The authoritative source on
  early churches of New Jersey

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We've created a database and photographic inventory on more than half the 18th & 19th century churches in the state and add to it each month. We welcome and solicit all contributions and suggestions from our visitors.

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   Photographic Inventory

Anglican Mission
Johnsonburg, Warren County



The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (widely known as the SPG) was organized in the days of Queen Anne, when the Church of England was afraid that all of western Jersey was filling up with Quakers, Presbyterians, and other dissenters (it did). The SPG essentially found ordained Anglican ministers willing to go to the colonies (most were a disreputable lot, by all accounts), and subsidized the construction of churches and missions. About 1769, according to several sources, this mission was founded and built in Log Gaol [Johnsonburg], which was then the county seat for Sussex County (Warren had not yet been split off from Sussex). The porch is a later addition, but the building is particularly interesting because of the fine dressed stone construction.
      Methodist Bishop Francis Asbury is said to have noted in his journal that he "rode to Stone Church [Johnsonburg] and found Stoney hearts." The Episcopal church ceased services about 1850, and the building was converted into a residence. It was here that the White Pilgrim of poem and legend preached one sermon and then died.