St. Michael's Episcopal Church, Parish House and Rectory is a group of architecturally-significant religious buildings located at 200-216 North Mill Street in
Birdsboro,
Berks County, Pennsylvania
Berks County ( Pennsylvania German: ''Barricks Kaundi'') is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 428,849. The county seat is Reading.
The Schuylkill River, a tributary of the Delaware Ri ...
. It was added to the
U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
Prior to the 2003 removal of its stained-glass windows, pipe organ, and interior furnishings, the building was considered the most unaltered of Victorian architect
Frank Furness's churches. The property was sold in 2005, and is now the New First Baptist Church of Birdsboro.
Built in 1853
St. Michael's congregation was founded in 1851, and the original church was built in 1853 on land donated by brothers Edward and George Brooke, proprietors of the
Birdsboro Iron Foundry Company (later Birdsboro Steel Corporation). George designed the "Norman-Gothic" church building, and he and his brother donated the organ, the bell for its gable
bellcote
A bellcote, bell-cote or bell-cot is a small framework and shelter for one or more bells. Bellcotes are most common in church architecture but are also seen on institutions such as schools. The bellcote may be carried on brackets projecting from ...
, and other interior and exterior improvements. The Parish House (probably designed by George) — housing a chapel, the Sunday School, and a reading room — was completed in 1873, and was a gift of the Brookes.
Furness
As architect of the
Reading Railroad
The Reading Company ( ) was a Philadelphia-headquartered railroad that provided passenger and commercial rail transport in eastern Pennsylvania and neighboring states that operated from 1924 until its 1976 acquisition by Conrail.
Commonly call ...
,
Frank Furness designed the line's station in Birdsboro (1874, demolished 1967). The Brooke brothers did business with the Reading, and Edward hired Furness to make alterations to his Greek Revival mansion, "Brooke Manor" (1844, altered by Furness circa 1875, demolished 1961).
Design of St. Michael's Rectory (1877–78) is attributed to either George Brooke or Furness, and the brownstone residence became another gift of the Brookes. Later alterations — changing the roof, moving the entrance to a 3-story addition (with bathrooms above), adding a bay window where the original entrance had been — are attributed solely to Furness, and probably were done at the same time that the church was expanded.
[George E. Thomas (1982-04-08). National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: St. Michael's Protestant Episcopal Church, Parish House and RectoryPDF (542.16 KB). National Park Service.] Furness's alterations are visible in an 1890 panoramic view of Birdsboro.
1884-85 expansion
Following older brother Edward's death, George hired Furness to expand the church building. Furness lengthened the
nave
The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...
– adding east and west
transept
A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform ("cross-shaped") building wi ...
s and turning a simple box into a
cruciform
Cruciform is a term for physical manifestations resembling a common cross or Christian cross. The label can be extended to architectural shapes, biology, art, and design.
Cruciform architectural plan
Christian churches are commonly describe ...
— and tucked a bell-tower-with-steeple off to one side. The contractor, Levi H. Focht, was a resident of Birdsboro, and had built dozens of Furness-designed stations for the Reading Railroad (including the one in Birdsboro). The church's exterior was clad in brownstone, with a wooden
porte cochere
Porte may refer to:
*Sublime Porte, the central government of the Ottoman empire
*Porte, Piedmont, a municipality in the Piedmont region of Italy
*John Cyril Porte, British/Irish aviator
*Richie Porte, Australian professional cyclist who competes ...
built against the west transept (turning it into a carriage entrance), a colored-slate roof, and a large gold-plated cross crowning the steeple.
Furness, son of the Unitarian minister
William Henry Furness
William Henry Furness (April 20, 1802 – January 30, 1896) was an American clergyman, theologian, Transcendentalist, abolitionist, and reformer.
Biography
Furness was born in Boston, where he attended the Boston Latin School and developed a lif ...
