At St Philip's Episcopal Church
I spent much of my first day of my New York research trip not in the archives, but at St Philip’s Episcopal Church, where James McCune Smith had been a lifelong and prominent parishioner and sometimes vestryman. Tod Roulette, a member of the vestry and a leader of the church’s archives committee, kindly invited me to attend Sunday service and the archive committee workshop held afterwards.
During McCune Smith’s lifetime, St Philip’s was downtown. As you may recall from my earlier piece on St Philip’s, its first church was located at 33 Centre Street (now 81-83 Centre), built in 1818 and consecrated in 1819. The church moved to 305 Mulberry Street in 1857 (more on that another time) and eventually to Harlem. Its current church at 204 West 134th Street was dedicated in 1911.
First, I attended the service at 10am. I was aware that the Episcopal liturgy is quite similar to the Roman Catholic one, but somehow, I was still struck by how very similar it is. I could repeat most of it along with the officiants - the same prayers, many of the same songs, and so on, are lodged firmly in my memory from going to Mass every Sunday and sacred holiday throughout my formative years. Same with the incense, the vestments, the rituals, and so on. The service was a bit longer than I remember a regular Sunday Mass being - I remember that they were usually about an hour long, though holy day Masses were more like an hour and a half, even up to two hours for a wedding Mass. The service at St Philip’s lasted about an hour and a half.
Everyone was so friendly and welcoming, offering me bulletins, pointing me to the hymnals and prayer books, warmly sharing the greeting of peace that precedes Communion. After the service, Reverend Canon Charles Simmons spoke with me about the church and his time at the theological seminary in the New College of the University of Edinburgh. Like me, he has warm memories of that beautiful city.
Then, I joined Tod downstairs at the Archives workshop, where parishioners brought artefacts associated with the church that they found at home to donate to the parish archives. Many people discussed papers and pictures they brought. Then, at Tod’s invitation, I gave a little impromptu talk on my research and my biography of James McCune Smith. It tied in nicely with the preceding discussion of Peter Williams Ray, a physician and St Philip’s parishioner who had been one of McCune Smith’s proteges. Afterwards, I had more really interesting discussions with some of the attendees.
My visit to St Philip’s and with the good people there was a lovely way to kick off my two weeks of research. As I glance at the clock, I see it’s time to get ready for my next appointment in the archives. More anon!
