St luke biography of the fields nyc


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Church of St. Luke-in-the-Fields
(Episcopal)

Hudson Street near Barrow Street
New York, N.Y.

On October 22, , a small group of residents of the riverfront village of Greenwich gathered at the home of Catherine Ritter to organize an Episcopal church for their growing community. They named the church after St. Luke, the physician evangelist, in recognition of the village's role as a refuge from the yellow fever epidemics that plagued New York City during the summers.

One of the founding wardens was Clement Clarke Moore, a gentleman scholar of biblical Hebrew and Greek who also penned "Twas the night before Christmas." The first eucharist of The Church of Saint Luke-in-the-Fields was celebrated in a prison watch house on the corner of Christopher and Hudson street on Christmas of that year. In , the cornerstone to the church was laid on a site on Hudson Street donated by Trinity Church. The new church w