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Kane Memorial Chapel (Kane Presbyterian Church)

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Kane Presbyterian Church
1876–1878, Henry J. Taylor. 30 Chestnut St.

Thomas Leiper Kane and his family built this Presbyterian church to emulate a Gothic church in Kent, England, which Kane and his cousin Robert Fielding had seen on a trip abroad in 1838. Fielding built a four-foot-tall model of this chapel for architect Henry Taylor of Philadelphia. The cruciform plan church has a complicated roof plan: hipped on the east elevation at the altar and gable-roofed at the transept ends and facade, and highlighted by a pair of hipped-roof entrance pavilions. The facade and transept ends each have a rose window, and there is a square-based spire at the intersection of nave and transepts. No two elevations are alike. Gothic-arched windows are spaced differently on each elevation. The interior trusswork is of black cherry from the nearby Kinzua area, and the exterior walls of pinkish sandstone are from Clay's quarry near Wilcox. In the late 1850s, Thomas Kane studied the Mormons and took up their cause in Utah, persuading them to accept a non-Mormon governor and thereby averting a military confrontation. He chose to be buried here in Kane, and Mormons restored the chapel and maintain it to honor his memory.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Lu Donnelly et al.
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Citation

Lu Donnelly et al., "Kane Memorial Chapel (Kane Presbyterian Church)", [Kane, Pennsylvania], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/PA-01-MK18.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of PA vol 1

Buildings of Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania, Lu Donnelly, H. David Brumble IV, and Franklin Toker. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010, 420-420.

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