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

Eliza Stoddard Memorial Chapel
Succussana, Morris County

This chapel was erected in 1886 to commemorate the daughter of a local parishioner who died at the age of 18. It sits adjacent to the First Presbyterian church and now serves as the church offices, although the sanctuary of the chapel remains as it was built. It is rather an interesting building, more civic in nature than ecclesiastical, but clearly one for which there is some special significance.
     There are at least a half dozen chapels, mostly attached, anciliary to area churches, each of them built or financed, I believe, by a single donor. They are usually erected some years after the building of the main church, but occasionally precede it, intended to serve the congregation until a larger edifice could be built. The chapels are usually used for Sunday School, or for weekly meetings not involving the entire congregation. Their real intent, of course, was as a conspicuous way of asserting the donor’s affluence and standing in the community.

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Copyright (c) 2002 Frank L. Greenagel