Narrative Description of Property
Located in the City of Buffalo and completed in 1928, St. Andrew’s
Episcopal Church is an early-twentieth-century Neo-Gothic stone church
building designed to accommodate two hundred people. The parcel
includes an adjacent 1910 concrete block Queen Anne style house, which
has served as the church’s rectory since the church’s construction. A
concrete block garage is located behind the rectory and a grave/
monument is located adjacent to the church, both contributing to the
complex.
Sited on the commercial thoroughfare Main Street in the University
Heights neighborhood of North Buffalo, the areas around St. Andrew’s is
predominately residential and developed in the first decades of the
twentieth century as the city expanded outward from the downtown
core. The then private University of Buffalo built its new campus
here, further the growth of North Buffalo. Main Street, a major
east-west route through the city, in the immediate vicinity of the
church presents a typical older urban streetscape composed primarily of
two-story commercial buildings housing small businesses and
restaurants. The streets running off Main Street in the immediate
vicinity of St. Andrew’s are lined with modest single and double family
frame and brick dwellings. Many of residents in the area are students
from the nearby University at Buffalo (now part of the SUNY system),
South Campus, located about a quarter of a mile further north on Main
Street. St. Andrew’s, which is distinguished by a large Perpendicular
Gothic style window overlooking Main Street, is one of three imposing
churches built in the 1920s within a quarter mile of each other along
this stretch of Main Street. The other two are Gothic style St.
Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church (1925, Duane Lyman, architect) and
Colonial Revival style University Presbyterian Church (1927, North and
Shelgren, architects).
The church is constructed of a local cream colored stone, which,
according to the architects’ spefications, was to be “of large size,
laid on its natural bed in a heavy bed of mortar and hammered into
place.” Indiana Limestone was used for trim elements. The church is a
built in the form of long rectangular block and is covered by a simple
saddleback roof, the axis of which runs east and west, nearly
perpendicular to Main Street, the thoroughfare the church faces. Twin
gabled transept-like bays rise to the ridge line on either side of the
building near the back. The general symmetry of the facade, which
features a large window with stone tracery above a basement level, is
relieved by a single-story stone entrance porch attached to the south
side of the building. A narrow, polygonal tower rises above the porch
at its juncture with the porch and terminates at the baseline of the
roof.
Elevations
West (principal) Elevation-
St. Andrew’s is a Neo-Gothic church constructed of a cream and gray
colored stone with a red ceramic tile roof (Fig. 1). The main
elevation of the church looks westward and faces Main Street. The
walls of this principal elevation are laid in random ashlar with thick
mortar joints with trim around openings done in finished Indiana
limestone. The chief element of the gabled west façade is a tall,
centrally placed leaded glass window framed by two angled buttresses.
The Indiana limestone tracery of this window reflects the Perpendicular
Style of 15th-century English Gothic. This window, which is filled
with clear glass (described by the architects as “double thick American
glass”) with three small stained glass inserts near the center, lights
the back of the nave and the choir loft. It stands above a high stone
base (this is the west wall of the interior narthex and has a small
rectangular window near ground level) and is sheltered beneath a large
molded pointed arch. A small, polygonal tower rises along side the
south buttress (Fig. 3). The main entrance to the church is from Main
Street through a pointed arch portal (the wooden door is painted red)
in a stone porch attached to the south side of the west elevation. A
niche for a statue of St. Andrew is located on the main body of the
church just above the doorway in the recessed angle between the tower
and southern angled buttress.
South & North Elevation
The south elevation is two stories tall beneath the broad slopping red
tile roof (Fig. 4). Pairs of lancet windows light the nave along the
upper level and simpler rectangular windows at ground level provide
light for the basement. The side walls constructed are of
rubble—random-sized, unfinished stones of Buffalo gray limestone--laid
with thick mortar joints. At the east end of the nave there is a two
story gabled stone projection that resembles a transept. In the gable
of this section there is visible the outlines of a window now filled in
with stone. Beyond this false transept is the area of the chancel and
vestry rooms. A low, flat roofed wing projects from the church on the
south side of the chancel. On the west side of this rear wing, a
secondary entrance leads to a staircase giving access to the basement,
columbarium, and rooms behind the chancel. A large glass block window
in the south wall of the second level of this wing lights the interior
stair landing. This back wing is covered with stucco painted white.
A few feet from the south elevation on Main Street is the rectory
building. Behind the rectory is a small concrete block garage erected
in 1912. The remaining space on the south side is given over to a
fenced asphalt parking lot that has its entrance on Lisbon Avenue.
(Land formerly owned by the church on Main Street between the rectory
and Lisbon Avenue is now occupied by a recently constructed building
housing a physical therapy facility.)
The north elevation, which is very close to the adjacent red brick
building (a former residence now used as a business) substantially
repeats that of the south elevation. There is, however, no entrance on
this side of the church.
East Elevation-
The rear of the church consists of the one-story rectangular wing
projecting from the main body of the church and housing the
columbarium, Lady Chapel, and vestry rooms and the flat end wall of the
chancel, with its three lancet windows, rising above. The ground floor
wing is covered with smooth stucco painted white; the walls of the
chancel continue the rubble stone construction of the rest of the
church. The property line here is a few feet from the church and
defined by a tall wooden fence.
