ST. JOHN'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH

SIDE ONE: In 1827, the Rev. Ralph Williston visited the US Territory of Florida and Tallahassee, the town chosen in 1824 as its capital. In the heart of a rapidly developing agricultural region stretching from Pensacola to Jacksonville, this Episcopal missionary initiated the organization of St. John’s parish. Services were held in private and government buildings while fundraising for the construction of a permanent church began. In 1836, vestry members and the Rev. J. Loring Woart selected an unimproved lot north of town on which to build a Greek Revival style wooden church. Built by John H. Levinus who also built the state capitol, the church held its first service on May 7, 1837. Florida statehood was achieved in 1845 and in the same year, the Rev. Francis Huger Rutledge arrived to serve St. John’s. Rutledge was elected the diocese’s first bishop in 1851 thus making St. John’s a cathedral until 1858. Fire destroyed the original wooden church in 1879, but the spirited response of the parish and the leadership of the Rev. W. H. Carter made it possible to rebuild despite a lapsed insurance policy. On Easter Sunday, 1881, the Reverend Carter led the first service in the new Gothic Revival brick church built by T. J. Rawls. SIDE TWO: Construction continued at the same Monroe and Call Streets site until the finishing of the bell tower in 1897. The hand-rung tower bells added in 1915 were a gift from Miss Mary Lewis and are known as the Lewis Chime. Each of the fourteen bells is named for a saint and can be heard ringing over downtown Tallahassee. The interior of St. John’s is distinctly Victorian and features an elaborately carved reredos of six different Florida woods. Also distinctive to the church’s interior is the set of five stained glass windows donated by family in memory of Lt. Lawrence M. Anderson who perished in 1862. Other notable memorials are the baptismal font which survived the 1879 fire and the marble obelisks flanking the main entrance to the church. These markers commemorate the death of parishioner Hardy Croom and his family who drowned near Cape Hatteras in 1837, and the death in 1838 of the Rev. Woart and his wife while sailing from Charleston to New York City. St. John’s was founded during perilous times, has been buffeted by crises over the years but has survived due to the strength of its members and its communion of saints. In 1978 St. John’s Episcopal Church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.