EXHIBITS

Struggle to Find a Building

     In the first year of Rev. Stoy's mission to Logan, he found that one of the biggest challenges to overcome would be finding a suitable location to hold school classes and Sunday services. 

     Aaron DeWitt, one of the first citizens of Cache Valley to become disconcerted with policies that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints encouraged (such as the creation of cooperative stores that discouraged independent merchants), was the one who provided Rev. Stoy and Bishop Tuttle a bed for the first three weeks that they were in the valley. He also provided the first meeting place to the Episcopal Church in 1873. 

     DeWitt's Bakery, an older adobe building on the corner of Third and Washington (now 1st West and 1st North), became the first Episcopal chapel in Logan. 

      For a schoolhouse, Rev. Stoy was able to rent a larger building in September 1873, known as Sherman (or Shearman) Hall. This location was filled with furniture and equipment from the eastern United States so that it could be a "proper" schoolhouse that could accommodate 100 students.

     In 1876, the mission was able to purchase a plot of land (18 square rods or 4900 sq. ft.) at the corner of Center Street and Third West. 

     According to the first history of the congregation written by Rev. P. M. Bleecker, in the fall of 1877, "A frame building 60 X 24 was erected at the S.E. end of Mission grounds, on Second Street & named Saint John's School House. Divine Services are held in it on Sundays."

     Today, this schoolhouse and chapel has been converted into apartments, but still stands at 263 West Center Street in Logan, where you can see the iconic A-frame of the steeple.

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     The congregation of St. John's put a lot of effort into decorating for Christmas in 1880.

     Christmas was a big deal to the Episcopalians of the 19th century and this enthusiasm shaped the image of the season for a whole country. Harriet Beecher Stowe described America's image of Christmas in her book The Minister's Wooing

"... and she spent nobody knows what time in going round and getting evergreens, and making wreaths, and putting up green boughs over the pictures, so that the room looked just like the Episcopal Church at Christmas." [1]

1. Harriet Beecher Stowe, The Minister's Wooing (London: Sampson, Low, & Co, 1959; Project Gutenburg, 2015), 351. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/47958/47958-h/47958-h.htm 
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St. John's was the first place in Logan that is reported to have had a Christmas Tree