, experimented with some of the ideas from his contemporaneous
First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia (1883–86). Both churches had soaring curved roof trusses, vividly colored walls, and high windows that bathed the sanctuary in natural light. For St. Michael's, Furness chose royal-blue ceilings and Etruscan-red walls accented with metallic-gold trim, a color scheme that he had used to dramatic effect at the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[Daniel Pabst
Daniel Pabst (June 11, 1826 – July 15, 1910) was a German-born American cabinetmaker of the Victorian Era. He is credited with some of the most extraordinary custom interiors and hand-crafted furniture in the United States. Sometimes working i ...](_blank)
. The blower for the Johnson & Son pipe organ (Op. 572, 1882) was housed in the base of the bell tower, and its pipes were stencilled with stylized flowers in colors that recalled
Pennsylvania Dutch folk art.
The total cost of the improvements was in excess of $12,000, a gift of the Brooke family. The expanded church was consecrated on May 31, 1885.
1892 expansion
The chancel was lengthened by 10 feet and widened by 6 feet in 1892, allowing the installation of choir stalls and moving the altar wall south to the Church Street sidewalk. This work was done by New York designer R. Geissler and contractor Levi H. Focht. At the same time, the ''Edward Brooke Memorial Window'', created by
Tiffany Studios
Tiffany may refer to:
People
* Tiffany (given name), list of people with this name
* Tiffany (surname), list of people with this surname
Known mononymously as "Tiffany":
* Tiffany Darwish, (born 1971), an American singer, songwriter, actress know ...
in 1887, was removed from the east transept and installed over the altar.
Over the decades, the church was embellished with additional stained-glass windows, including another by Tiffany Studios, and other adornments.
Decline
Following years of decline, the Birdsboro Steel Corporation's plant closed in 1988, a severe economic blow to the town. By the time St. Michael's celebrated its sesquicentennial in 2001, the congregation had dwindled to the point of not being able to sustain a full-time minister. The
Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania closed the church in July 2002. It then outraged preservationists in January 2003, by removing the building's stained-glass windows, pews, altars and pipe organ. Availability to these items was supposed to be restricted only to other Episcopal congregations, but, according to George M. Meiser IX, president of the Historical Society of Berks County, some of them were offered for sale on
eBay
eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became ...
.
The ''Edward Brooke Memorial Window'' stood above the altar for 110 years. It is now in the collection of the
Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows
The Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows was an exhibition that opened in February 2000 at Chicago’s Navy Pier entertainment complex. It permanently closed in October 2014. It was the first American museum dedicated solely to the art of stai ...
in
Chicago, Illinois
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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. The pipe organ was cannibalized for parts.
The church property was sold to another congregation in 2005, and is now the New First Baptist Church of Birdsboro.
[Bruce A. Hoffman, ''Forge and Foundry: The People and Places of Mill and Furnace in Birdsboro, PA - Volume 4'' (by the author, 2009), pp. 126-30.]
Significance
George E. Thomas of the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
, an architectural historian who has spent his career studying Furness, wrote the 1982 nomination for St. Michael's inclusion 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 ...
:
''"The church represents a major complex of buildings by Furness at the height of his career, when he was moving toward direct expression of materials and construction as the constituent elements of his designs. ... e brilliance of the surviving color scheme of the church interior, which is the only complete, original color scheme from his career ... is important both because it carries Ruskinian color into the 1880s, and for recalling his father's admonition to the American Institute of Architects, in 1872, when he argued that the church architect should make a building that would keep a parishioner awake, if the sermon was dull. That he nobly accomplished. ...Despite the fact that Furness added to and redesigned the existing church buildings, in its current appearance St. Michael's can be regarded as his work."''
See also
*
External links
*
St. Michael's Episcopal Church - National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination (1982)br>
St. Michael's exteriorfrom Scott—via Flickr.
Parish Hall (center) and Rectory (right)from Photobucket.
Church interior in 1978from Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania.
from Hammercreek Studios.
*Daniel K. Miller
''The History of St. Michael's Protestant Episcopal Church, Birdsboro, Pennsylvania'' (1951).from Ancestry.com
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Michael's Episcopal Church (Birdsboro, Pennsylvania)
Episcopal churches in Pennsylvania
Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania
Gothic Revival church buildings in Pennsylvania
Churches completed in 1853
19th-century Episcopal church buildings
Frank Furness buildings
Churches in Berks County, Pennsylvania
National Register of Historic Places in Berks County, Pennsylvania