St. George's Church

About this property

St. George's Church is an intercultural, multilingual Episcopal congregation in Flushing, Queens, New York City. With members from over twenty different nations of origin, it has served an ever-changing congregation since the 18th century. The current church building, constructed in 1854, is a New York City designated landmark on the National Register of Historic Places. St. George's was organized in 1702 as a mission of the Church of England by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. The group consisted of the Rev. George Keith, the Rev. John Talbot, and the Rev. Patrick Gordon, who was sent to be the missionary to Jamaica, Queens. Keith, a former Quaker, went into Flushing's Quaker Meeting House in September 1702, announced his presence as a missionary, and engaged in both preaching and debate. This happened several times, and the subsequent early history of St. George's is intertwined with the history of Grace Church in Jamaica, which was where the first Rector, the Rev. Patrick Gordon, resided. Gordon was succeeded in 1704 by the Rev. William Urquhart. Urquhart held services in Jamaica one week, and would then rotate the following weeks to Flushing and then Newtown (now Elmhurst). The community in Jamaica grew into Grace Church; the one in Flushing became St. George's; and the one in Newtown became St. James. Services were conducted in the old Guard House until 1746 when the first church building was constructed. A certain "John Aspinwall, Gentleman" donated £600 for a steeple and bell in 1760. Francis Lewis, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was a Warden at St. George's Church, 1765–1790, and his son, Francis Lewis Jr., was a Warden from 1791-1794. The official union of the three parishes lasted for a century, and ended with the resignation of the Rev. Rattoone, when the vestry of St. George's decided to unite with Newtown in hiring the Rev. Abraham L. Clarke in 1803. In 1809, the Rev. Clarke withdrew to Newtown, leaving Flushing without a rector and marking St. George's independence. A second church was built in 1821 and the present church structure, the third on the site, was built in 1854. It was designed by Henry C. Dudley (1813–1894) and Frank Wills (1822–1857), architects who were associated with the New York Ecclesiological Society, in the Neo-Gothic style. The great tower bell was recast at Troy, New York, using the metal from the original bell, and still bore the inscription "The gift of John Aspinwall, Gentleman, 1760." The parish received a Royal Charter from King George III of Great Britain, dated June 17, 1761. After the American Revolution, the "Prayer for the King" in the church's prayer book was covered over with the "Prayer for the President."

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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