Sharing Christ’s Love

The Illustrated History of

St. James Episcopal Church

Founded 1858

Third & Main Streets

Shelbyville, Kentucky

St. James Episcopal Church

Dedicated to the men and women who created this parish,

built this church, and served the Lord and the community

in this place. They have left a legacy of love and friend-

ship, of self-sacrifice and duty, of deep abiding faith.

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Illustrated History

Episcopal Diocese of Kentucky Rt. Rev. Benjamin B. Smith 1832-1884

Rt. Rev. George D. Cummins 1866-1874 (Assistant Bishop)

Rt. Rev. Thomas U. Dudley 1884-1904

Rt. Rev. Charles E. Woodcock 1905-1935

Rt. Rev. Charles Clingman 1936-1954

Rt. Rev. Charles Gresham Marmion 1954-1974

Rt. Rev. David B. Reed 1974-1994

Rt. Rev. Edwin F. Gulik 1994-2010

Rt. Rev. Terry Allen White 2010-

Bishop White’s first visit to St. James on March 13, 2011.

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St. James Episcopal Church

St. James Episcopal Church 2011

Rector: Rev. Peter H. Whelan

Vestry:

Sr. Warden: Tom Nelson

Jr. Warden: Matthew Walters

Clerk: Erin Slone

Treasurer: Bill Burckle

Jack Clark

Bill Covington

Mo Wakefield

Cindy Weinmann

Jim Willhite

(left) Tom Nelson, First Warden, Father Peter Whelan, at Vestry Meeting, March 2011.

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Illustrated History

The History

Committee Diane Perrine Coon, Chairman

Jane Bellman

Molly and Mike Cowan

Catharine and Gilbert Ellis

Barbara and Neal Hammon

Jane and Tom Nelson

Paul Salmon

Rev. Ken Thompson

Austin Waggoner

Pauline Walters

ex officio:

Rev. Peter H. Whelan

Lani Basberg

Toodlie Edwards

Louise Henry

Virginia Meeks

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St. James Episcopal Church

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter One: The Scattered Flock

Chapter Two: The Chapel at Shelby College

Chapter Three: A House of Worship, A Home

Chapter Four:

A Gothic Revival Jewel

Bessie Todd Hall

Barnett Hall

The Kroger Building, Parish Hall

Chapter Five:

Essay on a Small Church

Pictorial Essay: The Modern Era

People Participating in Services

St. James Special Events

People Cleaning, Fixing

People Helping Others

People Having Fun

Chapter Six:

Children of the Parish

Acolytes

Church School

Vacation Bible School

Youth Group Events

Chapter Seven: Sound of Music

Chapter Eight:

In the Community, the World,

Short Stories and Legends

Appendices:

Division of Churches in 1894:

Diocese of Kentucky, Diocese of Lexington

List of Priests

List of Organists, Choir Directors

List of Licensed Lay Readers

List of Donors

Marriages, Burials, Baptisms

Shelby College Presidents, Priests, Professors

Bibliography

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Illustrated History

Preface

In the Spring of 2010, a few interested parishioners gathered to share their

knowledge and artifacts relating to the history of St. James Episcopal Church. A

year later, the book, as it has become known, includes dozens of photos from

scrapbooks lovingly pasted and labeled from church shelves and home drawers

and desks. It has uncovered enormous surprises—things we had we didn’t know

we had like the 1861 lectern Bible, so beautifully illustrated, and an altar whose

1930 dedication revealed much of the early history of the parish. And we never

knew that Episcopalians worshipped at Shelbyville for thirty years before the

parish was created and the building constructed. Our timeline goes back at least

to 1832, although the parish was formally constituted in 1858, and the church

built in 1865.

We loved the interviews with the shut-ins whose collective memories have

retained much of what was loved about St. James and also as they remembered

the funny incidents. In collating the donor list, we found the overwhelming

joyful spirit of giving and now look around us with new eyes as we recall those

cheerful givers in the things that surround us in church and in fellowship.

