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Eastern Pennsylvania » The Northern Tier and the Poconos » Tioga County » Wellsboro and Vicinity » First Presbyterian Church

First Presbyterian Church

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1894–1895, Culver and Hudson. 130 Main St.
  • (Photograph by Matthew Aungst)
  • (William E. Fischer, Jr.)
  • (William E. Fischer, Jr.)

In the 1830s, Wellsboro citizens faced a choice of calling an Episcopal priest or a Presbyterian minister. Local sentiment favored the former, leaving New Englanders, who identified with Presbyterianism's Puritan roots, to wait until 1843 to organize Wellsboro's First Presbyterian Church. Their first church, an 1854 frame building, was demolished for the construction of the present church, the work of a prominent Williamsport partnership. The Gothic Revival church is built of random rock-faced Ohio sandstone. A large tracery window dominates the nave, which is flanked by towers of different heights, both capped by pyramidal spires. A rounded turret provides a transition from the nave to the taller tower. Three doors lead to the vestibule and into the sixty-foot-square auditorium where four oakencased steel trusses rise from corner corbels to support the roof. The church enjoys four styles of stained glass, three from Lamb Studios (1890s, 1920s, 1940) and one by Willet Studios of Philadelphia (1997). New pews were installed in the mid-1960s.

Writing Credits

Author: 
George E. Thomas
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Data

What's Nearby

John L. Robinson House
Tioga County Courthouse
Jesse Robinson House
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
United Methodist Church of Wellsboro

Citation

George E. Thomas, "First Presbyterian Church", [Wellsboro, Pennsylvania], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/PA-02-TI8.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of PA vol 2

Buildings of Pennsylvania: Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania, George E. Thomas, with Patricia Likos Ricci, Richard J. Webster, Lawrence M. Newman, Robert Janosov, and Bruce Thomas. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012, 563-563.

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