Built in 1873 by the Maryland Baptist Union Association for black Baptists in south Baltimore, Leadenhall Baptist Church has long been a center of activism and source of strength for African Americans in south Baltimore and the Sharp Leadenhall neighborhood. The church was designed, built and furnished by the firm of Joseph Thomas and Son. Established 1820, the company manufactured building materials along with church, bank and office furniture. Many notable community leaders from Sharp Leadenhall, including Mildred Rae Moon and Martha Roach, were members of the congregation, leading the fight to preserve the neighborhood from demolition for highway construction in the 1960s and 1970s. The church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

By the time of the Civil War,the Thomas firm operated the largest steam turning mill works in the South at Park, Clay and Lexington Streets. The fire of 1873, which destroyed much of what is now the Retail District, began in the Thomas plant.

Today, Leadenhall Baptist Church continues to play an important role in neighborhood life, holding recreational and academic programs for neighborhood children and supporting community residents. However, similar to other churches in the community, many congregants live outside the neighborhood, and commute back for services on Sundays.

1021 Leadenhall Street, Baltimore, MD 21230

In the mid-nineteenth century, Catholic residents of Hampden belonged to the St. Mary of the Assumption parish in Govans, a distant walk from the burgeoning neighborhood. Since the industrial mill village had been built by the owners of the mills for their predominantly white Protestant workers, they had made no accommodations for Catholics to worship in the area. At least until an Irish-Catholic immigrant named Martin Kelly started a small Catholic community. Kelly erected the first non-company housing along Falls Road east of the mills, which grew into the Hampden we know today.

Kelly’s extended family occupied many of the sixteen homes Kelly erected in the 1850s. Others were likely owned by mill employees who could afford to leave the mill villages or by shopkeepers selling goods to other residents in the mill villages. Kelly built a large home for himself on Hickory Avenue, known colloquially as the Kelly Mansion. Fellow Catholics likely knew the house well. Seeking a place to worship closer to home, Kelly persuaded a priest to hold services in his home's parlor, using the piano as an altar. After Kelly's death, his son John donated the land and funds for a new Catholic church in Hampden called St. Thomas Aquinas.

Rev. Thomas Foley laid the cornerstone of St. Thomas Aquinas Church on May 12, 1867. The building, designed by famed local architect George Frederick and constructed at the cost of $20,000, was completed on June 18, 1871. Archbishop Martin John Spalding attended the dedication.

Today, the church complex consists of the church, rectory, school, and convent. The school was founded in 1873 and the current building went up in 1937. At the time, the school had 320 pupils and a staff of eight, hired from the School Sisters of Notre Dame. In 1973, St. Thomas Aquinas clustered with nearby parishes. Grades one to five attended St. Thomas Aquinas, while middle school students attended St. Bernard's in Waverly. Middle schoolers returned to St. Thomas Aquinas in 1996, seven years after St. Bernard's had become a Korean National Parish (which closed just a year later in 1997).

The school reached a crisis point in 2010 when the archdiocese closed thirteen of sixty-four parochial schools in Baltimore. St. Thomas Aquinas avoided closure due to the leadership of its principal, Sister Marie Rose Gusatus. The school took in students from surrounding parishes. However, the school only remained open for another six years.

In 2016, the Archdiocese closed St. Thomas Aquinas School along with Seton Keough High School in Southwest Baltimore and John Paul Regional School in Woodlawn. While the archdiocese claimed enrollment in Catholic schools had begun to stabilize after decades of declining enrollment, funding remained low as enrollment costs were kept low to make the schools more affordable. Also, in response to the need for costly improvements, the archdiocese decided it would be best to consolidate the schools.

1008 W. 37th Street. Baltimore, MD 21211

Union Baptist Church traces its origins to 1852 and a group of fifty-seven worshipers meeting in a small building on Lewis Street. It was the fifth oldest African American congregation in Baltimore and financed entirely by African Americans. The first pastor of the church was the Reverend John Carey. In 1866, the Lewis Street congregation merged with members of Saratoga Street African Baptist Church, forming Union Baptist Church. When Rev. Harvey Johnson arrived in 1872, he found a modest congregation of perhaps 270 members. 

Harvey Johnson’s dealings with the Maryland Baptist Maryland Baptist Union Association (MBUA) in particular, and with prejudiced white Baptists in general, served as a proving ground for his leadership and vision. He took the skills honed in the battle for equality among all Baptists and transfered those skills as he entered the fight for equaliy among all people. Johnson’s original cause of friction with the MBUA stemmed from its paternalistic approach to black people and black Baptist churches. Not only did black ministers categorically receive less pay than white counterparts, but black churches were slow to realize full and equal political priviledges within the state denomination governing apparati. This problem was more troubling once, thanks in no small part to Johnson himself, black numbers in the state’s Baptist churches began grow. By 1885, Union Baptist's membership surpassed two thousand members for the first time.

Rev. Johnson's response to this discrimination was two-fold: economic independence and institutional autonomy. This situation exploded throughout the 1890s as Johnson urged black congregations to free themselves of white purse strings, and to get out of the Union Association altogether. One of Rev. Johnson's most controversal speeches brought this issue to fore. In September 1897, speeking in Boston, Johnson made, "A Plea For Our Work As Colored Baptists, Apart From the Whites." Johnson called for black Baptists to move as a group toward self-determination.

The Union Baptist Church’s Gothic design features stained glass windows created by John LeFarge, the renowned artist known as the inventor of the art of using opalescent stained glass.

