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

First Presbyterian Church
Long Branch, Monmouth County

Regular Presbyterian services have been conducted in the Perrineville
area since 1785, and sometime between 1788 and 1796 land was purchased on which to build a church. It took 40 years before the community could raise sufficient money to finish the building they had begun. Services were nevertheless held regularly every four weeks on Friday, and ministers of other Protestant denominations (mostly Methodists) made use of the pulpit at other times. In 1826 the church was formally organized, and the original building was finished and enlarged. It was enlarged again in 1856 and used
until 1884 when it was destroyed by fire. In that year the present building was erected at a cost of $6,000.
     The four-story tower with its two pair of windows are the most
interesting feature, but the building also has unusual buttresses along the sides. There is a narrow skirt roof where the tower intersects the roofline, and brackets at that point and above support the pyramidal roof of the tower.

 

 

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