By Fr. Jack Wolter

In 1868, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church U.S.A. elected the Right Reverend Ozi William Whitaker as Bishop of the Territories of Nevada and Arizona. Twelve years later, he reported that the number of congregations increased from three to ten, served by seven clergymen. Early records show that there were a number of Episcopalians at the U.S. Army post at Fort Whipple who desired the ministrations of the church and would attend occasional services of Holy Communion or Evening Prayer conducted by itinerant Episcopal clergymen at the Baptist Meeting House in Prescott. Mentioned by name is the Rev’d Thomas J. Glyn who came to the area several times to baptize persons, celebrate the Holy Communion, and officiate at burials.

In 1874, a new division of jurisdictions resulted in the Missionary District of Arizona and New Mexico which was subsequently led by three different bishops over the next thirty-seven years. One of those bishops was the Rt. Rev’d John Mills Kendrick who served Arizona from 1889-1911. He appointed Glyn "missionary-in-charge" of the Prescott mission for a brief period. The mission in Prescott became known as All Saints’ Mission.

In 1890, Bishop Kendrick indicated his desire to visit Prescott. Mr. John J. Williams placed a notice in the local newspaper inviting all persons with an interest in the Episcopal Church to meet at his home the evening of May 27th. The twenty-one persons who assembled that evening agreed to canvass the town to determine the number of people with a desire to form a congregation, including possible numbers of children for a Sunday School program as well as projected financial support. Two weeks later, Bishop Kendrick preached in the morning and evening at the Methodist Church South, located in West Prescott. By October 1890, Bishop Kendrick appointed the Rev. Edward W. Meany of Santa Fe, an Englishman and graduate of Oxford University, as the first resident Episcopal priest.

The Arizona Journal-Miner (December, 1890) related his first impression of the area upon his arrival: "Prescott itself lies partly upon a hill, and partly in the continuation of the valley by which it is approached. Immense pines are scattered throughout, and, I am told, where it now stands was once a forest, such as now extends toward the west and southwest for more than twenty miles, beginning, yet, almost within the limits of the city. Toward the northwest, weird granite buttes rear up their heads, now flashing in the sunlight, and again frowning gloomily as the shadows chase each other across their weatherworn fronts. In the foreground of this picture stand the giant pines, finding an anchorage between the mighty boulders and huge masses of rock, which the towering buttes appear, at some prehistoric period, to have shaken from themselves in anger and hurled headlong down their flanks. Wooded mountains in regular ranges encircle the town in every other direction, and form a protecting wall from the wind and storm. The climate is as near perfection as can be found on earth; the summers are delightfully cool, mosquitoes and other pests unknown, and the winters neither long nor severe. The sun shines brightly more than 300 days in the year, and inhaling the pure air perfumed with the resinous exhalations of the pine is restoration from the dead to the afflicted consumptive (note: Meany himself was a TB victim), and a delight to the healthy and strong."

At the time of Rev Meany’s arrival, the population of Prescott was about 3,000 and he hoped to erect a church building as soon as possible. He announced in the Prescott newspaper as well as in a periodical published in Philadelphia, "If any of your readers are willing to come over and help us with their substance, they will be rewarded with assured and speedy returns to the Lord, by witnessing the extension of the dear Master’s Kingdom in this choice spot upon his earthly footstool."

On April 5, 1891 the local Bishop’s Committee authorized the purchase of two lots with a 50-foot frontage on Marina Street and 150 feet on Union Street from the owner, Mrs. Frances L. Bashford, for $750.00. Three months later the congregation changed the name from All Saints’ Mission to The Church of the Advent. An apocryphal story is attributed to the Bishop who is reported to have said that "not all the members of the congregation were saints"!

Plans for the construction of a church on the new site progressed throughout the autumn of 1891. F. S. Parker was selected as the builder and the actual work began on New Year’s Day 1892.

In Part II next Sunday we will learn of the completion and expansion of the church and its connection with the Fremont House now on the campus of the Sharlot Hall Museum.

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(buc1006pax) Reuse only bypermission.

The Church of the Advent (later renamed St. Luke’s Episcopal Church) c.1895 on the corner of Union and Marina streets. Rev’d Edward W. Meany (inset) was the priest serving the congregation when the church was constructed in 1892.

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(buc1040pa) Reuse only bypermission.

The interior of The Church of the Advent on Easter Sunday, 1892.

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(bure4058p) Reuse only bypermission.

The Rev’d Edward W. Meany family on the porch of their home in Prescott, 1892.