Park 14: Saint Paul's Church National Historic Site

8/21/12. Today we went to the Bronx Zoo with some friends and when we left, we decided to stop by Saint Paul's Church National Historic Site which was very close by. The site contains a lovely church and cemetery surrounded by the worst of urban blight and sprawl - a real irony that makes us appreciate the Park Service's commitment to saving such sites.

The National Park Website says it is one of New York's oldest parishes (1665-1980). It was used as a hospital following the important Revolutionary War Battle at Pell's Point in 1776, and was the scene of various military developments for the next six years. The church stood at the edge of Eastchester village green, the site of the "Great Election" (1733), which raised the issues of Freedom of Religion and Press. The adjoining cemetery contains burials dating from 1704.

We entered the low building that was once the parish hall and watched a movie about the church history. There was also a small museum and a few artifacts. This is clearly a national historic site that could use more resources in the future.

After spending some time looking over the museum, we had a better sense of the historical context - and a brief reference to a woman who was related to the Rand family!

Next the ranger took us on a private tour of the church since there wasn't anyone else there at that time. We spent some time inside the nave learning about the church history and then went into the choir loft. Jason had a great time examining the organ.

From the choir loft we entered the bell tower and worked our way up through the narrow passage using wooden ladders.




We finally reached the top of the tower where the bell is kept. The view was magnificent and we learned more about the bell:
"Design of the church was inspired by the edifices built around London following the Great Fire of 1666, where the principal architect was Christopher Wren. Books with sketches and diagrams based on the construction of some of those churches were available in colonial New York. Local masons helped to build the church along with craftsmen from New York City who would live in the area for months, boarding with Eastchester families. Stones were drawn from the local fields (hence the contemporary term, “fieldstone”), while bricks were also local, probably molded from clay deposits along the Hudson River. Mortar was a proscribed combination of water, sand and lime as the bonding agent, with quantities mixed in a pit at the southern edge of the Green. As a public project of the town, funds were drawn from regular taxation revenues, and supplemented with lotteries.

A large undertaking for a relatively small town, the church was not complete when the political and military disruption of the American Revolution rocked the area, halting construction. On the eve of the war, most of the exterior was in place, and the tower had been erected about 2/3 of the way to the present steeple, but the interior was little more than a dirt floor. The community was still worshipping in the wooden meetinghouse. Yet, even in its unfinished form, the church was the largest, best built, centrally located building in the vicinity, and since it was unlocked and unused during the War for American Independence, it became the obvious location for a field hospital during local campaigns. It was used by the American, British and Hessian armies. The need for firewood as fuel by those forces led to the complete disassembling of the older meetinghouse by the war’s conclusion."

Finally, we crawled back down and walked around the cemetery, learning more about the people buried there over the years. It was a gorgeous late summer day and we were delighted to have had this opportunity to explore the history of our area!