Greek Revival was widely adopted by scores of churches in New Jersey, of which something more than 30 survive.
     The earliest example I know of is the Lamington Presbyterian church (1826) in Somerset County, although the facade has been ruined by the later addition of the Gothic portico. Saint James' Episcopal church in Piscataway (1836) is a better example of a wooden church built in that style. It is not a "pure" Greek Revival building, for it employs Gothic windows and a funny little steeple. Among the most important churches in the Greek Revival mode are the Old First [Baptist] Church in Middletown (1832; Middlesex County), the First Presbyterian Church in Princeton (1837), designed by architect Charles Steadman, the First Presbyterian Church in Trenton (1839), the Old Bergen Church [originally Reformed, but now Presbyterian and Reformed] (1838) in Jersey City, the Presbyterian Church in Basking Ridge (1839) and the Presbyterian Church in Cranbury (1838). An early black church, the Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church erected a Greek Revival building in 1837 in Princeton.

      Lest it appear that only Presbyterian congregations erected Greek Revival buildings, there are Methodist, Baptist, Reformed, and Congregational churches as well. I believe more than one 19th century synagogue built a Greek Revival building, although none have survived, but I know of no Catholic churches built in that style.
     The Second Great Awakening, generally dated to the second decade of the nineteenth century, gave rise to numerous revivals and a growth in membership and church building. With its emphasis on preaching instead of the sacraments, the Greek Revival church was wider in proportion to its length than traditional European churches, and so allowed more people close proximity to the pulpit. Tall windows let in ample light, in contrast to the dim lighting of Catholic churches, which emphasized the mystery of the ceremony and the sacraments. Stained glass windows, once considered to popish or worldly by the earliest settlers, replaced the clear glass by mid-century, a concession to fashion made possible by rising affluence.
     The shallow pitch to the roof was sometimes capped by a tall steeple, such as we see on the Cranbury and Pluckemin churches, but just as often there was no steeple or a squat one as we find on the Old Bergen church, the First Congregational church in Chester in Morris County and the Cokesbury Methodist church in Hunterdon County .
     Sometime before 1850, a set of plans, apparently drafted in Philadelphia, were purchased by a number of churches in the central part of the state, for a short tour of Somerset County will yield a handful of churches (mostly Reformed) that are more-or-less identical except for a few details and the size. Griggstown (1843), South Bound Brook (1846), Harlingen(1851), Pluckemin (1851), Raritan(1851), and East Millstone (1855) are a few of the survivors, but at least a dozen others in the region were built, mostly with a year or two of 1851. None of the church records I have examined mention the architect, but the churches are so similar that I would be astonished if they were not built from the same plans.
     About 1845 the Episcopal church, which was resurgent after its near disappearance following the Revolutionary War, decried the use of a pagan building for Christian worship and recommended the Gothic as a more appropriate style; other sects soon followed, and, in most of the county, the Greek Revival was dead by 1850, as far as ecclesiastical architecture was concerned, although elements of that style continued to appear for decades, particularly in the vernacular churches of rural Jersey. Note the pilasters and pediment in the Kingwood Methodist church( see the vintage photo of the month), built in 1860, which borrowed from the Greek Revival




Photos, from top: Saint James', Piscataway; Old Bergen, Jersey City; Cranbury Presbyterian; First Presbyterian, Trenton; Griggstown Reformed; First Presbyterian, Basking Ridge; Third Reformed of Raritan; Witherspoon Street Presbyterian, Princeton.

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Copyright © 2001 Frank L. Greenagel