Wells Runs Deep: Avalon’s Presbyterian Church Turns 125
“There’s something about this church,” says Wells Memorial Presbyterian Church’s Dave Knoche. “You feel a spiritual presence of the many people who have been here.”
Many people, indeed. This year marks Wells Memorial’s 125th anniversary.
“It is amazing is that everything here is still the same, including the pew to the far right of the altar that is signed by the [church’s first] painters,” adds Knoche, the church committee co-chair.
Like a vision from the past, the original structure sits in its original location on First Avenue at 9th Street. Dreams of its construction began in 1890, according to a history of Wells Memorial Presbyterian Church written by the late Thomas M. Gluyas.
Worshipers in the late 19th century, including Seven Mile Beach Company Director Joseph Wells, first met in a parlor of the former Avalon Hotel for religious services. Wells’ wife, Margaret, and Lucinda Wells raised revenue for a tent to house the then-Union Tabernacle congregation. A storm destroyed the tent. There was no record of its revival.
So, members of this congregation decided to build a church. Its cornerstone was put into place on Aug. 28, 1892 and Wells Memorial’s anniversaries are celebrated from this date. There’s uncertainty about when it named Wells Memorial Presbyterian Church. The first worship service was held in the unfinished structure on July 30, 1893. Construction was completed that autumn. Sunday school was added three years later.
When Wells Memorial Presbyterian Church opened in 1893, it was valued at $4,000, with a mortgage of $2,000. This debt was retired and the note canceled by the autumn of 1904.
Efforts to support the church in the early 1900s included plate collections at services, special donations by church members and events at Avalon’s “casinos.” These early casinos were not gambling establishments. Casinos served refreshments and offered entertainment like Skee-Ball. They sometimes housed stores, meeting rooms or dance halls.
As time and innovation marched on, so did Wells Memorial.
Church members replaced oil lamps with electric lamps in 1913. The church vicarage was built in 1925 to house summertime visiting ministers. Returning missionaries stayed there during the winter. The Pennsylvania Railroad transported visitors to the island until 1935, when bus service filled that void. By the late 1940s, more automobiles brought people to Seven Mile. Adjacent properties to Wells Memorial Presbyterian Church were generously donated in 1951 and 1955 so that churchgoers would have the convenience of a parking lot.
Bruce Boak first stayed at Wells Memorial’s parsonage as a teenager when his father, the late Rev. Gordon Boak, first led summer worship at the church in 1964. Following in his father’s footsteps, Bruce joined the ministry. Today, the minister’s wife, children and grandchildren also share in that Wells Memorial history. Rev. Bruce Boak has led summer worship, including the 125th anniversary service in July, at the church for the past 44 years.
Boak recollects tales of days gone by when cattle grazed on the island, as told to him by the late Everett Townsend, a retired professor and church caretaker. Before the bridge now known as the Townsends Inlet Bridge was built, people rowed boats to Seven Mile Beach, often after traveling via horse-drawn wagons. When the railroad replaced these means of transportation, Boak notes, people purchased first-class, second-class or third-class seating, depending upon their means. This was “a holdover from the days of the stagecoach,” he says.
The clergyman compares the tenacity of third-class ticketholders, who had to get out of the stagecoach and push whenever it might be stuck in the mud or worse, to the selfless Christian discipleship that has preserved the faith, and Wells Memorial Church, throughout the ages.
“Those whose lives are filled with gratitude know that the price of commitment to a life of gratitude is lived through the giving of ourselves,” Boak says.
Such generosity made it possible for various church organs, instruments vital to hymn sings and services, to be replaced and updated over time. During one replacement in the 1950s, Wells Memorial donated an organ to St. Mary’s Episcopal Church. In 1977, a generous donor allowed Wells Memorial’s congregation to purchase an Allen electronic organ. The current “Elizabeth J. Ewart” organ was donated to Wells Memorial in 2000.
The Ewart family plays a considerable part in Wells Memorial’s history. Elizabeth Ewart, beloved Betty, became Wells Memorial’s organist in 1958. She played there for the next 55 years. Her husband Robert Ewart was chairman and treasurer of the church committee for 39 years. Their son, Bob, led the church’s 125th anniversary planning committee. Daughters Janice Mills and Barbara Hendrickson also served on that committee.
“I have a strong attachment to this church that I attended as a youngster with my sisters,” Bob Ewart says. “Wells Memorial is a beacon of faith at the shore. To help others to feel God’s gifts of the beauty of faith and the beauty of Avalon is an inspiration.”
While the spiritual life of Wells Memorial thrived in the 1970s, the old church faced major structural challenges. Over time, a faulty steeple and a dangerously damaged roof affected the well-being of the sanctuary. Plus, seriously rotted piles were in need of extensive repairs. Generous church committee members and visitors made it possible to meet these challenges.
More recently, the Celtic cross that sits atop the white clapboard church was knocked around and made crooked by Superstorm Sandy. Shortly after that 2012 storm, the Avalon Fire Department came to the rescue by providing its truck and ladder so that building contractor Ralph Johnson could put the cross back into its proper place.
This was not the first time that the treasured steeple cross required some adjustment.
Boak recalls being awakened at 2am by a ringing rectory phone one summer night in the early 1990s. A U.S. Coast Guard officer telephoned to let the pastor know that the light shining on the Wells Memorial cross at night had gone out. This was cause for concern because back then “smaller craft used the cross as a guiding light,” the minister explains. “The cross functioned as a sort of lighthouse.”
Today, the light of that cross continues to shine metaphorically and literally.
Wells Memorial Presbyterian Church shares its 125th anniversary with the First United Methodist Church of Avalon and the Borough of Avalon. Each was founded in 1892. So, Wells Memorial and First United Methodist participated in the Borough’s birthday bash in May. Church members in period costumes welcomed the public to Wells Memorial during the Avalon Historic House Tour in June.
On Tuesday, Aug. 8, Wells Memorial Presbyterian Church will be open to the public at 7pm for a presentation about its history in conjunction with the Avalon History Center’s 2017 Summer Historic Lecture Series. All are welcome to visit and learn the story of this charming church with its handsome dark-wood chancel and interior, brightly patterned stain-glass windows and lovely plaques that keep memories of deceased church members alive.
“Compared to most any cathedral in any major city, Wells Memorial is a small frame structure with warmhearted people,” Boak muses. “But scripture tells us that God has never looked on outward appearance, but on the heart.”
By all accounts, the heart of Wells Memorial Presbyterian Church is a healthy one.
