St. Barnabas Episcopal Church is a former church building in the

Episcopal Diocese of Iowa The Episcopal Diocese of Iowa is the diocese of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America which covers all of Iowa. It is in Province VI. Its offices are in Des Moines, and it has two cathedrals: the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in ...

Montrose, Iowa Montrose is a city in Lee County, Iowa. The population was 738 at the time of the 2020 census. The town is located on the Mississippi River. It is part of the Fort Madison–Keokuk, IA-IL-MO Micropolitan Statistical Area. History The area aroun ...

, United States. It 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 ...

in 1986. The building is now called St. Barnabas Wedding Chapel.

History

The congregation was founded as Grace Church and initially shared space with the local

Methodist Episcopal Church The Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) was the oldest and largest Methodist denomination in the United States from its founding in 1784 until 1939. It was also the first religious denomination in the US to organize itself on a national basis. In ...

. with Land for the present church was secured in 1867 and funds were raised for the building. Construction began in 1869 and the main part of the sanctuary was completed in 1871. Local craftsmen built the church in blue-gray

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

, which was quarried away. Matthew Richardson, J.S. Lakin, and J.N. Ballou finished the interior, which included its furnishings. The name of the congregation was changed to St. Barnabas in 1881. The women of the parish raised the money for the bell tower and

narthex The narthex is an architectural element typical of early Christian and Byzantine basilicas and churches consisting of the entrance or lobby area, located at the west end of the nave, opposite the church's main altar. Traditionally the narthex ...

, which were built c. 1902. A second-hand bell had been given by a

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

parish and hung on a frame structure at the Methodist Church until this tower was built. St. Barnabas was never a parish in its own right, but was a mission that was served from St. Luke's in

Fort Madison Fort Madison is a city and a county seat of Lee County, Iowa, United States along with Keokuk. Of Iowa's 99 counties, Lee County is the only one with two county seats. The population was 10,270 at the time of the 2020 census. Located along the ...

or St. John's in Keokuk. The church remained in use until it closed in 1960. An attempt was made to move the town library to the old church in 1974. The church was

deconsecrated Deconsecration, also called secularization, is the act of removing a religious blessing from something that had been previously consecrated by a minister or priest of that religion. The practice is usually performed on churches or synagogues to ...

and some of its contents were given to active churches. The building was also vandalized and the churchyard was used to graze horses for a time. The old church sat empty until the Montrose Township Historical Society was formed in 1981 and began to restore it. In addition to serving as a wedding chapel, the facility hosts annual

Memorial Day Memorial Day (originally known as Decoration Day) is a federal holiday in the United States for mourning the U.S. military personnel who have fought and died while serving in the United States armed forces. It is observed on the last Monda ...

and

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...

programs.

Architecture

The rectangular structure measures about . There is a small

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ov ...

and vestry-room on the rear of the building. The bell tower, which gives the building a

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

appearance, rises to a height of . The blue-gray limestone on the main body of the church is rough cut and irregularly coursed. The limestone on the tower is lighter in color and it is square cut, irregularly faced ashlar. The side elevations are three bays in length and each contain a lancet window. The bays are divided by stepped

pilaster In classical architecture, a pilaster is an architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wal ...

s that are also located on the corners of the building. Three lancet windows are grouped together and are located on the back wall of the chancel. The original pews, two memorial windows, and the church bell are all that remain on the interior.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Barnabas Episcopal Church (Montrose, Iowa) Churches completed in 1871 19th-century Episcopal church buildings Gothic Revival church buildings in Iowa Episcopal church buildings in Iowa Churches in Lee County, Iowa Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa National Register of Historic Places in Lee County, Iowa 1869 establishments in Iowa Wedding chapels in the United States