STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE
Grace Episcopal Church is a significant example of late 19thcentury Gothic Revival architecture and early 20 century stained glass art, and of a 1922 carillon. It is an expression in stone and quality stained glass of the exalted social and financial status of English-Americans and Episcopalians in Plainfield, one of New Jersey’s earliest and wealthiest railroad suburbs. Each of the artisan firms hired to work on the building were representative of the best in their field: Robert W. Gibson, architect; Tiffany Studios, Charles Connick Studios, Heaton, Butler & Bayne in stained glass; Gillett & Johnston, as the Royal Foundry; and Casavant Freres, organ builders. The early 20th Century addition of one of the country’s earliest and largest carillons makes the edifice unique among religious institutions and further demonstrates the appropriateness of National Register designation. The church meets National Register Criterion C, for local significance in architecture, art, and music, and meets Criteria Consideration A.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
At the village schoolhouse, the first gathering of Episcopalians in Plainfield took place on January 11, 1852. At that time, Plainfield was a small rural village that had yet to develop into the country retreat and commuter suburb it was to become. Already, though, four religious institutions had been established, the earliest being the Quakers in 1782, followed by the Presbyterians, the Methodists, and the Roman Catholics who, in 1851, established St. Mary’s Church. Grace Church was founded under the guidance of Bishop George Washington Doane, who as Bishop of New Jersey from 1832 to 1859, was instrumental in promoting the Gothic Revival in New Jersey. Bishop Doane was a patron of the Cambridge Camden Society of England, an organization that jump started the Gothic Revival in England and whose purpose was to ensure the construction of ecclesiastical edifices of historically accurate Gothic design, both in England and abroad. Bishop Doane presided over the dedication of the parish’s first church building, erected in 1853 to simple Gothic Revival plans.
The parish continued to grow and additions were made to the building in 1869 and 1872. In 1876 the church building was picked up and moved from Front Street to the present site along Cleveland Avenue. Additional renovations were made to the building at its new site. It was in the same year that the Rector, The Reverend E.M. Rodman and nine leading laymen of Grace Church founded Muhlenberg Hospital in Plainfield, which continues as one of the larger healthcare facilities in central New Jersey. For many years it was the custom for the rector of Grace Church to serve on the board of that institution, which was named for William Augustus Muhlenberg, a famous Episcopal clergyman, rector of the Church of the Holy Communion (20th Street and Sixth Avenue, Manhattan) and founder of St. Luke’s Hospital, Morningside Heights (now known as St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Medical Center).
By 1890, Plainfield was a wealthy suburban town with many large homes of a wide variety of styles of architecture, a thriving downtown and several hotels that attracted city folk to partake of the country air. Expanding along with the town, the parish of Grace Church had quickly outgrown its church building causing the vestry to authorize construction of a new and larger edifice. The new church, built at a cost of $40,000, was designed by Robert W. Gibson, an English born and trained architect and a leading architect in New York. In November, 1890, the vestry charged Gibson with designing “a stone church with a seating capacity of about seven hundred”. Gibson chose a design influenced mostly by the Gothic Revival, which was, and continues to be, the predominant style of Episcopal churches. In common with many buildings designed by Gibson, Grace Church is not a pure expression of one style, but also contains elements of other styles. Perhaps inspired by Henry Hobson Richardson, over whom Gibson prevailed in being selected for the All Saints Cathedral project in Albany, Gibson’s design for Grace Church incorporates certain Richardsonian elements. These include the choice of large cut ashlar stone; the Romanesque curves of the sandstone above the front and tower entrance doors; and the red sandstone trim around the wheel and side windows and the front and tower door entrances.
The new Grace Church was built by the contracting firm of Charles W. Kafer, of Trenton, with whom a building contract was executed on April 13, 1891. The cornerstone was laid on May 5, 1891 and construction continued through the following spring. The first service in the newly constructed church was Easter Day, April 17, 1892. The church was not consecrated until 1907 at which time the mortgage was satisfied.