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1219 Druid Hill Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217

A fire erupted on the morning of February 7, 1904, in the dry goods firm of John E. Hurst & Co., on what is now Redwood Street. The blaze spread wildly out of control, consuming central Baltimore. In a panic and with few options, city engineers recommended demolishing buildings in the path of the fire to create an artificial firebreak. One building on the fire's path was Thomas O'Neill's department store at Lexington and Charles Streets. The Baltimore Sun reported how O'Neill, a devout Catholic, went to a Carmelite Convent on Biddle Street to pray for the safety of his building. He then rushed back to his store to stop the firefighters from setting the charges. Fortunately, the wind shifted so the fire and firefighters spared O'Neill's store from destruction. Thomas O'Neill was convinced that God had answered his prayers. When he died in 1919, he left two-thirds of his estate to the construction of a new cathedral in Baltimore. The Archdiocese of Baltimore selected the prominent architecture firm Maginnis, Walsh, and Kennedy to design the cathedral on a twenty-five acre lot in Homewood. The firm specialized in architecture for the Catholic Church. Their work in Baltimore included the main administration building for Saint Mary's Seminary and University, which is in the Beaux-Arts style. In 1948, Charles Donagh Maginnis, an Irish immigrant, received the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal for outstanding service to the profession, the institute's highest award. The architects were asked to come up with three designs: traditional, modified and modern. The Archdiocese chose the modified design which combined the traditional Gothic style with modern Art Deco elements. Workers broke ground in 1954, and completed the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in 1959. The massive cathedral is 163 feet tall and can seat up to 1,900 people. The cathedral is outfitted with two organs created by the M.P. Moeller Company of Hagerstown, Maryland. Today, the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen serves as the cathedral church of the Primary See, the first archdiocese of the United States and, together with the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, serves as one of two main centers of Catholic liturgical life in Baltimore. It is the third largest cathedral in the U.S. and has hosted several dignitaries over the years, including Pope John Paul II.

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5200 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21210

Stretching along Calvert Street between Madison and Monument Streets, stands a massive Italianate palace, built for the Society of Jesus, a Catholic religious order. Decorating the facade are arched windows with elaborate moldings, and a heavy Italianate cornice that tie together the St. Ignatius Church on the northern half (designed by Louis L. Long and completed in 1856) with Loyola College and Loyola High School on the southern half (designed by O’Connor and Delaney of New York and finished in 1899).

During the 1850s, a wave of anti-Catholic sentiment swept American politics. The populist Know-Nothing Party emerged as a powerful political party characterized by xenophobia and skepticism of wealthy and intellectual elites—and only open to Protestant men. The Know-Nothing agenda called for barring public funding of Catholic schools and reinforcing Protestant values in public schools. In response, Archbishop of Baltimore Francis Kendrick asked the Jesuit Provincial to open a Catholic college. Loyola College opened in 1852 in two adjoining buildings near City Hall on Holliday Street. The college quickly outgrew the space and a new building was commissioned at Calvert and Madison streets. Classes began on February 22, 1855 and St. Ignatius Church opened its doors eighteen months later.

Architect Louis Long modeled the design of the church after the late Renaissance/Baroque Gesu in Rome, mother church of the Jesuits. The interior features an elaborate cornice and pilasters and vivid stained glass windows installed during the 1870s. The early church congregation was a cross-section of the city's Catholic population: native Baltimoreans, Irish and German immigrants, poor and wealthy. Church leaders set aside the basement of the building for African American parishioners, many of whom went on to found St. Francis Xavier, the first all African American Catholic Church in the United States.

Loyola College moved north to the Evergreen Campus in 1922. The southern section remained mostly vacant for decades until it was repurposed in the 1970s for Center Stage’s two theaters. The design was by James Grieves and the firm of Ziger, Hoopes, and Snead.

The St. Ignatius congregation shrank dramatically after World War II as a result of many Catholics moving from the city to the suburbs. In spite of declining numbers, the church remained in the core of the city and expanded its involvement in local communities, offering the building as a shelter for homeless people and starting a middle school for Baltimore City youth. In the 1990s, the church worked to lure suburban Catholics back to the church and doubled its congregation. The decade ended with a massive restoration led by Murphy & Dittenhafer Architects. The work included the restoration of the plasterwork, rich gilding, historic interior colors, and even some of the church’s nineteenth century paintings.

740 N. Calvert Street, Baltimore, MD 21202

Completed in 1872 as a “Cathedral of Methodism,” the Norman-Gothic Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church was a signature achievement for the noted Baltimore architects Thomas Dixon and Charles L. Carson. It was also at first an immense source of aggravation to its neighbors.

By the 1870s, Mount Vernon had become the place to live for Baltimore’s elite, and Mount Vernon Place with the Washington Monument was the central jewel of the community. The church’s heavy presence off the north park, green serpentine stone amidst the Baltimore brick and more subdued color palate, and steeple that reached nearly to the top of President Washington’s head sparked a great deal of angst. The fact that the church replaced the house where Francis Scott Key passed away did not help sooth the neighbors. The house was the home of Key’s daughter and her husband, Elizabeth Phoebe Key and Charles Howard.

After its early days, however, the church has become a central and admired part of Mount Vernon Place. Architecturally, it was built of striking green serpentine stone, as well as buff, olive and red sandstone. Architects Dixon and Carson embellished it with polished granite columns and carved designs taken from nature. Its many gothic details of flying buttresses, a tower, and arches are purely esthetic in function, as the building is constructed over an iron framework. There are even grotesque stone faces above the windows on the west front (three full cut, two in profile) said to be likenesses of prominent persons living at the time the church was built. On the inside, the church is notable for its iron supporting columns, carved wooden beams, and stained glass cross window over the pulpit.

In addition to its architecture, the church’s congregation has made its mark on Baltimore as well. The group began in a building on Lovely Lane (intersecting today’s Redwood Street downtown) and is credited with launching the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States in 1784. The current church on Mount Vernon Place is the congregation’s fourth home. In addition to its spiritual work, the congregation has provided innumerable secular services to Baltimore. In World War II, the church provided beds, food and entertainment to servicemen returning from the front.

Beginning in the 1970s, they led efforts to help runaway teenagers and victims of drug abuse, and began a service organization to engage young Baltimoreans in helping their city. The congregation today continues its service to Baltimore in many ways, including opening to 91ĘÓƵ and the curious public.

10 E. Mt. Vernon Place, Baltimore, MD 21202

A 19th Century Church in an 18th Century Village

Dickey Memorial Presbyterian Church (DMPC) is a small congregation located in Dickeyville, an urban enclave of historic homes that was founded in 1772.

The church, built in 1885, continues to serve as a focal point for the village's holiday celebrations such as Christmas caroling, a Fourth of July parade, and community potlucks.

William J. Dickey, who lived in the village, was a devout Presbyterian and eager to have a Presbyterian Sunday school available for his friends and employees. The Sunday School first met in 1873 in Public School #6 on Wetheredville Road, with Charles W. Dorsey as its head — Dorsey’s portrait hangs in the present day Parish Hall. Four years later, in 1877, responding to a petition from many residents of the village, the Presbytery of Maryland organized a church. Known as the Wetheredville Presbyterian Church, the congregation had as its head the Reverend David Jamison, a nephew of William J. Dickey who had studied at Princeton Theological Seminary. For several years the congregation met in the Ashland Manufacturing Company Hall.

In December 1885, the cornerstone of the current church was laid, situating the building near the village’s western edge, but still within easy walking distance of most of its homes. The building was completed in 1889, at which point the Ashland Manufacturing Company deeded the property to the Trustees of the Wetheredville Presbyterian Church. In 1896, the church’s name was changed to Dickey Memorial Presbyterian Church.

5112 Wetheredsville Road, Baltimore, MD 21207

The congregation at Sharp Street Memorial United Methodist Church began in 1787, the first African American Methodist congregation in Baltimore. By 1802, the congregants had purchased their first building on Sharp Street between Lombard and Pratt Streets. An addition in 1811 added space to the church and allowed Rev. Daniel Coker to open a “School for Negroes.” In 1867, leaders from Sharp Street expanded their education mission and with other prominent church leaders around the city established the Centenary Biblical Institute, now Morgan State University.

The church moved to its current building on Dolphin and Etting Streets in 1898. A week-long celebration followed the dedication of the $70,000 church. Made of gray granite, the Baltimore Sun reported at the time that the Dolphin Street church stood as one of the “handsomest church[es] for a colored congregation in the state.” In 1921, church leaders added the adjoining Community House to the church.

Along with a handsome building, Sharp Street Church has a rich history of civil rights activism. In addition to spearheading efforts to advance education for African Americans in the nineteenth century, the church was spiritual home to civil rights leader Lillie M. Carroll Jackson, president of the Baltimore NAACP from 1935 until 1970 and known as the mother of the civil rights movement. Ms. Jackson started in the church as a child, singing soprano in the choir. As an adult, she delivered fiery speeches in front of the congregation urging African Americans to do something about their rights. At Jackson’s death in 1975, the church held a three hour funeral service where over 1,200 people attended. Today the church still serves as a beacon of religious freedom and history throughout the city.

508 Dolphin Street, Baltimore, MD 21217

A new use for the old Hampden Presbyterian Church

Workers laid the cornerstone of the Hampden Presbyterian Church in 1875 and dedicated the building two years later. The sturdy structure is made of Texas Limestone, named for the unincorporated town in Baltimore County where the quarry is located. The church originally housed a Sunday school on the first floor and a sanctuary on the second floor.

In the 1970s, after experiencing a steady decline in parishioners and financial difficulties, the Hampden Presbyterian Church merged with nearby Waverly Presbyterian Church. The newly merged congregations used the Waverly church for services and the Hampden building served other purposes including as a community center, clinic, offices, and apartments.

In 2011, the congregation sold the building and Church & Company moved in. Owners Alex Fox and Joey Rubulata removed the old paint, paneling and ceiling tiles that accumulated from years of different uses and restored the sanctuary to its original layout. Church and Co. rent the sanctuary out for weddings, large gatherings, and music performances, and a vintage clothing store now occupies the old Sunday school portion of the building.

3647 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD 21211

The site of this Franklintown Road church has been home to a church since 1835, when Colonel John Berry helped establish Summerfield Methodist Episcopal Church. Today, the Rehoboth Church of God in Christ Jesus Apostolic occupies a Gothic Revival landmark that replaced the original country church in 1920. The building was designed by Wyatt & Nolting and G.N. MacKenzie and has been the home of the Apostolic congregation since 1954.

A devout Methodist, Colonel John Berry purchased the site of this church in the early 1800s. Tired of traveling three miles from Calverton Heights to the closest Methodist Episcopal Church, Berry decided to establish a new chapel close to his Baltimore County home. A stone chapel was dedicated in the fall of 1836, the church expanded in 1878, and in the 1880s, a Sunday School building was constructed.

By 1920, the congregation had outgrown the stone chapel. Even with several later additions since 1835, the building seated only 275 people—a fraction of the over 450 Methodist families in the parish. The congregation decided to demolish the original chapel and construct a new church.

The present Gothic Revival structure was designed by G.N. MacKenzie and Wyatt & Nolting, a prominent local architectural firm. An article published in The Christian Advocate following the completion of the church stated that "A fine plant has been erected with adequate Sunday school rooms, an auditorium that will seat 900, a gymnasium, and other desired features." The cornerstone was laid on July 19, 1920, and the church was dedicated on April 25, 1921.

By 1920, the congregation had outgrown the stone chapel. While the chapel had several additions since its construction in 1835, it only seated 275, and there were over 450 Methodist families in the parish. The decision was made to demolish the original chapel and construct a new church. The present church was designed by George Norbury MacKenzie and Wyatt & Nolting, a prominent Baltimore architectural firm. G.N. Mackenzie, III worked for James Bosley Noel Wyatt and William G. Nolting. Both Wyatt and Nolting were Fellows of the AIA.

On December 16, 1954, the Central-Summerfield Methodist Church sold their building to the Rehoboth Church of God in Christ Jesus (Apostolic). The latter congregation was founded twenty years earlier as a house church with five members, meeting in the Presstman Street home of Mother Mayfield. Mother Mayfield and Elder Randolph A. Carr soon began holding tent-meetings twice a summer on Gilmor Street.

Bishop Carr purchased the group's first church on N. Mount Street. The small congregation then left the Church of God in Christ for the doctrine of the Apostolic Doctrine in Jesus Name, and was renamed Rehoboth Church of God in Christ Jesus Apostolic. In 1945, the congregation branched off from the larger Apostolic organization, forming its own denomination. The same year, the congregation moved to another church on N. Fulton and Riggs Streets. In 1954, the congregation purchased the former Summerfield Church at 700 Poplar Grove Street, where they are still located today.

