Edenton Street Methodist Church and Parsonage
This week for Flashback Friday we feature this beautifully tinted, chromolithographic postcard depicting Raleigh’s Edenton Street Methodist Church. The ‘newsy’ message written on this card provides us with a personal glimpse into everyday life as it was in North Carolina more than 100 years ago. It is a delight!
Aug-13-1908
Dear E.
Wish you were out here with us. you always enjoy the country. it is just fun and we are feasting on good things. Margaret is just delighted. she & Ethel and the boys play together real nicely. Miss Pattie [illegible] is out here. She wanted to know when you all were coming home. They are having a meeting at the col. church. we [?] can [?] hear them shout any time. [illegible] went up there last night. We are having such beautiful moon light. Mr H has gone to R. today. it is real hot and looks [?] like a dry spell. They say they need rain. I have not brought it [illegible] Tom & Addie [?] are both well.Janie [?]
Elma [?] sends love. she is busy all the time.
I was able to transcribe most of the message from Janie [?], but there are a number of places I got stuck. Any help from our Goodnight Raleigh readers?
Edenton Street Methodist Church is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year. Organized in 1811, the congregation has occupied a sanctuary at this site ever since. Our postcard this week shows the third church building. Construction began in 1881 and was completed in 1887. At the time, at 183 feet, the central tower of Edenton Street Methodist Church was “the tallest spire in Raleigh.” I wonder how many Goodnight Raleigh readers know what became of this beautiful neo-Gothic structure.
Paul C. Koeber Co. (PCK)Â Â 1900-1923
85 Franklin Street. New York, NY and Kirchheim, GermanyPublished national view-cards and illustrations in chromolithography and in black & white. Much of their color work has a dark heavy feel to it because of the many thick layers of ink they used. In their later years they published postcards using tinted halftones.
The Paul C. Koeber Co. trademark. The peacock (PCK) image probably represented the company’s extensive use of color in its postcards.
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12/02/2011
On a separate note, does anyone know what type of coniferous tree (Pine?) grows in the courtyard there? It produces the most beautiful pine cones.
12/02/2011
Is this the sanctuary that burned in the 1950s? “Ole Raleigh Boys” and girls talk about how the whole town turned out to watch it. Quite sad.
12/02/2011
The Edenton Street Methodist Church did burn down in July 1956. This is the N&O photo from the Mike Legeros collection of Raleigh Fire Department Historical Photos:
http://raleighfirehistory.org/photos/dah/1950s/slides/1956-07-29-NO-edenton-st-methodist-church-after.html
As it happens, Mike will be speaking tomorrow on the history of disastrous fires in Raleigh. The program is at 2:00 at the Raleigh City Museum. More info can be found on the museum’s website, http://www.raleighcitymuseum.org. (And on an unrelated note, currently this page also has a nice photo of Hugh Morson High School from Moore Square.)
12/02/2011
Edenton Street United Methodist Church is still at the same location “sharing Christ from the heart of Raleigh”. We just recognized our bicentennial last month (Nov 2011). We’re online at esumc.org and estreetgathering.org. Join us for worship!
12/06/2011
I remember watching it burn , we were living on St. Marys St. in the Cameron Village Apts., next to Broughton high school.
02/27/2012
I also remember seeing the blaze above the surrounding horizon line… amazingly I remember the address of where I was living then… 706 W Jones St. Just a short distance from the church. We lived in a two story house… you could get a good view from there. I was in the first or second grade at the time… attending Wiley Elementary School.
06/19/2024
The fire that destroyed Edenton Street Church in July of 1956 was caused by a lightning
strike to the spire on a Saturday night. I remember the extraordinary photograph in the Sunday morning edition of the Raleight News and Observer the next morning.
08/04/2024
I was a kid who attended Edenton Street Church when it burned that night in 1956. We subsequently met as a congregation for months at the Ambassador Theatre on Fayetteville Street on Sunday’s. It was quite a contrast for a kid like me to typically be there at the Ambassador on Saturday mornings for Looney Tunes and the Three Stooges, only to then return the following morning for fire and brimstone sermons by Dr Powell. I believe the Raleigh fire everyone ‘watched’ was some years later, Hayes Barton Baptist at Five Points. I must have been attending Daniels at the time to have been close to have witnessed. I recall a section of the portico ceiling collapsing on a fireman standing underneath. He was knocked down and carried away by ambulance. Never heard how he fared.Those were the two major Raleigh fires I recall along with the bowling alley on Hillsborough Street. Boneyardbanter