St. Paul's Church
A historic church and museum in Mount Vernon, New York
Built in the era of the American Revolution, Saint Paul's Church is one of the oldest in New York. The church offered its last service in 1977, and became part of the National Park Service in 1980. An adjacent carriage house serves today as a museum about the American Revolution, and the church cemetery includes American and Hessian soldiers who fought in the Revolutionary War.
The original St. Paul's Church, a small wooden structure, was completed in 1700. It was at the center of life in a farming community during colonial times. The oldest legible gravestone in the church cemetery dates to 1704, a time when the village was so small that only initials were needed to identify the graves.
In 1763, construction of a new church got underway, but progress was interrupted by the Revolutionary War. It was near here that the famous Battle of Pell's Point took place, in which a band of Massachusetts Continental soldiers, outnumbered 5 to 1, held back the British-Hessian army long enough for George Washington's troops to escape. When the Hessian's occupied the area they demolished the wooden church as a source of firewood and used the partially completed new stone and brick church as a make-shift hospital.
The church's prized steeple bell, cast by the same foundry that produced the Liberty Bell, was buried during the Revolutionary War for safekeeping so that it would not be melted for ammunition. After the war, it was unearthed and hung in the belfry of the newly completed church. This year is the bell's 250th anniversary, and there are special activities and steeple walking tours in honor of the event. St. Paul's is operated under a cooperative agreement with the Society of the National Shrine of the Bill of Rights at Saint Paul's Church Eastchester, whose knowledgeable staff is available to answer any questions. The church was designated as a National Historic Site in 1943.
