St. Paul's (Zion's) Evangelical Lutheran Church
St. Paul's (Zion's) Evangelical Lutheran Church is the official name of the church in Red Hook , New York in the United States , commonly known as St. Paul's Lutheran Church , which includes six buildings and a cemetery on approximately six acres of land on South Broadway ( US Highway 9 ) directly south of the town center. The current church is the third church building on the site, which originally belonged to a parish of the Evangelical and Reformed Church .
It is one of several Evangelical Lutheran churches in the area, whose beginnings go back to Palatinate immigrants at the beginning of the 18th century. The current building from the late 19th century is a sophisticated application of the neo-Romanesque by an architect from New York City. The building complex was entered on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998. Due to financial difficulties, the parish considered selling and demolishing some of the buildings.
Property and buildings
The parish property is bordered by South Broadway on the west side, Fisk Lane on the north, Elizabeth Street on the east, and a residential building on the south end. It is a complex of six buildings, four of which are in a row on the street and the other two in the cemetery at the rear of the property. All are considered to contribute to the historical character of the ensemble. In addition to the main entrance from South Broadway, there is an entrance from Fisk Lane. The plot is open and has some tall trees.
church
The church itself is the third building from the north. It is an asymmetrical brick building with a crossed gable and a dome on the roof . Windows and doors sit in round arches. The front in the west has a large elaborate rose window with quatrefoil . Below are three smaller arched windows with stained glass, the wedges of which are made of sandstone . Another smaller window sits above in the tympanum .
The main entrance is a small, one-story veranda with a flat roof, the archivolts of which are made of similar sandstone. A similar porch with a side entrance is on the northwest corner at the base of the bell tower . This rises up to its widened tip with window openings in round arches on all four sides and the rounded copper roof. Under the east gable of the church there is a steep, conically shaped canopy that covers the entrance to the basement near the sacristy .
Inside, the walls are plastered and paneled , windows and doors are set deep into the wall openings. The ceiling is formed by a domed vault supported by brackets and smaller column vaults . The ceiling is made of corrugated iron , creating the effect of an upside-down bell. The pews are placed in a semicircle on the descending floor in the transept and central nave. The baptismal font and choir stalls are in the southern corners and the altar is protected by a raised half-vault.
More buildings
Directly north of the church is the pastorate , a two-and-a-half-story house built in Queen Anne style with a steeply sloping roof and a wrap-around porch. To the north of this, the town hall, one is neo-Gothic in frame construction erected building whose steep roof of a cornice is accompanied with corbels and arched windows.
At the southern end of the row of buildings is the cemetery keeper's house. It is the oldest building on the property. The one and a half story house is a salt box . At its rear is a small wooden shed with a cross-gable roof made of sheet metal and sliding doors that serves as a garage. The nearby cemetery office is a one-story wooden post with a gable roof and garage doors.
graveyard
The cemetery is located at the rear of the property. It is largely flat. Several, partly asphalted paths cross the site to facilitate access to the tombs, which are arranged in twenty sections. These subdivisions correspond to earlier property boundaries. The oldest tombstone dates from 1813. It is one of the few marble or sandstone tombstones from that time. Victorian tombs made of marble and granite dominate five other sections , the rest of the cemetery was laid out in the 20th century. None of the tombstones are noteworthy for their cemetery art or the person buried.
history
Lutheranism came to northwestern Dutchess County in the 1710s when Palatinate refugees arrived here prior to the War of the Spanish Succession . After attempting to cultivate resin derivatives on Robert Livingston's land in what is now Columbia County , they were fired. Some settled in the Rhinebeck and Red Hook areas at the invitation of another landowner, Henry Beekman . They founded a joint church of Lutheran and Reformed Christians in Red Hook in 1715.
The Lutherans left the church in 1729, although it is not known whether this was because of a dispute or because their number became sufficient to support their own church. They founded today's Old Stone Church on Albany Post Road (now US 9) between Rhinebeck and Red Hook. The Reformed Lutheran Church later became the Zion German Reformed Church.
The parish bought two acres of land at what is now Red Hook in 1796 and moved the church there six years later. At that time, the present house of the cemetery keeper was the only new building there. The parish built a new church, which was completed in 1803. It is not known whether the cemetery existed when the 1813 tombstone was erected. The wooden post-construction church was destroyed by a storm in 1834 and the subsequent new building was made of stone. In a figurative sense, the congregation got a new church when no new pastor could be found in 1846. To solve the problem, they converted to the Lutheran faith and renamed the church St. Paul's.
In the 1880s, the building complex was expanded by first building the community hall at the northern end of the property. Two years later, the growth of the parish led to the raising of money to build another new church. The stone church was demolished in 1889 and parishioners began digging a cellar. The construction costs of the present church amounted to 18,650 US dollars (1890; today about 540,000 US dollars). It was completed in 1890.
The structure was designed by the New York architect Lawrence B. Valk, who wrote extensively about the construction of church structures in the book Church Architecture published in 1873 . In his view, "churches exist for the salvation of souls, not for architectural representation at the expense of convenience" . Most of the other churches he built are closer to the metropolis, for example in Ossining or on Long Island . The church he built in Red Hook is no different from his other church buildings from that period. It largely resembles the Congregational Church of Patchogue , in which he also used the very contemporary neo-Romanesque style and a similar floor plan.
In 1903 the rectory was finally built. Three years later the church building was equipped with electric light, a new floor and an organ were installed in the following years. In 1914, the community had the name changed by court order to commemorate its origins as Zion German Reformed Church. The cemetery was enlarged and in the 1920s the cemetery office and shed were bought. It became necessary to acquire more land to expand the cemetery, so several surrounding parcels were purchased. In 1939 the property reached its present size. Little has changed since then. In 1956, work on the basement resulted in the removal of the original porte cochère and the addition of a fireplace on the south side. The slate roof was replaced in the 1970s.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the community ran into financial difficulties. In April 2009 she was threatened with collapse. In 2008 an application was made to the village administration for permission to demolish the cemetery caretaker's house and the community hall in order to divide up the site and sell five building plots. The proceeds were used to keep the church and cemetery in operation. Local conservationists objected that the cemetery keeper's house was "organic for the site" and should be relocated, but not demolished.
Today the church and two others belong to a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g Peter Shaver: St. Paul's (Zion's) Evangelical Lutheran Church . In: National Register of Historic Places nomination . New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation . June 10, 1998. Retrieved June 13, 2009.
- ^ Susan Nandor: Village Of Red Hook Planning Board, Minutes of Public Hearing and Regular Meeting, Nov. 13, 2008 ( English , PDF; 18 kB) Village of Red Hook Planning Board. November 13, 2008. Retrieved June 17, 2009.
- ↑ Region 3 Planning notices 12/3/2008 ( English ) In: Environmental Notices Bulletin . New York State Department of Environmental Conservation . December 3, 2008. Retrieved June 17, 2009: “ The action involves the request by St. Paul's Lutheran Church for approval to subdivide approximately 14.96 acres in the Village of Red Hook into six lots. Five of the new lots range in size from 20,810 square feet to 54,735 square feet, leaving 11.49 acres in the remaining sixth lot. The property is listed on the National and State Registers of Historical Places as an historic church complex due to the presence of the main Church building, five contributing structures and the cemetery. Lot 1 includes the caretaker's house for the church and Lot 5 includes the parish hall for the church "
Coordinates: 41 ° 59 ′ 30 " N , 73 ° 52 ′ 41" W.