At the 39th Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Pennsylvania, St. Stephen’s founding rector, The Rev. James Montgomery, announced the “corner stone of the present splendid edifice” was laid on the 28th of May, 1822. . .” In an eerie congruence, that day, like today, was a Tuesday. 

There’s great meaning in this ancient ceremony. It publicly honors the birth pains of a new enterprise, in this case the physical St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church on the site of the failed 1811 St. Thomas Methodist church. A cornerstone enduringly embodies a community’s commitment, hope, and the start of its journey through time in this place.

For St. Stephen’s, the physical marker also confirms that a new structure was indeed added. Strickland didn’t just repurpose and redecorate the Methodist church, as some writers claimed. It took nine subsequent months to achieve a habitable, if unfinished church.

So..... Where IS that cornerstone? I’ve explored the exposed Strickland façade for even traces of such a block, and nothing. That absence made me wonder if the cornerstone was laid to the north of the entrance.

Which is now covered by the 1888 Parish House that absorbed Strickland’s northwest facade.

If so, I hope the cornerstone is still there, invisibly embodying and initiating the church’s birth under the layers that mark the church’s later expansion and use over the years.

— Suzanne Glover Lindsay, St. Stephen’s historian and curator