Members of the soon-to-be 175-year-old St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Doylestown Borough are on a very important treasure hunt.
Locked away in a large box church leaders placed in the building’s cornerstone in 1846, are books and precious documents from the church’s founding, explained David Nejako, chairman of St. Paul’s 175th anniversary committee.
The task now at hand is ensuring the box is indeed there and that it can be safely removed without damaging the historic stone church at the intersection of Pine Street and Oakland Avenue.
On Monday, two concrete scanning specialists from the Ohio-based firm GPRS used a sophisticated type of radar to carefully examine the cornerstone.
After examining the data, Patrick Hughes, one of the concrete specialists, said he has “100 percent certainty that the stone has a different footprint than the others and it’s time to call in a structural engineer to assess the best way to access the cornerstone so as not to damage the church,” said Kay Rock, a St. Paul’s parishioner and member of the anniversary committee.
A formal report will be coming, Rock said, and plans to hire a structural engineer will follow.
The fourth oldest church in the borough, St. Paul’s was designed by architect John E. Carver, said Nejako. Carver was also the chief architect of St. James the Less, a renowned Philadelphia church.
Church leaders kept a detailed history of St. Paul’s, including a list of what was placed in the box they painstakingly buried in the cornerstone, Nejako said.
Once revealed, members should find: The Holy Bible, The Book of Common Prayer; the Journal of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church held in Philadelphia in 1844; the Journal of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church of the Diocese of Pennsylvania; Bishop Potter’s Primary Charge of the Convention, together with his Pastoral Letter; the last number of the Episcopal Recorder and the Banner of the Cross.
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