THE HISTORY OF ST. JOHN’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH
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never been seen since. The inside of the church was rectangular, being approximately eighty feet long by forty feet wide and was rather simple in architecture and design. The window of St. John in the present north transept was the "east" window or sanctuary of the church, and the placement of it makes it certain that the altar was fixed on a platform no more than one step high. Probably the most beautiful ecclesiastical appointment was the marble font still in use today, which perhaps has become more lovely through its many long years of service. (It is described in detail later.) The foundation walls of that old building deserve mention. They encompass the present undercroft or parish hall and are made of granite and other very hard stone, three feet thick. An excavation of it a few years ago reminded one of a mighty, if somewhat small, fortress. This, then, was the beginning of the present Saint John’s Church at Brooklyn on St. John’s Place. This chapel extended from the present Lady Chapel to where the choir and organ console are now located.
The rectory is distinctive in architecture and design, which is obvious to anyone who has seen it either from the outside or from the inside. All exterior window frames, except those on the garden floor, are fashioned of brownstone and limestone cornices with gothic arches. Woodwork for the most part is mahogany and walnut, plainly designed, with gothic archways free of the later Victorian filigree or "gingerbread" fussiness which so characterized decor at the end of the century. Seven fireplaces made of Connecticut white marble were also installed. They too are neat in their simplicity rather than commanding attention in a room which they compliment, giving it a feeling of spaciousness. Their real purpose was for heating in cold weather, of course, which also accounts for the plank flooring covered with carpets and rugs and for the heavy double velvet draperies, especially in archways. All this was used as a means of preserving what heat the fireplaces provided. One can only guess what a chore it must have been to tend them day and night, climbing up and down stairs, in and out, with fuel, cinders and ashes. They had always to appear clean and tidy, free of soot and smoke.
In addition to the four dwelling floors, there are a cellar and attic. The cellar, still with an earthen floor, was no doubt used for laundry and storage of household tools and equipment. In the beginning the lower, or garden, floor was occupied by a domestic couple, who lived in and, to a large extent, managed the household. The woman would occupy herself with shopping, cooking and light housekeeping, while the man would undertake several roles, among them gardener and liveryman. (The nearest livery stable was but a block away on the corner of St. John’s Place and Flatbush Avenue.) The houseman was also called upon for specially heavy chores and for acting as butler from time to time.
There is a picture of the chapel and rectory taken shortly after they were erected (above). St. John’s Place (then Douglass Street) is seen as a dirt road and all about the immediate buildings are small farm plots. The ornate gaslights and the intricate wrought-iron fencing around the roof have long since disappeared. From the roof, by the way, there is an excellent view of New Jersey and Lower Manhattan, the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, New York harbor with the Statue of Liberty, the Gowanus and Red Hook sections to the south, all the way to the new Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. What a panoramic picture it is on a warm clear night. Still today, as in the last century, you can see fireworks displays from the Hudson River stretching to Coney Island after dark on Independence Day. A view of the church yard from the rectory roof in 1870 would show a garden, large by current New York standards, comprising all the land on the west side of Seventh Avenue now occupied by the many buildings extending from St. John’s Place to Sterling Place.
In the archives, there is a House Agreement between St. John’s Church and Mrs. Sarah M. Person and D. Van Ness Person for use of the rectory from April 1874 to 1 May 1875. This seems highly irregular-in the first instance to rent a rectory, secondly to rent one fully furnished and so very new. The legal document states in part that the church agrees to "Let... the furnished house as per schedule hereto annexed and known as the Rectory of St. John’s Church, Brooklyn, N.Y. on St. John’s Place and next west of St. John’s Chapel, said Household Furniture to be returned to said party of the first part in as good condition as they are received, the natural use and wear thereof excepted, reserving for the Rector the first and second story corner rooms and also the small room in the rear of said house on the first floor." The total rent was $1,200 for the year plus $50 for the first 24 days. In addition there is a most interesting and elaborate description of all household items, the monetary value of which (including servants’ quarters) was quoted at $951.25 for nine rooms. That would be unthinkable today using the same U.S. currency but at such a drastically different dollar value.
Later, unfortunately, the church treasurer got his personal and church accounts confused and died in financial trouble. As a result, the church lost the property facing on Seventh Avenue. The church was first located on what was known as Douglass Street. The name was later changed in honor of the church; it might not have been but for a peculiar circumstance. The Park Slope area was being developed rapidly when a widely-publicized murder took place on DeGraw Street, which somewhat slowed the sales of new houses and other real estate in the area. Accordingly, the names of a number of streets east of Fifth Avenue were changed. Butler Street became Sterling Place; Douglass
Street became Saint John’s Place; DeGraw Street became Lincoln Place; Sackett Street became Berkeley Place.