In 1903, with the parish expanding, it was decided that the old church edifice no longer sufficed as a parish house and a new one needed to be constructed. The old church was situated behind the new church building abutting the Sixth Street side of Cleveland Avenue.
By 1905, the old church was demolished and the present parish house constructed behind the extant church building on Cleveland Avenue. The parish house contained several classrooms for Sunday School and office space for the vestry, rector and parish secretary. By 1913, the parish decided that it could no longer continue without providing a rectory for its clergy. Though the issue had been raised before, nothing had come of it. In 1913, through the munificence of a parishioner, Thomas Jefferson Mumford, a spacious three-story Tudor Revival rectory was constructed on one acre of land at the cost of $55,000. The rectory is located one-half mile from the church in the Van Wyck Brooks Historic District and to this day serves as the rectory of Grace Church.
The stained glass windows of Grace Church were designed between approximately 1870 and 1961 and were added to the building as memorials for numerous parishioners. The firms utilized in their design, Charles Connick Studios and Heaton, Butler & Bayne complement the Gothic Revival architecture of the building. In their window design and method of construction, these firms sought to recapture the medieval style and craftsmanship of the stained glass windows originally built for the Gothic cathedrals and churches of Europe. The two large windows by Tiffany Studios reflect the turn of the century popularity of the style of opalescent glass pioneered by that firm.
In 1927, the parish purchased, for $24,000, a new organ by Casavant Freres. This organ incorporated many pipes from the previous organ, which was installed in 1899. The Casavant organ continues to be used as the parish organ, and was recently and extensively renovated.
Since the church was erected in 1892, some in the parish felt that the chancel was too short and out of proportion with the nave. This perceived aesthetic deficiency was corrected in 1929, when the chancel was extended to the drawings of architect William Everill. The parish, in an act of frugality, chose
Mr. EverilPs $12,000 project, over the proposal by Cram & Ferguson, which would have cost $28,000. At this time, additional stained glass windows in the chancel were added as well as the carved wooden screens shielding the organ pipes.
The decades of the 1940’s and 1950’s saw certain aesthetic improvements to the interior of the church. In 1940, a new limestone altar was given in memory of Edward and Annie Finch, by their children. Above the high altar is the carved white oak reredos given in memory of Orville Griffith Waring, a warden and vestryman for over fifty years.
Under the guidance of longtime rector The Rev. Harry Knickle, a parish hall and kitchen were constructed in 1957. The parish hall is used by the parish for social functions. It also contains a stage for theatrical productions. Also in 1957, the second floor of the parish house was reconfigured to create additional classrooms.
In November, 1964, the carved white oak pulpit was dedicated as a memorial to Dorothy Fleming Waring. The transept chapel was dedicated in June, 1966 as a memorial to Walter Charles Scott, by his wife. In 1968, the last major memorial donation to the parish came into being: the Ackerman Memorial Garden. It was designed by the landscape design firm of Innocenti & Webel. It is located directly alongside the church on the opposite side from Cleveland Avenue. It was offered as a memorial by the Ackerman family in honor of Marion and Sarah Ackerman.
ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE
In both design and workmanship, Grace Church is indicative of the high quality of late 19th century ecclesiastical architecture in Plainfield. The building is an example of the Gothic Revival architectural influence and is characterized by the use of asymmetry, cruciform plan, pointed arched windows and arches, gothic style door carvings, and decorative sandstone trim around door and window openings. The large square bell tower is also a decisive element of the style and provides a focal point in the neighborhood.
One of the larger churches in Plainfield, and the largest Episcopal church in the Diocese of New Jersey, with a seating capacity of over 700, the imposing structure is a dominant presence in its neighborhood.