In spite of the inconvenience to us of worshiping in a historical Rural Gothic

Revival building with its Victorian furnishings, our 1865 St. James church

building has clearly had the hand of God resting on it for it has survived storms,

fire, and a truck crashing into its front doors. But it is not the bricks and mortar

that we celebrate in this written history; it is the people who envisioned such a

place and who nurtured its youngsters, blessed its elders, and cared deeply for its

holiness, its friendliness, and its loveliness.

In the beginning years of the 21st century, St. James Episcopal Church, can

look backward with pride, look forward with confidence, and look inward for a

continuation of the spiritual journey that began so many years ago.

Diane Perrine Coon, March 2011

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St. James Episcopal Church

Chapter One –the Scattered Flock

Green Pastures and Turbulent Waters

Shelby County, named for Isaac Shelby, Kentucky’s first governor, was created out of

Jefferson County June 28, 1792 as the 12th county in the Commonwealth of Kentucky the same

year that the Danville convention passed Kentucky’s first constitution. William Shannon, an

early settler, had donated lands along Clear Creek where the town of Shelbyville was founded

and where St. James Episcopal Church now stands. On January 15, 1793 acting upon the 1792

act of the Kentucky Assembly that named Shelbyville the county’s seat of justice, three

gentlemen trustees met to lay out the lots and streets of the new city. They were David Staniford,

Joseph Winlock, and Abraham Owen. Catharine Owen Ellis, a long-time member of St. James,

descends through the Owen family. 1

Strategically located halfway between Lexington and the Falls of the Ohio (Louisville),

Shelbyville became a major stagecoach junction point and by 1799 roads were spreading east to

Frankfort and Lexington, north to New Castle and Carrollton and south to Taylorsville and

Lawrenceburg and west to Middletown and Louisville. Quite early Shelbyville’s merchants

thrived along Main Street and farms developed along the county’s many creek beds. Six years

after its founding, Shelbyville became the home to Shelby Academy, a private boy’s school of

higher learning, equivalent to high school and junior college. By 1800, Shelbyville had a

population of 282 men, women and children and by 1830 it was listed as one of 10 towns in

Kentucky other than Lexington and Louisville with a population over 1,000. By 1840 Shelbyville

had two female academies and two male academies in addition to Shelby College.2

Unfortunately 1840 seemed to be a high point for population in the 19th century: by 1860

Shelbyville had fewer people than in 1830. What had happened? Although Shelbyville was on

the direct land route from Lexington to Louisville for vehicular traffic, it failed to entice a

railroad of any consequence and it was not located on a river large enough to command the

presence of steamboats. Major commerce skipped the lovely town. Shelbyville’s only railroad

was The Shelby Railroad, a spur line from Anchorage that was bought by the L&N but not

completed until 1871 and its intended end point, Bloomfield in Washington County, clearly not a

major destination, was not reached until 1882. The main line of the L&N went through LaGrange

to Covington and its eastern Kentucky extension went north of Shelbyville, creating the railroad

towns of Eminence and Bagdad on its way to Frankfort and on east to the coal county. By then

Shelbyville and Shelby County had become and stayed rural.3

The farmlands in Shelby County were well watered and sat on rolling uplands still part of Kentucky’s limestone strata, therefore formed excellent pasture for horses and cattle, but corn was the main crop, also tobacco and hemp. In Western Shelby County, the Northwest, and Southwest parts of the county relatively large plantations were established with slaves doing most of the labor. In the eastern part of the county, more rugged terrain and rocky soil produced smaller yeoman farms with far fewer slaves.

