A timeline of St. Mark’s Church

St. Mark's Church, Frankford is celebrating its 175th Anniversary this year.  Throughout its storied history this simple Episcopal congregation has had a significant impact in Frankford, Philadelphia, and the greater Christian Church.

There are specific records of Episcopal missions in Frankford that go back as far as 1709.  In each case schools were reported, but it wasn’t until 1816 that the Reverend George Sheets, Rector of Trinity Church, Oxford in Oxford Township was given authority in Frankford and Holmesburg and the a church was birthed among the people of these growing though still largely rural communities.   

In 1820, Rev. Sheets and Mary Glenn, a regular communicant of St. Peter’s Church, Philadelphia, started a Sunday School in Frankford in the Morrow Schoolhouse at Paul and Ruan Streets.

In 1832, the cholera epidemic struck the city of Philadelphia and many people left the compact cityscape to flee to the wide open suburbs such as Frankford.  As the population of Frankford grew, church services were held in the schoolhouse under the leadership of the Rev. Sheets, the Rev. Dr. Spackman, and Mrs. Mary Glenn.

Within a short time, the congregation outgrew the Morrow Schoolhouse and rented a room at the Frankford Academy on Paul Street.

In 1835, the congregation outgrew their space at the Frankford Academy and a lot was purchased on 4444 and 4446 Franklin (now Griscom) Street, where a frame building was erected.  The church was named The Tabernacle Church.

In 1837, The Tabernacle Church membership continued to grow, so the congregation purchased yet another lot, which was to become the site of the current church on Main Street, which is now the current address of the Church, 4442 Frankford Avenue.    

In 1845, some members of the congregation met at the home of a fellow parishioner, William Overington, to plan the building of a larger church and the cornerstone was laid that year.  The church was ready for worship services in 1846, and the name was changed from the Tabernacle to St. Mark’s Protestant Episcopal Church.

The church flourished under the clerical leadership of the Rev. Dr. Daniel Sutter Miller (served from 1854-1881), as well as the lay leadership of the Welsh Family (William Welsh served from 1858-1878).  The first Lay Co-operation in the Episcopal Church in this country was started here under the leadership of the Welsh Family.  Parish records from the era indicate that there were Bible study classes, college lectures, a parish library, a savings and loan, mother’s meetings, a sewing school, a burial association, the sick people’s club, Mother’s Aid Society, diet kitchen for the sick, Alms House Mission, St. Mark’s Guild, Temperance Society, reading room and a day nursery.

During the Civil War, a St. Mark’s parishioner named James Ashworth, set up a recruiting station on Frankford Avenue near the church and due largely to his efforts Frankford had the most recruits of any town its size in the nation.  First Captain then Colonel Ashworth was to command the storied 121st Pennsylvania Volunteers who fought heroically and with many losses during the Battle of Gettysburg.  On the south wall of the main church building is a plaque commemorating the 192 men from St. Mark’s Church, Frankford who fought in the War to Preserve the Union.  Over the years, 39 St. Mark’s men have laid down their lives on battlefields, foreign and domestic, for our freedom.

The 1800’s were years of growth for Philadelphia itself as well as the businesses and churches of the City of Brotherly Love.  During this period the members of St. Mark’s Church, Frankford were responsible for starting seven new worshipping communities: St. Stephen’s Church, Bridesburg; St. Bartholomew’s Church, at Comely and Ditman Streets; St. Luke’s Church, Kensington; St. Paul’s Church, Aramingo; a rail depot mission east of the church; the Chapel at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota; and St. Mark’s Church, Cheyenne, Wyoming as well as other projects of religious merit in the Episcopal Church. 

Probably St. Mark's Church, Frankford most important influence to the wider Christian Church was publishing a document explaining what was then a relatively new concept in ministry: lay people and ordained people working together as a team, known as the Lay Cooperation in Ministry.  Prior to the St. Mark’s report, the work of the Church was generally considered the responsibility of the clergy.  After the report and still true today that the work or ministry of the laity and the clergy compliment each other to the glory of God and the expansion of the Kingdom of Heaven.  This report, first given at the Diocesan Convention in 1861 spread well beyond the Episcopal denomination and was published in the Godey’s Lady’s Book.  One can only imagine the influence an article in the Lady’s Book must have had; the periodical had a readership stretching across the continent. 

Some will look at the church more as a building than the collection of people who form a community of faith.  The cornerstone for the church was laid on the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels in 1908 before hundreds of onlookers.  For them we offer that the present church building is truly a work of art.  The architect for the project was Frank Rushmore Watson, who designed churches up and down the eastern seaboard.  The church was built to accommodate 800 worshippers under an oak roof designed to replicate the hull of Noah’s ark and surrounded by layered walls consisting of Indiana Limestone and Port Deposit Granite.  The magnificent stained glass was done by local artist Nicola D’Ascenzo, who was a versatile artist and former president of the Philadelphia Sketch Club.  The stained glass adorns two levels of this vertical gothic church.  In the lower (eye) level one can trace the work of Christ as developed from the synoptic Gospels; in the clerestory, towering above the church there is a procession of saints, which through the vivid colors that D’Ascenzo is noted for, 70 ten feet tall Biblical characters march toward the East.  D’Ascenzo has work on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, but the pinnacle of his work is clearly the stained glass at St. Mark’s Church, Frankford. 

Today the church feels active and healthy, as membership continues to climb each Sunday.  There is a sense in the congregation that God has called us to the high calling of sharing God’s love in this broken world, by focusing on local ministry in the Lower Northeast and especially Frankford.  Today and especially each Sunday the church is called home by people from across the globe.  The congregation has members from Europe, Puerto Rico, Africa, and Asia, all of whom come together to worship God through the Divine Liturgy.  Every Sunday our worship services are festive as well as fun: we are united in one voice.

Past and present member parishioners include the following families:

The Bromley Family – mill owners

The Battersby Family – (descendents still attend)

The Creighton Family – (descendents still attend)

Thomas Duffield

Lynford Lardner (Lardner’s Point – Tacony)

John Lardner

The Overington Family

Benjamin Castor

Harvey Rowland and his family – steel mill owner

Robert Whitaker and family

The Wilbraham Family – Frankford Hospital

The Knorr Family

The Cottman Family

The Brous Family

The Foulkrod Family

The Devereaux Family

The VanKirk Family

The Comly Family

The Horrocks Family

The Ashton Family

The Welsh Family

(note: all verified in parish registry)