A two-story rectory on Main St. was built one year after the church, providing living space for Ascensions rector.
A $38,000 gift from an anonymous donor has paid for a new roof and professional painting inside and out, and ownership has been transferred to the Wellsville Historical Society,
Any visitor driving down Main Street will cast an admiring eye on this rare and charming expression of 19th century Carpenter Gothic architecture, never guessing how close it came to being lost.
The old church would have fallen in or been demolished years ago had it not been for the Friends of the Ascension Church, a nonprofit organization created in 1982 to undertake the major salvage and renovation necessary to save it, and which eventually assumed ownership from the Episcopal Diocese of Cleveland. The Friends group was founded and led by Wellsville native and former Columbiana County sheriff Robert Brass Beresford and his wife Bonny. Brassys mother, Anna Metsch Beresford, was a longtime member and he grew up in Ascension Church.
Jack Glover, Margaret Deeley and Betty Lowther Rager were among former parishioners and among last attendees who joined the Friends group. The community took the project to its heart.
Ascensions brick parish hall on 11thStreet was used as extra classroom space by the nearby Catholic school, and also was a meeting place for Boy Scouts. It and the rectory were demolished in November 2004.
It was in bad shape. The corner of the building on the right side (of the pulpit) was completely open, said Bonny. When I walked in there I said you guys are out of your minds. But she added, Every time we came to a stop, somebody always came along who knew what to do. We felt like we were being blessed.
THE BERESFORDS, with help from Jack Glover and others, remained caretakers over two decades after the 1980s renovation. The church was used on an occasional basis for meetings, weddings, community Christmas celebrations and Garfield school programs. Sharon and Bob French were married there on the hottest day of June 1994. Tiffanie Hartman, a granddaughter of the Beresfords, was married to Kevin Grimm there in 1998. Kevin was a U.S. Marine; he and an honor guard of comrades were in full dress uniform, Bonny recalls.
Friends group members have fallen away with age and the church has rarely been used in the past decade. Only three trustees remained Brass, Bonny and Ruth Weekley when ownership was transferred two years ago to the Wellsville Historical Society, an eventuality planned for by Brassy. Former Common Pleas Court Judge David Tobin provided the legal work at the request of Peter Russell, a former Wellsville banker. Brassy passed away in 2019 at age 93. Ruth Weekley died in June 2020; she was 94.
In 2017-18, the church was again in need of upkeep. An anonymous donor stepped forward, giving $38,000 to put on a new roof with historically correct shingles and to repaint the church interior and exterior.
Thus the physical existence of the Ascension Church is secure into the foreseeable future. The building has electrical service for lighting, but no heating or plumbing systems, limiting its use as a community meeting place. Those involved are open to suggestions and offers of help.
Noted local artist Hans Hacker was commissioned to paint this picture of Ascension Church, which hangs in the museum of the Wellsville Historical Society. The original steeple shown was later removed.
IT WAS IN 1870, a full century and a half ago, that Ascension Church was built, providing a parish home for a fledging Episcopalian congregation.
For some time prior to September 1863 a few church men and women had been meeting in a hall over Wm. C. Brights drug store on East Main Street . . . for an occasional service as they could secure the services of a clergyman. A Sunday school was formed and conducted by Mr. and Mrs. E.H. Ayer which was attended by a large number of children, according to a 1950 church history.
On Aug. 21, 1863, 28 adults signed their names to a draft resolution of formation, giving the name Parish of the Church of the Ascension, and adopting the constitution and canons of the Protestant Episcopal Church USA.
Following publication of their intentions in The Wellsville Union newspaper, members met on Sept. 6 and formally organized the parish. On Sept. 19 a Rev. Mr. Lee, who now and then had led services there, was called to be its first rector.
WELLSVILLE WAS A RAILROAD town then, site of the maintenance shops of the Cleveland & Pittsburgh Railroad. Creation of Ascension Church was a direct consequence of railroad men of Episcopalian heritage locating with their families in Wellsville in the early 1860s.
