Our History

Architecture | Interior Features | Church History | Previous Rectors | Bibliography

Architecture

Often called "The Jewel of Centre Street" this church is a textbook example of Gothic Revival architecture designed by noted architect Robert Sands Schuyler. It features lancet, arch-shaped windows, a steeply pitched roof, buttressed walls and a tower with a castellated parapet. The tabby walls are 18" thick and overlaid with cement. Originally constructed 1881-84, it was severely damaged by fire in 1892, resulting in some minor changes to its appearance: the original spire was not rebuilt, but elaborate entrances were added, along with the chien assi ("sitting dog") windows in the roof. Following the fire, the east end of the church was extended 7 feet to provide space for an elaborate Harrison pipe organ which was dedicated on the evening of November 14, 1893.

In 1974 the Historic American Buildings Survey produced detailed line drawings of St. Peter’s Church, which are today housed in the Library of Congress.

Major renovation and repair work was performed during the 1980’s and 1990’s. The church exterior was reworked, the stained glass windows were removed, restored and replaced with a protective exterior covering, and the Harrison organ was restored. The roof was replaced with every effort made to match the original design and color.

Interior Features

1. Extensive use of heart pine and other native woods.
Note the heart pine pews designed by Schuyler and built in Gainesville at a cost of $6.50 apiece.
The stick style design in heart pine against the back interior wall of the church may also be seen in the Schuyler-designed double-galleried porch on the Tabby House. The wooden worship pieces (baptismal font, lectern and prayer desk) were hand-made from Florida cedar and curly pine by local cabinetmaker, casketmaker and superlative woodworker Robert M. Henderson. The organ casing, designed by Schuyler and made by Henderson, is also made of Florida cedar and curly pine. The open-timbered ceiling is said to be patterned after an inverted ship’s hull.

2. Stained glass windows.
A total of 17 memorial stained glass windows costing $150-175 each were installed in the church when it was originally built. All were made by Edward Colegate of New York City with the exception of the Doctors’ Window at the north end of the West Wall. W. J. McPherson of Boston constructed this memorial to two doctors who came to Fernandina during the Yellow Fever Epidemic and died of the disease on October 18, 1877. Schuyler designed the Gable Window, often mistakenly called the Rose Window, on the West Wall.

In the 1892 fire, the windows were damaged beyond repair. Vestryman Samuel Swann undertook the ordering of replacement windows. He convinced Colegate to reconstruct his original windows at less than the cost of the original and then proceeded to give Colegate detailed instructions for changing some of the designs. McPherson had made the original Doctors’ Window for $153.50, but asked $235 to make a new one, finally compromising on a price of $200. Swann asked McPherson to "tone down the jewel tones" in the replacement window. Because soft, subdued pastels are a hallmark of Louis Comfort Tiffany, this was believed to be a Tiffany window until the HABS found the bill of sale and relevant correspondence among the Swann papers.

Other windows of the church continue telling the story of Fernandina events and its citizens — the "saints among us." Behind the baptismal font on the North Wall are the Holy Innocents windows flanked by plaques recording the names of yellow fever victims. The trefoil window over the entrance commemorates three boys who died in the summer of 1883: Palmer van Giesen, Frank D. Pope, and Willie O. Jeffreys. Another window of special interest is the second from the entrance on the South Wall. It is a memorial to Mary Martha Reid, sometimes known as the "Florence Nightingale of the Confederacy." She was the second wife of Florida Governor R.R. Reid, who died of Yellow Fever in 1841. When her older son enlisted in the War Between the States, she volunteered her services to Dr. Thomas Palmer and was in charge of the hospital for Florida soldiers near Richmond, Virginia. The window beside hers is a memorial to her son, who died in the Battle of the Wilderness.

Stroll about and learn about the pillars of the Church and of the community from the inscriptions on the windows. Four of the windows on the North Wall (Groover, Carnegie, Kennard, and Whitney) were added in the 1960’s and 1970’s. These were made by Dahl Carter and Sons of Jacksonville.

3. Organ.
The organ was purchased in 1893 from the L.C. Harrison & Co. of Bloomfield, NJ at a cost of $2,000 complete and set into place. The pipework includes 839 pipes, the largest of which is 8 feet long and the smallest the size of a drinking straw. [N.B. These figures and estimates of pipe size vary among published sources.] Prior to its restoration at a cost of $90,000 in 1990, an on-site examination conducted by the Organ Historical Society revealed that St. Peter’s organ is "a stellar and perhaps singular example of the best organs built in any age in this country (one of two surviving examples) and as such, has great potential for historic interest …" The casing in curley pine was added around 1897.

Church History

On June 14, 1858, The Reverand Owen P. Thackara, a much-traveled missionary and then the Rector of Trinity Church in St. Augustine, met with a small group of Fernandina citizens to form a missionary outpost. Their first meeting was held in Timanus Hall on the second floor of a building on the corner of Second and Centre Streets in Fernandina (which became Fernandina Beach in 1951). This building burned to the ground on March 24, 1876.

