Area less than one acre NRHP Reference # 75000326 Phone +1 334-523-8884 | Built 1854-55 Opened 1855 Added to NRHP 24 February 1975 | |
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Address 113 Madison Ave, Montgomery, AL 36104, USA Similar Mount Zion AME Zion Church, Old Ship African Methodist, Grace Episcopal Church, Jefferson Davis Hotel, Tankersley Rosenwald School Profiles | ||
St. John's Episcopal Church is a historic Gothic Revival church in Montgomery, Alabama, United States. It was designed by the New York City architectural firm of Frank Wills and Henry Dudley. The church was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on 24 February 1975.
History
St. John's parish was organized in 1834 and by 1837 the parishioners had moved into a modest brick sanctuary on the corner of Perry and Jefferson Streets. After little more than a decade, the church needed to expand after the state capital moved to Montgomery and a rise in cotton production swelled the region's population. The current building was completed in 1855, in the same city block as the old, but facing Madison Street.
St. John's Episcopal Church was involved in several historic events around the time of the American Civil War. It hosted the Secession Convention of Southern Churches in 1861, which had helped fuel the South's secession movement. St. John's was also the church attended by the Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, when Montgomery was the capital of the Confederate States of America. The church was forced to close its doors in 1865 under Union Army orders; it would reopen for services in 1866.
The old building from the 1830s was torn down in 1869 and its bricks were used to construct an addition to the main structure. The building was expanded again in 1906. The church hosted many Army recruits from the nearby "Camp Sheridan" tent city during World War I, until the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic forced the church to temporarily close its doors.
In May 1925, a bronze plaque in honor of President Jefferson Davis was dedicated. John Trotwood Moore, the State Librarian and Archivist of Tennessee, was invited to give a speech.
The church was renovated in the 1950s and again in 2006.