Philadelphia Congregations Early Records

Featured Congregation/Collection

Christ Church, Philadelphia, PA

Founded in 1695, Christ Church was the first Anglican church to be established in Pennsylvania. This fulfilled the provision outlined by King Charles II in the charter he granted to William Penn in 1681 stipulating that if twenty individuals requested an Anglican clergyman the Bishop of London would appoint one. Accordingly, thirty-nine Philadelphians came together in 1695 to form Christ Church. Located on Second Street, just north of Market Street the Church transitioned from a small frame…

Philadelphia Congregations Early Records

When completed, the Philadelphia Congregations Early Records project will offer over 80,000 pages of records from Philadelphia’s oldest congregations, connecting the archives of Christ Church, St. George’s Methodist Church, Gloria Dei, Mikveh Israel, the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, the Presbyterian Historical Society, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, the American Baptist Historical Society, the Moravian Archives, and Friends Historical Library.

Digitized materials include minutes, account books, birth, marriage, death, and burial registers.

This project is supported by a Digitizing Hidden Collections grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Additional support has been provided through a Historical & Archival Records Care (HARC) grant from the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission (PHMC).