Christ Church

With its nearly 200-foot spire and huge three-light “Palladian” window overlooking Second Street, Christ Church is among the most impressive buildings created in colonial America. Constructed in 1727-1754, it deserves comparison with the most significant recent architecture of London: the 51 churches that Christopher Wren rebuilt after the “Great Fire” of 1666 and the monumental St. Martin-in-the-Fields (1722–1726), designed by James Gibbs.

Christ Church owes its existence to the fact that, although William Penn’s colony guaranteed freedom of worship to Quakers and other “dissenters” from the established church, his royal charter also required him to grant access to preachers sent by the bishop of London. In fulfillment of that requirement, in 1695 Anglicans acquired property and built a church at Second and Market Streets, close to the courthouse, the market, and the Quakers’ Great Meetinghouse.

Their original wooden building soon had to be enlarged to serve the growing congregation, and in 1727 the vestry voted to replace it altogether. Dr. John Kearsley headed the building committee, but it is unlikely that he was responsible for the design. To allow the old building to continue to function, construction was executed in two phases: first a westward extension, including the foundations for a tower, in 1727-1733; then the demolition of the old work and the construction of the new east end, with its huge window, in 1731-1744.

A tower and spire had been foreseen from the start, but these were not designed and built until 1751-1754, when this work was undertaken by the architect Robert Smith, who had recently arrived from Scotland. His model was St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and for more than half a century his steeple was the tallest manmade object in the Western Hemisphere. What stands today is a replacement built after a disastrous fire in 1908.

Much of the interior preserves its eighteenth-century appearance.  The curvaceous “wineglass” pulpit, reading desk, and font date to 1770, and the frontal of the organ was installed in 1766. The original box pews, however, were replaced in the nineteenth century, and the present tile floor and seats date from 1882.   

Fifteen signers of the Declaration of Independence, including Franklin and Washington, worshipped here. William White (1748–1836), who became the rector of Christ Church (and also St. Peter’s) when loyalist clergy fled, served as chaplain to the Continental Congress. White was also one of the leaders of the effort to establish a more independent, American church—the Episcopal Church—of which he became the first bishop in 1789.