Church of the Good Shepherd
Church of the Good Shepherd
By Frank Leo
Plaque Text:
CHURCH OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD
1911
English Gothic style church designed by Hobart Upjohn and George W. Conable, New York architects. Built for Episcopal parish established in 1907, replacing an 1892 mission chapel, an outgrowth of the St. James home. Church cornerstone laid on All Saint’s Day, 1911. James Henry Burriss II, Senior Warden, supervised construction. Completed during the tenure of The Reverend Thomas P. Noe.
Something that was sufficiently demonstrated in my previous paper on the Bellamy Mansion is that the city of Wilmington, North Carolina, as well as the entire Lower Cape Fear region, is full of historic places, with hundreds of them being commemorated by the Historic Wilmington Foundation, especially through the use of plaques. These plaques can be found across a wide range of sites, from ones that memorialize the dead, such as the Oakdale Cemetery, to ones that are the remnants of local businesses, such as the Munds Drug Store. All of the structures that these plaques acknowledge have a story behind them, which includes the people who lived, worked, or worshiped in them, and this is certainly the case for the Church of the Good Shepherd, which is one of Wilmington’s most prominent centers of worship. This essay, just as was done with the Bellamy Mansion previously, will dissect the church and the people who were connected with it, as a way to shed further light on the role the structure has played in this area.
The Church of the Good Shepherd, which is still an active Episcopal church, is relatively standard in terms of its structure when it comes to local churches, as it consists of two main elements, which are the chapel and the clock tower, with the two being conjoined together. The church as we see it today was originally designed and built by architects Hobart Upjohn and George W. Conable, starting construction in 1907, with its cornerstone being laid on All Saint’s Day, or November 1, in 1911. The pentagon-shaped chapel’s size is relatively standard, with the red bricks that compose it and the large window on its face being its most defining features. The two-story clock tower, which is attached to the chapel’s right side, is white in color, and is made up of a different material, possibly concrete. Lying on the corner of Queen Street and South 6th Street, the presence of the church is notable due to the fact that, according to the plaque, it replaced a previous chapel which was laid on the same site, which was built in 1892. In addition to that, the plaque states the 1892 chapel was an extension of the St. James home, and while I am not one hundred percent sure about this, I believe it is referring to the St. James Parish, another Episcopal church in Wilmington which was constructed in 1840, and is the oldest continually active congregation in the state of North Carolina.[1] I feel that this detail demonstrates the deeper connections the Church of the Good Shepherd has with the city of Wilmington as a whole, even if they are not immediately apparent at first glance.
[1] “St. James Parish History,” St. James Parish, accessed March 16, 2024, https://www.stjamesp.org/history/.
The most important aspect of the Church of the Good Shepherd is its architectural style, with it hearkening back to the times in which the building was first constructed. Specifically, the plaque labels the church as being of the English Gothic style, which was the dominant architectural style of medieval buildings between the mid-12th and the early 16th centuries. First emerging in Paris, France, the style when it comes to large church buildings is defined by several aspects, including many of them being sophisticated light structures with large windows, pointed arches being standard features in them, and from the mid-13th century onward, the inclusion of increasingly complicated window designs.[2] However, I believe the style that this plaque labels the Church of the Good Shepherd as having is actually incorrect, and I am of the opinion that the structure is actually an example of the Collegiate Gothic style, which was heavily seen across the United States from 1910 to 1950. An offshoot of the Gothic Revival style, which itself was inspired by the English Gothic style, it was commonly found across churches and institutional buildings located in universities, and the structures that utilized it used modern materials, such as plaster and clay tile.[3] I feel that the Church of the Good Shepherd is of the Collegiate Gothic style because of the fact that not only it was constructed during the time period in which it was most prominent, but also due to the fact it utilized modern materials, such as brick and concrete, while still echoing the English Gothic style, as indicated through the structure’s large windows and pointed arches, which can be seen if one views interior photographs of the church.
[2] “A Guide to English Gothic Architecture,” The Historic England Blog, May 5, 2022, accessed March 16, 2024, https://heritagecalling.com/2022/05/05/what-is-gothic-architecture/.
[3] “Collegiate Gothic,” Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, accessed March 16, 2024, https://dahp.wa.gov/historic-preservation/historic-buildings/architectural-style-guide/collegiate-gothic.