Robert W. Gibson, the architect, though English, began his practice in Albany where he received the commission for All Saints Cathedral (Episcopal), which began construction in 1881, and Christ Church, Rochester, 1888. Becoming a naturalized citizen in 1887 and moving to New York City in 1888, Mr. Gibson received such commissions as West End Collegiate Church and School (77th St. and West End Avenue), New York Botanical Gardens, 1896 (Administration Building), Church Mission Fund, 1892 (now the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, 20th Street and Park Avenue S.) and the Morton Plant mansion, 1904 (now Carrier’s, 53rdStreet and Fifth Avenue), as well as several country estates and club houses around New York and churches beyond the City. Notable among the former is the Sewanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club, 1892, on the North Shore of Long Island (Oyster Bay) and among the latter is St. Stephen’s Church, Clean, New York (circa 1886), which the Vestry’s Committee on the New Church Building selected to be the model for the current Grace Church. Mr. Gibson also designed several commercial structures including the New York Clearing House (77 Cedar Street), U.S. Trust Co. Building (45-47 Wall Street), and the Women’s Hotel (29thand Madison Avenue), all in Manhattan. Mr. Gibson was a versatile architect who was not identified with any one architectural style. His buildings, whether designed using the Gothic Revival (St. Stephen’s Church), Classical Revival (Morton Plant mansion), Dutch Revival (West End Collegiate Church), or Richardsonian Romanesque (numerous country homes) demonstrate his ability to design quality buildings in many styles. The nature of his commissions indicate that Mr. Gibson was connected to upper class society in New York and consistent with these connections his ecclesiastical commissions were almost exclusively at the behest of Episcopal parishes, such as Grace Church, or institutions such as the Church Mission Fund (the social service agency of the Episcopal Church).
An outstanding feature of Grace Church is its stained glass windows. Over 40 windows by such renowned firms as Tiffany Studios, Charles Connick Studios and Heaton, Butler & Bayne. These windows are an excellent representative sampling of the leading stained glass designers of the early 20th century. Two of the three windows by Tiffany Studios are of their trademark opalescent glass. The other windows were fabricated with European antique painted glass, some with detailed depictions of landscape scenes and vivid colors. The wheel window, chancel window and 16 side aisle windows are by the English firm Heaton, Butler & Bayne. This firm, founded in 1862, created stained glass that was artistically inspired by medieval Italian painting and its English incarnation, the pre-Raphaelites. They employed the antique glass technique of applying several layers of glass and paint to achieve a depth of perspective rarely found in stained glass. Among the most talented of Arts and Crafts stained glass craftsmen, the firm Heaton, Butler & Bayne manufactured stained glass windows for hundreds of English churches in the mid-1800’s and then America in the early 20thcentury. Their technique results in a uniquely realistic depiction of human faces on glass. Their stained glass windows at Grace Church, which were created between 1906 and 1911, exhibit the technique’s trademark physical detail of the human body.
In the medallions of the wheel window the treatment of the apostle’s faces are featured examples of painted glass. The windows by Charles Connick, which are in the clerestory and All Saints Chapel reflect his commitment to restore the medieval style in stained glass design. The Connick Studio has been described, by Virginia Reguin, professor of visual arts at Holy Cross College as “the most active proselytizer of the Gothic Revival in the 20th century”. His obituary in the New York Times referred to him as “the world’s greatest contemporary craftsman in stained glass”. Connick was the chief stained glass collaborator with Ralph Adams Cram, the premier neo-Gothic architect, and his windows grace many of Cram’s buildings, including the Rose Window of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. At Grace Church, Connick’s windows, created between 1956 and 1961, are representative examples of his style. His heavy reliance on blues and reds, consistent with the medieval practice, is exhibited in his windows at Grace Church.
A unique feature of Grace Church is its carillon. One of the oldest and largest on the continent, its bells continue to chime each week, seventy-nine years after its installation. Carillons were introduced to North American audiences in the early 1920’s largely as the result of the writings of one man, William Gorham Rice. Mr. Rice wrote extensively about carillons for such popular journals as National Geographic. In particular, he described the carillons of Belgium and the Netherlands, where they have been since the Middle Ages, and where it is common for every mid-sized town to have its own carillon. At Grace Church, it was a parishioner, Dr. Albert Pittis, who was solely responsible for the carillon. Originally interested in purchasing a set of chimes for the parish, the news of John D. Rockefeller’s signing a contract for a 42 bell carillon with the same firm with which Pittis was dealing, spurred him to do the same, though on a smaller scale, for Grace Church.