Baltimore City Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation

700 Poplar Grove Street, Baltimore, MD 21216

The former Royer's Hill Methodist Episcopal Church at 400 West 24th Street is a small stone building with a gable roof used in 2010 as a garage. Despite several modern additions and changes, the building retains original window openings, original roof framing, and pressed tin ceiling panels. Constructed under the supervision of Rev. Edward L. Watson around 1891 as the 24th Street Methodist Episcopal Church, the building remained in use as a church until it was converted to use as a motor freight station sometime prior to 1951.

400 West 24th Street, Baltimore, MD 21211

Founded in 1847, the Canton Methodist Episcopal Church was the first church established in Canton. The Canton Company donated land for the congregation’s first and second church buildings, because the company strongly encouraged the establishment of religious institutions in their company town.

This church was important in the lives of the company’s employees, and the civic and social health of the community. The Gothic Revival style building is the congregation’s second church building, designed by renowned Baltimore architect Charles L. Carson and built by prominent Baltimore builder Benjamin F. Bennett in 1883/1884. The church was named the Canton Methodist Episcopal Church, and by the late twentieth century, it was known as the Canton United Methodist Church.

This 2 ½ story Gothic Revival building recently suffered from a fire but still retains arched stained glass windows, a slate roof, decorative brickwork, dormer windows, and buttresses.

Baltimore City Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation

1000 S. Ellwood Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21224

A Modernist Gem from Urban Renewal

Now in its sixth decade, the St. Philip’s edifice still serves the vibrant community that built it, despite the exigencies of Baltimore’s history over the years since the building’s dedication in 1958.

The ordinary or quotidian in architecture often masks the unique, especially if time serves to dull the patina of something’s newness. St. Philip’s Lutheran Church is case-in-point: a faded Modernist gem, the church nevertheless embodies the remarkable story of its congregation’s persistence.

Now in its sixth decade, the St. Philip’s edifice still serves the vibrant community that built it, despite the exigencies of Baltimore’s history over the years since the building’s dedication in 1958.

Home to the nation’s second-oldest African American Lutheran congregation, St. Philip’s is also the first church in America to be built under the auspices of urban renewal. Accordingly, its design reflects both church-goers’ rapidly-changing expectations in the years after World War II and city planners’ embrace of modernist planning solutions. Set back from the street and moderately scaled—like a suburban house—St. Philip’s Lutheran Church reflects mostly the ideas of its pastor at the time, the Rev. Francis B. Smith. Congregational lore and extant sketches by Rev. Smith attest to his direct involvement in the building’s design; the architect, Frederic Moehle, seems mostly to have translated Rev. Smith’s directions into the final, three-dimensional form.

Despite its modest exterior, St. Philip’s created considerable architectural drama within. Alone among Baltimore’s contemporary religious buildings, St. Philip’s low ceiling is illuminated extensively by continuous, floor-to-ceiling windows along both sides. An extensive clerestory window (now, unfortunately, covered over) washed the altar and its podium with “ineffable light.” Otherwise, the original finishes of the church interior were entirely consistent with the Modernist’s creed: unfinished block and brick masonry (stacked bond), naturally-finished wood, linoleum tile floor, and serene abstraction throughout the space.

Rev. Smith and the St. Philip’s congregation fought hard to wrest those qualities from the City’s “Urban Renewal Plan 3-A” – a.k.a. the “Broadway Redevelopment Plan” – laid out by architect Alex Cochran and first announced publicly in 1950. St. Philip’s had occupied a historic structure on Eden Street, designated by Plan 3-A to be demolished and appropriated for Dunbar High School’s expanded athletic fields. No provision was made in Cochran’s original plan to relocate St. Philip’s, but a decade of persistent negotiation between Rev. Smith and Baltimore’s Redevelopment Commission resulted in the congregation’s purchase of the present site on Caroline Street. Construction proceeded apace, a year before Cochran’s own celebrated design for the nearby Church of Our Savior (now demolished) could begin.

Recent changes have tarnished St. Philip’s architectural shine: roof-top AC units, faux-wood paneling, “traditional” chandeliers, and much-needed heat-resistant glazing. An addition at the south-east corner provided accessibility for the disabled. But the building is still substantially the building it was in 1958. Especially on the exterior, the church’s bulk and orientation still express an ease belied only by Johns Hopkins Hospital’s looming physical presence immediately to the east. What appears “quotidian” is, therefore, merely that superficial change wrought by time; what is of interest at St. Philip’s remains entirely present, if just below the surface.

Research for this story included contributions from Nancy Fox, Amy Frank, and Khashayar Shahkolahi. Special thanks to Rev. Michael Guy, St. Philip’s Lutheran Church.

501 N. Caroline Street, Baltimore, MD 21205

Former Central Methodist Episcopal Church South on Wildwood Parkway

The church on Wildwood Parkway, now used as the New Covenant United Methodist Church, was originally built for the Central Methodist Episcopal Church South in 1930.

The church's original congregation was organized around 1866 and, in 1876, erected a sanctuary on Edmondson Avenue near Harlem Park. In 1926, the church purchased a property on the street then known as Wildwood Driveway and, in November 1929, sold the building on Edmondson Avenue and announced plans to begin building a three-story Sunday school designed by architect Guy E. Gaston.

Construction on a new church began in May 1930 with a cornerstone laying ceremony attended by three hundred people. The building was estimated to cost $65,000. Around 1954, the congregation merged with the Summerfield Methodist Church after the Rehoboth Church of God in Christ Jesus Apostolic purchased the latter congregation’s building on Poplar Grove Street.

Through the years, the church offered a variety of programs and religious services. In February 1965, the church (then known as the Central-Summerfield Methodist Church) offered an “old-fashioned minstrel show” in their fellowship hall. While minstelry had a long history as popular entertainment for white Baltimoreans, the show was a particularly striking choice given the neighborhood's ongoing transition of largely segregated white to segregated black between 1960 and 1970.

Eventually, the church became the Wildwood Parkway United Methodist Church and operates today as the New Covenant United Methodist Church.

700 Wildwood Parkway, Baltimore, MD 21229

A Waverly Landmark since 1843

The Episcopalian congregation of Saint John's Church has worshiped together on the same site in Waverly since 1843. At that time the area was the small village of Huntingdon, Maryland: a collection of about seventeen large estates, and the more modest homes of a new and emerging middle class.

