150th Anniversary
Posted on 02 March 2010
This installment is excerpted from an Historical Address delivered by Mr. John A. Cole, Senior Elder of the Hyde Park Presbyterian on Sunday, May 1, 1910, as recorded in Fiftieth Anniversary, published by the church later that year.
Fifty years ago [that is, in 1860] Hyde ark was a cluster of scattered houses, less than a score, dropped down among the oak trees. There was no store, no post office, no market, and a single passenger car on the Illinois Central, three times a day, was the only connection with the city except Purcell’s ox-cart, which served as an express to bring from the city barrels of flour and groceries. The one sidewalk, a board walk on Lake Avenue, was fringed with ferns and violets, wild flowers and strawberries.
The little white chapel was built by Mr. Paul Cornell, and stood in a grove of oak trees near the present site of the Hyde Park Bank, standing back from the street, which was merely a sandy country road. There was no janitor or other official, and the building was kept in order by the faithful care of families living near.
[By 1867] the country had already passed through its years of conflict in the Civil War, and its surviving soldiers were returning north, again to take up their interrupted tasks or studies….But this little church and retired community, like every other throughout the land, had been called upon for a sacrifice of its youth.
For, early in 1868, it had been decided to build a new house of worship. Subscriptions were started and the ground broken at the corner of 53rd St. and Washington [now Blackstone] Avenue, in May, 1869. In July of the same year the corner stone was laid with impressive ceremonies….The ‘stone church,’ stately and commodious, quickly rose to its completion and was dedicated on October 30. …It was a great day and one of rejoicing, which marked the beginning of greater zeal and spirituality in the church.
We have a church manual issued in 1873 which shows a membership of 173…..How deeply the pastor and the elders felt their dependence upon the great Head of the Church during these years can be partly estimated from two events that followed the bewildering effect of the great fire [of October 1871]. Pew holders could not pay the rent, and pews were being surrendered. The trustees and session, in joint conference, after seeking Divine guidance in prayer, decided to change the financial plan and to depend upon volunteer offerings for the support of the church, allowing all to retain their pews.
[In the 1880s] the Hyde Park Church sent out its first missionary to a foreign land. Miss Sarah Wirt…..was fitted by experience…..for the wider field of Siam and Laos. The ladies of the church assumed her outfit, and the sum required for her sustenance was provided by the church. In 1882 she left us for that distant land, where for twenty-eight years she has labored faithfully and successfully.
In October, 1888….the necessity for an enlarged edifice [became] fully understood by all, and the decision was made not to colonize, but to enlarge the church edifice or to remove it entirely and buildup on the same site. …The building committee…after much consideration, adopted the latter plan. A tabernacle was built for the temporary use of the congregation..and demolition began. …At this juncture the church experienced a great loss in the death of Wm. H. Ray (the Principal of the High School), who had been for years one of the most enthusiastic workers in the bible school and in all church life….His class has perpetuated his name up a memorial window in the Sunday School room, and by the single word “service his rightly characterized his beautiful life among us. In 1990 the new edifice was completed and dedicated with appropriate ceremony.
1 Response to 150th Anniversary
Dear Ms. Goodman,
There were no Goodmans here at the beginning. By about the turn of the century there was a Mary, Joseph and Gertrude Goodman. It was the Presbyterian Church that began in 1860. The Congregational Church began in 1868 and the Methodist Church in 1880. We have the records of all three churches and continue to be affiliated with all three denomination.
Larry Turpin