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(Photograph by Matthew Aungst)
In the early nineteenth century, the Episcopal Church was moribund in Delaware but eventually began to revive. The first bricks of St. Luke's were laid on May 1, 1838. Consecrating the Gothic Revival structure five years later, Alfred Lee, first Bishop of Delaware, praised its “very neat and appropriate style,” Gothic Revival being a favorite mode for Anglican churches everywhere during this period (see NK9.16). The steeple was replaced by a tower in 1904, at which time the roof rafters were renewed, memorial windows added, and the building electrified. A Parish House came in 1931. When fissures appeared in the brick-work, the W. D. Haddock construction company of Wilmington undertook urgent renovations, adding twelve concrete buttresses, to some at the time “an eyesore.”