N A S S A U P R ES BY TER IA N C H UR C H 61 N A S S A U S TR EET
Methodist ministers used to visit Princeton in the latter half of the 18th century to meet and worship with small groups in private homes. Out of one of those groups grew to become the Princeton Methodist Episcopal Church in 1847. Now known as Princeton United Methodist Church, the congregation had its first building on Nassau Street. It was razed in 1910 to make room for today’s larger church at the corner of Nassau Street and Vandeventer Avenue. Moses Taylor Pyne purchased and donated the land for the site. Further growth and various improvements have been made over the years. Chimes from the church tower’s electronic carillons, ringing twice a day, are a familiar sound to those who live and work in town. Nassau Christian Center, the church at Nassau and Chambers streets with the beautiful flowers outside, has been a mainstay in Princeton since settling into its building 35 years ago. The building itself has a history — its cornerstone was laid in 1867 and the building was dedicated a year later. The building was the meeting place for St. Andrews Presbyterian Church until it merged with Nassau Presbyterian in 1973. Five years later, when Nassau Christian Center was incorporated as an Assemblies of God church, the newly formed congregation leased the historic building. Its sanctuary was built to seat 1,000 people. According to the center’s website, some 1,500 people crowded in to attend evangelistic meetings with D.L. Moody and Ira Sankey in 1876. An education wing added in the 1950s is still in use. Ralph Adams Cram’s Princeton credits also include the Princeton University Chapel, built in 1928 to replace an earlier chapel that had burned eight years earlier. Cram was the University’s supervising architect from 1907 to 1930, and he designed the Graduate College, among other campus buildings. The Gothic Revival chapel, which recalls the style of an English
church from the Middle Ages, cost $2.3 million to build—a far cry from the $10 million spent for a major restoration between 2000 and 2002. Stonemasons from Milan built the chapel using Pennsylvania sandstone trimmed with Indiana limestone. Pollard oak from England was used to carve the elaborate woodwork. Among those commemorated in the chapel’s stained glass windows are James Madison, Adlai Stevenson, and John Witherspoon. The brick facade with a white steeple is a familiar sight at 16 Bayard Lane. Home since 1950 to the First Church of Christ Scientist, when the building was completed, it was officially dedicated in 1955. The actual history of the church dates back over a century. A group of Princeton area residents interested in Christian Science began holding weekly meetings to read the Christian Science Bible Lesson-Sermon together. By 1914, the group was a Society, the first step toward becoming a branch church. That level was achieved by 1928, and church services were held in a small building on Olden Street. That same year, the membership opened a Christian Science Reading Room on the second floor of 20 Nassau Street. Before relocating to 178 Nassau Street, where it remains today, the reading room was situated on Chambers Street and Witherspoon Street. Land for the current church building was purchased in 1946, and the church has served the community ever since. The Lutheran Church of the Messiah began with just one family in 1947. The Reverend Milton J. Nauss began a house-to-house canvasing of the community, and determined that there were enough interested Lutherans to start a congregation. The group held their first service a month later, on Easter Sunday, in the chapel of Westminster Choir College. By the following year, the congregation had bought land on the corner of Cedar Lane and Nassau Street. The present church was built and dedicated in February, 1952. A new parish building was finished 24 years ago with new offices and additional meeting space, as well as student lounge facilities and a home for the Northeast Career Center, an ecumenical religious and vocational counseling service focused on clergy and seminarians. On a Sunday afternoon in 1949, a group of people interested in forming a Unitarian church in Princeton met in a room at what was then Miss Fine’s School (now part of Princeton Day School). Soon after, on Easter Sunday, the first worship service was held in Murray Dodge Hall on the Princeton University campus. The congregation grew over the years, and by 1958 a permanent building at 50 Cherry Hill Road was
begun for what is now called the Unitarian Universalist Church of Princeton. The church was expanded in 1967. Social activism has long been a major part of the church’s mission. The few Jews who lived in Princeton during the 1920s traveled to Trenton to attend services there. But in 1926, the local Jewish community organized its own congregation, calling it B’nai Zion. By the 1940s, Sunday school classes were being held in private homes. The congregation hired its first rabbi, shared part-time with the newly established Hillel House on the Princeton University campus, in 1947. By 1949, The Jewish Center–Princeton had adopted its first constitution and purchased a building on Olden Street. But that was quickly outgrown, and land at the current site, 435 Nassau Street, was purchased. The building was finished in 1958, and expanded in 1983. An additional property was purchased in the 1990s, extending the property further. The Jewish Center affiliated with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism in 2002. Christ Congregation is located just across the street from Westminster Choir College on Walnut Lane at Houghton Road. Founded in 1955, the church merged with the East Brunswick Congregational Church in April 2014, making two long-time area pastors, the Reverend Jeffrey Mays and the Reverend Robert Moore, co-pastors. Mr. Moore is also executive director of the Princeton-based Coalition for Peace Action. Affiliated with the United Church of Christ; American Baptist Churches, USA; and Alliance of Baptists, Christ Congregation counts LGBTQ and Environmental ministries among its priorities. Outreach is equally important, and the church designates an offering each month as its Outreach Ministry Offering. What was formerly Westerly Road Church is now known as Stone Hill Church of Princeton, relocated two years ago to a woodsy site just 3.3 miles away on Bunn Drive. The original building was a pre-fabricated structure brought in by rail in 1956, designed to seat just 100 congregants. But by 2013, some 500 were crowding into the building, necessitating the move. The relocation has made a distinctive difference to the congregation, increasing its space from 12,000 to nearly 44,000 square feet. The church was founded by a group of people “with the desire to see the gospel of Jesus Christ proclaimed in Princeton,” according to the Stone Hill website. “The founding commitments of the church to the ministry of the gospel and global missions continue to define our community at Stone Hill.” The church is especially committed to the local community, including Princeton University. Overcrowding at Trinity Church led to the founding of All Saints’ Church, on a large rural tract donated by Mrs. Moses Taylor Pyne, in 1960. The new chapel at 16 All Saints Road, in what was then known as Princeton Township, was envisioned to be an extension of Trinity. But by a decade later, All Saints’ had won status as an independent parish and is today one of the largest in the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey. The two churches share a cemetery on the grounds of All Saints’, a reminder that they are still linked despite their separate identities.
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