GREATER COLDWATER CENTENNIAL ST MARK'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH




Copyright © 1997 by Judith Weeks Ancell. This copy contributed for use in 
the USGenWeb Archives.  

 

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GREATER COLDWATER CENTENNIAL, Souvenir Historical Program
 Greater Coldwater Centennial 1961

Page 21:
ST MARK'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH

According to Dr. Enoch Chase, one of the early doctors of the Village of 
Coldwater, "the village was dependant for preaching on the Methodist circuit 
rider until Bishop Chase settled in Gilead, after which he occasionally held 
divine services in Coldwater."  The Rt. Rev. Philander Chase, First Bishop 
of Ohio and founder of Kenyon College at Gambier, Ohio, settled in Gilead 
Township in 1832, and his own "Reminiscences" tell of  his circuit of duty  
which included Cold Water.
	The formal organization of St. Mark's parish was effected February 
29th, 1848, at a meeting held at the White School House.  Wardens and vestry 
were elected: Joseph H. Moss and Richard Greenwood, senior and junior 
wardens; Luman Howe, Ezbon G. Fuller, Lorenzo D. Crippen, James Pierson and 
George A. Coe, vestrymen.  This vestry elected as its first Rector the Rev. 
George Willard of Battle Creek, who later became United States Congressman 
from the Third District.  Miss Flora Root is the only parishoner today 
descended from a founder, James B. Southworth.
	Services were held first in homes and later in the Court House.  The 
oldest vestry records in existence are dated march 29th, 1853, and are in 
the handwriting of George A. Coe, the organizer of St. Mark's first choir 
and later Lieutenant-Governor of Michigan.
	On September 22, 1857, the cornerstone of a church building was 
laid, although the building was never completed.  1862 saw the erection of 
the first building which St. Mark's which stood on North Hanchett Stree,t on
the present site of the Southern Michigan Wholesale Grocery.  This building 
was enlarged in 1866, and in 1877 was sold to the Coldwater Light Guard, 
becoming the first Armory, and was destroyed by an incendiary fire in 1881.











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