Lost and Found
Written by PA Heritage Staff in the Lost and Found category and the Summer 2011 issue Topics in this article: anthracite, Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, Eckley Miners' Village, Hazleton, Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Luzerne County, New Jersey, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Pike County, Pocono Mountains, Rev. Peter Russell, St. James Episcopal Church (Eckley White Haven), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, White HavenLost
In 1970, the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) deemed St. John Evangelist Episcopal Church, Dingmans Ferry, Pike County, to be in excellent condition and considered it noteworthy because it retained many of its original details, including Celtic crosses, stained glass windows, lancet entrance, and an open belfry. St. John’s parish was originally organized to serve not only full time village residents, but also families who summered in the Pocono Mountains. Before the church was erected, services were conducted at the High Falls Hotel, a sprawling resort accommodating two hundred guests. Built in the Carpenter Gothic style — recognizable for its vertical board and batten siding — the church was consecrated on September 7, 1887. Not long after HABS conducted its documentation, the church was purchased and demolished by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the Tocks Island Dam, a project which never saw completion. The seventy thousand acres acquired for the enormous project now make up the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area spanning Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Found
The parish of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in White Haven, Luzerne County, organized on January 6, 1859, laid the cornerstone of its building in 1860 and consecrated the church the following year. The church served parishioners for more than a century until the dwindling congregation gifted it in 1974 to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC) for Eckley Miners’ Village, near Hazleton, Luzerne County. St. Paul’s replaced the 1859 St. James Episcopal Church, a nearly identical church built in the Carpenter Gothic style, which had fallen into disrepair and was removed in 1938. Interestingly enough, the Reverend Peter Russell served as rector of both the Eckley and White Haven churches, and one of the windows of St. Paul’s is dedicated to his memory. Eckley Miners’ Village, one of twenty-five destinations along PHMC’s Pennsylvania Trails of History®, is a rare surviving example of a company-owned community, or “patch town,” once common throughout northeastern Pennsylvania’s anthracite region.