Interior-
One enters the church from the south porch ascending a flight of steps
to a spacious narthex. Another flight of steps leads to the basement.
This narthex (or vestibule) doubles as a Baptistery with a small stone
Baptismal font located on the north wall beneath a small window. From
the narthex one enters the nave beneath the stained oak choir loft (all
interior woodwork trim is of oak), which is reached by a stairway in
the southwest corner of the narthex.
The nave is five bays long with two narrow side aisles and a tall
timber framed ceiling (Fig. 5). The open timber ceiling of Douglas Fir
members, which are stained a dark natural color, is supported by an
arcade of tall pointed arches resting on simple cylindrical piers of
Indian limestone. Pairs of lancet windows filled with patterned
opaque leaded glass open in the side walls between each pier to light
the interior, the walls of which are painted white. (The original
architects’ specifications called for “all windows and doors and
screens shown or specified glazed to have leaded glass.”
Unfortunately, the manufacturer of this high quality uncolored glass is
unknown. The windows in the Lady Chapel and the window in the west wall
of the nave have small stained glass medallions set into them depicting
religious emblems, such as a chalice, ship, and lamb. Illustrations of
these windows can be viewed at
https://buffaloah.com/a/main/3107/chapels/index.html) A free
standing oak pulpit stands at the north side (so-called Gospel side) of
the nave immediately in front of the chancel.
The nave terminates in the east in the chancel or sanctuary, which is
the same height as the nave but slightly narrower. It is raised three
steps above the nave and contains the high altar at the east end
beneath three lancet windows. These windows are filled with stained
glass figures representing Christ (center), St. Andrew (south) and St.
Peter (north). In the south wall of the chancel near the east wall are
two small lancet windows with figures in stained glass of Bishop
Charles Henry Brent (west), to whom the church is dedicated (the dates
1921-1927, the years of construction, appear beneath his feet), and St.
Catherine of Siena (east). Beneath these two windows is a recessed
stone piscina or basin for the ritual washing of hands. (Illustrations
of these windaows can be viewed at
https://buffaloah.com/a/main/3107/chancel/index.html.) To the west
of these pair of windows, on the second level of the chancel wall, is a
large organ loft framed by a large pointed arch. A similar organ pipe
chamber is across the chancel in the north wall as are two lancet
widows that correspond to those in the south wall. These windows have
the figures of Charles I (east) and Huntington (west). In the north
wall, near a doorway leading to a robbing room behind Holy Family
Chapel, is an ambry or locked cupboard for storing sacred objects.
Unfortunately. No documentation could be found identifying the maker of
these stained glass windows. However, they appear to date from the
time of the remodeling of the chancel in 1952-1953. They may have come
from the New York studio of Leslie H. Nobbs (d. 1967), an
ecclesiastical artist who was responsible for sculptures and carvings
on he new high altar added to the church in the 1950s.
At the entrance to the chancel is a life-side wooden (unpainted)
Crucifixion group (Christ on the cross mourned by Mary below on his
right and St. John the Divine below on his left) suspended by two
chains from the ceiling and facing the nave. A polychrome
representation of Christ on the cross by sculptor Leslie H. Nobbs of
New York hangs on the end wall of the chancel above the marble topped
carved wooden altar table. Below this group seven, symmetrically
disposed brass lamps hang suspended from the wooden ceiling. (Like the
Crucifixion group, these lamps came from the former church of St.
Andrew.) Three other small polychrome statues (by Nobbs) of Mary,
Joseph and the young Jesus stand on a table in the Holy Family Chapel
(which was dedicated on May 17, 1958.) The walls of the nave bear,
between each window, scenes from the death of Jesus known as the
Stations of the Cross. The series of oil paintings on copper were
installed in 1931 (with frames designed by Robert North) and are copies
of images by the nineteenth-century German Nazarene artist, Martin von
Feuerstein (1856-1931).
The north aisle terminates in the east end in a small chapel originally
dedicated to St. Michael and now dedicated to the Holy Family. This
space is labeled Chapel B on the architects’ plans (Fig.6). Like
Chapel A (see below), this space, according to the architects’
specifications, was “to have adze hewn beams and rough sawed ceiling
boards 7/8” x 6” matched boards, all to be Douglas Fir.” The south
aisle is joined to a passageway leading to the rooms behind the chancel
and to a stairway to the basement.
Behind the chancel, a series of rooms open on the east side of a
north-south hall. These are an acolytes’ room on the north, the
sacristy for storing vestments and other items used in services in the
center, and a Lady Chapel (Chapel A) on the south. This latter room,
traditionally found in Gothic churches behind the high altar, was
dedicated to St. Mary. At St. Andrew’s, because it was more easily
heated than the main church, the small Lady Chapel was intended for use
during weekday services. A columbarium added in 1979 is located on the
south side of the Lady Chapel and occupies the space of the former
chapel sanctuary.
The basement or crypt of the church, which was intended to serve as the
Parish House, extends under the entire church. It contains a large
social hall with stage on the west, a guild room, dining room, and
kitchen in the center, and boiler room and related utility spaces on
the east.
