All Saints' Torresdale Episcopal Church is an Episcopal church in the Torresdale neighborhood of

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

. The church was founded in 1772, an extension of Philadelphia's

Old Trinity Church Old Trinity Church, also known as Trinity Church, Oxford, is a historic Episcopal Church (United States), Episcopal church established in 1696 located in Oxford Township, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, Oxford Township, Pennsylvania, which is ...

. The present church building, designed by Frank Wills, was completed in 1855.

History

During the late 17th century,

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

services were the first religious services to be held at the site of what is, today, All Saints' Torresdale Episcopal Church. First conducted in 1698, they were held in a

Quaker meeting house A Friends meeting house is a meeting house of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), where meeting for worship is usually held. Typically, Friends meeting houses are simple and resemble local residential buildings. Ornamentation, spires, a ...

built from hewn logs. Replaced by a brick building in 1711, the structure was further improved with the addition of pews in 1759, eventually became known as the

, and remains situated in what is now Oxford Township, Pennsylvania. By the early 1770s, however, a group of congregants came to realize that their beliefs were not completed aligned with other members of their church, and decided to begin a search for another more suitable location to worship. Writing to the Propagation of the Gospel in London on behalf of those restive congregants in 1771, Dr. William Smith secured permission to build a new facility, found land roughly five miles away in Torresdale, an area in Philadelphia County which would become part of the city of Philadelphia in 1854, and began working to make the new church a reality. Groundbreaking was held on November 3, 1772, on land provided by Christian Minnick, the building was completed, and dedication ceremonies were held on November 3, 1772. "Included in the covenant of ground from Christian Minnick," according to historians at All Saints' Episcopal, "was a stipulation that the church was not to be separated from Trinity Oxford and that the Swedish minister was to preach in it every three weeks."History of All Saints’ Torresdale – 1772 to Present Time
" Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: All Saints' Episcopal Church (website), retrieved online February 23, 2019.

Rectors

*1772-1779 Dr. William Smith *1779-1785 No Rector *1785-1786 William Smith (not Dr. Smith) *1786-1791 Joseph Pilmore *1791-1798 Dr. William Smith and others *1798-1799 John Henry Hobart *1799-1802 no regular Rector *1802-1804 Charles Cotton *1804-1805 No Rector *1805-1806 Mr. Nankevil *1806-1809 James Abercombie *1809-1816 James Wiltbank *1816-1818 No Rector *1818-1834 George Sheets *1834-1878 Frederick Beasley *1878-1879 No Rector *1879-1882 John Magruth *1882-1886 James Bassett *1886-1907 Rush S. Eastman *1907-1916 Allen Van Meter *1916-1953 Percy Brown *1953-1960 Stuart Thomas *1960-2003 Dr. Edward Chinn *2004-2009 Jeffrey Liddy *2010-2012 Stephen Snider (interim rector) *2012–2016 Rev. Dr. Bradley Hauff *2020–present Rev. Jay Walton

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:All Saints Torresdale Episcopal Church (Philadelphia) 19th-century Episcopal church buildings Churches in Philadelphia Episcopal churches in Pennsylvania Gothic Revival architecture in Pennsylvania Philadelphia Register of Historic Places Churches completed in 1855 1772 establishments in Pennsylvania Northeast Philadelphia