This photo of an Ascension Church picnic from the 1940s includes members of the Glover, Hands, Kerr and Lowther families. Brass Beresfords mother, Anna Pearl Metsch Beresford, is second from the left in the back row, wearing a hat.
Mr. John Thomas, superintendent of the C&P Railroad, was senior warden of Ascension at the time the parish was legally incorporated at the county seat in Lisbon, April 1, 1870.
Of the total cost of $6,489.89 to build and furnish the church, $2,500 was raised through a grand excursion to Lake Erie including an outing on the steamer Northwest.
An entry in parish records dated Sept. 5, 1870, states: Wardens and Vestry sent thank you to manager of Cleveland & Pittsburgh RR for their generous action toward us in connection with the excursion train of June 23rd the profits of which have enabled us to complete our little church without the burden of debt. A thank-you was sent to Capt. J.E. Pierce and officers of the Northwest. A Pierce family shows up in parish records, perhaps a local connection to Capt. Pierce.
The second largest individual source of funding was $1,421 in subscriptions from church members.
Whomever did the accounting wanted to make sure that the contributions of railroad people were recognized, showing donations (separate from subscriptions) from citizens not connected to RR of $572, while donations connected with RR totaled $1,333.95.
This undated photo, dating from around the turn of the 19th century or before, shows Christmas decorations and a rector in his vestments standing at the pulpit. The pipe organ at left was donated by steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. The large stained glass window shown was the original, created by William Nelson Manufacturing of Pittsburgh. That large window was blown out some years ago and never replaced, but whether it was still the original or a 1925 replacement is not known at this writing.
A BREAKDOWN OF building expenses includes $1,100 to buy the lots, $4,060 for construction of the building (contractor William Wood of Cleveland), $281 for furniture, $175 for carpeting, $110 for a stove and heating pipes, $59 for (oil?) lamps and globes, $53 for three years of fire insurance and $310 paid for stained glass Wm. Nelson Mfg. Pgh.
That points up a small mystery. Church history says the present stained glass windows were installed in 1925, and dedication names on the windows support that date. What, then, happened to the windows originally installed by William Nelson, early (1852-1892) Pittsburgh stained glass maker?
The centuries-old practice of selling, and later, renting, pews was quite common in Protestant churches as a method of raising funds for construction. By the mid-19th century the practice was falling into disfavor, yet the Ascension Church Vestry felt a need to put upon record their wish and resolve (that) the seats of the church shall be entirely free so that no man however poor shall feel himself excluded from Gods House.
(The pews are very low to the floor. Bonny Beresford thinks thats because people were generally smaller 150 years ago. Or perhaps it was to facilitate kneeling during services.)
The cornerstone was laid July 16, 1869, with items placed inside including current newspapers, a Book of Common Prayer, and a Bible.
Ascensions handsome wooden pews, pressed metal ceiling and 1925 stained glass windows are visible in this present day view from the pulpit area. (Photo by Fred Miller)
On the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, Sept. 29, 1870, the building was consecrated by the Rt. Rev. G.T. Bedell, Third Bishop of Ohio, the building being free from debt when completed. A two-story rectory was added on the adjacent lot a year later, making the parish more attractive to prospective rectors, and a brick parish house behind the church provided meeting space. Both were demolished in 2004.
THE ARCHITECTURAL STYLE of the Church of the Ascension is a reminder that, like the Episcopal Church itself, its roots are English but its expression American.
After the Great London Fire of 1666, architect Christopher Wren turned to Italian and Greek styles for inspiration. He termed what had burned Gothic; a disparagement of the architectural style of cathedrals and other heavy stone buildings of the Middle Ages, equating them with the Germanic tribes (Goths, Visigoths, Vandals) that sacked Rome.
Architects in America followed the styles of Wren, including Greek Revival and what is now called Colonial or Georgian, but at length a reaction sent in and a Gothic revival ushered in new expressions. The abundance of timber in America, coupled with the introduction of steam-driven sawmills led to interpretations of Gothic style in wood instead of stone. Architects Alexander Jackson Davis and Andrew Jackson Downing published influential books of Gothic Revival building plans in the mid-1800s.
