New St. Mary's Church

New St. Mary's Church. . In 1846, Bishop George Washington Doane, rector of St. Mary's Episcopal Church, presented the Vestry with a plan for a new church, designed by architect Richard Upjohn and estimated to cost $20,000. The cornerstone for the new church was laid in November 1846. The design for the church was in Gothic Revival style and was specifically modeled on an extant English medieval parish church, St. John's Shottesbrooke, with a lengthened nave. The construction was completed in 1854 at a cost of $48,220. A peal of eight bells, by G.C. Mears and Co. in Whitechapel East London, was installed in the belfry in 1866. In 1891, a new exterior door was added in the New Church's north transept after the organ had been removed from that location. The church was further altered by the addition of a wrought iron screen and the replacement of the original smoke diamond-shaped leaded glass windows with new figural glass windows in 1893. , In April 1976, a high intensity electric lamp used to illuminate the spire of th New St. Mary's at night started a fire that fully engulfed the building in flames. Only the stone walls, the spire, and a few interior elements remained, along with the peal of change bells in the tower, where the fire had not reached. , Fortunately, architect William Heyl Thompson had been in the midst of creating measured drawings of the building before the fire. Although not an exact restoration of the building as it existed before the fire, the restoration by architect Richard Murphy was sympathetic to the original appearance. After three years of reconstruction work costing more than one million dollars, St. Mary's was reconsecrated in June 1979. , New St. Mary's Church was designated a National Historic Landmark on June 24, 1986 for its influence the development of the Gothic Revival style in the United States. New St. Mary's is one of the earliest Gothic Revival style churches in the United States and, with other Upjohn designs of the period, made the style popular. The influence of this style on church architecture continues to this day. , "It is, I believe, the first instance in this country of a cruciform Church, with a central tower and spire, all of which is stone. It does honor to the eminent architect, Mr. Richard Upjohn. For solidity and durableness, the building can hardly be surpassed. Its promise of perpetuity is a great as can be predicated, of any work of man. From age to age, it will remain, I trust, a monument of the faith and a temple for the worship, of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. To have been an humble instrument, in a work so gracious, is among the highest blessings of my life. To worship, where I live within its walls; and to lie down, at last, within its shadow, are first and chief, among my prayers.", - Rt. Rev. George Washington Doane, Bishop of the Diocese of New Jersey and Rector of St. Mary's Church on the August 10, 1854 consecration of New St. Mary's Church.