The Village Green is alive and well in Slatersville!

Slatersville Congregational Church, located in North Smithfield, RI, certainly defies the trend that the village green, with its distinctive church, is a thing of the past.  

Surrounded by 19th century homes, and adjacent to the town hall and library, this church is still strategically located.  Signs of life abound: a food pantry to serve the needy, a vacation Bible school held earlier this month, weekly concerts on the green all summer, and even a paint crew seen recently sprucing up the exterior.

The church's web site indicates that mill owner John Slater started a Sunday School in 1807 (the year after he opened his mill) "to give the youngsters schooling as well as moral instruction".  It was one of the earliest Sunday Schools in the US, and was followed in 1836 by the erection of the present building.

Slatersville was in its heyday as a mill village from about 1810-1820, featuring the largest and most modern industrial building of its day.  200 years later, its village green appears to still be thriving.  What is the secret of its success?

Deja Vu - St Mark's Church for sale

Is that a "For Sale" sign in front of St Mark's Episcopal Church in Riverside?  This sign must have appeared within the last couple of weeks, and it is a sad omen of changing times.  Think of all the people who worshipped here, met here, were baptized or memorialized here...           Unlike its namesake in Warren [see April 6th], St Mark's in Riverside is a 20th century structure (built in 1965, according to the property's real estate listing).  Its location is Riverside Square was once a bustling stop along the trolley line, the stop just before Crescent Park (mostly destroyed in the Hurricane of '38, but still boasting a fabulous Looff Carousel).   

St Brendan's Roman Catholic Church still stands across the street and one block east of St Mark's. There, people continue to meet for mass each morning, although St Brendan's school closed its doors a few years ago, due to declining enrollment.

Perhaps it is the old, somewhat remote (from the main thoroughfares) Riverside Square location that consigned these buildings to close.   As more of these old (and not so old) centers for worship, fellowship, and education close their doors, a way of life ebbs away.

The steeple fashion of 1810?

Less than 5 miles east of the Cathedral of St John the Divine is the Newman Congregational Church, which features the same pinnacles on its  tower as the Cathedral.  It is described in the Federal Writers' Project publication, Rhode Island: A Guide to the Smallest State (1937), as follows:


"The square tower of the present structure...is surmounted by a set-back stage or belfry with shuttered windows.  Crowning the belfry are sharp corner pinnacles connected by a low paneled parapet.  A central pinnacle, higher than the rest is topped with a weather vane." (p 397)


Significantly, the Guide states, the church was built in 1810 - the same year as the Cathedral.  The Cathedral (see previous post)  lacked the central pinnacle of the Newman tower.  (Was the cathedral's central pinnacle felled by a storm - or  did the original plan call for only corner pinnacles?)  Was there a glut of these pinnacle-towers in Rhode Island 200 years ago?  Or were there only these two?


The Guide also notes that the 1810 building, situated at 100 Newman Avenue, is within 200 feet of the original church of 1643 (now that's old!), which was conducted by Rev Samuel Newman.  In 1643, this section of East Providence would have been a part of the town of Rehoboth, and later of Seekonk.  Samuel Newman himself was a native of Banbury, England and a 1620 graduate of Trinity College, Oxford.  Religious persecution drove Newman to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635.


On a side note, I wonder if Rev Newman ever visited Wroxton Abbey as a young man.  Wroxton is a Jacobean manor house built by the Pope family in the early 17th century, just 3 miles from Newman's home village of Banbury, and owned by Newman's alma mater of Trinity College, Oxford.  It is now Wroxton College, of which this steeplechaser is an alum.

Time is running out for historic landmark

Plans to close the Cathedral of St John the Divine were announced in a recent  Providence Journal article.  The last service to be held in this historic church is scheduled for April 22nd, 2012.  


The cathedral, at 271 North Main Street on Providence's East Side, had its beginning way back in 1722 as King's Church.  The church, in fact, was closed once before, the article states - when the congregation refused to pray for King George III during the American War for Independence!