Rectory-
The rectory is a squarish, late Queen Anne style house built of
tan-colored concrete blocks cast to resemble rusticated ashlar
masonry. The southwest corner is developed as a two-story curved bay,
an element that is repeated at the southeast corner. The building is
covered with a pyramidal, asphalt-shingled roof and has a wooden porch
supported by simple wooden piers at the principal entrance on Main
Street.
The interior of the rectory has rooms grouped on either side of a
central hall that runs from the entrance vestibule to a spacious
kitchen area at the rear of the house. There is a rear entrance into
the kitchen area that is aligned with the front door. To the right of
the entrance (south side of the building) is a large living room with a
fireplace in the center of the south wall. Adjacent to the living room
on the south side of the house is the former dining room which is now
used as the parish office. The staircase to the four second floor
bedrooms opens to the north (left upon entering) the main hall and is
located behind a former parlor or study that is placed immediately to
the left of the vestibule. This room has been converted into a modern
bathroom.
The rectory, which is no longer inhabited by the rector, retains most
of its interior and exterior detailing and its character as an example
of late nineteenth-century domestic architecture. Despite being empty
most of the time, the rectory is adequately maintained and in good
condition.
Behind the rectory is a small garage built of the same material as the
rectory and covered by a dark asphalt-shingled pyramidal roof.
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St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church has been an important site of
Episcopalian worship in the city of Buffalo since its completion in
1927. Consisting of the church, rectory, and garage, the complex meets
Criterion C in the area of Architecture for its fine examples of
Late-Gothic Revival and Queen Anne architecture.
Maintaining a strong
level of architectural integrity, the buildings are additionally
significant as representative examples of the work of regional
craftsmen and architects, particularly architect Robert North, who was
responsible for the design of the church. North enjoyed a career in
the region that would define him as one of the city’s most successful
architects of the first half of the twentieth century, particularly in
the area of ecclesiastic design.
The church and its associated
buildings are additionally significant under Criterion A in the area of
Social History for their association with the early-Twentieth Century
development of the Western New York Episcopal diocese, which, at the
time of the buildings’ construction, was under the guidance and
restructuring of noted writer and scholar Bishop Charles Henry Brent.
A period of significance has been set from 1910, the date of the
rectory’s construction, to 1954, which marks the last contributing
alterations to the church’s interior.
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History of the Parish and Church Building
Buffalo’s St. Andrews Episcopal Church was erected from 1921 to
1927 on the outskirts of the city near the new University of Buffalo
campus. In this “rapidly growing section of the city,” observed a
contemporary churchman, “the future seems very bright for the
parish.” The congregation’s roots in Buffalo begin in the city’s
German immigrant quarter, where in 1873 the Episcopal diocese founded a
German language Sunday school above a popular saloon. Two years later,
the nascent congregation moved to a small wooden chapel building on
Spruce Street and adopted the name St. Paul’s Free Chapel. (It was also
commonly known as the German Mission of St. Paul’s Parish.) In 1884,
the chapel closed for want of a priest but, two years later, with
financial aid from the recently established local chapter of the
Brotherhood of St. Andrew (an organization devoted to bringing more men
and boys into the Episcopal faith), it reopened as the mission church
of St. Andrew’s.
The parish grew and prospered and in 1891, Bishop A. Cleveland
Coxe elevated it to a full-fledged parish of the diocese. One of the
first vestrymen was Harlow Curtiss, a local real estate developer who
erected the Curtiss Building [1912, NR listed 2008] in downtown
Buffalo. The following year, St. Andrew’s erected an unpretentious
Gothic style brick church (now demolished) to the designs of local
architect William. H. Boughton at 160 Goodell Street near Michigan
Avenue. The architect enjoyed the favor of the rector of St. Paul’s
Cathedral (1849, NR listed 1972, NHL 1987), the Rev. Henry A. Adams,
for whom Boughton designed a home on Buffalo’s exclusive Oakland
Place. The Michigan Avenue church was enlarged in 1897 by a chancel
with brick rude screen (Boughton & Johnson), and a half-timbered
parish house was added in 1903 (Esenwein & Johnson). The
congregation, which observed High Church worship, continued to worship
at this location until 1921.
By 1921, the German speaking population in the area had begun to be
replaced by African American residents, and the congregation of St.
Andrew’s decided to move to a new location. On June 17 the bishop,
Charles Henry Brent spoke to the vestry in favor of a new site in North
Buffalo. Following the meeting with the bishop, the congregation
purchased a vacant lot and adjoining house at 3111 Main Street for
$6000. By the beginning of August, the vestry had approved plans for a
new church prepared by hometown architect Frank Spangenberg. Soon
after, however, the rector, the Rev. Harrison F. Rockwell, informed
them that Bishop Brent, had declined to give his approval to
Spangenberg’s scheme (now lost). Instead, Brent, a committed
Anglo-Catholic, had given his blessing to plans drawn by another local
architect, Robert North. Brent, who was supported in his decision by
Mrs. Sarah Cook Montague, a wealthy benefactor of the parish from
Youngstown, New York, suggested that the vestry accept his judgment.
This they did at a meeting on August 15th when North came to explain
his design to the building committee. Also at the recommendation of
Bishop Brent, the Goodell Street church was transferred to St.
Phillip’s, a parish founded in 1861 as the city’s sole African American
Episcopal congregation.
