St. John's Episcopal Church, Bayonne, NJ

Diocesan annual reports are the primary source for linking Wood with his many Episcopal church commissions. Google.books has revolutionized my life by making a search of those volumes so easy. Case in point, Wood's commission for a church in Bayonne, New Jersey.

St. John's Mission emerged about 1880 to serve one of the scattered New Jersey communities along the Hudson. By 1887 a site had been chosen; by the next year, purchased. Whether Wood competed for this modest commission is unknown. His involvement as architect was noted in 1890, though I can't confirm the building's completion, consecration, or for that matter it's closing and the parish's demise. It won't surprise me to find that the building was wood, rather than masonry.

It's interesting that three parishes served Bayonne and that one of them--Trinity-- had a building designed by Stent & Sargent. E.J.N. Stent was well known for his interior decorative schemes, contributing one to the rehabilitation of Upjohn's small church at Copake Falls.

St. Philip's Protestant Episcopal Church

St. Philip's was organized as a Black congregation of Episcopalians in lower Manhattan during 1818 and began its slow migration uptown toward Harlem following the Civil War. In 1886 they moved to West 25th Street, renting a former Presbyterian church which they purchased a year later. Three architects interviewed to remodel that building--William Appleton Potter, Herman Kreitler and Wood--but the project went to Kreitler, about whom I know nothing. Had WHW received this commission, the remodeled St. Philip's would have been among the first three or four of Wood's ecclesiastical commissions.

Wood on the Web

Despite all that I have said about Wood's poor name recognition, there are a surprising number of web sites that mention him--all of them with pride. If you're reading this blog, you probably already know about them.

First there is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Halsey_Wood, which I mention as an entry point for those interested in this man (and also because I wrote it). It includes a brief biography and a more extensive (though by no means complete) list of his buildings. Some of this is repeated at http://www.archiplanet.org/wiki/William_Halsey_Wood, which I also authored.

At http://www.smethporthistory.org you can learn about St. Luke's Episcopal church in that western Pennsylvania community and its architect. There is even a down-loadable brochure in pdf format.

Also, visit http://www.njchurchscape.com for an extensive treatment of religious architecture in the state of New Jersey and biographies of many architects active there, including WHW. There are individual pages for each of Wood's New Jersey churches.

Wood also plays prominently at the websites of various church congregations who have found and acknowledged his spirit in their building:

1. St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Kansas City, MO (http://www.stmaryskc.org/index.php)
2. St. Matthew's Cathedral, Laramie, WY (http://saintmatthews.qwestoffice.net)
3. St. Michael and All Angels, Anniston, AL (http://stmaaa.org)

Please let me know of others I have overlooked.

Where have all the records gone?

Wood's office during his final illness had been relocated into his Summer Street home in Newark's North Ward. As with many nineteenth century architectural offices, however, Halsey Wood had no successor. Upon his death in 1897 at the tender professional age of forty-one, Wood's widow was left with three young children and several incomplete projects, the largest of them an Episcopal cathedral for Memphis, Tennessee. A local Memphis architect completed that project, changing it beyond recognition. But what became of his office records?

Florence Hemsley Wood was devoted to her husband during his life and remained so until her own death many years later, never remarrying and carrying the banner of his memory before all who would listen. In all likelihood, she kept his drawings for both sentimental and professional reasons. Who knew whether a former client might need to consult them? But ultimately they probably found their way to a land fill. Libraries and archives were disinterested in collecting such bulky stuff until fairly recently. Equally tragic is the loss of his correspondence with clients; lists of names and addresses where one might look for extant work.

I have seen a handful of rare survivors: two pencil drawings (one plan, one side elevation) for an unidentified church on a gently sloping site, and three pen-and-ink working drawings for St. Mary's, the 1888 Episcopal church in downtown Kansas City. I have faith that others will surface as research continues on this project.

WHW on Wikipedia

Six months or so ago, I became a registered Wikipedian and cautiously set about writing what I hoped would be the first of several entries for unknown and/or under-appreciated architects--my stock in trade. WHW was my first attempt and, astoundingly, it has remained essentially unaltered. Which means one of two things: either I have treated Wood with balance and equanimity, in true Wikipedian style, or nobody gives a shit.

For what I believe is a coherent, unbiased and objective overview of William Halsey Wood, I hope you will visit his entry at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Halsey_Wood.

Incidentally, since its original posting, Wood's entry has been replicated at least twice. So its content shows up three times in a google search of his name. What does that say about the nature of the web?

I am a vehicle.

As a grad student in American history at the University of Delaware in the mid-90s, I participated in a seminar on historiography that explored the range of history writing in just the last 150 years. The center of that discussion was the issue of objectivity. Many years after the fact, I have concluded that no topic can be treated with total objectivity. I am the product of all that I have met; I am a subject and have no alternative but to approach any topic from the place I find myself at any given time. The best I can hope for is the objective treatment of something subjectively chosen.

Actually, the reverse is true: experience suggests that, in fact, my topics have always chosen me. Presuming some degree of wisdom in their choice, I humbly acquiesce, doing what I am able. To understand, interpret and interpolate; to be the vehicle through which the topic passes, hopefully more funnel than filter.

Halsey Wood chose me, unlikely as that may be. He was always and intensely a spiritual man, a "high church" Anglican whose religiosity might have outshone the pope's. Churches constituted the bulk of his architectural practice and the majority of those were for Episcopal congregations. His home included an oratory, a private chapel where consecrated host might be preserved for daily communion. Like some of us, I think he may have worn his humility with pride.

I have been gathering material on William Halsey Wood informally, very informally and haphazardly, for more that forty years, and it's high time I did something with it. If it isn't already clear to me who this man was, why he was important and what value he may have for our time, it never will be...and I will have failed.

Who was William Halsey Wood? And why are they saying those terrible things about him?

William Halsey Wood [1855-1897] was an American architect who has slipped into the cracks of history. He is remembered--if at all--for a single design, one that was never built: the Cathedral of St. John-the-Divine on Manhattan Island, product of a competition won by another designer and completed by yet a third architectural firm to no one's satisfaction. Wood's ecstatic vision may, indeed, have been unbuildable.

Many things have been said about Halsey Wood during his lifetime and in the years immediately following the architect's premature death from tuberculosis at the age of forty-one. Some of those observations are scurrilous; some of them mystically poetic. All of them are probably justified, which makes Halsey Wood such a compelling character for me.

This blog is devoted to Halsey Wood; to the retrieval of his memory and the reevaluation of his reputation.