Before I venture out to explore a cemetery, I have to do a little preparation. I scout the grounds with an online map (when available) and a quick search on my favorite website Find-A-Grave, an invaluable resource for the novice gravehunter (and there are a surprisingly large number of us). The results of my search actually left me a bit embarrassed. I have lived in this small, but historically significant, community for most of my adult life, and was not remotely aware of its impact in the development of our country.
I had passed a sign outside the church that identified one of the buildings as "Jay Cooke Hall." I had no clue who Jay Cooke was. I assumed he was a founder of the church. I don't remember his name coming up in history classes. A bit of research convinced me that my high school history teachers were sorely lax in their duties of educating their students. Jay Cooke was, indeed, a prominent member of the St. Paul's Church congregation, but he also financed the Civil War for the North. Without his contributions, the Civil War would have had a much different outcome. I also found the graves of folks whose surnames grace many street signs and buildings in the area. It's pretty cool to discover that neighborhood landmarks were not just arbitrarily named by a land developer, but were chosen to honor those who shaped a community.
Since my visit to the cemetery at St. Paul's Church, I have looked at the building differently each time I drive by. The Gothic architecture, I learned, was the handiwork of Horace Trumbauer, one of America's premier architects, who constructed additions some forty years after the church first opened its doors to parishioners. Trumbauer also designed a number of residences and commercial buildings in and around the Philadelphia area, including the nearby Keswick Theatre, the main branch of the Philadelphia Free Library and Philadelphia Art Museum, which was a collaborative effort with another architectural firm.
However, I was still ignorant to a key piece of American history that is buried beneath the church's façade.
At the beginning of 2020, my wife was scrolling through Facebook and came across an announcement for an hour-long seminar about the history of Cheltenham Township, the governing body that Elkins Park lies within. The presentation was hosted by St. Paul's Church and the speaker was a teacher at a local elementary school who, we later found out, did extensive research about the community after wondering why this stuff wasn't taught in school. How pragmatic! I marked my calendar and on Super Bowl Sunday — of all days! — Mrs. Pincus and I walked over to the church for a little schoolin'. I had been wanting to see the inside of the church building for some time and this was the perfect opportunity. Plus, it saved me from lengthy conversion classes.
The main sanctuary is beautiful, boasting high graceful arches, carved wooden augmentation and thirteen stained glass windows created by Tiffany Studios. A portable movie screen was set up in the sanctuary with the first slide of the presentation shining brightly upon it. We took seats among a handful of folks and soon the teacher welcomed everyone. She was excited, enthusiastic, if not a bit tongue-tied here and there. Her presentation was very informative, revealing numerous facts to the crowd — for the first time, by the collective reactions. Of course, she began with Jay Cooke, expounding on the fact that, besides being a financier, he was an ardent and fierce abolitionist. He harbored and transported escaped slaves in the basement of his Elkins Park estate. When he conceived and built St. Paul's Church, he made sure that the plans included tunnels and sanctuary that became a stop on the Underground Railroad system. The teacher noted Cooke's close friend and prayer group colleague Lucretia Mott. Mott was a Quaker who campaigned extensively and tirelessly for the end of slavery. She was also a vocal proponent for Women's' Rights, alongside Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony (with whom she eventually fell out of favor). Mott's family leased land in Cheltenham to the Federal government to be used as a military training camp for freed slaves wishing to join the United States Army in the Civil War. Called "Camp William Penn," it produced many African-American only regiments, where other training camps banned enrollment by ex-slaves. The teacher told of the prominent Widener Family, the Elkins Family and other familiar names recognized immediately by the current community, as well as notable visits by Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln and Harriet Tubman.
When the seminar concluded, guests were invited to descend a set of narrow stairs and navigate an even narrower tunnel beneath the church. We followed the now-forming queue and made our way to the staircase. We passed the actual preserved desk where Jay Cooke wrote and signed numerous war bonds in 1862. The stairs emptied into an impossibly narrow passageway that snaked awkwardly until it revealed a boxy room whose floor was strewn with pale yellow straw. In one corner was a pile of makeshift bedding in an obvious recreation of the accommodations offered to those seeking freedom via the Underground Railroad. The tableau was, at the same time, chilling and inspiring. Just knowing that we were walking the same path that so many walked towards the long, frightening and often dangerous road to freedom gave reason to pause and take in the moment. The group slowly shuffled past the room, minding our steps in the darkness, until the lead person reached the next set of stairs and we began to make our ascent back to the main room.
We thanked the teacher and the representatives of the church for hosting the afternoon session. Mrs. P and I found the door we used to enter the maze of a building and started home. I thought about how much history is just a few steps from my home. I thought about how much of this knowledge is unknown to my neighbors and how much time they have wasted worrying about trivial things (like what will move in to the empty building that once housed the neighborhood co-op). Do they realize — or even care — about the history of other — more significant — buildings in the same proximity? I'm not so sure.www.joshpincusiscrying.com
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