The 1810 building features the familiar square clock tower and belfry with spiky pinnacles above it, left.  The Providence Preservation Society's site includes more architectural details.

The Journal article cites the church's outreach to the community (serving up a weekly meal for the homeless), as well as the diversity of its parish (including 40% of Liberian ancestry).  The cathedral is also the ecclesiastical seat of RI's Episcopal bishop.  In summary, this church is not only an historical landmark, and the Bishop's church, but also a community of faith that seems to be meeting needs and keeping up with changes in its community.   

Yet, the article reports, there is just not enough revenue to maintain the old building.  Let's hope the iconic tower remains on the horizon and, more importantly, that the congregation can find another home in which to worship if they truly have to vacate this beautiful old building.

New life in an old building

This solid-looking pyramidal steeple and bell tower grace the stately old Roger Williams Baptist Church in the Wanskuck neighborhood in Providence's north end.


I discovered this dignified gothic revival building, at the opposite end of Veazie Street from the Wanskuck Branch Library where I worked as branch librarian in 1998-99.  The church sits at the convergence of Veazie and Woodward Road.


The church was built in 1866 (1867 in some accounts) to serve the growing population of Providence's north end.  Much of this growth was related to the Wanskuck Co, founded in 1862 to produce textiles needed to make uniforms and blankets for the Civil war effort.


Sadly, the church closed in 2011 due to low membership, according to a story on the WPRI site.  Perhaps the decline reflects a much earlier population shift resulting from the close of the Wanskuck Co in 1957 as reported in a  short history of the Wanskuck neighborhood.


But there is good news for this old building - a new community of believers has recently purchased the property.  A  Providence Journal article reports that a new congregation, Christ Community Church, will move in later this month.    May God bless them as they bring new life to the building and to the community!

What happened to St. Mark's steeple?

St Mark's Church in Warren, RI presently has no steeple, although a tower existed at some point, as referenced in an Historical discourse delivered in St Mark's Church, Warren, RI [p 15] by rector William Nichols Ackley in 1878.

"On December 21st of this year [1839] a new bell, weighing 1950 pounds, was placed in the tower, the old one having broken.   Either a strange fatality must have haunted the bells of this church, or the good sextons must have displayed a singular energy in the ringing of them." 

Rector Ackley notes that the 1839 bell was the 3rd one purchased in the nine years since the church was built!


It turns out a hurricane weakened the bell tower and it had to be removed in 1945, according to an historical note from the Records of St Mark's Episcopal Church.  The records, which include annual reports, minutes of vestry meetings, parish registers, images, etc. are archived by Special Collections at the University of Rhode Island.


More curious than the missing steeple, however, is why the church would close its doors 2 years ago, after serving the Warren community for 180 years.  St Mark's, at 21 Lyndon Street, is located in Warren's eclectic historic district, and is currently for sale (asking price is $280,000).  A report on the WPRI web site blames a shrinking congregation and financial problems.  But why did the congregation decline?

Objectives of the Steeple Project

I have two objectives in creating this blog:  

I.  To maintain an informal catalog of some of my favorite architectural features: the STEEPLES and CAMPANILES (or BELL TOWERS) of Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts.  

Here's a classic example at left: the bell tower of St. Ann's Church on Russo Street in Providence, near where Branch Ave and Charles St intersect.  I see this lofty tower from Rt 146; it's like a guiding light when I'm driving after dark.

* * * * *

II. My second objective is a more philosophical/sociological effort: 

To note recent changes in the local church - particularly the closing of some local churches, the merging of some congregations, new designs of ecclesiastical architecture, and new patterns in which communities of faith choose to gather together - any of which might lead to the vanishing steeple of today's horizon.  It's also worth reflecting on how these changes are impacting our culture.

[Unless a specific source is cited, these observations are my own, as are the photographs.]

Steeples are vanishing from the skylines of New England cities and towns.  Does their disappearance signal a transformation of ecclesiastical architecture, or is it more indicative of a change in lifestyle, like the disappearing village green that stood, with the village church, at the center of town?