Welcome to the Lehigh Valley Landmarks with Leon podcast series, celebrating 250 years of independence. I'm your host, Rachel Leon. Since being elected in 2022 and serving as Vice President of Bethlehem City Council, I'm humbled by the opportunity to serve the diverse communities that make up our great city. But to understand where we're going, we need to understand our past. Each week, I'll share a short feature with a big story about the 250 years that made the Lehigh Valley and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, known as the Christmas City, as we explore historic landmarks.
RACHEL
This is part two of the Cathedral Church of the Nativity. I’m happy to introduce Martha Capwell Fox, a local historian in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania as a guest to discuss the Church of the Nativity.
MARTHA
Thank you Rachel. I’m very happy to be here.
RACHEL
What are some of the important events in the church’s history?
MARTHA
The church was originally organized without a building and that happened in November of 1862 in the parlor of Robert Sayre’s house on Wyandotte Street, where they elected a vestry that comprised of Robert Sayre, his father William Heysham Sayre Sr., his brother Willaim Heysham Sayre Jr. and a few other people and they formed the first vestry in November. And then they broke ground for a church building in 1863, but the church was not actually completed for about another year and a half and that was where they had the first Christmas service in the basement of the church in 1864. Unfortunately, very sadly its consecration and first services in the original church coincided with the assignation of Abraham Lincoln.
RACHEL
So the church was built in the Gothic Revival Style by Architect Edward Tuckerman Potter who had a reputation for designing churches. Can you expand upon that a little bit?
MARTHA
It’s very interesting. People, who are familiar with the side of the church that faces Wyandotte Street, with the door and the little bell tower on the top of it, that was the original entrance and that part of the original church is part of the transcept of the current church. The architect was actually the son of the Episcopal Bishop of Pennsylvania and this was one of his earliest jobs and it set a style. The first church was quite small and fairly simple but as the congregation grew, it became necessary to enlarge the church. It took another architect and William Heysham Sayre Sr. himself, he sketched a proposal and that was the architect, who was a man named Charles Burns, from Philadelphia followed when he built the larger church.
RACHEL
Martha, this truly has been wonderful, and if you could please share information about the church services I would greatly appreciate that.
MARTHA
Thank you again Rachel for inviting me to come and talk. And I would like to let everyone know that we have a wide variety of services including a 5:00 pm service that on some Saturdays are Celtic Meditation services, there is also a Celtic Eucharist. We hold Evensong, the very traditional Anglican Service of songs and psalms and readings. On Sunday mornings we offer a very quiet Eucharist Service at 8:00 a.m. We have a family service at 9:00 a.m. At 10:45 am we have a regular Eucharist with the full choir and at 12:30 p.m. we have a Eucharist that is in Spanish.
RACHEL
Well thank you again for being with us Martha. And to learn more about the church online, visit the NativityCatherdral.org website.
