1865 - Southern Pacific Railroad is now completed through Lee's Summit.
In a few years surplus wooden boxcars will be available for our St. Paul's founders. They will use the recycled boxcar wood to finish the inside of the church.
"The interior is ceiled throughout with narrow stuff put on diagonally, the timbers above do not show" from 1884 description.
1877 - “ Three women, who raised money by sewing carpet rags, founded Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church in 1879. It took Elizabeth Whiting, Belle Jones, (nee Whiting ) and Bessie Gattrell seven years to collect enough money to turn those rags into the riches of a sacred space where 21st century worshipers still gather today.
1877 ca “- - ladies began by forming a sewing society, and each gave five cents. This was the starting point of the church fund. Since then it has steadily increased. The ladies held festivals when they could, took in sewing and when there was none to be had, they sewed carpet rags and sold them. Some called it the carpet rag church. It seemed impossible that they should build; and yet, now they have the handsomest church in town, and have great pride and comfort in it…The contractor was an honest man, and his work was constantly supervised by the ladies. The consequence is a strongly built, neat and tasteful building.”
1884 August - The August 15, 1884, edition of Church News described the building this way: “They have let the contract for the erection of a frame church in Lee’s Summit, 40 x 24 feet and a vestibule 8 x 10 feet, 12 foot sides and 28 feet to the apex of the roof, with a belfry over the vestibule. It is to be ceiled inside, and have stained glass windows. The lot was given on which it is built. The cost of the building is to be $1,060. The business of collecting the money, making the contract and superintending the construction is in the hands of some very energetic and capable ladies.” Spiritual leadership for building Saint Paul’s came from the Reverend. J. W. Dunn, rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in nearby Independence.
See 1884 Historic "Prairie Gothic" St. Paul's Episcopal, History
Our Church started in 1867, on the Osage Prairie of Jackson County, Missouri. In 1884, the parishioners built their Prairie Gothic Church, it still stands today and is used daily, twice on Sundays. Most of our founders lived their entire lives from birth to death within the sound of the bell of St. Paul's Episcopal Church. Many who farmed within two miles or so, would stop to hear the bell.
ReplyDeleteThe Bell was a gift in 1884 from W. W. Moore of
Kansas City.
When we hear the bells, we feel the same binding power that called our forbears to worship. We feel the scene in Millets’ "The Angelus" painting, also depicts the scene in the prairie lands of Jackson County when the settlers arrived. They settled on a treeless landscape with nothing to stop the strong winds from Oklahoma and Kansas territories.
http://freepages.religions.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~haefner/Bell/
"For bells are the voice of the church
ReplyDeleteThey have tones that touch and search"