Christ Church, New Brunswick, New Jersey

Christ Church
The Rector, Church Wardens, and Vestrymen of Christ Church in the City of New Brunswick
Christ Episcopal Church
Location	New Brunswick, New Jersey
Country	United States
Denomination	Episcopal
Churchmanship	Anglican Communion
Weekly attendance	145 (2014)
Website	Christ Church New Brunswick
History
Founded	1761 (1761)
Events	Third public reading of the Declaration of Independence (which occurred in New Brunswick, July 8, 1776
Associated people	Brigadier General Anthony White, Patriot John Antill, 2nd Battalion of the New Jersey Volunteers (a Loyalist force)
Architecture
Status	Church
Functional status	Active
Architect(s)	Philip French (1750 original) Henry Dudley & Frederick Wills (1852 rebuild)
Architectural type	Mission parish
Style	* Gothic Revival - church * Federal * Romanesque Revival - Parish House * Italianate - Choir House, Sexton's House
Years built	1742-1749
Groundbreaking	1742
Completed	1750
Specifications
Number of spires	1
Materials	Sandstone rubble while the stone tower is composed of irregularly sized shaley sandstone rubble with a copper roof
Administration
Episcopal area	Episcopal Church in the United States of America
Diocese	Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey
Province	Province II
Clergy
Bishop(s)	William H. Stokes
Rector	Reverend Joanna P. Hollis
Assistant	Reverend Joan Fleming
Deacon(s)	Venerable Pete S. Cornell (Archdeacon for Deacons)
Laity
Organist(s)	John Sheridan, DMA
Churchwarden(s)	Paul Ambos
Business manager	Jonathan Gloster
Youth ministry coordinator	Andrew Murphy
Music group(s)	Andrea Cunnell
Parish administrator	Julia Utz, BM, MFA
Christ Episcopal Church
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
New Jersey Register of Historic Places
Christ Church, from 1937 Buildings Survey
Location	New Brunswick, New Jersey
Coordinates
Area	1.1 acres (0.45 ha)
Built	1750 (1750)
Architect	Henry Dudley Frederick Wills
Architectural style	Mission parish
NRHP Reference #	89000994
NJRHP #	1857
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	July 28, 1989 (1989-07-28)
Designated NJRHP	June 20, 1989 (1989-06-20)

Christ Church or Christ Episcopal Church is a historic Episcopal church in New Brunswick, Middlesex County, New Jersey.

History

In 1701 English minister Thomas Bray formed the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG) to minister to the new English settlers. In 1711 a group of Anglicans were holding service in an old broken down townhouse in Piscataway that they shared with a group of Baptists. Under the influence of William Skinner, an SPG minister, in 1717 a timber frame church was built, which was completed in 1724, to replace the broken down townhouse. St. James Parish in Piscataway continued to grow, including members from higher up the Raritan River in New Brunswick. The demand was so great that a group gathered in 1742 to construct another church, to be called Christ Church, on the New Brunswick side of the River.

Although construction began in 1742, title to the land was not obtained until 1745. This was because one of the original church planners was Philip French, who was the largest land owner in New Brunswick. French did not believe in selling land, but for public buildings that would benefit the community he did provide land leases at nominal rates. For the land to build Christ Church, he charged a yearly rent of “one peppercorn a year, only if asked.” The lease for the land is still on display in the Rector’s office at Christ Church. Throughout the early years, Christ Church remained a mission parish. It would not receive a royal charter as an independent parish until 1761.

Pre- and Post-American Revolution

While it was believed that the parish was fully behind fight for independence, the reality is that during the Revolution the parish was quite conflicted. Figures such as Col. John Nielson, and Brigadier General Anthony White did, in fact, fight on behalf of the Patriots. But the church also contained its share of Loyalists, such as John Antill, who fought with the 2nd Battalion of the New Jersey Volunteers (a Loyalist force).

One figure caught in the middle was the Rector, the Rev. Abraham Beach. Beach sympathized with the Patriots aims, but could not support rebellion as a means to the end. Moreover as an Anglican cleric, he had taken oaths to support the Crown, and the liturgy included prayers for the King. One morning as he was preparing for service he was threatened with death if he offered such prayers, as a result of which he decided to close the church for the duration of the war. Being a faithful cleric and a moderate at heart, he continued his ministry even during the war, worshiping in the homes of sympathetic parishioners, and often deleting the prayers for the King if he thought such would offend delicate sensibilities.

