Pilgrim Presbyterian Church is a historic

church building A church, church building or church house is a building used for Christian worship services and other Christian religious activities. The earliest identified Christian church is a house church founded between 233 and 256. From the 11th thro ...

in the Mount Adams neighborhood of

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, near the Ida Street Viaduct.Owen, Lorrie K., ed. ''Dictionary of Ohio Historic Places''. Vol. 1. St. Clair Shores: Somerset, 1999, 649. Built in 1886, it is a

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

structure built primarily of brick., Ohio Historical Society, 2007. Accessed 2010-11-10. Constructed by Mount Adams architect and builder Charles E. Iliff, the church features a two- story rectangular floor plan with a prominent central

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...

. Among its other distinctive architectural elements are the

rose window Rose window is often used as a generic term applied to a circular window, but is especially used for those found in Gothic cathedrals and churches. The windows are divided into segments by stone mullions and tracery. The term ''rose window'' w ...

s in the main

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

, pairs of windows on its second floor, and the symmetry evidenced in the overall design of the building. Although Cincinnati was largely

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...

in its early history, Mount Adams was originally a strongly

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

community; Pilgrim Presbyterian was the first

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

church of any denomination to be founded in that neighborhood. Today, the congregation is no longer in existence: the building is now owned by Pilgrim Chapel

United Church of Christ The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination based in the United States, with historical and confessional roots in the Congregational, Calvinist, Lutheran, and Anabaptist traditions, and with approximately 4 ...

, and its name is absent from the roster of the Cincinnati Presbytery of the

Presbyterian Church Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...

.Congregations of the Presbytery
Presbytery of Cincinnati, 2010-01-24. Accessed 2010-11-10. In 1980, the former Pilgrim Presbyterian Church was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

. It qualified for inclusion on the Register both because of its distinctive historic architecture and because of its place in local history.

References

External links

Church websiteDocumentation
from the University of Cincinnati {{National Register of Historic Places Churches completed in 1886 1880s architecture in the United States Presbyterian churches in Cincinnati Former Presbyterian churches in the United States Gothic Revival church buildings in Ohio National Register of Historic Places in Cincinnati Presbyterian churches in Ohio United Church of Christ churches in Ohio Mount Adams, Cincinnati