The village extended from Huntingdon Avenue (present day Remington) on the west to Harford Road on the east; from Huntingdon Avenue (25th Street) on the south to Boundary Avenue (42nd Street) on the north. In 1888, Baltimore City annexed the area from Baltimore County and the post office was renamed Waverly, after Sir Walter Scott's popular Waverly novels.

In November 1843, the Episcopal Bishop of Maryland, William Rollinson Whittingham, sent Reverend W. A. Hewitt to Huntingdon. Local resident Thomas Hart requested the appointment because he wanted his grandchildren baptized but did not want to travel to the parish church, Saint Paul's, in Baltimore City. The bishop happily obliged since he was eager to establish new congregations in Maryland embodying the ideals of the Oxford Movement, which sought to reinstate older Christian traditions in the Anglican Church.

The congregation at Saint John's Church held their first service the “barracks”: a powder magazine and post for federal troops located a short distance southwest of the present church building. On July 10, 1844, Saint John's Church was legally incorporated as a diocesan mission church within the bounds of Saint Paul's parish and by 1845 became an independent congregation. The congregation laid the cornerstone for its first church in April 1846, and was consecrated by Bishop Whittingham on November 11, 1847. The church opened as a “free church”—rejecting the then-common practice among Anglican, Catholic, and Presbyterian churches of raising money by charging parishioners "pew rents".

For the first two years the rector returned his stipend to the treasurer as his offering toward the building expenses. He also installed a furnace at his own expense, assuring the warm devotion and gratitude of his flock. However, on May 15, 1858, just eleven years after its consecration, the church caught fire and burned to the ground.

Poorer but undaunted, the congregation worked to rebuild and Bishop Whittingham laid cornerstone of the present church on September 11, 1858. The first service in this building was held on May 22, 1859, and its consecration was on All Saints' Day in 1860. The congregation prospered and the church added a Parish House (1866) and a Rectory (1868) in a matching Gothic style. In 1885, the church built an orphanage for boys but the institution closed in 1912 and the building has been demolished. An 1850s cemetery still survives on the property.

The design of the church was influenced to the principles of the Cambridge Camden Society (later known as the Ecclesiological Society) which promoted revival of the Gothic style in architecture. The church was enlarged in 1875 with the addition of transepts (creating the classic cruciform shape visible today), a baptistery (the present Lady Chapel), sacristy, enlarged sanctuary, and a bell tower and spire. The interior decoration was completed in 1895 in the same Gothic Revival style.

After several modernizations of the decor, a whitewash, and years of neglect, the restoration of much of the original decoration was undertaken from 1983 to 1985 by the Reverend R. Douglas Pitt, the eleventh rector. This work was resumed in 1994 under the Reverend Jesse L. A. Parker, twelfth rector. All of the restoration work has been accomplished by the well-known decorative artist Janet Pope, of J. Pope Studios, Baltimore, which specializes in historic decorative restoration.

3009 Greenmount Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21218

A Mount Royal Landmark by architect Patrick Keeley

Corpus Christi Memorial Church was built in 1891 in memory of Thomas and Louisa Jenkins by their children. Their goal was to build the most exquisite church in Baltimore. Patrick Keeley, the foremost architect of Catholic churches in his day, designed the building.

The interior, designed by John Hardman & Company of London, glitters and glows with colorful mosaics accented with gold tessera, stained glass windows, and a high vaulted ceiling with clerestory windows. Famous for its large Florentine style mosaics adorning the chancel, Corpus Christi also has smaller mosaic Stations of the Cross as well as a charming mosaic depicting the founding of Maryland. There are four chapels and a baptistery that boast gold mosaic ceilings, marble walls, statues of saints, and stained glass windows.

110 W. Lafayette Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217

The Strawbridge United Methodist Church has a rich history. First established in 1843 as the Howard Street Station, the church moved to a grand sanctuary on Park Avenue under the leadership of Rev. John F. Goucher in 1881. Unfortunately, over the past several years, the church deferred essential but costly maintenance resulting in a damaged roof and deteriorating interior. The building has been stabilized for now but estimates by the Methodist Church suggest that a substantial rehabilitation is urgently needed. A committee of neighbors from the Mount Royal Improvement Association is currently working to find a permanent solution for the preservation and rehabilitation of the building.

Strawbridge Memorial Methodist Church first began in June 1836, when Maryland's growing Methodist community established a Sunday school in the home of William Coulter at 850 North Howard Street near Richmond Market. In 1839, the community built a small frame building for the school on the opposite side of Howard Street for $1,000 and held a dedication in February 1840. In April 1843, the Howard Street Station formally incorporated as a Methodist Episcopal Church and began making plans for a new building. The congregation bought a lot at Linden (then Garden) and Biddle Streets and laid the cornerstone in a ceremony on September 4, 1845. The church began holding services on the ground floor the following year, completed the auditorium by 1847, and dedicated the building in November 1848.

In 1860, Howard Street Station changed their name to the Strawbridge Methodist Episcopal Church in honor of Robert Strawbridge an Irish evangelist credited with bringing Methodism to America. Born in Ireland, Robert Strawbridge immigrated to Maryland around 1760 and settled on Sam's Creek in what was then Frederick County (now part of Carroll County). Strawbridge established a Methodist Society and built a "Log Meeting House" near his home—a building later considered one of the first Methodist churches in America. The modest structure (a little less than 25-feet square) was replaced in 1783 but a relic of the building survived in the pulpit of Strawbridge Methodist Episcopal Church, which was made from logs salvaged from the old meeting house.

In 1880, Dr. John F. Goucher arrived at Strawbridge and titled his first sermon "Rise and Build," launching his successful effort to spur the congregation into building a new church. Goucher had previously led the relocation of the Gilmore Street Methodist congregation and helped them to build a new church on Harlem Park, a fast-growing prosperous suburb in West Baltimore.

The congregation accepted a new site at Park Avenue and Wilson Street from member Erastus Mitten and sold their Biddle Street church to an African American congregation. The building was late demolished to make way for State Center. As the new building went up, the community held services in a tent placed on an adjoining lot. Finally, in a special watchnight service on December 31, 1881, the congregation moved into their newly finished chapel.