Construction of the New Church
Construction of the new St. Andrew’s church at 3105 Main Street
probably began in the spring of 1922, for the earliest sets of plans
and specifications from North, Shelgren & Swift (Robert North’s
firm) dating from October and November 1921. During this period the
congregation worshipped at Christ Chapel, Trinity Church, on Delaware
Avenue (NR Listed). The rector resided at Trinity until 1925, until he
moved into the house adjacent to the church site that the congregation
purchased for the rectory, which came to be known as St. Andrew’s
House. (This dwelling was erected c. 1910 by Charles Rossler, a local
building contractor.)
On the second Sunday of September 1922, parishioners worshipped
for the first time in the completed crypt (basement) of the new
edifice. By 1925, Mrs. Montague had made good on her promised
assistance and had given $50,000 to the building committee. Moreover,
the congregation, “all of whom are people of moderate means,” had
decided to make the church a “thank offering” for the life and work of
Bishop Brent. In consequence of this, appeals went out “to his friends
throughout the country to contribute to the success of the plan.”
Sheets of working drawings (bearing the revised firm name of North,
Shelgren & Whitman) dating from April and May 1927 indicate that
the final phase of construction of St. Andrew’s was getting underway at
that time. On June 10, 1927, Bishop Brent, vested in cope and miter,
laid the cornerstone at an impressive ceremony. A local newspaper
described a solemn procession of “acolytes, members of the church
choir, [and] assisting rectors from Buffalo parishes . . . who recited
the vesicles and responses.” As the celebrants processed from the
rectory to the church site, Robert North joined them in singing “Thy
Hand, O God, Hast Guided, They Church from Age to Age.” The building
he designed, which the local religious press predicted would be “one of
the most beautiful churches in Buffalo,” was completed by the early
days of 1928 and consecrated on April 15th of that year. In addition
to honoring St. Andrew, one of the original twelve Apostles and patron
saint of fishermen, the church, home of the only Anglo-Catholic
congregation in the Western New York Episcopal diocese, the church was
dedicated as a memorial to Bishop Charles Henry Brent. Brent, who,
unfortunately, was unable to attend the dedication rites because he was
convalescing from an operation, had begun his ecclesiastic career as a
young deacon at St. Andrew’s mission church. By 1928, he enjoyed an
international reputation as a foremost advocate of religious ecumenism
and world peace.
The church continued its relationship with the Robert North and his
firm over the following decades. In 1931, they asked the architect to
design frames for a series of paintings on the theme of the Stations of
the Cross (copies on copper of images by the German artist Martin von
Feuerstein) which were installed along the side walls of the nave. In
1953-1954, the successor firm of Shelgren & Whitman (with North as
the principle, one assumes) designed changes to the chancel and the
narthex ends of the interior that gave the interior the appearance it
has today. The least amount of changes took place in the chancel.
They included a new high altar (dedicated on November 9, 1954) and the
removal of the original Wurlitzer organ console from its position on
the south side. (It was probably at this time, too, that the four
stained glass windows were installed in the lancets in the north and
south chancel walls.) Changes to the narthex end were more extensive.
The stone baptismal font was moved from its original position at the
rear of the south bank of pews and placed beneath the window in the
north wall of the narthex. A gallery was built above the narthex for
the church choir, which formally sang in the chancel. This choir
gallery (reached by a staircase in the southwest corner of the narthex)
also became the location of a new organ console and organ loft. These
alterations, which retained the handsome oak screen dividing the
narthex from the nave, were undertaken in a manner consistent with the
style of the original design of the church.
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The Architecture of the Church of St. Andrew’s
The architecture of St. Andrew’s had its origins in the Gothic
Revival of the nineteenth century. The English architect and interior
designer, Augusts Welby Northumberland Pugin (1812-1852), is regarded
as the motivating force behind this movement. Through both his
writings, notably Contrasts of 1837 and True Principles of Pointed or
Christian Architecture of 1841, (the pointed arch was the hallmark of
Gothic architecture as the round arch and marble column were of
Classical and Renaissance architecture) and the example of his church
designs, Pugin succeeded in identifying the Gothic style with
Christianity. Pugin convinced Catholic and Anglican congregations of
the appropriateness of the Medieval style for modern churches,
overturning the Classicism that had guided Christopher Wren and earlier
generations of British church architects. “Pugin offered a way
forward,” states his most recent biographer, Rosemary Hill, “which was
a way back. He pointed to the Middle Ages as a model not just for
architecture but for society, for a coherent, Christian order in which
the poor would be fed, the old cared for, the children taught.”
Although Pugin converted to Catholicism because of his love for the
Middle Ages, the influence of his thought was wide spread among
progressive Anglican clergymen. In this he was assisted, if not always
congenially, by such groups as the Oxford Movement, the Cambridge
Camden Society, and the Ecclesiological Society. All of them held a
common faith in the Medieval religious revival and helped make the
church one of the most thought about building types in modern English
architecture.
In America, Pugin’s “true principles” of Gothic design took root under
the tutelage of Richard Upjohn, himself an English émigré and a devout
member of the Episcopal church (the name adopted by the American branch
of Anglicanism). Upjohn’s Trinity Church in New York City (1846,
NR/NHL Listed 1976), which the architect modeled upon one of Pugin’s
churches, introduced the mature, “scholarly” Gothic style to the
American ecclesiastical architecture. Upjohn, who designed Buffalo’s
St. Paul’s is known as the Father of the Gothic Revival in America.