Following the war, the political energies of the newly independent states were focused on forming “a more perfect union,” first in the Articles of Confederation, later in the Constitution of the United States of America. The newly independent daughter churches of the Church of England also sought “a more perfect union,” and foremost in the leadership was the same Abraham Beach. In the winter of 1783/84 he corresponded with William White (later the first Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church) and other clergy in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York soliciting a gathering to “consider the state of the church.” He extended an invitation to meet at Christ Church May 11, 1784. The outgrowth of that meeting was a call for another meeting in October 1784 with representatives from all thirteen states to consider a general convention to manage the affairs of the newly independent church. The First General Convention met in September 1785, leading to the current shape of the church we now know: with equal voice and vote for bishops, clergy and laity, the beginnings of an American Book of Common Prayer, and our own national Constitution and Canons.

New era

The church was so comfortable financially that in 1852 the parish tore down its 100-year-old structure and enlarged it, using (in part) many of the stones from the first building. It was Elisha Brooks Joyce, successor of pastorate Alfred Stubbs, that we owe a distinguishing feature of parish life still active today – the parish choir. Organ music has been part of parish life almost from the beginning, as was a parish choir, although from available records the quality of the early music program was not high. It is said that shortly after he became rector, Elisha Brooks Joyce received complaints about the quality of the music, so that he appointed George Wilmot, the parish’s first professional chorister. A decade later Wilmot was appointed the first music director and in 1893 he established a formally vested men’s and boys’ choir, which first performed for the Easter Service in 1894. The present Christ Church music program inherits the legacy established by Wilmot.

Joyce also supervised the construction of the Parish House on Paterson Street, still in use today. But the construction placed the parish deeply in debt, a debt passed on to his successor, Herbert Parrish. Father Parrish was a man of substantial financial acumen. During Joyce’s final illness, Parrish served as supply clergy. Parish records indicate even during the interim, he admonished parish leaders as to how the church’s finances were handled. After his election as rector, he worked with William Hopkins Leupp and James Parsons to establish an “endowment fund” for the parish. By the time he left after his 13-year pastorate, the previously debt-ridden parish had an investment fund totaling $250,000, a fund that enabled the parish to survive the Depression far more easily than more financially strapped churches.

Parrish also was committed to Sunday Schools as essential to faith development. This is most clearly seen in the establishment of the Highland Park Sunday School in 1921 (supported by funding from the will of William Leupp), which in time led to the founding of All Saints Episcopal Church in Highland Park, New Jersey. He was also instrumental in the development of still another Episcopal parish in New Brunswick, St. Alban’s Episcopal Church.

Modern era

Parrish’s successor, Walter Stowe, served the second longest pastorate in the church’s history, 37 years (1929-1966). It could also be argued that it was the second most tumultuous period (after the American Revolution). During his pastorate Stowe had to contend with the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the beginnings of the Viet Nam War, the Civil Rights Movement, and the beginning of white flight to the suburbs. Due to Fr. Parrish’s investment fund, the parish weathered the Depression relatively easily, but the Second World War was harder to avoid. The memorials around the building testify to the impact of the war on the parish. From all available evidence, at least 120 young men served in the war, of whom 10 never returned.

Following the war Stowe was instrumental in establishing the Episcopal chaplaincy at Rutgers. In 1949 two Episcopal members of the Rutgers’ community, Clarence A. Lambelet (Professor of Engineering) and Jane Conlin (a senior at Douglass College, the Rutgers’ College for Women) set out to organize a Canterbury Club for 400 Episcopal students at Rutgers. They approached Stowe with the idea. The rector gave his backing to the plan and approached the Procter Foundation for financial support. With such support Clarence W. Sickles, a new curate, was hired for Christ Church, who began his service to both the church and the Episcopal ministry in September 1951.

Stowe’s immediate successor, Charles Gomph Newbery, came to Christ Church from All Saints Church in Princeton, but only remained three years (1966-1969). Reflecting the liturgical changes that were occurring elsewhere in the church, Fr. Newbery instituted a number of changes in the worship space. A free standing altar was installed and the semi-circular choir stalls were built in the chancel. The Clarke Chapel was established, and the old altar moved there. The sacristy was also added. The current shape of the church is attributable to him. Given the social upheavals of the day, he also established an outreach to the neighborhood, beginning an English as a Second Language program.

Area influence

Prestige

For most of the 19th and the early 20th centuries Christ Church was an establishment church. It could be described truthfully as the “Johnson and Johnson Church.” Among its members were James Wood Johnson (co-founder of Johnson and Johnson), Frederick Kilmer (father of poet Joyce Kilmer and research chemist for Johnson and Johnson), and Walter Williams (the President of Johnson and Johnson International). Other members were part of the economic and political elite (such as Nicholas Gouveneur Rutgers, President of the New Brunswick Savings Bank; Grace Wells, founder of what is now Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, and Fred Devoe, former Speaker of the New Jersey Assembly). The present parish is less politically connected and more solidly middle class.

