MOTHER OF CHURCHES
Beginning in the 1850s St. David's was in the midst of dynamic changes sweeping over the city, the country, and both the local and national Episcopal Church. In Philadelphia, the 1854 Act of Consolidation enlarged the city, its size originally being about two square miles, by annexing twenty-eight adjoining municipalities. Thereby the Borough of Manayunk and the Township of Roxborough were brought into the new City of Philadelphia and made parts of the 21st Ward. In the United States, as the country pursued its 'manifest destiny' toward the Pacific Ocean, competing social and economic interests after 1850 strained the union nearly to the point of breaking, a crisis not resolved until the devastating war fought from 1861 to 1865 and costing the nation its peoples' blood. The Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, which from its creation in 1787 had jurisdiction over all congregations in the state and was shepherded by the Bishop in Philadelphia, by 1866 had formed the separate Diocese of Pittsburgh which then elected its own Bishop to meet the pastoral needs of Episcopalians in western Pennsylvania. And by 1854 the work of the Episcopal Church in the United States reached the territories of Oregon and Washington where B. Wistar Morris, the fifth Rector of St. David's, would begin his 38 years of service as missionary, and later diocesan, bishop in 1868.
St. David's during this era of dynamic change in the city and the church was promoting the formation of new local congregations. The Vestry and members of the parish became engaged, both directly and indirectly, in the support of outlying Sunday Schools that led to the formation of new churches.
St. Alban's, Roxborough
The first such engagement appears in the Vestry minutes for February 16, 1860. Copied into that record is a letter from Mr. Fred Fairthorne reporting
that a Sunday School and afternoon service have been established in Roxborough under your Rector's [J. W. Claxton] supervision. So marked success has attended the undertaking that many of those connected with it desire to see the mission placed upon a permanent basis. They wish to do nothing however without the concurrence of St. David's parish.
Mr. Fairthorne hoped that the work would proceed entirely under the direction of Mr. Claxton who would need an assistant to fulfill the increased pastoral responsibilities. Fairthorne offered to guarantee the assistant's salary. He wrote:
our wish was and is that this mission service may remain at least for the present under the Rectorship of your Minister - it is located in his parish boundaries - members of St. David's are active in its operations - we should be most reluctant to sever such connection, while we hope to gather in many neighboring residents who have not hitherto understood or appreciated the Episcopal Church.
The Vestry agreed to supervise the new mission.
On May 10, 1860 Fairthorne reported such encouraging prospects in the mission and Sunday School that he thought construction of a chapel was advisable and for that purpose offered some of his own property together with a contribution of money and a pledge to solicit subscriptions. He proposed giving a deed for the land to St. David's that would be held in trust until a new church should be legally organized and admitted into union with the diocesan convention. The Vestry approved these arrangements and appointed two of its members, including Alfred Crease, to proceed with Fairthorne in his endeavors. At its September 12th meeting the Vestry accepted the deed of trust.
The St. David's Vestry minutes for July 9, 1862 contain the text of the letter from the Vestry of St. Alban's Church, Roxborough, giving notice that the congregation had been both legally organized and admitted into union with the diocesan convention. Thereupon St. David's delivered back to Mr. Fairthorne, this time as Warden of St. Alban's, the deed in trust he had previously given to St. David's. Alfred Crease having died, his brother Charles, formerly of St. David's, was now serving on the St. Alban's Vestry.
St. Timothy's, Roxborough
Also in 1860, shortly after the mission that became St. Alban's began services under the care of Mr. Claxton, Mr. Claxton conducted the first Sunday afternoon service for the parish that became St. Timothy's, Roxborough. As with St. Alban's, St. Timothy's was the outgrowth of a Sunday School. On May 31, 1860 Articles of Association for the organization of this second new parish in Roxborough were signed by twelve founders. The principals were J. Vaughan Merrick and D. Rodney King, both sons-in-law of Samuel Wagner, himself a principal founder of St. David's and until 1861 still a member of its Vestry. Notwithstanding, Mr. Wagner also was one of the signers of the St. Timothy's Articles of Association. The depth of feeling about this apparent overlapping --if not conflict--of interests does not appear in the St. David's record until 1874 and then it was occasioned by St. David's final mission-building endeavor.