On this side of the Atlantic, the movement found its strongest
support among what were known as High Church or Anglo-Catholic
congregations. In addition to housing themselves in authentic looking
evocations of the High Middle Ages—revered as the Age of Faith—High
Church Episcopalians (often aided by the New York Ecclesiological
Society) revived many of the liturgical practices that had fallen into
disuse during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Now, elaborate
and beautiful vestments, choral and organ music, bells and chimes, and
stained glass, paintings, and statuary all enhanced the liturgy of
sermonizing, gospel reading, and hymn singing that had earlier been the
elements of Sunday services. Major manifestations of the movement were
the Cowley Fathers, the first Anglican monastic order founded since the
Reformation. The order’s chapter Boston, where Charles Henry Brent was
a member in the 1880s, was especially well known, says historian
Douglass Shand-Tucci, for “’Pugin-Medieval’ pageantry and ornament.”
During the last half of the nineteenth century, the discipline of
ecclesiology—the analysis of liturgical practices and religious
architecture based on Medieval precedents—occupied the attention of
many Episcopal clergymen and their architects. Appreciation of the
letter and spirit of Medieval ecclesiastical architecture and
decorative arts can be said to have reached a high point in the United
States with the publication in 1873 of Frederick Clarke Withers’ Church
Architecture, a copy of which was in the firm office of St. Andrew’s
architect, Robert North.
Architects and churchmen believed that the more accurately they
were able to recreate Gothic designs in their churches, the more potent
would be the influence of these buildings on the piety of worshippers.
The favored model for late-nineteenth-century Episcopal church
architects was the simple, thirteenth-century rural parish church in
the so-called Early English style. These buildings had simple lancet
windows and framed wooden ceilings rather than the elaborate ribbed
stone vaulting of larger Gothic churches. Moreover, their often
asymmetrical and their association with the rural landscape fit nicely
with Romantic notions of the Picturesque. Larger Catholic dioceses
maintained the cathedral model, erecting such French-inspired, twin
towered landmarks as James Renwick’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral (1858, NR
& NHL 1987) in New York City and Patrick Keely’s St. Joseph’s
Cathedral (1852) in Buffalo. Eventually, many urban Episcopal
bishoprics also undertook cathedral building, although these churches
generally adhered to English Medieval models. Other Protestant
denominations followed the lead of the Episcopal church, so that by the
1880s, Gothic had become the style that most American Christians
identified with houses of worship.
This movement enjoyed renewed enthusiasm in the early twentieth century
due largely to the example of the Boston architect, Ralph Adams Cram.
Cram’s All Saints’, Ashmont, in Boston (1892, NR Listed 1980), done in
collaboration with Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, launched him on a career
that would have national influence. In 1911, when Cram was chosen to
complete the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York
City, his position as the foremost church architect in America was
assured. In his work, Cram moved beyond the Early English style and
popularized the Perpendicular style, the last phase of English Gothic
that developed in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This
Perpendicular style was distinguished by walls composed almost entirely
of tall clear glass windows. Cram’s designs, sometimes referred to as
Collegiate Gothic or Boston Gothic, were more streamlined and compact
than medieval buildings. Moreover, he was not adverse to mixing
elements from different styles of Gothic and to adding features from
French Gothic architecture, such as an elegant rooftop flèche (spire).
Nonetheless, Cram, who like Upjohn before him, was a devout
Episcopalian, respected all periods of Medieval building and devoted
himself to furthering the alliance between Gothic design and modern day
Christianity, and especially with High Church liturgy.
St. Andrew’s and the Modern Gothic Revival
Bishop Charles Henry Brent, the man who proposed Robert North’s
plans to the vestry of St. Andrew’s, was architect Ralph Adams Cram’s
godfather and a close friend of the Rev. Henry Satterlee, Bishop of
Washington, DC, who had undertaken to build the Washington National
Cathedral (1907, NR Listed 1974). This association goes a long way in
explaining the appearance of St. Andrew’s. One assumes that Bishop
Brent would have specified that North, who’s St. James Episcopal Church
(1906, NR listed 2004) in Batavia, New York, resembled Cram’s work,
adhere to the letter and spirit of High Church ecclesiology. North did
so admirably, for St. Andrew’s is faithful to the “true principles” of
Gothic church architecture, specifically the English parish church
tradition. The catalogue of elements includes the handsome wooden
truss ceiling covering the nave—the area where the congregation sits
(in June 1927, the vestry voted to install pews rather than chairs in
the nave)—the arcades of pointed arches supported by cylindrical stone
piers; the two lower side aisles; the small chapel at the end of the
north aisle ; the lady chapel with secondary altar at the back of the
church; numerous images, painted and carved; and the chancel (sanctuary
at the end of the nave) reserved for celebrants and containing the high
altar.
