No. 64 November 2006
The authoritative source on early churches in New Jersey

ISSN 1543-3250

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— Highlights —

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Anasazi ruins

Book reviews
The God Delusion

Can you identify this church?

Paterson - GOP headquarters

Vintage photo of the month

South River Methodist

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Feature of the month

origin of the "bank-front" churches

Several years ago we featured a peculiar architectural style that seemed to combine the Georgian with some aspects of Greek Revival; I called that the bank-front style because one of the more notable examples—the Broadway Methodist church in Salem—looked more like a bank than a church. Other examples included the Mt. Pisgah African Methodist Episcopal church, also in Salem, erected in 1878, the Vincetown Methodist church (Gloucester, 1853) and similar ones in Aldine and Alloway (Salem County, 1860s & 1876), and Mullica Hill's Baptist church (Gloucester, 1860). I have since found several more church that draw from the same source—most of them Methodist—in Easton, Pennsylvania (1855), Belvidere (Warren, 1855), Somerville (Bound Brook, 1848), and Cedarville (Cumberland, 1868).

Most of the buildings have the shallow pitched roof and clearly-delineated pediment characteristic of the Greek Revival, and many of them have pilasters that also were frequently found on churches of the 1850-1870s in the state. Most are of brick, like this one in Easton, but several are wooden frame structures, and all have a Georgian entry centered on the gable end. They are two-story buildings, with the main auditorium (sanctuary) on the second floor, and the ground floor reserved for Sunday School and other meetings.

I suspected at the time that they were modeled after a church in Philadelphia—Old St. George's Methodist Episcopal church—but I had not visited it and so left the matter in doubt. I now have photographed St. George's and dug into its history, and feel comfortable in making the argument that all of these churches, and probably several more as well, should be traced to that early church near the Benjamin Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia.

Old St. George's claims to be the oldest continuously used Methodist church in America, an assertion that seems justified by its history. It was commissioned by a group of German Calvinists in 1763, but the congregation could not afford to complete it, and the unfinished building was purchased by the young Methodist congregation in 1769 at a cost of £650. Several of the German church's congregants actually wound up in debtor's prison for debts incurred in the process. The original name was Georg Kirche, the reigning monarch in England but of German descent. St. George is the patron saint of England, of course, so the name was changed to the somewhat more ecclesiastical name that reflected the Anglican origins of the Methodist church There is some speculation, based on rather scant evidence, that the building was designed by Robert Smith, a noted carpenter-builder responsible for Independence Hall in Philadelphia as well as for St. Peter's in Shrewsbury and St. Peter's in Freehold. Francis Asbury preached his first American sermon in this building in 1771. Asbury was to deliver some 16,900 sermons in the country in the forty-five years he traveled the country, and is responsible for several dozen churches in New Jersey. It was reputedly the first building used by Methodists to be called a “church” rather than the customary “chapel.”

The British occupied the city in 1777-1778, and a cavalry unit occupied the church—its dirt floor apparently made it a fit indoor riding academy. That was not the most serious threat to the building, however. In the 1920s, it was scheduled to be demolished to make way for the new bridge across the Delaware, but a lawsuit forced the bridge to be moved fourteen feet to the south. Galleries were added in 1792 as well as flooring and pews. The interior has been restored to its eighteen century appearance.

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Copyright © 2006 Frank L. Greenagel