Just at that time, the Florida Railroad offered lots at a very low price to "… each body of Christians desiring a place to worship." Father Thackera and his earnest group chose a lot for which they were to pay sixteen dollars a year until they had paid the two-hundred dollar price. Immediately thereafter they appointed a building committee which set a total cost limit of $1500 for the construction of a church building.

On November 8, 1858, the Right Reverend Francis H. Rutledge, the first Bishop of Florida, laid the cornerstone of the first St. Peter’s Church in Fernandina on the SE corner of what is today St. Peter’s Cemetery. The initial service was held in the unfinished church on January 30, 1859. It was intended that this first structure was to be temporary, later to be used "… as a lecture or Sunday School room." However, it was to be used as a house of worship for 107 years, serving both the white and black Episcopal congregations except during the War Between the States.

Father Thackera, who initially brought the congregation together and who became the third priest of the church, led his people deep into Nassau County for the duration of the war. At the end of the conflict, Father Thackera brought his parishioners back to Fernandina to reclaim their church. For several years the church building had been occupied by the Union Army, which had begun to use the grounds as a cemetery. The Freedman’s Bureau later established a school in the building, and when the congregation recovered it after the war it was badly damaged. Thackera wrote poignantly of finding his church in ruins when he returned to Fernandina: "Immediately upon the close of the war, I turned my steps toward the seacoast of Florida and my old home to look after the church buildings and prepare the way for the return of the people… It is needless to tell you what a sad visit it was, and how my heart sank within me. After I reached Fernandina, I bent my steps toward the church within whose walls I had administered the Word and sacraments, and the rectory beneath whose roof I had passed so many happy days. The doors of the church were locked against me. I looked through one of the broken windows. A sickening feeling came over me! All was gone - all that could be removed. The walls were defaced, and the floors and pews in sad condition. The rectory close by had been sold, I was informed. It was occupied by strangers. The garden around it was gone; weeds occupied the place where flowers once grew … Again and again I said to myself, ‘What can I do? Where are the means to come from … to repair these ruins?’ I, myself, was without a single dollar, and the people as they came back to their old homes, came back like myself - penniless."

Thackera turned from his despair to talk of negotiating with Federal authorities for the return to the congregation of the St. Peter’s Churchbuilding and the communion silver. The silver had been placed for safekeeping in the hands of the U.S. Customs House officers. Repairs were made to the battered little church and once more St. Peter’s set about its ministry to the war-weary, but recovering community of Fernandina.

By the 1880’s, the Episcopal Church numbered among its parishioners the prime movers and shakers of a booming Fernandina: Samuel A. Swann, Major George R.Fairbanks, Major W. B. C. Duryee (pronounced der-ee-ay), William O. Jeffreys, Charles V. Hillyer, and others. It was Fairbanks who urged R.S. Schuyler to come to Fernandina from Waldo to design and supervise construction of the new church building. Schuyler submitted plans in April 1881, and on August 10, 1881, Reverend Thackera laid the cornerstone, which contained a copy of the Book of Common Prayer, a brief history of the Parish, and a plan in miniature of the church. The Florida Mirror of September 3, 1882 reported that almost $9,000 had already been spent on the church and that it was expected that it would take another $6,000 to complete it.

The first service was held in the beautiful, new Neo-Gothic building on March 30, 1884, and was described in the April 5, 1884, edition of the Florida Mirror as "an impromptu opening of St. Peter’s" with "temporary seats placed under the energetic management of the architect Mr. Robert S. Schuyler for a large congregation." The impromptu opening apparently accommodated a wealthy benefactress to St. Peter’s, Mrs. H.D. Huntington of Cincinnati, while she was a guest at the Egmont Hotel. Mrs. Huntington was the donor of the chancel windows in the new church. By December of that year pews had been installed, and the building was fully operational.

During May 1887, the original church was moved out of the cemetery to the NE corner of the present property, was given to the black congregation, and renamed the Church of the Good Shepherd. This building remained in use by the African-American congregation until 1965.

Early in the morning of February 24, 1892, much of the new building was destroyed by fire. Vestry clerk C.V. Hillyer, an insurance expert, reported his conclusions to the vestry that "the fire must have originated in the act of an incendiary…from the appearance of the ruins. … The torch was applied under the floor at the NW corner of the nave." During the fire, R.M. Henderson, the devoted parishioner who had built the baptismal font, lectern, and prayer desk, in an attempt to rescue some of those precious items, nearly lost his life when he fell through the burning floor. The vestry immediately voted to rebuild the church, again turning to R.S. Schuyler to supervise the job.

Restoration brought about several changes to the structure [see above] and on May 7, 1893, services were held in the restored church. Expenses incurred in the building and rebuilding of the church were repaid in the next 8 years, and St. Peter’s was formally consecrated on Easter day 1901 by Bishop E. G. Weed, the third Bishop of Florida.

Although Thackera, Swann, and Schuyler had been present at the first service held in the original St. Peter’s, Thackera and Schuyler had died before the consecration–Thackera in 1887 and Schuyler in July 1895. The pulpit of St. Peter’s is dedicated to the memory of founder and beloved rector, Owen P. Thackera. Schuyler’s life had been shortened, according to newspaper obituaries, by being "shot through the body" while serving as captain of the 13th Regiment, New York Cavalry, and from a fall from scaffolding on the cupola of the Episcopal Church.

