Tracing the History of Pelham's Houses of Worship
Pelham History: All About the Churches
Given that Pelham’s history stretches back to 1654, it may be surprising that Pelham did not have a church until 1843. Prior to the American Revolution, the entire area that now comprises the Town of Pelham was owned by successive generations of the Pell Family, who attended services and were loyal parishioners of Saint Paul’s (Church of England) in Eastchester (now Mount Vernon). It was not until the end of the war when land was confiscated from certain Pell Family members who had remained loyal to King George III that other families settled in the new Town of Pelham. Enter the Reverend Robert Bolton with his wife, Anne, and their 13 children, who in 1838, acquired 33 acres and built the magnificent Gothic Revival mansion they called the Pelham Priory. They would become the spiritual leaders in Pelham for several decades.
Rev. Bolton was the rector at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church beginning in 1837 and held services at his home for nearby residents of New Rochelle and Pelham. The response was so positive that the Boltons embarked on building a church on their property at the corner of Pelhamdale Avenue and (now) Shore Road. “We are anxious to erect a little church here,” Mrs. Bolton wrote in her diary, “but how it is to be accomplished I know not, only I know that the silver and gold are the Lord's, and He can do it, whenever He pleases to use us as instruments." Construction began in 1843 and done mostly by the Bolton Family. One son, William Jay Bolton, became self-taught in the art of stained glass and created for the church the first figural stained glass window made in the United States. (Five years later, he was commissioned to craft the then largest assemblage of figural stained glass windows in the country for Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn.) Other Bolton sons carved an altar, chairs, corbel figures, and other architectural details. They named it Christ Church, a parish of the Episcopal Diocese.
Etty, William, Portrait of Robert Bolton (1788-1857), oil on canvas, 1818
Above: Miller, William Rickerby, Christ Church, watercolor on paper, 1845.
In 1859, Nanette Bolton, a daughter of Rev. Bolton, as a mission outreach from Christ Church began teaching Sunday School in the newly-established Pellhamville Community. While first held outside, within a few years, a lot was acquired on Fourth Avenue (between Second and Third Streets) and an old wood-framed carpenter’s shop was moved to the site. It became an independent parish, the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, in 1872. Struggling at first, the church was firmly established after the calling of the Reverend Cornelius Winter Bolton, a son of Rev. Robert Bolton, as its full-time minister. (Separately, Nanette, Winter and another sister, Adele, had also started Grace Episcopal Church on City Island, then still part of Pelham.)
Right: The first Church of the Redeemer on Fourth Avenue. Pelham Town Historian Montgomery Slide Collection, Digitized No. 7-30
These were the only churches in Pelham when the Pelham Manor and Huguenot Heights Association real estate venture began purchasing and subdividing farmland in Pelham Manor beginning in 1873. The need for a church was described by the venture as necessary “to be the vitalizing agency that shall leaven and amalgamate the unassorted and drifting elements in this now growing suburb….” A minister was called and a wood-frame building was constructed in 1876 at the corner of the Boston Post Road and Pelhamdale Avenue. Organized as a Presbyterian Church, it was officially named “Huguenot Memorial Church of Pelham Manor” (and nicknamed “the Red Church”).
Right: The first Huguenot Memorial Church. Pelham Town Historian Montgomery Slide Collection, Digitized No.
With the population of Pelham dramatically rising in the 1800s (increasing from just 486 in 1846 to 2,450 in 1880) particularly in the north end of town, the Church of the Redeemer very quickly outgrew the old carpenter’s shop and, under Rev. C.W. Bolton’s leadership, property was acquired on Second Avenue where a new rectory and a huge stone church were constructed.
Right: The Second Church of the Redeemer, Second Street between First and Second Avenues. Pelham Town Historian Digital Photo Collection, Redeemer Church 01
At the same time, a Congregational Church had been planted in 1875 and built a simple wood-framed building called “Church of the Covenant, Congregational” on Fourth Avenue, near the corner of (now) Lincoln Avenue.
Right: Pelham Church of the Covenant, Congregational Church, Fourth Avenue. Pelham Town Historian Photo Collection, Parades, July 4, 1910