Goucher's abilities at fundraising enabled the congregation to dedicate the church free of debt in a ceremony with Bishop Matthew Simpson in June 1882. Goucher moved on shortly after to help the Lovely Lane Methodist Church build their iconic St. Paul Street home a few years later.

The Strawbridge Church on Park Avenue added a parsonage on Wilson Street in 1885, which was eventually converted into a Guild House. The church bought a house on Bolton Street south of Wilson Street and later moved the parsonage again to 1719 Park Avenue.

201 Wilson Street, Baltimore, MD 21217

Religion and Community Activism on Pennsylvania Avenue

Saint Peter Claver Church at Pennsylvania Avenue and Fremont Street takes its’ name from a sixteenth-century Spanish priest who is considered the patron saint of slaves. The building dates back to 1888 making it the city’s second oldest African-American Roman Catholic Church. True to the inspiration of Saint Claver, the congregation and their leaders, have long been active in seeking equal rights for African Americans in Baltimore.

Father Henry Offer led the church from 1960 to 1971 and was a member of the NAACP and Urban League. In 1968, he was one of the city’s African American leaders to speak out after the riots following the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., criticizing Governor Spiro Agnew for laying blame for the unrest on local black activists. Later that same year, the parish chartered buses to transport its members, as well as community residents, to the Poor People’s March on Washington. The march, planned by the by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference before King’s death, was led by Civil Rights activist Ralph Abernathy.

In 1966, Father Philip Berrigan advocated for the disinvested urban neighborhoods from his position at the church. Berrigan, whose long career as a Catholic activist included burning Vietnam War draft cards with his brother Daniel Berrigan and others of the Catonsville Nine. In the years leading up to this, Berrigan worked from St. Peter Claver to establish the Baltimore Interfaith Peace Mission and actively lobbied and demonstrated for the city’s African American communities.

Another Civil Rights activist coming from St. Peter Claver in the 1960s was Father John Harfmann. In 1967, Harfmann, who was white, worked with Black activist Dickey Burke to provide recreation opportunities in West Baltimore through Operation CHAMP. During his tenure at the church, he also participated in integration activities with church members and actively supported efforts of BUILD (Baltimoreans United In Leadership Development) to create housing, provide job opportunities, and rebuild neighborhoods in the city. At his funeral, fellow priests remembered how Harfmann was “wholly dedicated to being a priest in the African American community,” and recalled him as “a tireless fighter for justice who did things that people said were not possible.”

Today, the church continues their long tradition of civil rights and community activism, in part, by hosting the No Boundaries Coalition that works to unite communities around the church that have historically been divided by racial and economic barriers.

1526 N. Fremont Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217

St. Edward's organized in 1878 as a mission of St. Peter the Apostle, which was led by Fr. Owen B. Carrigan. Carrigan supervised the construction of the first church in 1880 for a congregation that likely included Catholic workers from factories scattered across the Gwynns Falls Valley.

In 1923, the church expanded with a new school, convent, and rectory. A growing congregation of 5,000 people forced the church to hold nine masses every Sunday. In 1938, the congregation started a campaign for a larger building and dedicated the present church on March 9, 1941.

901 Poplar Grove Street, Baltimore, MD 21216

A true gem of Baltimore religious architecture, the handsome Gothic Revival tower of St. Luke’s Church is matched by its richly detailed sanctuary. While architect J.W. Priest oversaw the completion of the building in 1857, five other architects also played some part. Unlike many historic congregations that left the neighborhood, St. Luke’s opened its doors on July 10, 1853 and has kept them open for over 150 years.

217 N. Carey Street, Baltimore, MD 21223

St. Peter the Apostle Church served southwest Baltimore's large Irish Catholic community for over 160 years. From its dedication in September 1844 through its final service in January 2008, the church earned a reputation as "The Mother Church of West Baltimore" for its role in the growth of the Catholic church.

Built from 1843 to 1844, the handsome Greek Revival building was designed by prominent Baltimore architect Robert Cary Long, Jr. who modeled the church on the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens, Greece. The building is now owned by nearby Carter Memorial Church.

13 S. Poppleton Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

The congregation of the Carter Memorial Church has its origins in 1926 when James Roosevelt Carter and his wife Catherine Carter arrived in Baltimore from Pennsylvania. James Carter spent years preaching on the city streets before opening his first church on Lombard Street in 1944. The congregation continued to grow and by 1955 under the name of the “Garden of Prayer Church of God In Christ” purchased the former home of the Beechfield Methodist Church that was originally built in 1833 as the Fayette Street Methodist Episcopal Church. The congregation has continued to grow and recently purchased St. Peter the Apostle.

745 W. Fayette Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

Like James Keelty, who built many of the rowhouses in Edmondson Village, many of the neighborhood’s new residents were Catholic and attended church to the east at St. Edward's on Poplar Grove or farther west at St. William of York. After James Keelty’s daughter died in 1922 at the age of six, he decided to build a new church for his neighbors and donate the building to the Archdiocese who dedicated the building as a memorial to Nora Bernardine Keelty.

Completed in 1929, the church was designed by architect Francis E. Tormey who also designed the Furst Memorial Chapel at Most Holy Redeemer Cemetery and churches including St. Piux V (1907) at Edmondson Avenue and Schroeder Street, St. Josephs's (1913), and St. Bernard's (1926).

3812 Edmondson Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21229

Built in 1930 as the Edgewood Theater

Established in 1922, Olivet Baptist Church has occupied the historic Edgewood Theatre since the late 1960s. Built in 1930, the Edgewood Theatre was designed by one of the city’s most prominent theatre architects—John J. Zink.

Born in Baltimore in 1886, Zink graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1904 and started work with architect William H. Hodges and the local architecture firm Wyatt & Nolting. He began working on theatres when he joined architect Thomas W. Lamb in designing the famous Hippodrome Theatre on Eutaw Street and the Maryland Theatre in Hagerstown, Maryland. Over the next few decades, Zink and his partners designed over 200 movie theatres in cities up and down the east coast including over thirty in the Baltimore-DC area including the Senator Theatre on York Road and the Town Theatre (now known as the Everyman).

