St. Timothy's Episcopal Church, Roxborough

St. Timothy's Church
St. Timothy's Episcopal Church
Consecrated		February 14, 1863
Architecture
Architect(s)	Emlen T. Littelll
Years built	1862-1863

St. Timothy's Church, Roxborough is a parish of the

, United States. It is part of the Wissahickon Deanery of the Diocese of Pennsylvania. In 1962, St. Timothy's reported membership of 1,144 and weekly attendance of 849, while its 2022 reported attendance was 32 persons.

It was founded in 1859 by lay members of

) began work in the parish and at the adjacent St. Timothy's Hospital.

The cornerstone for the church building was laid on July 18, 1862 by Bishop Alonzo Potter. The church was consecrated by Bishop William Bacon Stevens on February 14, 1863, as one of his early official episcopal acts. Its architect was Emlen T. Littell, who also built New York's Church of the Incarnation, Zion Episcopal Church, Palmyra, New York, St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Poughkeepsie and many other buildings with a parish Gothic style. A vandal attempted to blow up the church in 1899 using its municipal gas-light supply.

The studios of Victorian Anglo-Catholic stained glass artist Charles Eamer Kempe (1837-1907) designed the majority of the church's windows as memorials to members of the local Merrick and Cope families. The stations of the cross are the work of Thorsten Sigstedt (1884-1963), a Swedish American woodcarver with studios in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania. The first burials in the adjacent cemetery, which is active in 2022, began in 1863. A two-manual organ by Frank Roosevelt (Opus 367) was installed in 1887; in 2006 a 1967 Wicks/1997 Buzard organ with three manuals, 32 stops, 36 ranks from First Baptist Church in Decatur, Illinois was installed.

Rectors

1. John Leighton McKim 1860-1862
2. Samuel Hall 1863-1867
3. William Augustus White 1867-1877
4. Robert Evans Dennison 1878-1907
5. James Biddle Halsey 1908-1919
6. Sidney Atmore Caine 1919-1930
7. George Herbert Dennison 1930-1934
8. Edmund Bacon Wood 1934-1952
9. John Robert Rockett 1952-1958
10. Theron Adair Vallee 1958-1960
11. Eugene Francis Lefebvre 1960-1992 (died 2018)
12. Charles J. Blauvelt
13. Kirk T. Berlenbach 2003-2017
14. Bonnie McCrickard 2018—2023

See also

• St. David's Church, Manayunk
• Church of St. Alban, Roxborough
• St. Peter's Episcopal Church of Germantown
• St. Alban's Church, Olney

References

• John C. Manton, A Splendid Legacy: St. Timothy's, Roxborough, 1859-1984 (Parish history, © 1984)
• John C. Manton, Death Certificates for Some of the Interments in Saint Timothy's Churchyard, Roxborough, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1863-1915 (St. Timothy's Church, 2014), two volumes

External links

• Official parish website Instagram account
• Historical material on St. Timothy's Church from Philadelphia Studies
• The Way of the Cross: Sculptures by Thorsten Sigstedt
• Pipe Organ Database Roosevelt Opus 367
• 1967 Wicks / 1997 Buzard Organ
• Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania