St. Mary's-in-Tuxedo Episcopal Church

The brother-in-law of Tuxedo Park founder Pierre Lorillard IV, Henry Isaac Barbey, offered to arrange for the construction of a village church in 1887. Previously the community had used both a local public schoolhouse—at the instigation of Tuxedo Park resident Robert Fulton Cutting—and later a temporary chapel designed by James Brown Lord for Episcopal services,[4][5] the first of which took place in Tuxedo on July 18, 1886.[6] Following its construction St. Mary's was consecrated on October 14, 1888, by architect William A. Potter's brother, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York Henry Codman Potter;[7][8][9] the church was dedicated to Saint Mary.[10] Founding vestry members included Grenville Kane, co-founder of the Park and a director of Northern Pacific Railway and the New York Public Library,[11][12] James Brown Potter, the Brown Brothers merchant banker married to actress Cora Urquhart who reputedly introduced the Tuxedo to America,[5][13] and James L. Breese, an accomplished amateur photographer and owner of "The Orchard".[14][15]

Exterior view sometime before 1897

St. Mary's soon became an established institution within the wider Tuxedo community. Pew rent records indicate the range of Tuxedo families who were involved in church life, including Frelinghuysens, Lorillards, Cuttings and Mortimers.[1] Active by the 1890s, the St. Mary's Sunday school held at least one of its annual picnics on the grounds of William Waldorf Astor's Tuxedo Park estate.[16] When the Reverend George Merrill returned to Tuxedo from Newport after his marriage to Ms. Pauline Dresser in December 1897, his daughter relayed that "the entire village met them at the train with great flaming lanterns and led them to the church through the snow singing 'Onward Christian Soldiers'."[17] When Tuxedo's recently established Our Lady of Mount Carmel Roman Catholic church was completely destroyed by fire on July 4, 1899, the Rev. Merrill invited the affected congregation to worship in the St. Mary's Sunday School room while the new Heins & LaFarge-designed building was being constructed.[5]

Tuxedo resident and author George M. Rushmore offers a vignette of the Sunday procession to St. Mary's during the 1890s in The World with a Fence Around It: Tuxedo Park - The Early Days (1957):[18]

On Sundays in season a long and picturesque procession of vehicles used to wind down to the Episcopal Church of St. Mary's. The Cuttings, the Alexanders, and the Gibsons, had yellow basket victorias with big fawn-colored parasol tops suspended over the heads of the family by curved metal rods. Beside the coachman sat a small groom or tiger, with folded arms, attired in a livery coat and tight doeskin breeches, a cockaded high hat on his head, and a serious expression on his face. The Munroes usually went packed in a big blue and black wagonette, or sometimes in a dark blue and black surrey. There were runabouts, landaus, black victorias and two-seater phaetons in which the groom sat behind on a small rumble seat, and in addition to all these vehicles there were two club stages. At the Deer Pen Hill, the last leg of the journey, soft-eyed deer would line up alongside the fence that bounded their home—silent spectators of the weekly parade.

Tuxedo women supported St. Mary's in a variety of ways, becoming members of church-affiliated committees and guilds. Examples include Clemence Smith Bryce, wife of Nicholas Fish II, who provided a musical reception at the parish house opening reception in 1901,[19] and Josephine Lee, wife of architect Bruce Price, who was a member of the Sewing School Committee.[20] The St. Mary's Guild was founded by a number of Tuxedo women in June 1891,[21] tasked with supervising several church organizations.[19] A significant gift of $10,000 was provided by financier Robert Fulton Cutting in 1919, ensuring the Guild's financial stability during the Great Depression.[22]

Several sources attest to the extensive decorations that accompanied the era's weddings at St. Mary's. Parts of the church's nave and sanctuary, including the aisles, pews, altar and columns, were decorated with a wide variety of seasonal and imported foliage;[23] examples include palms, lilies, peonies, holly, roses, dogwood, ferns, fruit blossoms, dahlias, gladioluses, snapdragons, forsythia and syringa.[24][25] Arches were covered with woodland foliage and laurel, while the rafters were filled with branches of balsam.[26][27][28] On one occasion a wedding bell formed from white roses was hung from a central arch in the nave.[29] A wedding gown first worn in 1768 and later worn by Julia Thorne at her 1970 marriage to John Kerry[30] was worn by Julia Loomis Thorne, Alfred Lee Loomis's sister, at her St. Mary's wedding in 1911.[31] The gown was once described by the New York Times as being "perhaps the most notable wedding gown in existence in this country".[31]

St. Mary's for many years operated a chapel in neighboring Sloatsburg, New York,[32] a ministry which began when the Rev. Merrill starting conducting services in the Sloatsburg town hall in 1900. By 1904 land was deeded to St. Mary's to construct a chapel, consecrated as "St. Francis" that autumn. An advisory board was established for St. Francis' Chapel in the 1930s and was shared for a time with the nearby St. Elizabeth's Memorial Chapel in the Eagle Valley hamlet of Tuxedo. St. Mary's ties with St. Francis ended in 1953 when the latter became a diocesan mission. The chapel subsequently closed in 1974.[33]

Historical sources relate that St. Mary's supported itself and its activities through its endowment, annual contributions and pew rentals, which in 1926 were set at $100 per pew.[34] During the 1920s the church continued to play a major role in the community, serving as the initial meeting place for local chapters of the American Legion, Freemasons, and Order of the Eastern Star.[35]

Only by 1919 was St. Mary's able to secure a permanent organist, Fred Bentley, who maintained this position until his death in 1960.[36] Another early St. Mary's organist was Frank H. Mather, a graduate of the Royal Academy and Royal College of Music in London.[37] Tragedy struck the parish when four-time U.S. singles championship tennis player and Tuxedo resident Robert Wrenn struck and killed St. Mary's organist and choirmaster Herbert George Loveday after losing control of his vehicle on May 3, 1914. Charges of manslaughter against Wrenn were subsequently dropped.[38]

Pre-1900 image of the sanctuary prior to the 1922 redesign, featuring the carved oak lectern given by Herbert C. Pell, Sr.[39]

The Wall Street Crash of 1929 took a toll on parish life and the church's finances, as the congregation and the pew rents it provided reduced in size.[40] Several parishioners soon defected to nearby St. Elizabeth's in Eagle Valley, having found themselves unaccustomed to the high church style of the new rector, the Reverend Leon Cartmell. The "lean years" soon drew to a close however with the end of World War II, with the relocation of young families to the suburbs rejuvenating a stagnated church life.[41] The Reverend Fenimore Cooper made further efforts to encourage participation in church life, forming several guilds for ushers, acolytes and lay readers.[42]

The nave during the annual Christmas Eve service, showing the oak ceilings, trusses and pews[43]

Although not formally affiliated with St. Mary's, the New York diocese established a diocesan conference center named after Bishop Donegan in Tuxedo Park in 1957. St. Mary's was occasionally represented at conferences held at the center.[42] Father Cooper was a member of the committee tasked with renovating the center, which at one point housed the Tuxedo Park School.[44] The T. Henry Randall-designed estate was the former residence of Henry W. Poor and Henry Morgan Tilford, and was described by the New York Times as "one of the finest country residences in America".[45][46] The American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese of North America purchased the home from the Episcopal church in 1978 to establish a monastic community.[47]

The financial troubles that had plagued the parish since the Depression had eased by the 1960s, a reversal of fortunes attributed to successful endowment investing and a growing local population.[48] Over several years until its completion in 1962, Francis Ormond French, son of Manhattan Trust banker Amos Tuck French, helped to raise the $60,000 needed to construct the St. Mary's education building.[49] French died the very morning of the dedication ceremony held on Trinity Sunday, 1962 for the building that to this day bears his name.[50][51] Henry Mortimer financed parish house and undercroft renovations in 1971, dedicating these revisions alongside his siblings—including John Jay Mortimer and Stanley Grafton Mortimer—to his parents.[52] By 1973 a new 3-manual, 35-stop Austin organ (Opus 2557) was installed at St. Mary's;[53] the organist for the Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York City, Mr. Charles D. Walker, was invited to play a special inaugural concert.[54] The serial entrepreneur and Tuxedo Park resident Hazard Reeves was inspired to found what was "said to be the world's first computerized multi-catalogue shopping system", Catalogia,[55] after struggling to find a bell chime timing device for St. Mary's.[56]

One-time Tuxedo resident Jimmy Webb wrote a cantata for a children's choir and small orchestra for St. Mary's, first performed in December 1983.[57][58] An expanded version was later performed by Art Garfunkel and Amy Grant for the 1986 album The Animals' Christmas.[59] Other noteworthy musical events held at St. Mary's include a 1985-1986 concert series that featured a performance by clarinetist Gervase de Peyer,[60] and a 1993 concert held in collaboration with the Edvard Grieg Society of New York featuring the soprano Bodil Arnesen.[61]

In 1974, Bishop of New York Paul Moore, Jr. visited St. Mary's to install board members for a local conference of Episcopal churches known as the Southern Orange Community.[62] Bishop Moore would return to the parish several years later to lead a special service celebrating the centennial of the founding of St. Mary's, held on October 16, 1988.[63]

Recent years have seen efforts to restore several of the church's stained glass windows and the establishment of a building preservation fund to aid repairs and ongoing maintenance.[64] A report commissioned by the church in 2019 identified several critical areas in need of repair in both the church and the nearby rectory.[65]

View of St. Mary's from the churchyard

Several notable figures are known to have attended services at St. Mary's. A young Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed his name in the parish register while attending a baptismal ceremony on June 9, 1896, serving as a godfather for his cousin and Tuxedo Park resident Sara Roosevelt Collier.[66] Roosevelt was to later return to St. Mary's as an usher in the marriage of Muriel Delano Robbins to Cyril Martineau on June 1, 1907.[67] Future US Representative and Governor-General of the Philippines Francis Burton Harrison married Mary Crocker, daughter of Charles Frederick Crocker, at St. Mary's in 1900.[68] Author Mark Twain attended the 1906 wedding of Grenville Kane's eldest daughter, Sybil Kane, to the architect A. Stewart Walker.[69][70] Twain is described as being a friend of the then-rector of St. Mary's the Reverend William Fitz-Simon, with the latter writing the former soliciting advice on the subject of marriage in 1908.[71] Banker J. P. Morgan attended Fitz-Simon's wedding in June that same year, leading the bride, his niece Ursula Morgan, up the St. Mary's aisle.[26][72] The then-Superintendent of the United States Military Academy Douglas MacArthur was invited to speak at two Memorial Day services held on the church lawn in the early 1920s,[64][73][35] around the same time that he met his future wife Louise Cromwell Brooks at a party in Tuxedo.[74][75] The then-Bishop of Rhode Island James DeWolf Perry presided over the wedding of Louise King and Kenneth Shaw Safe at St. Mary's on April 24, 1926; guests included Henry Francis du Pont and Frederic Augustus Juilliard.[28]

High-profile and noteworthy services continued to take place at St. Mary's in the post-Depression era. The once-youngest American ambassador in history and Chief of Protocol of the United States Angier B. Duke was married to Priscilla Avenal St. George at a St. Mary's ceremony on January 2, 1937; also in attendance was the banker and Tuxedo resident Charles E. Mitchell.[76][27] Later that same month, a number of notables were present at the funeral for New York State Special Sessions Judge Frederic Kernochan, including Fiorello La Guardia, Thomas E. Dewey and President Franklin D. Roosevelt's son, James Roosevelt.[77] Funeral services for Adele S. Colgate, noted dog show judge, collector of Currier and Ives prints, and heir to the Colgate-Palmolive fortune, were held at St. Mary's on May 5, 1962.[78][79] The Duke of Windsor and former King Edward VIII of England, along with his wife, Duchess of Windsor Wallis Simpson, attended a baptism at St. Mary's for one of the Duchess's godchildren in May 1969.[64][80]

• The Rev. Vaughn Colston (1888-1891)
• The Rev. W. McCarthy Windsor (1892-1894)
• The Rev. George G. Merrill (1894-1903)
• The Rev. William Fitz-Simon (1903-1911)
• The Rev. Malbone Burkhead (1911-1912)  
• The Rev. Robert S. W. Wood (1912-1937)
• The Rev. Leon E. Cartmell (1937-1952)  
• The Rev. Fenimore E. Cooper (1953-1969)
• The Rev. James R. Leo (1969-1979)
• The Rev. Dr. Edwin H. Cromey (1980-2006)  
• The Rev. Elizabeth S. McWhorter (2007-2015)  
• The Rev. Richard J. Robÿn (2017–Present)[81]

George de Ris of J&R Lamb Studios designed the Chapel of the Holy Spirit, located in the church's stone undercroft and described as being "built to suggest as nearly as possible a small Byzantine chapel."[95][43][96] Completed in 1941, the Bishop of New York William Thomas Manning, dedicated the chapel to the late spouses of banker and Tuxedo resident Richard Delafield.[97]

Chapel of the Holy Spirit

The chapel features elements taken from the Tuxedo Park homes of Richard Mortimer and Henry Morgan Tilford.[96] These include an Italian marble hearthstone taken from Mortimer's since-demolished home "Mortemar" that now serves as the chapel's altar[98] and multiple stained glass fragments that date from possibly as early as the 15th century, at least some of which were taken from the Tilford House. Several of the glass fragments are estimated to date from the 16th century.[99] The chapel was renovated in 2015.[43]

• Louis Comfort Tiffany:[108]
  • "Edith Godfrey Memorial" (presumed)[109]
  • "Pilgrim Window" - Memorial to William Lawrence Breese[110][111][112][113]
  • "George Preston Memorial" - Preston Memorial Window (also referred to as the Hoffman Memorial Window)[112][113]
  • "St. Elizabeth" - De Rham Memorial Window[111][112][113]
  • "Crown of Life, St. Gertrude" - Memorial to Emily Post Griswold (May 10, 1905)[112][113]
  • "Cross in a Field of Painted Flowers" - Memorial to Charles Henry Coster, partner at J.P. Morgan and prominent philatelist[112][113][114]
  • "Angel Playing a Musical Instrument" - Dated 1890 (presumed)[109]
• Walter Janes (designed with Frances White):
  • "St. John the Divine" - Installed in 1898 in memory of Southern Pacific vice president Charles Frederick Crocker[115][116]
• John La Farge:
  • "Belief in the Resurrection" - Dated 1890; commissioned by Pierre Lorillard in memory of his son, Nathaniel Griswold Lorillard (1864-1888),[117][100][118][119] who according to one account introduced the Tuxedo jacket to American circles;[120] one of the two preliminary sketches for the window was exhibited at the La Farge Memorial Exhibition held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1911.[121]
• J&R Lamb Studios:
  • "Jesus with Angels" - Andrae Memorial Window (also called "Resurrection")[122]
  • "Iselin Memorial" - Memorial to Fannie Garner Iselin (presumed Lamb Studios)[123]
  • Vestibule windows - These windows in the narthex were dedicated to Gabriel and Francine Demay on May 7, 1989, in celebration of the St. Mary's centennial.[100][89]
• J. Gordon Guthrie:
  • "Christ the Good Shepherd" - Neo-gothic, Arts & Crafts painted window in memory of Bruce Price Post,[100][105][123] an acclaimed architect associated with the firm of Kenneth MacKenzie Murchison. Notable designs include the Bethlehem Union Station and the New Colonial Hotel.[124]
• Henry Wynd Young:
  • "R. J. Mortimer, Jr. Memorial"

• 
  "R.J. Mortimer, Jr. Memorial" - Henry Wynd Young (1874-1923)[125]
• 
  "Belief in the Resurrection" - Apse Window by John La Farge, in memory of Nathaniel Griswold Lorillard
• 
  "St. Elizabeth" - In memory of Anna Taylor de Rham, by Louis Comfort Tiffany
• 
  "Jesus with Angels" - Memorial to Benjamin Henning Andrae, by Lamb Studios
• 
  "St. John the Divine" - Memorial to Charles Frederick Crocker, by Walter Janes

• 
  A window featuring 16th- to 17th-century Swiss heraldic glass fragments in the Chapel of the Holy Spirit
• 
  A chapel window with fragments dated to 1660
• 
  The third example of heraldic glass

The memorials housed in St. Mary's have been recorded in the church's "Book of Remembrance", a book compiled by the St. Mary's Altar Guild and illuminated by the Sisters of St. Mary in Peekskill, New York.[48] Those for whom memorial tablets are dedicated at St. Mary's include:[89]

• The Rev. George William Douglas, Canon of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine;[142] known to have delivered a sermon on conscientious objectors at St. Mary's in 1917,[143] first delivered at Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn and later printed by Richard Delafield to distribute to the 400 employees of the National Park Bank[144]
• Hamilton Fish, Rough Rider and member of the Fish family[145]
• Maude Lorillard Baring, daughter of Pierre Lorillard IV and wife of Cecil Baring of Baring Brothers & Co.[146]