St. Peter's Church
Philadelphia’s first Anglican congregation, Christ Church, grew in size and power as Quaker influence gradually ebbed in the early eighteenth century. As the city expanded southward, Christ Church parishioners began to build houses in what is now called Society Hill, and in 1754 a large group of them petitioned the Penn family for land on Pine Street on which to build an auxiliary church, a “chapel of ease.” The Penns (who were themselves now Anglicans) provided the land, and the Scottish-born Robert Smith (1722-1777), the most accomplished architect in the colonies, was commissioned to design a commodious house of worship.
Erected in 1758-1761 and called St. Peter’s, the church is simple but not plain--an example of Georgian architecture at its pinnacle. The building is an uncomplicated brick rectangle, but it is sculpturally accented with three-dimensional quoining at its corners, a dentilated (literally “toothed) cornice, and a noble three-part “Palladian” window at the east end. A small cupola originally rode the ridge of the roof at its west end, but in 1842-1843, the Greek Revival architect Willam Strickland put aside his personal tastes to design a brick tower whose details echo the old-fashioned but now historically sanctified style of the original building. The tower, topped by a spire, houses a chime of eight bells donated by Benjamin Chew Willcocks and cast at the Whitechapel Foundry in London, where the Liberty Bell was made.
Inside are preserved the high-walled “box” pews that were designed to tame drafts in the unheated church. The layout is unusual. The altar is at the east (beneath the great Palladian window), but the impressive two-story, wine-glass-shaped pulpit and reading desk is at the other end of the church, requiring pew holders to turn from one end to the other in the course of the service. Further complicating the arrangement is the organ, which was moved in the late eighteenth century to a position above the altar—where it blocks the east window.
Photo credit: Visit Philly / St. Peter's Church