The seventh rector was the Reverend T. S. Pycott, 1874-1887, and during his tenure Saint John’s assumed its present shape, which is cruciform, when today’s chancel and the nave were added in 1885. This more than doubled the seating capacity-to 635 people. Inasmuch as the expansion followed so soon after the original construction, the plans and the stone itself matched so perfectly that it is virtually impossible to tell that the whole church as we see it today was not built at the same time under one set of architect’s drawings and blue prints. So many people comment on first entering the church that it looks so much larger inside than from the street. That is because much of the sanctuary is situated behind the rectory.
By ecclesiastical definition, the altar of a church is always declared to be in the east. The sun rises in the east and it speaks to us of a new day, new light coming into the world, God working his immutable wonders in nature. The Son of God brings a new day, the light of life, the unchanging wonder of His Resurrection which Christians celebrate on "Sun Day." So, although Saint John’s altar is by the compass placed in the west, tradition calls it east. A window was placed directly behind the high altar in 1885, which indicates that a cloth curtain (dossal) was fixed behind the altar under that window, or a wooden background (reredos) was used. In any case, the chancel-sanctuary platform was not elevated as it is today. It was no more than a small step above the nave floor, which fact was revealed in this decade when, in remodeling the sanctuary a niche was uncovered too close to the present floor to be used for a credence or table for bread, wine and water used in the Holy Eucharist. It is truly sad that sketches, paintings or photographs of the interior were not preserved so that we could see the changes as they were made over the years.
The west wall incorporates a large Rose Window of very heavy wooden tracings, containing six quatrefoil panels of stained glass. The colors that predominate are purple, blue and amber in symmetric patterns with an overall effect of geometric or even floral design. It is not known what studio created the glass work, nor to whom the window was dedicated. In the nave there are three prominent arched windows on either side at pew level, and above in the roof are four triangular arched windows on each side.
At the west end of the church, an enclosed porch or vestibule made of stone was to become the new main entrance, housing the original cornerstone of 1827. With two exceptions all thirty-three stained-glass windows consisted of geometric designs with no depiction of saints or holy places and with virtually no expression of Christian symbolism. Throughout the nave and in the north transept the color tones of the glass were primarily light green and yellow. The hue cast by them at midday was a pale chartreuse color, which was strongly reflected on the surrounding walls. These were later replaced with figured windows of brilliant colors, a deep blue predominating.
Funds were not available for the later vast and costly expansion of the parish church. Rector, wardens and vestrymen had to incur a substantial mortgage to meet the debt. It was the paying off of this financial burden that was to trouble our priests and people for forty-six years-nearly half the life of the parish- before the mortgage was finally and gratefully paid off and burned in 1931.
The architecture has been described as "early English"; rural Gothic with a Victorian flavor. The architect was almost certainly Edward Tuckerman Potter. The Church of the Good Shepherd, which he designed on the Colt estate in Hartford, Connecticut, is almost identical in exterior and interior design to Saint John’s. He certainly also had impeccable ecclesiastical connections: his father was The Right Reverend Abraham Potter, Bishop of Pennsylvania; his uncle, The Right Reverend Horatio Potter, was Bishop of New York; two of his brothers, Philip Nott Potter and Henry Cadman Potter, were priests, and the latter succeeded his uncle as Bishop of New York.
Mortgages were, of necessity, contracted during all these years of building and growth after the property on Saint John’s Place was purchased in 1868, and in fact long before that. The church holds a deed now long-defunct for property at the corner of De Kalb Avenue and Elliott Place with a frontage of 359 feet and a depth of 264 feet. According to our records there are two Titles of Deed to this property. Therefore it is believed there were actually two parcels of land. One was delivered to a Mr. Thomas J. Taylor and wife on 5 August 1868, by a Mr. James B. Beers, who appeared to be at that time the clerk of the vestry, in the amount of $4,000. Another deed dated August 15th, 1868, was delivered to a Mr. Louis van Antwerp, Sr. for the purchase price of $19,250. This had to be the money used to buy land on Douglass Street for the new church. In addition there is evidence of a loan made through the East River Savings Bank for nearly $30,000, presumably borrowed and used for the construction of the chapel and rectory. No records indicate how or when that debt was repaid.
Curiously enough, there must have been some rapport between the clergy of this church and the famous Trinity Church on Wall Street, or between their respective congregations for, on the 29th day of November, 1872, a loan of $8,000 was given by the latter to Saint John’s, with a proviso that $4,000 be paid one year hence at five percent interest. Happily for us, and most generously on their part, this financial obligation extended for a couple of decades, and, by action of the rector, wardens and vestrymen of Trinity Church, Wall Street, New York, this debt was forgiven by a document dated 18 April 1910.
Churches are expensive in any age. If it were not for the twin virtues of Faith and Hope on the part of priests and people, they probably wouldn’t exist. True to historic pattern, the church went into debt again for a much-needed