Indeed, from the time of Pugin and Upjohn, the deep chancel was the
main feature that distinguished progressive Anglican and Episcopal
Gothic Revival church architecture. It was here that the main altar
was housed and the liturgy performed. (The pulpit, the locus of the
homily, was located outside of the chancel. ) At St. Andrew’s, the
chancel’s separateness from the nave is accentuated by its raised floor
level (it is three steps above the nave, and the high altar is raised a
platform another three steps above that), by a low railing, by its
slightly narrower width, and by a life-sized Crucifixion group
suspended from the chancel arch. (This impressive sculpture, said to
have been carved in Belgium, came from the earlier church on Goodell
Street, [where the figures stood on a rude beam]. The seven lamps
hanging in the chancel also came from the first church. )
The most striking feature of the interior, however, is the
exposed timber ceiling that covers the nave and chancel. Like the
arresting Crucifixion group suspending from its rafters, the
overarching system of timbers is both formidable and comforting.
Supported by ample curved braces resting on stone corbels, the
unpainted ceiling calls to mind the contention of earlier Gothic
Revival church architect Frederick Clarke Withers that “in truss roofs
there is great room for display, and where properly designed there will
be found no superfluous timbers, each portion having its own proper
duty to perform, but at the same time cut and molded into such pleasing
forms, that a sense of security as well as of beauty is imparted to the
eye.”
Moreover, in the manner most Medieval churches, St. Andrew’s is
correctly oriented. This required that the altar be in the east and
the church entrance in the west, a tradition that fathers of the early
church adopted with the view to reversing the pagan custom of facing
temples toward the rising sun. Together with its Gothic “correctness,”
Robert North and his firm’s Early English design for St. Andrew’s is
enlivened by an element of dissidence that devotees of Gothic
architecture such as Bishop Brent would have found agreeable. In
opposition to the chancel wall, with its three simple lancet windows,
the west wall of St. Andrew’s consists nearly entirely of a large
leaded glass window. Such an expanse of glass--the tracery [stone ribs
that hold the glass] here repeats the pattern popular in the late
fourteenth century--is a feature found in churches from the subsequent
Perpendicular period. (King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, was a model
popular with many Gothic revivalists.) To those familiar with the
annals of Medieval architecture (as Brent, North, and perhaps Mrs.
Montague, were), this difference of period styles between the eastern
and western ends of the church enhanced the sensation of olden times.
It fictively suggests that, as in the case of many authentic Gothic
churches--which generally commenced being built in the east and
finished in the west—that the construction of St. Andrew’s extended
over a long interval of time. Yet, for all of the respect it pays to
ecclesiological custom, St. Andrew’s also reflects the more streamlined
silhouette and compact massing of Cram’s modern Gothic churches. And
as Cram felt free to do, North, Shelgren & Swift took inspiration
from French Gothic architecture when they proposed to enliven the
roofline of St. Andrew’s with a flèche marking the chancel (Fig. 2).
St. Andrew’s was the first of several Episcopal churches that Robert
North designed in Western New York, for his firm had recently become
the official architects to the diocese. Surely, he and his colleagues
wished to make St. Andrew’s worthy of the trust Bishop Brent had placed
in them.
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St. Andrew’s Dedication: Charles Henry Brent (1862-1929), “the spokesman of the conscience of mankind.”
St. Andrew’s church is dedicated as a memorial to Charles Henry
Brent, one of the leading religious figures of the twentieth century.
Brent enjoyed a reputation around the world for his efforts on behalf
of Christian unity, religious tolerance, anti-narcotics trafficking,
and world peace. Brent was a native of Ontario, Canada, and became an
Anglican priest in Toronto in 1887. (Brent later became a naturalized
American citizen.) That same year he was sent to Buffalo to St. Paul’s
parish, the main church of the Episcopal diocese of Western New York.
In Buffalo, he was assigned as priest-in-charge of the newly
established mission church of St. Andrew’s where he attempted to
institute Anglo-Catholic practices. When he was rebuked by the bishop
for placing candles on the altar, Brent left his post and moved to
Boston where he joined the so-called Cowley Fathers, the American
chapter of the Anglican monastic order that traced its origins to the
Oxford movement. He later became rector of St. Stephen’s, a church,
like St. Andrew’s mission, that was home to a poor, urban
congregation. During his time at St. Stephen’s, he became a
spokesperson for the disadvantaged and an influential progressive voice
within the Episcopal Church. In 1899, because of his experiences in
Boston’s South End, he published the first of many books, With God in
the World. In 1901, “because of his earnest simplicity, rugged
strength and adaptability among people of other races,” Brent was named
bishop of the Philippines. He remained until 1917 building up the
Episcopal Church and promoting social justice in that island nation
that had become an American protectorate as a result of the
Spanish-American War.
While in Boston, Brent became part of a circle of earnest
clergy and lay persons, including the art collector Isabella Stewart
Gardner, devoted to advancing liberal Anglo-Catholic theology and
ritual. He was especially close to Arthur Crawshay Hall, an English
priest well known for preaching “the gospel of friendship.” He also
came to know the architects Henry Vaughan, a prominent High Church
architect, and R. Clipston Sturgis, the designer of Father Hall’s St.
Augustine’s Mission for Negroes on Beacon Hill. Brent’s closest
friend, however, was the young aspiring architect Ralph Adams Cram.
