File:Old church tower and St Peter's Episcopal Church, Tacoma, May 23, 1893 (WAITE 4).jpeg

English: Notes in inventory: Tacoma, Wash. Old church tower and St. Peter's Episcopal Church .

Old St. Peter's Church was built in 1873 at the behest of the Right Reverend Benjamin Wister Morris, the Protestant Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Oregon and of Washington Territory. E.S. Smith donated the land; George Atkinson provided the motivation; the Hanson and Ackerson Mill provided the timber; and the townsmen built the church in record time. The bell tower, built ca. 1874, was made from a cut-off tree which was over 300 yrs old. Through an oddity of law Bishop Morris discovered that he, and not the diocese, owned the church building, and in 1907 he conveyed the property to the new Missionary Diocese of Washington. Between 1873 and 1907, St. Peter's followed the canon law of the local Episcopal Church diocese despite the fact that a majority of the congregation's governing board during those years was often not Episcopalian. On most occasions worship services were conducted by laymen or by visiting clergy of diverse denominational callings whose communions were not always given to mutual forbearance and Christian charity. The first organist, for example, was Jewish, even when an Episcopal minister was in residence.

Following the First World War, St. Peter's became, in fact, a community or congregational church by a process so unmarked by precise circumstance that the drift from an Episcopal Parish to a Community Church disturbed no one's sense of peace and tranquility. When, in the 1950s, the building was restored, St. Peter's again became an Episcopal church. It remained a self-supporting community church and followed Canons of the Episcopal Church as a matter of self-imposed discipline. Not until 1977 was the status of St. Peter's clarified. At that time the Diocese ceded to the congregation whatever legal interest it might have derived from Bishop Morris and recognized it as a Christian enterprise independently governed. Old Saint Peter's Church is now a part of the Episcopal Missionary Church with fraternal ties of concern for the Anglican Communion. Its clergy has always been volunteer, and the church does not receive denominational support. Although the building is a historical landmark, there are no government funds for upkeep. St. Peter's is supported and maintained by its congregation.

PH Coll 291.048

• Subjects (LCTGM): Bell towers--Washington (State)--Tacoma; Episcopal churches--Washington (State)--Tacoma
• Subjects (LCSH): St. Peter Episcopal Church (Tacoma, Wash.)