Sunday April 4, 2010 (Easter)

SHARON, CONNECTICUT – Back to shooting Litchfield County Churches on Easter Sunday.  This is Christ Episcopal Church in Sharon.  According to the Church’s history “In April, 1755, the town of Sharon granted the members of the Church of England permission to erect their first church. The congregation rapidly increased and outgrew their church by 1764 when a new “really neat and beautiful” church was built.  During the Revolutionary War, the building was desecrated when it was used for military purposes, turned into barracks, and then converted into a stable. In subsequent years, it fell into extreme disrepair and was finally torn down. . . . Circumstances shifted for the Parish in 1809 when the town’s Episcopalians officially organized as a parish and formally established themselves as part of the Protestant Episcopal Church on May 27th. With a clergy and vestry of their own, the members began construction on the existing brick building that was consecrated on November 24, 1819.”

Congregational churches built in he 1820s were most often federal style.  See my blog entries for November 21, 22 and 29, 2009.   The gothic revival came later to the Congregational churches.  Interestingly the Episcopalians built gothic revival structures from the late 1700s onward.  See my entries for January 2 and February 14, 2010.