When, in 1889, Cram converted from Unitarianism to the Episcopal faith,
Brent, who was less than a year older than Cram, served as his
godfather. The camaraderie that the youthful architect and priest
shared as members of “Boston Bohemia,” as historian Douglass
Shand-Tucci termed the city’s advanced intellectual scene of the 1880s
and 1890s, must also have marked the beginning of Brent’s enduring
interest in Medieval architecture and its modern reincarnation,
especially in the work of Cram who would achieve national fame as an
ecclesiastical designer. Indeed, Shand-Tucci, traces the origins of
Cram’s success to these early years: “one should not lose sight of the
fact,” he writes, “that in the long run not a little of the most
significant architecture of Cram’s later and most productive years
derived from the associations Hall (in league with Vaughan and Clipston
Sturgis) first opened to Cram.” The circle of exceptional friends to
which Cram and Brent belonged, observes Shand-Tucci, “’grew up’ and
settled down (usually marrying). But they did not forget the friends
of their youth.” Cram and Brent in particular shared life-long
friendship, despite their distant life paths. When Brent died in 1929,
Cram affectionately furnished the design for his tombstone.
Between his time in Boston and his death in Switzerland, Bishop Brent
had had an influential and illustrious career as a churchman on the
international stage. In 1901, he left Boston to become the bishop of
the Philippines, a post he held for seventeen years. His time there
has been characterized as devoted to seeking cooperation among all
religions, Christian and non-Christian alike. In the Philippines,
Brent built churches, hospitals, and schools, one of which, the Willard
Straight Agricultural School, was run by Christians for Muslim
students. He also became deeply involved in attempts to eradicate
narcotics trafficking, a prevalent social ill throughout Southeast
Asia. In 1903-1904, Brent was appointed chief United States
commissioner to the first international opium commission. He later
became chair of the commission and president of the American delegation
to the opium conference held at The Hague in 1911-1912.
In 1918, Brent accepted the bishopric of Western New York,
having previously turned down offers to become bishop of Washington,
DC, and New Jersey. “Almost immediately the diocese was invigorated by
his ability to inspire co-workers,” states his most recent biographer,
who adds that “such foibles as his fast driving, or his frequent errors
in overestimating other peoples’ capabilities, endeared him to his new
diocese.” While resident in Buffalo, Bishop Brent kept up a busy
schedule of international travel and obligations. “A profound student
of international relations,” states one biographer, “he wielded a
strong influence in practically every important question which
concerned the foreign relations of the United States during the last
decade of his life.” Brent’s major interested as a churchman
throughout his life was Christian unity—his book The Mount of Vision
(1918) outlines his ecumenical views. The culmination of his efforts
in this regard was his presidency of the Faith and Order Conference
that took place in Lausanne in 1927. Out of this came the
pan-Protestant movement that eventually resulted in the establishment
of the World Council of Churches with headquarters in Geneva. Despite
his busy schedule, Brent managed to publish many books and articles and
to lecture at the General Theological Seminary in New York, at Harvard,
and elsewhere. Bishop Brent is listed in the Episcopal Church calendar
of saints; his day of commemoration is March 27tht.
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Robert North (1880- 1968), principle architect of the church
Senior partner Robert North (1882-1868) was born in Batavia, New York,
and studied architecture at Cornell University. During summer
breaks, he worked in the office of Green & Wicks, Buffalo’s leading
architectural firm at the turn of the twentieth century. North’s
first commission was for St. James Episcopal Church in Batavia, a
parish in which he had been a chorister. (In 2004, St. James, to
which St. Andrew’s bears some resemblance, was listed in the National
Register.) To prepare this design, North undertook a tour of
English Gothic churches. The knowledge he gained from this study
trip stood him in good stead for the rest of his life, and he opened
his own office in Buffalo in 1907, and he became one of the city’s most
successful architects of the first half of the twentieth century.
In 1919, he formed the partnership of North, Shelgren & Swift, with
his longtime draftsman Olaf W. Shelgren, Sr. (1891-1972) and engineer
Frank R. Swift (c.1879-c. 1949). (In 1925, Swift withdrew from
the firm, which then became North & Shelgren.) Eclectic in
taste, the firm planned a number of sophisticated traditionalist homes
for members of Buffalo society. Churches, too, formed a major
part of the output of the North and his partners. As many as
fifty congregations became his clients. For the Episcopal Diocese
of Western New York, the firm planned numerous buildings, including
Saint Matthias Church (1927) in East Aurora where North himself
worshipped. The North office also worked for other denominations
and designed the First Baptist Church and the East Avenue
Congregational Church, both in Lockport, and the University
Presbyterian Church in Buffalo. Accomplished painters, Robert
North and Olaf Shelgren exhibited with the Buffalo Society of Artists
and through other local venues. After North's retirement during
World War II, the firm became Shelgren & Whitman, and continued
under a variety of partners until Olaf W. Shelgren Jr. closed it in
1994.
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“Altar Consecrated,” Buffalo Courier Express, November 10, 1954, 7.
“Area’s Only Anglo-Catholic Church Retaining Pre-Vatican II Roman Rite.” Buffalo Evening News, July 11, 1981, A6.
“Brent, Charles Henry.” The National Cyclopedia of American Biography. New York: James T. White, 1937, Vol. 26, 482-483.
Brent, Charles H. A Master Builder, Being the Life and Letters of
Henry Yates Satterlee, First Bishop of Washington. London: Longmans,
Green & Co., 1916.
Burrows, G. Sherman. The Diocese of Western New York, 1897-1931. Buffalo: By the Diocese, 1935.
