St. Peters Episcopal Church

When hope is high, faith surely follows. The establishment of Seward’s celebrated St. Peter’s Church was no exception to that rule. A small group of pioneers met at the home of Dr. Daniel H. Sleem on June 12, 1904; the Reverend F.C. Taylor of Valdez served as the first celebrant.

Services alternated between Moore’s Hall, the Alaska Northern Railroad depot, and a tent the members erected. In late January of 1906, the arrival of building materials allowed construction to begin, and by mid-March the majority of the exterior work was completed. Pioneer Alaskan prelate Bishop P.T. Rowe dedicated St. Peter’s Church on April 1, 1906.

St. Peter’s Church was the first Protestant church established on the Kenai Peninsula. The Church suffered for extended periods of time without a resident priest. Baptisms and confirmations were performed when Rowe would visit the congregation.

The missionary in charge of the Prince William Sound area, Reverend Edward H. Mohony, came to Seward in 1915 to organize a permanent post. Mohony had originally planned to return to Anchorage on the Farragut with his wife and two daughters, but Anchorage’s port proved ice bound and inaccessible. The ship returned to Seward, where St. Peter’s members persuaded him to stay until spring.

In November of 1916, Reverend George Zinn arrived to hold services and meet with parishioners to discuss building a rectory so a permanent clergyman could remain in Seward. The lot adjacent to the church from Ballaine for $250.

The church building was complete, but had no interior furnishings. Services were being held in the basement, using a storage box as an altar. The construction of the Episcopal rectory was authorized in August 1917, and by November the outside work was completed.

In February 1917, a small circulating library was established when Miss E.K. Chamberlain of New Jersey donated more than 100 volumes of recent fiction, scientific, and theological books to the church.

Dutch artist Jan Van Emple came to Seward in 1924. From September to November of 1925, Van Emple worked on his first sacred picture, “The Resurrection,” for the church’s altar. This reredos is unique work in that it depicts both the Ascension and the Resurrection of Christ.

Instead of apostles, Van Emple chose to feature the people of Alaska. Natives, a trapper, a fisherman and a pioneer woman make up the foreground. The prospector is said to be a self-portrait of Van Emple, and the angels on either side of Christ portraits of his two sisters.

$650 was raised by subscription for this painting, heralded by St. Peter’s as “a work of great piety and unusual beauty which reflects the Church’s teaching to preach peace to them that are far off and to them that are nigh.”

Mostly known for his coastal landscapes of Alaska, Van Emple’s work is held in the collections of the Anchorage Museum of History and Art. Jan Van Emple was featured at the opening of New York’s Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Studio Club in 1918.