Ascension Church has the steep gabled roof, fancy scrollwork bargeboards (trim), pointed-arch windows and doors, and vertical board-and-batten wooden siding of classified as Vernacular Carpenter Gothic. Vernacular as opposed to high style is a reference to rural site and use of modest materials.
Preservation of its architectural significance gave Ascension Church status for placement on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986, the application prepared by Jack Lanam of East Liverpool, a local historian and member of the Friends group.
ASCENSION CHURCH was always small compared to other area churches, but families were close-knit and the parish enjoyed good years in the latter part of the 19th century and early 20th. Some 75 parishioners attended a celebration for their rector in 1915. A Womens Auxiliary, Daughters of the Auxiliary, Junior Auxiliary, and Little Helpers were popular steppingstone womens groups. A dozen men were guided to create a Mens Club.
Meticulous record books were kept in those years for memberships, baptisms, confirmations, marriages, and burials, often including personal data such as parentage, sponsors, date of birth, and cause of death. Family names included Keay, Kerr, Mills, Bowers, Haslet, Hand, Deeley, Lower, Jobling, Rushton, Bailey, Andrews, Allcock, Furniss, Gardner, Jones, Jenkins, McKinnis, Starrett, Robinson, Pritchard, Morris and others.
The name Elizabeth DeTemple is one of the first to appear in the record books, but the reason was not a happy one. The churchs first baptism was on Aug. 28, 1865, for infant son Jacob Emmanuel DeTemple, and was followed by his burial three days later. Elizabeth and her husband Matthew DeTemple went on to have at least eight more children, and lived to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary in 1915. One of the 1925 stained glass windows in Ascension Church is dedicated to her.
(The second baptism listed was for George Edward DeTemple on Aug. 30, 1865, apparently a twin of Jacob. George survived infancy but died of typhoid fever at age 16, March 22, 1882.)
Other windows are dedicated to the memory of: Harry Jobling (there were two Harry Joblings, father and son); Grace and Charles Keay (Grace Keay, age 20, was buried Feb. 2, 1919, and a Charles Emerson Keay died Dec. 31, 1916, at age 16 months); and Levison Rushton, (died Nov. 5, 1920, age 15). Windows were dedicated to the Womens Auxiliary and the Sunday School. Church stalwart John Hands name was painted in after his death on a window. He died in 1947 at age 55.
The circular stained glass window high on the Main Street gable-end wall was dedicated to my beloved wife Elizabeth Thomas.
With the transfer of Ascension Church to the Wellsville Historical Society, its church record books and other documents will be preserved for genealogy and history researchers.
Entries in the record books became sparse beginning in the 1940s, with perhaps the last permanent rector a Rev. Gillette in 1946. Rectors from St. Stephens in East Liverpool kept an association with the Ascension congregation, including Rev. D.R. Salsberry Jr. in 1965 and Rev. Paul Heckters in 1976.
Notebooks of attendance records show 10 or 20 regularly came to church on Sundays in the 1960s. By 1974, that number had dwindled to five or six older members. Betty Rager and Jack Glover in a 1980s Review article stated there was no last Sunday. The church simply fizzled out.
THE WELLSVILLE HISTORICAL Society faces the same problem of an aging organization with fewer members and less money. President Bob Lloyd who with sardonic wit says, I woke up one morning and was told, You own a church' said Society trustees do not have the resources at present to do much with Ascension Church, but do accept responsibility for it, and will do the best they can.
There are developments, however, suggesting that help will be forthcoming from those who love Wellsville and its history, and that good news for the Church of the Ascension is in the offing.
Donations from families allowed them to memorialize loved ones in Ascensions 1925 stained glass side windows, including this one to Elizabeth DeTemple, who spent her adult life in the church and raised a large family. (Fred Miller photo)
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