2600 Church Avenue, Cleveland; cornerstone laid in 1836, completed in 1838, transepts added 1866. Gothic Revival.

Exterior: This church is notable for being the oldest remaining stone church in Cleveland. It is also an early example of the use of stone for Gothic Revival Architecture. The source of the stone used for the building is also somewhat enigmatic. Most of the stone blocks used for this important historic structure are probably Berea Sandstone, but various accounts of the origin of the stone differ. Some of the stone may be field stone, but most appears to have been quarried. The masonry work is rather eclectic. Most stone blocks are rectangular to subrectangular, but some are irregular polygons. Blocks have a roughly tooled facing and are set in various ways: some are coursed, some are irregularly coursed, and some are random. Some of the courses are undulating. Such a treatment is sometimes described as "uncoursed."

A November 24, 1837 report in the Ohio City Argus (cited in Rusk, 1966) notes that the church was constructed of "unhewn rubble stone" and Gaede (1982, p. 9) has described the sandstone blocks as having "rubble shapes and split faces." Rusk (1966, p. 57) described the stonework as "random ashlar in courses of irregular widths." The top of the frames of some windows at street level are composed of two slabs of ripple-marked sandstone. Gaede (1982, p. 9) has pointed out the rather thick layers of mortar used between the stone blocks. The sandstone walls of this church have proven to be quite durable, surviving the 1866 fire that destroyed the interior of the church. The church's transepts were added after this fire. Portions of the stone walls had be reconstructed, however, following damage by a tornado in 1953. The sandstone blocks have darkened over the years (see Old Stone Church (First Presbyterian Church) for more on this topic). Sandstone sidewalks around the south and west sides of the church were removed and replaced by concrete in the late 1980s as part of a controversial city program of sidewalk replacement.

Ripple-marked window frame of St. John Episcopal Church.

 

Remarks: Some sources (e.g., Gaede, 1982, p. 6) claim that the stone for this church was quarried nearby, in the Cuyahoga River. Aside from rocks found as river boulders, there would have been no nearby bedrock source to quarry along the Cuyahoga, however. There are no natural sandstone outcrops (bedrock) within a few miles of the church. As Armstrong et al. (1992, p. 100) havepointed out, this is a very early use of the Gothic Revival style in America. The rather irregular coursing of the stonework is like that of a number of Gothic Revival churches in the east, for instance the 1845-46 Chapel of the Holy Innocents in Burlington, Vermont (see Stanton, 1968, p. 52), but such irregular stonework was also used for some even earlier, nineteenth-century churches in the east. The roughly tooled and uncoursed stone is in contrast to the more refined stonework (at least as it is shown in old illustrations) of the first Old Stone Church (1831-32) in downtown Cleveland. Old engravings show the Old Stone Church as having regular courses. The rather rough style of stonework for St. John's could be due to the utilization of various shapes of field stone, but may simply be a reflection of the style. By the time this church was constructed, stone could be transported to Cleveland down the Ohio & Erie Canal (the Cleveland to Akron segment was open in 1827) from points to the south.

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