The years of the Great Depression were difficult, and for the first time in its history, St. Peter’s had trouble meeting its expenses. Things improved enough by 1938 for a combined Parish Hall and Sunday School to be built to the northeast of the church building. In 1948 sidewalks and gutters were added, and during the next twenty years there were many significant improvements. Air conditioning and heat were installed, carpets and kneelers were replaced, and landscaping turned the property into one of the beauty spots of Fernandina.

In 1965, a new Sunday School building was completed (it was recently razed to make room for our two story educational building and offices). In 1966, the Right Reverand E.H. West, the fifth Bishop of Florida, made the decision that a replacement building for the old Church of the Good Shepard (the original St. Peter’s Church) would become an administrative building and the black and white congregations were combined. Recently this building became the youth center. In June of 1983, ground was broken for a new Parish Hall of a design that complements that of the historic church building. The Parish Hall was completed in May, 1984. It was refurbished and enlarged slightly in 2001.

During the last several years of the 1980s and continuing through the 1990s, significant restoration activities were undertaken. The church’s exterior was reworked, the century-old Harrison organ was restored (at a cost many times the original purchase price), and the beautiful stained-glass windows were removed, restored, and reinstalled. The roof was replaced with every effort made to match the original design and color. All of this work was done without incurring debt through the generosity of St. Peter’s loving parishioners and through the assistance of the State of Florida in the form of a grant for preservation of historic buildings.

During the years of 1998-2001 a capital campaign, “Blessings Upon Blessings,” provided funds for the restoration of the interior of the church building, along with the construction of new administrative and education buildings, expansion of the Parish Hall, creation of a large open patio which the buildings surround, and renovation of the old administration building into a youth center. The vestry approved a loan to finance that portion of the construction expense not met by the capital campaign. In April, 2002, the Roy Taylor Memorial Garden, located between the church building and the patio, was dedicated. Here the ashes of Roy and other beloved members of St. Peter’s are and will be buried. Plans are currently underway to develop a mission presence in the Yulee area. The 21st Century is full of God’s promise for the life of this parish.

Previous Rectors

Some of the available information about former rectors of St. Peters is sketchy at best, and the list below may be incomplete. On another page we have pictures of some of those who served this church. In the list below each name in blue is linked the picture.

1856 - 1859	J.H. Williams	1917 - 1918	G. Pittblade
1859	W.H.C. Robertson	1918	(Initial Unknown) Weeks
1859 - 1886	Owen P. Thackara Fernandina census, 10 Sep 1860, O.P. Thackhard, 40 (PA), P.E. Clergyman, and Elizabeth, 40 (MD), and six children ages 7 - 13 (PA, MD, NY)	1918 – 1926	Julius Blecker Fernandina census, 13 Apr 1920, Julius Bleaker, 50 (LA), Episcopal minister, and Eunice Bleaker, 48 (LA).
1887 - 1892	C.M. Sturgis	1926 - 1940	H. Mallinkrodt
1892 - 1898	Ebenezer Gay, Jr.	1940 - 1945	Richard Urban
1899	Benjamin F. Matrau (interim)	1945 - 1953	F.W. Golden-Howes
1899	A.E. Johnson (interim)	1953 - 1962	Neil Gray Fr. Neil is retired and living in Neptune Beach. His wife Elizabeth died 24 February 2002 at age 82.
1899 - 1900	J.M. McGrath (interim)	1963 - 1966	James Ellisor
1900 - 1902	S. Alstin Wragg	1966 - 1988	Ralph Kelley
1903 - 1908	John H. Brown	1988 - 1989	George Burns (interim)
1908	Robert Tuft	1989 - 1991	Lloyd Olsen
1908 - 1914	Lionel A. Wye Fernandina census, 21 Apr 1910, Lionel A. Wye, 38 (Canada), Minister, Episcopal Church, and Mattie H. Wye, 30 (MD). Married 10 years, no children.	1991 - 1996	David F. Gurniak Fr. David is presently at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church 5 Main St. (P.O. Box 143) Bridgewater, CT 06752
1914 - 1915	Francis Yarnell In the 1920 Tallahassee census Fr. Francis, 49, was the priest at St. John’s Episcopal Church. He and his wife Mary, 39, had five children (infant to 14).	1996 - 1997	Barnum McCarty (interim)
1915 - 1917	C. Benham

Bibliography

Hardee, Suzanne Davis, The Golden Age of Amelia Island: A Glimpse, Amelia Island Museum of History, 1993.
Hardee, Suzanne Davis, The Golden Age of Amelia Island Booklet II: The Churches , Amelia Island Museum of History, 1994.
Historic Property Associates, Historic Properties Survey of Fernandina Beach, Florida, 1985.
Litrico, Helen Gordon, A Great Ornament to Our City, Amelia Now Magazine, Spring 1988.
St. Peter’s Parish, History of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, May 1,1995. Brochure available in the church.