As reported in the New York Times, on December 6, 1922, in an article describing Rockefeller’s purchase of 42 bells for Park Avenue Baptist Church (later renamed Riverside Church), “The only other set of the kind in the United States will be at Grace Episcopal Church, Plainfield, N.J., to which an anonymous donor has given a carillon, also ordered from the [Gillett & Johnston] firm.” The Grace Church carillon has been played by the best carillonneurs in the world, as noted by the Courier News, on October 6, 1934, that recitals on the Grace Church carillon “have been given by Kamiel Lefevere, recognized as the best and most popular carillionneurs in the world”. Constructed by Gillett & Johnston, the premier bellmakers in England, it is a further example of the parish’s historic commitment to selecting the premier artisans in their field to work at the church. There exist only165non-electric carillons in North America, four of which are in New Jersey (in order of size; Princeton University, Grace Church, and two other Episcopal churches, St. Peter’s Church [Morristown] and the Church of St. George’s-by-the-River [Rumson]).
The Grace Church carillon has achieved recognition in the field, as when, in 1995, the parish hosted a recital by the Guild of Carillionneurs of North America. In2000,Robin Austin, the former carillionneur, who presently holds that position at Princeton University, returned to Grace Church to record a CD in conjunction with the parish’s community girlchoir. The carillon is played each week, both before and after Mass, by the parish carillonneur, Mr. David Magee. He is the latest in a long line of carillioneurs, beginning with the eight local men who were instructed by Mr. Percival Price, carillioneur of Metropolitan Church, Toronto and at the time one of the world’s most gifted carillioneurs, and who played at the dedicatory recital on March 23, 1923. The Pittis Memorial Carillon is the second largest carillon in New Jersey (after Princeton University) and the fourth oldest in North America. The carillon continues to be maintained by the Pittis family, whose forebear, Dr. Albert Pittis, was the benefactor of the carillon and the force behind its creation.
The Ackerman Memorial Garden adjacent to the church complex was designed in 1968 by Richard Webel, of Innocenti & Webel, who was a landscape architect for over sixty years. During his career, he designed at such renowned locations as the Metropolitan Museum of Art (American Wing), Blair House (presidential guest quarters across from the White House), Frick Art Museum in Pittsburgh, Governor’s Mansion (Albany), Wellesley College and Aqueduct Racetrack (Queens). He received, in 1992, a lifetime achievement award from his alma mater, Harvard University, where he also taught landscape architecture.
The current parishioners of Grace Episcopal Church have achieved a balance of commitment to restoring their historic legacy while at the same time serving the community’s most basic needs. The parish, having just been awarded a $422,500 matching grant from New Jersey Historic Trust, is set to begin exterior restoration work on the stone fa9ade, sandstone, wood trim, stained glass windows and roof. While the work is ongoing, the parish ministries, housed in our historic structures, continue. They are: Grace’s Kitchen (a feeding program involving nine parishes and 200volunteers — who last year received a Congressional Medal for Volunteer Service—and who serve 1,000 lunch meals during the last five days of each month); Plainfield Girlchoir (an after school music tutorial choir program based on the Royal School of Church Music curriculum, that has performed at Lincoln Center, New Jersey State Museum, and each year at the St. Bartholomew’s Church (Manhattan) youth choral festival); Plainfield Computer Center, funded by Lucent Technologies Foundation and Trinity Church, Wall Street to teach youth web site design skills, entrepreneurial skills and to run a multicultural program with a video component to enable teenagers to mentor elementary aged children in the challenges and lessons of living in a multicultural environment; Interfaith Homeless Center. 12 families are fed and housed two weeks each year by parishioners.
In addition to the aforementioned parish activities, space in our buildings is also used by neighborhood non-profit groups, including several congregations, Sentir Criollo, a Colombian dance troupe and the Youth Entertainment Academy (a recording studio educational project for inner city kids), which on March 14, 2001 hosted a visit by President George W. Bush to Grace Church. The parish of Grace Church is fully committed to housing its various ministries to the disadvantaged of Plainfield in a restored historic church.