St. Stephen's, Wissahickon
On September 4, 1871 the Vestry unanimously adopted a "Preamble and Resolutions" accepting Sevill Schofield's offer of four lots at the northeast corner of Tower [Terrace] and Hermit Streets below Shurs Lane for the "purpose of building thereon a house of worship, and for such other purposes as may advance the interests of our holy religion." The Vestry undertook to erect a suitable building on the site within two years, a commitment it could not keep. In April 1874 it was reported that new stained glass windows having been installed in St. David's, the old windows were to be put at the service of the Committee on the Mission in Lower Manayunk for use in the proposed new building. On June lst the committee reported "the cellar is dug out, much stone is got and laying on the premises. . . but the further prosecution of building will be deferred until times are better and will warrant us in going on", a reference to the nation's economic depression after the Panic of 1873.
There was another impediment to proceeding with the Mission in Lower Manayunk. The Vestry of St. Timothy's had protested to the Vestry of St. David's on May 18, 1874 that the proposed Mission was in the lower part of St. Timothy's bounds near the homes of fifty of its parishioners as well as its workingmen's clubrooms where regular monthly services were held. Samuel Wagner's son, Samuel, Jr., who was an attorney, chaired the St. Timothy's Vestry committee on parish mission work charged to settle the matter. Mr. Bushnell, the Rector of St. David's, declined to present the St. Timothy's communication to his Vestry, whereupon Wagner, Jr. wrote advising he had referred the matter to the Bishop and Standing Committee of the Diocese.
The Standing Committee considered the dispute on June 25th and heard the younger Wagner argue St. Timothy's claim that "being the first to occupy Wissahickon" meant its "possession was to cover all the lower part of Manayunk". And while St. Timothy's had "no desire or intention of building a church or chapel" there, it wanted to "make those places a nursery" from which to receive support. Mr. Bushnell responded at length, explaining St. David's purpose beginning in 1871 to establish the Lower Manayunk Mission in an area of the consolidated City which "from its peculiar situation under precipitous hills, it has not been, and cannot be united with any other district; it is a narrow strip of land, shut in by the hills on one side and the Schuylkill River on the other . . .It is separated from Roxborough. . .situated upon the top of the hills, by as distinct boundaries as when they were separate towns." He concluded with these words:
When St. Timothy's Church was established, it was opposed by St. David's because of the injustice it would be to its prosperity. It has taken away nearly all the communicants connected with St. David's Church living upon the hills, and now this plan in fact whatever the intention is an effort to take hold of another part of this parish, and so confine us still more in our field, while if we may suggest such a duty, it is the part of St. Timothy's Church to labor in the present time to secure the people who are now gathering on these unoccupied acres upon the hills and will in ten years be numbered by thousands.
The Standing Committee advised the Bishop "to sanction the erection of the Chapel in question", and the Bishop concurred, writing Mr. Bushnell on June 26th that St. David's might proceed with the work it had commenced. By December 8th the Vestry learned the building was up with roof rafters in place and it was intended to "slate the roof before quitting the work for the winter". Two years later, on December 11, 1876, the Committee on the Lower Mission reported to the Vestry the "work was done". When in October 1886 the Mission asked to be separated from St. David's to become an independent parish the Vestry agreed. By December 6th it was recorded that a service of separation had been held, "the chapel is free from all debt and there is a proposition to call it St. Stephen's Church."
Part 5Stained Glass Windows
Stained Glass Windows at St. David's Church
About The Church
The Episcopal Church of St. David's, Manayunk, was founded December 3, 1831 to be the spiritual home for people churched in the Anglican tradition who had recently arrived in the area. For the most part, these were mill workers, and they had come, with their families, fo find employment in the local textile industry then being built near the new canal in the Schuylkill River.
In 1832 the cornerstone was laid for the first church built on the present site. That structure was destroyed by fire in 1879 and the church edifice now in use, designed by James Stafford, a Vestry member and local mill-owner, was consecrated in 1881.
St. David, the patron saint of Wales who died March 1, probably in 589, and for whom this parish is named, is so honored in his native land because his ascetic example, missionary zeal, and monastic foundations were significant contributions in maintaining the light of Christian life and learning during the European Dark Ages.