While the structure of the Church of the Good Shepherd itself is noteworthy, an aspect that cannot be neglected is the people who are associated with it, specifically those associated with the construction itself. There are four people who should be examined the most thoroughly, mainly due to the fact that they are the names listed on the historical plaque for the church. The first individual is Hobart Upjohn, one of the two main architects, with the man being born in New York in 1876, and graduating from school at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1899. After spending some time as an assistant principal at an architectural school, Upjohn opened his own architectural office in 1905, and began designing structures all across the United States, though he definitely specialized in churches that were of the Gothic Revival style. He built a good amount of churches in New England, but the impact of his work can be most felt in North Carolina, where he constructed around fifty churches and educational buildings, with the Church of the Good Shepherd being his second project in the state.[4] The other architect involved with the church’s construction, George W. Conable, actually was partners with Upjohn through the firm Upjohn & Conable from 1908 to 1914. A fellow New York architect born in 1866, Conable graduated from SUNY Cortland in 1882 and got a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Cornell University. Like Upjohn, he primarily focused on the construction of churches in the Gothic Revival style, and during his collaboration with him, he constructed the Trinity Lutheran Church in Manhattan, the Parish House in Staten Island, and, of course, the Church of the Good Shepherd in Wilmington. After ending his collaboration with Upjohn, he began partnering with architect William E. Austin, which led to the creation of structures such as the chapel at Cortland Rural Cemetery in Cortland, NY, and the Hallenbach-Hungerford building in Manhattan.[5]
[4] “Upjohn, Hobart Brown (1876-1949),” North Carolina Architects & Builders: A Biographical Dictionary, accessed March 16, 2024, https://ncarchitects.lib.ncsu.edu/people/P000078.
[5] “More About the Architect ~ George W. Conable,” Cortland Rural Cemetery, accessed March 16, 2024, https://www.cortland-rural-cemetery.com/facilities.
Unfortunately, the third person listed on the plaque, James Henry Burriss II, who was the Senior Warden and supervised construction, apparently does not have any detailed information that can be found online. Additionally, there seems to have been several James Burriss’s born in this area, so I am not entirely sure which one is supposed to be the man listed on the plaque. I discovered that an individual by the name James Henry Burris was born in 1865 and died in 1925, but since I cannot even figure out if he lived in Wilmington at all during his life, I will not make any assumptions about him. On the other hand, the fourth person listed on the plaque, Reverend Thomas P. Noe, the man in charge of the Episcopal congregation during the time when the Church of the Good Shepherd was fully completed, has a good amount of additional information that can be found about him. While I was unable to find information concerning when he was born and when he died, I was about to discover that the man was passionate about promoting the growth of cities and towns in and around Wilmington. For example, the town of Whiteville, North Carolina, which is around an hour’s drive outside of Wilmington, seemingly had no hope for growth or prosperity, but Noe felt differently, and spearheaded the construction of the Grace Episcopal Church, which still survives today, as a way to promote community among the residents who lived there, who may then encourage their friends to relocate to Whiteville so they can join them in Mass.[6] It is perhaps likely then that Thomas P. Noe was heavily involved in the Church of the Good Shepherd being constructed in the first place, as he possibly felt the investment would help grow Wilmington’s Episcopal community. I was also able to discover that Noe was also potentially a writer of some description, as he seemed to have written several articles for The Carolina Churchman, a serial for the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina. A description of one article he wrote in 1911 details how a girl of twelve or fourteen years old says she had not heard of Christ until she came to Mayodan, North Carolina, which is in the northern part of the state.[7]
[6] History of Grace Episcopal Church, Whiteville N.C, 2, https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/16934.
[7] The Carolina Churchman, Vol 2: April, 1911, accessed March 16, 2024, https://www.amazon.com/Carolina-Churchman-Vol-Classic-Reprint/dp/0484126431.
I feel that this essay has sufficiently demonstrated both the architectural style of the Church of the Good Shepherd, as well as the individuals that are commonly associated with it, though I was definitely curious to learn if there were any historically important people associated with the structure that were missing from the plaque. Before doing more research, I suspected there might have been other architects who worked on the construction that did not get the credit they deserved, and while there were probably individuals who worked for Upjohn & Conable who assisted with it, I did not find any evidence to suggest that the plaque credited those who should not have been credited in the first place. Unlike with the Bellamy Mansion, I feel that the plaque for the Church of the Good Shepherd is still largely suitable for modern audiences, and I see no reason that it needs to be changed in any way. Of course, determining whether or not a plaque made by the Historic Wilmington Foundation needs to be updated is done on a case-by-case basis, and hopefully, the plaques for historical sites in the Wilmington area that give incorrect information or omit can be replaced over the next several years.