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Illustrated History

By the time of the Civil War, the underlying geography helped define Shelby County as

stronger areas of Unionists to the east and Confederates to the west. Shelbyville itself was split

almost half and half in sentiment. In fact, shortly after the Civil War the local Presbyterians split

into Northern Assembly and Southern Assembly occupying two different churches a couple of

blocks apart; and the Methodists before the War had ruptured into Southern and Northern

contingents that destroyed many of the church schools they had built up. Science Hill at

Shelbyville was an exception in that it stayed together but affiliated with the Southern wing of

the Methodists. 4

The Sheep Had Difficulty Finding Shepherds

Where were the Episcopalians? Early in the 19th century the flock of Episcopalians in Shelby

County was scattered and leaderless. A clergyman of the Church of England, John Lisle, using

the authorized Prayer Book, held the first public religious service in Kentucky’s history under an

elm tree in Boonesborough in 1775, just two months after Daniel Boone had blazed the

Cumberland Trail passage into Kentucky. It was an auspicious occasion. Men from the four

settlements – Boonesborough, Harrodsburg, Boiling Springs, and St. Asalph (Logan’s Fort) –

had been called to establish a proprietary government for The Transylvania Colony. Reverend

John Lisle (called Lyth in some accounts) was one of the delegates from Harrodsburg. The divine

service was held May 23, 1775, the Sunday after Ascension Day. 5

Christ Church, Lexington, previously operating as an unorganized Episcopal Society

served by occasional visiting clergy and by ordained men whose primary occupation was

education, was founded in 1794. They called their first rector, Reverend James Moore, formerly

a candidate for Holy Orders in the Presbyterian Church, who when rejected by the presbytery in

Kentucky, became Episcopalian. In 1798 he became President and Professor of Logic,

Metaphysics, Moral Philosophy, and Belle-Lettres of Transylvania College in Lexington and

served in that capacity for several years.6

Bishop Thomas Underhill Dudley, D.D., writing the history of the Episcopal Church in

Louisville in 1896 claimed that six early settlers in Kentucky had actually gone to England to

become ordained, one of whom was Mr. Crawford of Shelby County. Even though ordained,

Crawford clearly did not found a church or congregation in Kentucky. And as Dudley mused,

neither did any of the other five men from Bardstown, Franklin County, and Jefferson County.7

It was not until 1822 that Christ Church, Louisville, was organized at its Second Street location

between Walnut and Green Streets by Peter Ormsby and Richard Barnes among others. The

tenure of Christ Church Louisville’s first rector, Reverend Henry Shaw, was “unsuccessful and

brief.” When in May 1828 Dr. Cooke of Christ Church, Lexington, and Reverend George

Chapman, evangelist from Virginia, attempted to form a Diocese of the Protestant Episcopal

Church in Kentucky, they found that they were one church short of meeting the national church’s

requirement in Canon Law. Reverend Chapman thereupon packed prayer books in his saddlebags

and headed for Danville where he found John Birney, Dr. Ephraim McDowell, John Finley, John

and Frederick Yeiser, Thomas Barber, and Judge Edward Worthington, interested in founding

what became Trinity Church. 8

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St. James Episcopal Church

Delegations from these three churches – three Kentucky clergy (Rev. Chapman of Trinity

Danville, Rev. Ward from Transylvania and Rev. Peers from the Eclectic School in Lexington, a

borrowed clergy, Reverend Samuel Johnston, rector of Christ Church, Cincinnati, and 16 lay delegates – met in July 1829 at Christ Church Lexington, and formed the Diocese of Kentucky.

The first task was to request the Rt. Reverend William Stark Ravenscroft, bishop of North

Carolina, to come to Kentucky to confirm Episcopalians in Lexington, Louisville, and Danville.

Ravenscroft thus became the first bishop to set foot in Kentucky. Dr. Chapman made a trip East

and secured attention from the national church and its missionary society. In December the Rt.

Reverend Thomas Church Brownell, bishop of Connecticut, and Reverend William Richmond of

New York City came to Kentucky, consecrated Christ Church Lexington on December 3, 1829

and brought 100 prayer books from the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the

Protestant Episcopal Church for the new Diocese of Kentucky. A few days later Bishop Brownell

consecrated Christ Church, Louisville, with its new rector, Reverend David C. Page

participating.9

So 1830 began with only three Episcopal churches in the entire state of Kentucky, and clergy

filling only two of the pastorates – Reverend David Page from Louisville and Reverend Gideon

McMillan at Trinity Danville just recently arrived from the Diocese of Ohio – since Dr.