Race and the church

For much of its history Christ Church saw itself as a White church. In its earliest days, Black slaves were evangelized, but baptism did nothing to emancipate them. Existing parish records include 26 baptisms of known slaves, owned by parish members (including two rectors, Abraham Beach and John Croes). There may, of course, have been others but records do not exist.

Blacks were members of the church but they were not seated with the Whites. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, blacks were seated in the gallery, along with those who could not afford pew rents. When pew rents were abolished in the early 1920s, the decision was made to relocate the organ from the chancel to the gallery, displacing the Black members of the church. Taking that as an indication they were not particularly welcome, the displaced African American members formed their own parish, St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in New Brunswick, a predominantly Afro-Anglican mission which still exists.

The racial nature of the parish did not change much for half a century, but beginning in the mid-1970s, the composition of the church would be transformed. Blacks who moved into the city from other areas (including many from the Caribbean and Africa) joined the church. The church during this period has been described as not particularly welcoming to newcomers, but this was especially so for persons of color. Some parish members would not shake their hands during the peace, and all but told them their place was at St. Alban’s.

Two persons in particular helped to change this dynamic. One was Father Martin Gutwein, a curate under Fr. Frank Carthy, who had served in the Peace Corps and knew the family members of some of the new members and made them feel welcome. With his acceptance, some of the veteran members of the parish invited more and more of the newcomers into existing parish ministries.

The most significant person, however, was arguably Joan Fleming, who decided to tackle the racial tension in the church head on. She exercised a regular ministry of parish visitation, and deliberately extended invitations to all, White and Black alike. She created programming to address the heritage of all, Italian Night, International Night and a Celebration of Black Heritage (the latter one being an ongoing parish event 20 years later). Her diocesan initiative, “Unlearning Racism,” was first offered at Christ Church. Strides were also made in the liturgy, as music from Lift Every Voice and Sing II was incorporated alongside the classical repertoire that had been a part of Christ Church’s life during the interim rectorship of Robert Shearer. Also, under Mother Deborah Meister, a Jazz Vespers service was occasionally offered.

In 1953, a full year before the famous Brown versus the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas decision by the Supreme Court, Martin Luther King, Jr. was quoted as saying, “11 o’clock on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America.”

Notable burials

Christ Church Graveyard

Details
Established	1754 (1754)
Location	New Brunswick, New Jersey
Country	United States
Type	Church
Owned by	Christ Church New Brunswick
Number of interments	1,253
Website	Christ Church New Brunswick Churchyard
Find a Grave	Christ Church Episcopal Churchyard

• Reverend Abraham Beach (1740-1828) - Rector of Christ Church from 1767 to 1784, his grave lies within the iron fence near the cloister along with the graves of his daughter Hannah Rattoone (1770-1848) and grandson Isaac Lawrence (1811-1811).
• John Croes (1762-1832) - rector of Christ Church from 1801 to 1832 and first Bishop of the Diocese of New Jersey, is buried beneath the altar in the sanctuary, but the grave of his wife, Martha is near a walkway on the west side of the church.
• Captain Isaac Fisher (1791-1871) - commander of a steam boat on the Raritan River, is buried near Neilson St.
• Brigadier Gen. Anthony Walton White - served as an aide-de-camp to George Washington in the American Revolution. His grave site is near the door to the sanctuary.
• Henry Blumer (1813-1890) - New Brunswick treasurer and alderman lies in the area to the north of the church, one of the many stones that age and weather have made difficult to read.
• Adm. Charles Stuart Boggs (1811-1888) - Served upon the steamer "Princeton" during the Mexican-American War and was present during the Siege of Veracruz. Later ordered to the gun boat "Varuna" where he fought with distinction during the Battle of New Orleans. Promoted to Rear Admiral in 1870.
• Lieut. Robert Morris Boggs (1842-1862) - Civil War officer. Robert Boggs was commissioned as a 1st Lieutenant in Company G, 1st New Jersey Volunteer Infantry, and was mustered in on May 28, 1861. He served until he died of typhoid fever at Harrison's Landing, Virginia on August 6, 1862. during the Civil War in Harrison’s Landing, VA.

External links

• Media related to at Wikimedia Commons
• Official website
• Images of Christ Church, 1989
• Marriage records 1758-1778 at the Wayback Machine (archived June 29, 2006)