In the Edgewood Theatre's heyday, the marquee featured a tall electric sign (a near twin of the Patterson designed by Zink on Eastern Avenue). Like many smaller neighborhood theatres, the business began to struggle in the 1950s and, after a brief second life as an art house theatre in 1962, ended its life as a movie house. That same year, Bishop Wilburn S. Watson joined the Olivet Baptist Church then located in a modest building on Riggs Avenue. In the late 1960s, Bishop Watson led the effort to purchase the former theatre on Edmondson Avenue and convert the building into a new sanctuary for the congregation.

3500 Edmondson Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21229

Organized in 1875 by Samuel H. Cummings at Gilmore and Mulberry Streets, the Harlem Park Methodist Episcopal Church relocated to Harlem Park in 1880 under the leadership of John F. Goucher. The church constructed a new building in 1906 under the leadership of Rev. E.L. Watson and then moved again to Harlem Avenue and Warwick Avenue under the leadership of Rev. E.P. Fellenbaum. The new building was described:

“Gothic in design, with an auditorium seating 800 persons. In addition, there will be an educational building, equipped with 10 rooms for Sunday-school work. In the basement will be a social hall. A recreation room with bowling alleys and a lecture room that may be converted into a gymnasium also are planned.”

At a mortgage burning ceremony in 1947, Fellenbaum recalled that some criticized the project, and the $100,000 mortgage, as “Fellenbaum’s Folly.” The congregation laid the cornerstone for the new building at 4:00 PM on May 2, 1925. The Harlem Park Methodist Episcopal Church was dedicated at 3:00 PM on November 21, 1926 with Bishop William Fraser McDowell officiating.

In May 1953, the Harlem Park Methodist Church merged with the Grove Methodist Chapel, erected in 1857 on Johnnycake Road in Baltimore County, to form the Wesley Memorial Methodist Church in Catonsville, Maryland. Their building was offered for sale at $210,000. Bishop E.A. Love of the Washington Conference appointed the Reverend N.B. Carrington as the leader of the Union Memorial United Methodist Church and assisted in securing help from the Washington and Baltimore Conferences and the Board of Missions to purchase the property.

The church had previously moved from Pine and Franklin Streets to North and Madison Avenues in 1951 and had fewer than 100 members when it moved to Harlem Avenue in 1953. By the time of Rev. Carrington’s retirement in 1961, however, the church had grown to over 600 members. Carrigton began pastoring at Union Memorial United Methodist in 1952, and also worked as the supervisor of the AFRO’s pressroom. He later commented, “I married, baptized and buried many of them down there — matter of fact they call me the AFRO’s chaplain.” Commenting on the success of the church in paying off the building’s $225,000 mortgage in 8 years, Carrington noted, “Those are the kind of people we have in our congregation. They wanted to get it out of the way and they worked hard to do it.”

2500 Harlem Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21216

The Former Immanuel Reformed Church

At a ground-breaking ceremony for the Immanuel Reformed Church on June 24, 1922, twelve trustees, including Charles C. Zies, Sr. and John H. Weller, signed a contract for the construction of the new building. Plans filed a few days later for a white marble structure with a capacity of 750 people at a cost of $50,000. In May 1924, the new building served as the site of celebration for the “golden jubilee” of the Baltimore Classis of the German Synod of the East of the Reformed Church in the United States, including lectures by Rev. Dr. H.G. Schlueter on “The Historical Background of Baltimore Classis” and Rev. J.G. Grimmer on “Baltimore Classis Then and Now.” A classis is an organization of pastors and elders that governs a group of local churches.

In the late 1950s, the church followed others in the neighborhood in a move away from the area, breaking ground on April 7, 1957 at a site on Edmondson Avenue west of Rolling Road in Catonsville. The new building is a “contemporary brick church.” By 1958, the building was home to St. Mark’s Baptist Church, also known as St. Mark’s Institutional Baptist Church, that continues to worship at the building up through the present.

655 N. Bentalou Street, Baltimore, MD 21216

Perkins Square Baptist Church has been an institution on Edmondson Avenue since the mid-1950s occupying a grey stone church that began in 1913 as Emmanuel English Evangelical Lutheran Church. The two-story tall church was designed by local architect A. Cookman Leach and built by C.C. Watts.

Alfred Cookman Leach graduated from the Maryland Institute Freehand Division in 1896 and worked as a partner of the firm of Tormey and Leach. Examples of Leach’s religious buildings can be found across the city including the Highland Methodist Episcopal Church (built 1906) at Highland and Pratt Streets, the Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church South (built 1927) on Liberty Heights Avenue, and the Alpheus W. Wilson Methodist Episcopal Church South (built 1927) at University Parkway and Charles Street.

Established in 1888, the Emmanuel English Evangelical Lutheran Church had formerly occupied a building at the corner of Schroeder and Pierce Streets. Pastors from ten Evangelical Lutheran Churches throughout Baltimore participated in the cornerstone laying ceremony on July 13, 1913. The church had organized the first of a series of outdoor services the prior Sunday and planned to continue outdoor meetings at the site of their new building through July and August. Within the cornerstone, at the southeast corner of the building, the church placed, copies of The Baltimore Sun, the church constitution, the proceedings of the last synod, a list of officers of the congregation, a hymnal and a bible.

In the decade after WWII, the church, like many largely white congregations in the area, moved west to new neighborhoods at the developing western edge of Baltimore. Under the leadership of Reverend George Loose, Emmanuel Lutheran Church dedicated a new church on Ingleside Avenue in 1957 leaving their building at Edmondson and Warwick to Perkins Square Baptist Church.

Perkins Square Baptist Church was established in 1881 and takes its name from a small park and fresh-water spring located in the area of Heritage Crossing today. The congregation quickly grew to become one of the largest black Baptist churches in Baltimore and hosted regular community meetings, including a 1905 rally to campaign against the "Poe amendment" proposed by Senator Arthur Pue Gorman and the Maryland Democratic Party to disenfranchise black voters in Maryland. Virginia native Ward D. Yerby became pastor of the church in 1970 and led the move west to purchase the new church in January 1956. Rev. Yerby served as executive secretary of the Governor's Commission on Interracial Problems and Relations in the late 1950s.