Chapman had resigned at Christ Church Lexington and returned to Massachusetts. The second

convention of the Diocese of Kentucky had only five delegates along with Benjamin Peers, the

secretary. How could the Episcopal presence in Kentucky be so small? 10

First the national church was extremely short of priests. At the time of the Revolutionary War,

because of their ordination oath of allegiance to the king of England, numerous Anglican clergy

went back to England or to Canada. England had never permitted the colonies to have their own

bishop so additional priests could not be obtained readily. Secondly it took a few years, until

1789 to be precise, for the Church of England to become the Protestant Episcopal Church, obtain

four bishops, hammer out a constitution satisfactory to both northern and southern interests --

with a bicameral form of legislature (clergy and lay) modeled on the U.S. constitution, and begin

the task of rebuilding its somewhat shaky image as King George’s denomination. Further,

Episcopalians, like the Presbyterians and Lutherans, insisted upon educated clergy. The

Episcopal priests that did come to Kentucky tended to stay for a short time then return to

Virginia or Maryland or Pennsylvania where there was civilization. Schools and theological

seminaries were difficult to find in the hinterlands. Kentucky’s frontier and early settlement

period found almost all Episcopal presence in Lexington. Meanwhile the Methodists and

Baptists, less concerned with educated ordained clergy, were evangelizing rapidly with a new

approach – campgrounds.

All that was to change in 1832; in that year the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of

the Protestant Episcopal Church, spurred by its secretary Benjamin Bosworth Smith, sent two

young deacons from Maryland into the Kentucky mission field. Mr. Giddings was sent to

Russellville and Hopkinsville to evangelize Western Kentucky, and Reverend Mr. Ash was sent

to Shelbyville and Middletown. When Ash reported to the 1832 Diocesan Convention meeting in

Hopkinsville, he claimed to have found only 30 scattered congregants in Middletown and

Shelbyville. In those days only adults that had been baptized, confirmed and took communion

were considered congregants.10

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Illustrated History

Elihu Barker’s 1795 Map of Kentucky

Shelby County Location

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St. James Episcopal Church

Going to the Chapel

For the next 30 years, Episcopalians sheltered under the only institution providing ordained

clergy and divine services, Shelby College at Shelbyville, that had become an Episcopal school

under the Diocese of Kentucky in 1840-41. Like most church schools at least one faculty

member was ordained clergy, and chapel services would have been held regularly. The

curriculum included courses in Moral Philosophy the study of moral values. Shelby College used

the same text as Harvard University,

David Fordyce’s 1754 opposition to

David Hume. 11

Reverend W. T. Elmer, endowed

professor at Shelby College, served as

quasi-chaplain through the 1840s. In

the 1880s Reverend Elmer was

headmaster of Trinity Hall, the

Diocesan school for boys. In

Shelbyville, however, during the

1850s a revolving door of clerics spun

through the College faculty. In 1851

Reverend Frederick Ewell, a

missionary-evangelist born in London,

England, reported to the Diocesan

Convention that Shelby College’s

chapel was not yet finished; that he

had 12 regular communicants, had

baptized 3 colored children, and had

prepared 2 young people for

confirmation by the bishop. A year

later, Reverend R. C. Schindler,

Missionary and Professor of Greek

and Latin in Shelby College, reported

using the chapel with 12 regular

communicants, having baptized 10

adults and 6 infants, and that he had 2

white persons ready for

confirmation.13

In 1853 the Diocese appeared to be

nervous about the conditions at Shelby

College and sent one of their leading

clergymen, Reverend Dr. John W.

Stevenson, a strong ally of Dr. James

Craik, as professor to Shelby College.