Christian Unity Seen Way to Lasting Peace,” Buffalo Courier-Express, June 4, 1949, 5.
“Cornerstone Laid at St. Andrew’s,” Buffalo News, June 11, 1927. In
Churches scrapbook, Vol. 4, 50. Buffalo & Erie County Public
Library, Central Branch.
“Crypt Opened for Service,” Our Diocesan Fellowship, 1(December 1922), cover; 174.
“Here and There in the Diocese,” Our Diocesan Fellowship, 1(October 1921), 20.
“Here and There in the Diocese,” Our Diocesan Fellowship, 6(January 1926), cover; 119.
“History.” An unsigned, handwritten account of the early years of St.
Andrew’s in the first ten pages of the first parish records ledger.
This volume is in possession of the church.
Humphrey, N. J. A. “Candlesticks and Catholicity,” sermon preached 20
April 2008 at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church and online at
standrewbuffalo.org.
“Interior View of St. Andrew’s Church, Main Street, near Lisbon,”
Buffalo Times, April 16, 1928. In Churches scrapbook, Vol. 4, 50.
Buffalo & Erie County Public Library, Central Branch. (The
photograph shows how the chancel appeared prior to being remodeled in
1954.)
Kates, Frederick Ward, ed. Things that Matter: The Best of the
Writings of Bishop Brent. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949
Kowsky, Francis R. The Architecture of Frederick Clarke Withers and
the Progress of the Gothic Revival in America after 1850. Middletown,
CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1980.
“Lightening Hits Church Cross During Service,” Buffalo Courier Express, June 6, 1954, 52.
Lindsley, James Elliott. “Charles Henry Brent,” American National
Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, Vol. 3, 481-483.
“Memorial Rood-beam.” Buffalo Courier, October 23, 1929? In Churches
scrapbook, Vol. 4, 52; 55. Buffalo & Erie County Public Library,
Central Branch.
Napora, James. “Houses of Worship: A Guide to the Religious
Architecture of Buffalo, New York.” Masters thesis, University at
Buffalo, 1989. Online version:
http://www.preservationbuffaloniagara.org/how/22/22.1/standr.html
“New Church to Honor Episcopalian Bishop Buffalo News, October 27,
1927. In Churches scrapbook, Vol. 4, 50. Buffalo & Erie County
Public Library, Central Branch.
“New Memorial for St. Andrew’s Church, Buffalo,” Our Diocesan Fellowship, 11(December 1931), 189.
“New St. Andrew’s Church Dedicated,” Buffalo News,” April 15, 1929. In
Churches scrapbook, Vol. 4, 54. Buffalo & Erie County Public
Library, Central Branch.
Pixley, Dorothy. A Cycle of Praise, the History of St. James Church, 1815-1965. Batavia, NY: By the Church, 1965.
“Religion: At Lausanne,” Time, The Weekly Newsmagazine, X(August 29,
1927), 77. The cover of this issue featured a portrait of Bishop Brent.
“St. Andrew’s Buffalo,” Our Diocesan Fellowship, 5(January 1925), 16.
“St. Andrew’s Church, Buffalo,” Our Diocesan Fellowship, 7(October 1927), 150-151.
“St. Andrew’s Church, Buffalo,” Our Diocesan Fellowship, 8(April 1928), 76-77.
“St. Andrew’s Church Marks Anniversary,” Buffalo News, November 20,
1931. In Churches scrapbook, Vol. 4, 51. Buffalo & Erie County
Public Library, Central Branch.
“St. Andrew’s Church Has Cornerstone Laying,” [June 11, 1927]. In
Churches scrapbook, Vol. 4, 49. Buffalo & Erie County Public
Library, Central Branch.
“St. Andrew’s Church Home is Dedicated,” Buffalo News, April 15, 1929.
In Churches scrapbook, Vol. 4, 53. Buffalo & Erie County Public
Library, Central Branch.
“St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church to Observe 50th Anniversary,” Buffalo Courier-Express, November 28, 1941.
“St. Andrew’s to Dedicate New Edifice Tomorrow,” Buffalo Courier, April
14, 1928. In Churches scrapbook, Vol. 4, 52. Buffalo & Erie County
Public Library, Central Branch.
Slater, Eleanor. Charles Henry Brent, Everybody’s Bishop. Milwaukee: Morehouse Publishng Co., 1932.
Stanton, Phoebe B. The Gothic Revival & American Church
Architecture: An Episode in Taste, 1840-1856. Baltimore; Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1968.
“Two Churches Plan Anniversary Fetes,” Buffalo News, November 28, 1931.
In Churches scrapbook, Vol. 4, 51. Buffalo & Erie County Public
Library, Central Branch.
“Western New York,” The Living Age (September 3, 1892), 13.
Zabriske, Alexander. Bishop Brent, Crusader for Christianity Unity. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1948.
Unpublished Materials
Charles Henry Brent Papers, Archives of the Diocese of Western New York.
Charles Henry Brent Papers, Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society.
Charles Henry Brent diaries. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Minutes of the Vestry of St. Andrews Episcopal Church, in possession of the church.
North and Shelgren Collection, Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society, boxes 1, 64, D-31,1, and 102NB-1.
Plans and specifications for the church and alterations in possession of the church.
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