2500 Edmondson Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21223

Founded in 1824, St. James’ Episcopal Church is the nation’s second oldest African Episcopal congregation and the first Episcopal church organized by African Americans south of the Mason-Dixon line. Since 1932, the congregation has occupied a historic sanctuary at the northeast corner of Lafayette Square Park in West Baltimore.

Built for the Episcopal Church of the Ascension from quarry-faced, white, Beaver Dam marble, the building was designed by the Baltimore architecture firm of Hutton & Murdoch. In 1866, the church left their original 1840 building on Lexington Street near Pine for a corner lot in what was then one of Baltimore’s emerging, fashionable neighborhoods. The structure is sparingly ornamented on the exterior, relying mostly on texture, repetition, a limited repertory of Gothic revival architectural motifs (buttresses, pointed arches, a rose or “wheel” window, and stained glass), and a massive gable roof to communicate a sense of religiosity and permanence. The building originally featured a wood-framed spire atop its northwest tower rising to a height of 120 feet. In 1876, the church added on a parish house designed by architect Frank E. Davis which shows a keen sensitivity to Hutton & Murdoch’s 1867 Gothic revival design.

In 1932, the Church of the Ascension sold the building and St. James’ Episcopal Church, then led by Rev. George Bragg, moved to Lafayette Square. Rev. Bragg may be little-known by most Baltimoreans today, but he served as pastor of St. James Church for over forty years. His visionary leadership of St. James is matched by his legacy as a co-founder of the Afro-American newspaper, as well as an historian and a political advocate. His life and work reflected the growing strength of Baltimore’s black community in the early 1900s.

Born in North Carolina on January 25, 1863, George Freeman Bragg's early years were shaped by the Civil War and Reconstruction. Ordained as a deacon in Virginia in 1887, Bragg entered the priesthood in 1888 and arrived in Baltimore in 1891 with a passion for fostering independent leadership within the black church. He joined the 66-year old St. James’ Church that was then located downtown at Saratoga Street and Guilford Avenue.

In 1901, Bragg led his church to a new building in northwest Baltimore at Park Avenue and Preston Street. When middle-class African Americans in his congregation continued to move even farther west, Bragg moved St. James again to Lafayette Square in 1932 where they celebrated their first service on Easter morning. The move reflected a major change in the neighborhood as four African American congregations moved to Lafayette Square between 1928 and 1934. Rev. Bragg lived on the Square and remained active in the city’s political and civic life until his death in 1940.

1020 W. Lafayette Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217

One of the thirty original Anglican parishes in Maryland, St. Paul's parish has been a fixture of Baltimore since the city's incorporation. Many influential citizens attended this church, including George Armistead.

Old St. Paul’s Church is known as the mother church of all Episcopal congregations in Baltimore. As one of the thirty original Anglican parishes that the General Assembly created under the Establishment Act of 1692, St. Paul’s (also known as Patapsco) Parish covered the sparsely populated area between the Middle River and Anne Arundel County from the colony’s northern border to the Chesapeake Bay. In 1702, worshippers began meeting near Colgate Creek—the same Baltimore County peninsula that saw the Battle of North Point in 1814.

The parish relocated to the the newly incorporated Baltimore Town in 1731. Church leaders selected lot 19 on a hill overlooking the harbor where the church still remains today. St. Paul’s is distinguished as the only property that has remained under its original ownership since the founding of Baltimore. By the late eighteenth century, St. Paul’s counted among its members some of the most powerful men in Maryland. St. Paul’s worshippers included Declaration of Independence signer and Supreme Court justice Samuel Chase (whose father Thomas Chase served as the church’s rector in the mid-eighteenth century); Revolutionary War officer and governor, congressman, and slaveholder John Eager Howard; Thomas Johnson, a delegate to the Continental Congress and Maryland’s first governor; and George Armistead, commander of Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore.

By 1814, the congregation had been meeting for over 120 years. Rev. Dr. James Kemp served as rector, a position he had held since November 1812. Nineteenth century local historian John T. Scharf described Kemp as “a man of high literary and scientific culture, and an author of much repute.” The parish began construction on a new neoclassical building, designed by Robert Cary Long, Sr., in May 1814 just a few months before the British attack on the city. Completed in 1817, the new St. Paul’s stood up until 1854 when a fire destroyed the building. Scharf noted that “the steeple was considered the handsomest in the United States.” The congregation rebuilt on the same lot, commissioning Richard Upjohn to design a new church built between 1854 and 1856. The striking structure on North Charles Street has remained a landmark for generations of Baltimoreans.

Beyond fulfilling a spiritual mission in the city, St. Paul’s—like many other churches of the day—has also provided social services. The church established the Benevolent Society for Educating and Supporting Female Children (also known as the Female Charity School) in 1799. The school sought to prepare orphans and underprivileged girls ages eight and above “to be valuable and happy members of society.” Charles Varle’s 1833 book described the society as having thirty “inmates” who were fed, clothed, and educated in a building attached to the church.

233 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

The Zion Lutheran Church is a piece of German-American history that dates back to 1755. Originally known as the German Lutheran Reformed Church, it served Lutheran immigrants coming from Germany. The congregation held services in private residences for the first seven years.

The original church was erected in 1762 on Fish Street (now Saratoga Street), a block away from their current site. The number of worshipers grew rapidly over the years and by 1808 the first building on the current church grounds was completed. It is one of only a few buildings standing that predates the War of 1812 and is the oldest Neo-Gothic style church in the United States. Between 1912 and 1913, the church completed several additions including the Parish House, bell tower, parsonage, and garden.

The church possesses a number of historical artifacts including a piece of the Berlin Wall and plaques dedicated to the members of the church who died in WWI and WWII. The church boasts an impressive collection of stained glass. A number of the windows celebrate German heritage and achievements. The Industry Window in the Sanctuary Entrance has an image of the linotype in the bottom-right corner, a device invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler in Baltimore.

The Zion Lutheran Church currently provides services in both German and English, making it the oldest church in the United States that has maintained uninterrupted services in German and the only church in Maryland to offer a service in German.

400 E. Lexington Street, Baltimore, MD 21202