Stevenson would become rector of the

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Illustrated History

large and thriving congregation of St. John’s at Covington, Kentucky, and later Stevenson would

be a leading voice at the 1865 national convention that reconciled the Confederate Southern dele-

gation with the national church. Stevenson in 1853 reported to the Diocese of Kentucky Conven-

tion that he was being assisted at the college by Mr. John Wesley Venable, a candidate for Holy

Orders.14

In 1854 another Diocesan leading clergy, Reverend John N. Norton, rector of St. John’s Ver-

sailles and Ascension at Frankfort, arrived at the college. Norton had been a strong follower of

Dr. James Craik in developing high academic standards for schools and colleges. John Venable

reporting on Norton’s behalf, described substantial turmoil and dissention at Shelby College and

that faculty dispersal had affected communicants at the chapel.15

Now fully alarmed, the Diocese in 1857 sent the great man himself, Dr. James Craik, later to

become rector of Christ Church, Louisville, to Shelby College. They needed a strong-willed,

highly educated cleric to counterbalance the charismatic but out of control Dr. William J. Waller.

Under the second tenure of Dr. Waller, Shelby College grew from a low of 8 students to 56 in

1856. Craik reported divine services regularly attended by townspeople, girls from female acad-

emies, and faculty. Waller claimed there were 146 people attending services, a highly inflated

number. In spite of the higher numbers, there were problems on the spiritual, religious side of the

college. The very next year, in 1858, Reverend John Trimble, Chaplain and Professor of Ancient

Languages, Shelby College, and 8 other communicants, broke from Shelby College to form an

independent vestry and bishop’s warden, thus creating the St. James Parish.16

Notes on Chapter One – The Scattered Flock

1. Collins, Lewis. History of Kentucky. Lexington, Kentucky: Henry Clay Press, 1968:517-519. Replica of the 1847

edition published by Lewis Collins, Maysville, Kentucky, and J. A. and U.P. James of Cincinnati; 517; John E.

Kleber, editor. The Kentucky Encyclopedia. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1992:816-17.

2. Coleman, J. Winston Jr. Stagecoach Days in the Bluegrass. Louisville, Kentucky: The Standard Press, 1935:127;

Henry County Court Order Book 1, 1799 roads to Shelbyville, Port William, and West Port; Harrison, Lowell

and John Klotter. A New History of Kentucky. Frankfort, Kentucky: Kentucky Historical Society, 1998.

3. Histories of the L&N

4. New History of Shelby County. Shelbyville, Kentucky: Shelby County Historical Society, 200_:

5. Swinford, Frances Keller and Rebecca Smith Lee. The Great Elm Tree, Heritage of the Episcopal Diocese of Lex-

ington. Lexington, Kentucky: Faith House Press, 1969:1-2.

6. Ibid.10-19.

7. Johnston, T. Stafford, ed. Memorial History of Louisville in 1896. Rt. Rev. T. U. Dudley, D.D., Bishop of Ken-

tucky, “History of the Episcopal Church”136-8.

8. Swinford. op.cit. 51-53.

9. Ibid. 57-61

10. Ibid.64-67.

11. Ibid. 65.

12. Duncan, E. H. “American Moral Philosophy in the 19th Century,” bibliography for Philosophy 3301 at Baylor

University, http://bearspace.baylor,.edu/Elmer_duncan/www/ammoralphil.htm. accessed June 30, 2010.

13. Diocesan Journal 1851.

14. Diocesan Journal 1852.

15. Diocesan Journal 1853.

16. Diocesan Journal 1857.

17. King James version, Holy Bible, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: J. B. Lippincott, 1861.

St. James Episcopal Church

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Illustrated History

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(above) Color illustration from the original 1861 lectern Bible, high Victorian style, King James version.17 (right) the frontispiece including a rip that had been mended with Scotch tape, show-ing date and publisher. The lectern Bible was used for 120 years until replaced by a Revised Stan-dard version in Red Leather given by Louise Henry in 1985 in memory of Blanche Henry, the Bi-ble that is still used today. The 1861 Bible has a gold embossed logo saying St. James Episcopal Church on the black cover. In the middle are several blank pages titled Marriages, Births, etc. but there are no marks in these pages. Although the original register is missing (1858-1885), records have been kept in official church registers since that time.

St. James Episcopal Church

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Illustrated History

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